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[Skade]

Can anybody tell me where to find the Archon King? I just want to get the "Enemy Adopted" and "Now I am the master" achievements before I move on towards ending the campaign.

Assuming you're playing WOTC with integrated DLCs :
Hover the facilities on your map with your mouse until you see a mention of "a powerful creatures lurks in there" (not the exact wording, like, at all) written in green. You'll face him there and he will start to pop-up on regular missions after that if you don't kill him on the spot (that's assuming you've already found the Serpent and the Berzerker, if not, that mighth be one of those two).

 

[boybrushdRED]

Assuming you're playing WOTC with integrated DLCs :
Hover the facilities on your map with your mouse until you see a mention of "a powerful creatures lurks in there" (not the exact wording, like, at all) written in green. You'll face him there and he will start to pop-up on regular missions after that if you don't kill him on the spot (that's assuming you've already found the Serpent and the Berzerker, if not, that mighth be one of those two).

Thanks, I'll look into that later. I did not notice those messages when you mouse over the facilty missions. Yes I have WOTC and already have the Serpent Armor and Rage armor.

Also, is the "Circle of Psi" achievement bugged or does it not work on the Lost? (Raise a Templar to maximum Focus level, spend it all, and reach the max again in a single mission)

I raised my focus to 3 then used the storm ability, killing a pack of Lost then regained 3 focus but no achievement

 

[Jintor]

Finally finished my Commander run.

Give it a break for just a bit, do a mission for GAFCOM and then take it slow for a while.

 

[BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO]

I just started enemy within. Should I skip it and go straight to it's sequel? Only strategy games I messed with is valkria Chronicles (which is apparently an anime clone of XCOM).

 

[Baalzebup]

I just started enemy within. Should I skip it and go straight to it's sequel? Only strategy games I messed with is valkria Chronicles (which is apparently an anime clone of XCOM).

Eh, VC doesn't really have all that much in common with XCOM, though any general tactical acumen you've picked up from there will help. As for Enemy Within, it is a game worth playing on its own right and the lessons from there will most definitely be of help in XCOM2, but in general the current incarnation of XCOM 2 is the superior game between them. I'd certainly recommend finishing Enemy Within first, if you have an interest in playing it, as returning to it from XCOM 2 isn't quite as palatable.

 

[SRG01]

Eh, VC doesn't really have all that much in common with XCOM, though any general tactical acumen you've picked up from there will help. As for Enemy Within, it is a game worth playing on its own right and the lessons from there will most definitely be of help in XCOM2, but in general the current incarnation of XCOM 2 is the superior game between them. I'd certainly recommend finishing Enemy Within first, if you have an interest in playing it, as returning to it from XCOM 2 isn't quite as palatable.

IIRC, EW is actually harder because the difficulty curve is quite unforgiving. Cyberdisks and Mutons show up quite early in the game.

 

[Uthred]

Finished my Ironman Commander run, done with it for a while I think. Very enjoyable but it feels like I'd be starting every campaign the same way which is a little boring. Pity there isnt a viable route to early Psi-Ops / SPARK just to mix things up

 

[Akuun]

deleted

 

[BlackJace]

I had a pretty heroic death today. Commander difficulty, first blacksite mission.

One of my guys got knocked unconscious pretty early on, so his bondmate carried him around (set him down during firefights of course).

Anyways, we we're trying to escape with the vial, with 4 enemies and the Warlock giving us hell. My soldier carrying her bondmate to the evac zone took got taken out by a burn wound. Then the Warlock took control of my Templar.

Mission success, but it ended with one death and two of my guys captured.

I thought it was pretty flavorful that the soldier died trying to save her bondmate. The feels man.

 

[EarlyEarly]

Sorry if it's been addressed but is there a known glitch where you deploy with more than 6 people in a mission. Doing a mission right now and I have an extra basic unit that shares a name with my sniper totaling 7 guys.

 

[Jintor]

do you have a resistance recruit card active?

 

[Baalzebup]

Sorry if it's been addressed but is there a known glitch where you deploy with more than 6 people in a mission. Doing a mission right now and I have an extra basic unit that shares a name with my sniper totaling 7 guys.

As Jintor mentions, you're likely seeing the effects of the continent bonus / order card called Volunteer Army, which has a random chance of spawning an extra resistance soldier to assist you on any given mission. The fact that (s)he shares a name with your sniper is merely a coincidence caused by the finite pool of names.

 

[SRG01]

As Jintor mentions, you're likely seeing the effects of the continent bonus / order card called Volunteer Army, which has a random chance of spawning an extra resistance soldier to assist you on any given mission. The fact that (s)he shares a name with your sniper is merely a coincidence caused by the finite pool of names.

Speaking of that, sometimes I wish we could add Advent Troops to our roster, especially since I have the Double Agent territory perk and can actually evac Advent Troops.

 

[Syrus]

Just beat legendary scum playthrough. May fo another commander ironman.

Dunno would be my 5th campaign...

 

[EarlyEarly]

As Jintor mentions, you're likely seeing the effects of the continent bonus / order card called Volunteer Army, which has a random chance of spawning an extra resistance soldier to assist you on any given mission. The fact that (s)he shares a name with your sniper is merely a coincidence caused by the finite pool of names.

Yea I guess I misunderstood the order card. I figured if I finished a resistance mission a survivor might join X-Com. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[PhantomThief]

Man it is so pathetic that neither Blind Squirrel games ( who did the console port ) and 2k/Firaxis/XCOM2 DEVS ( Mr Nauta ) just will NOT comment on the status of the console version.

They sell us a 40$ expansion, which is cool but in all honesty runs like total garbage on a normal ps4 or pro ps4. Nobody says anything about it, the game sold like shit so there is no press coverage about it. While on pc the game runs like a dream and has a lot less bugs and errors. Talking about how they hardcoded optimization improvements in the WOTC expack. Fucking BS.

I am swriously not EVER supporting another 2k/Firaxis game on consoles.

I LOVE Xcom, and both EU and Xcom 2 are amazing games, the fact they run like shit, 0 community outreach from anyone involved and a version thats hardly playable.

Fuck Firaxis, and screw the higher ups who worked on the game and refuse to adress the state of the console port on Twitter or any other form of social media.

 

[SmokinGunZ1981]

Man it is so pathetic that neither Blind Squirrel games ( who did the console port ) and 2k/Firaxis/XCOM2 DEVS ( Mr Nauta ) just will NOT comment on the status of the console version.

They sell us a 40$ expansion, which is cool but in all honesty runs like total garbage on a normal ps4 or pro ps4. Nobody says anything about it, the game sold like shit so there is no press coverage about it. While on pc the game runs like a dream and has a lot less bugs and errors. Talking about how they hardcoded optimization improvements in the WOTC expack. Fucking BS.

I am swriously not EVER supporting another 2k/Firaxis game on consoles.

I LOVE Xcom, and both EU and Xcom 2 are amazing games, the fact they run like shit, 0 community outreach from anyone involved and a version thats hardly playable.

Fuck Firaxis, and screw the higher ups who worked on the game and refuse to adress the state of the console port on Twitter or any other form of social media.

Yeah I'm really disappointed I bought it for Xbox. The performance is horrendous the number of little glitches are annoying, the worst thing is the number of crashes I've encountered which makes Iron Man mode impossible to play.

 

[Incendiary]

Been playing on Commander Ironman and have had a great run so far, killed the Hunter Chosen in his Stronghold pretty easily. In fact I didn't have any casualties at all until the last mission I did where a Gatekeeper showed up for the first time and I had just about the worst luck ever where I activated one pod and thought I had things under control, until every single other enemy pod walked into my line of sight afterwards on the same turn. It was a miracle I only lost one soldier; my main squad's survival was mostly in part to a Stun Lancer I had on my side thanks to that one perk. He was just running around stabbing everyone as a distraction, and for some reason the enemy troops just could not kill him the whole mission.

The pod system is interesting but severely flawed. It essentially boils down to if you activate one at a time, you'll usually win the mission. But if more than one activates, especially in late game, you're probably gonna lose troops.

 

[Fragamemnon]

The pod system is interesting but severely flawed. It essentially boils down to if you activate one at a time, you'll usually win the mission. But if more than one activates, especially in late game, you're probably gonna lose troops.

late game you just drop stasis on the biggest threat and use the rest of your troops to kill everything else. I casually activate on two-three pods late game on legend/ironman and it's no big deal because my squad composition and abilities are so far beyond anything the aliens can really field.

BTW I'm back to playing EW and the LW 1.0 rebalance mod until someone finds a way to properly tune WotC. LW2 is still the pinnacle of the XCOM 2 experience but man the perf is pants.

 

[Incendiary]

I had the game crash on me mid mission and delete my save file for the third time on this Ironman run. An hour-long mission lost completely, right as I was about to finish it, too. Don't spend $40 on the expansion on PS4 - the game is unarguably performing way worse with the expansion. I've tweeted at Firaxis and Blind Squirrel but I doubt we'll see anything.

late game you just drop stasis on the biggest threat and use the rest of your troops to kill everything else. I casually activate on two-three pods late game on legend/ironman and it's no big deal because my squad composition and abilities are so far beyond anything the aliens can really field.

I'm in that sweet spot where all the enemies have hit their max HP bars but I'm in the middle of researching plasma rifles (and got delayed thanks to a Chosen action) so it's taking me more attempts than I'd like to kill each enemy. Also I've had a shortage of Elerium Cores this go round so I barely have any special armor/ammo/weapons.

Speaking of, does the "enemies drop more loot" perk mean you get less Cores or something? I've gotten maybe like 7 or 8 the whole game while I've been overloaded with weapon upgrades and PCSes.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Speaking of, does the "enemies drop more loot" perk mean you get less Cores or something? I've gotten maybe like 7 or 8 the whole game while I've been overloaded with weapon upgrades and PCSes.

It's RNG-aliens drop cores, and you only get one loot drop per mission, so if you keep getting the loot off of ADVENT troopers then you'll have tons of pcs/upgrades and fewer cores.

 

[SRG01]

late game you just drop stasis on the biggest threat and use the rest of your troops to kill everything else. I casually activate on two-three pods late game on legend/ironman and it's no big deal because my squad composition and abilities are so far beyond anything the aliens can really field.

BTW I'm back to playing EW and the LW 1.0 rebalance mod until someone finds a way to properly tune WotC. LW2 is still the pinnacle of the XCOM 2 experience but man the perf is pants.

I once activated three pods by accident on the same turn. I panicked, but decided to roll with it and promptly rolled over them with Serial and a few area attacks.

 

[Jintor]

yeah your power creep is really insane at high tiers.

conversely i've gone back to gafcom and it's back to the days where a fucking mech + stun + purifier is a serious, serious threat.

 

[mbpm1]

Time to try a better ADVENT

 

[Incendiary]

Random question: if I bring a Psi Operative on a Chosen Stronghold mission and dominate a soldier, will I be able to bring them with me into the final chamber? Or is it more prudent to wait and take my chances in dominating something that spawns in the final room?

Also having both the "Advent troop may join you" and "Resistance troop my join you" perks along with a Psi Operative with Domination means I've started rolling with 9 people in my squad for some missions, which is pretty fun.

 

[mr teaspoon]

Man it is so pathetic that neither Blind Squirrel games ( who did the console port ) and 2k/Firaxis/XCOM2 DEVS ( Mr Nauta ) just will NOT comment on the status of the console version.

They sell us a 40$ expansion, which is cool but in all honesty runs like total garbage on a normal ps4 or pro ps4. Nobody says anything about it, the game sold like shit so there is no press coverage about it. While on pc the game runs like a dream and has a lot less bugs and errors. Talking about how they hardcoded optimization improvements in the WOTC expack. Fucking BS.

I am swriously not EVER supporting another 2k/Firaxis game on consoles.

I LOVE Xcom, and both EU and Xcom 2 are amazing games, the fact they run like shit, 0 community outreach from anyone involved and a version thats hardly playable.

Fuck Firaxis, and screw the higher ups who worked on the game and refuse to adress the state of the console port on Twitter or any other form of social media.

Yep. Completely agree. XCOM is one of my favorite games of all time, but I can't support these companies anymore. It's an absolute insult. I've been tweeting at both companies, as well. Zero response.

Edit: In order to play Ironman, I just have a USB stick which I back my save up to every hour or so.

 

[Baalzebup]

Random question: if I bring a Psi Operative on a Chosen Stronghold mission and dominate a soldier, will I be able to bring them with me into the final chamber? Or is it more prudent to wait and take my chances in dominating something that spawns in the final room?

Also having both the "Advent troop may join you" and "Resistance troop my join you" perks along with a Psi Operative with Domination means I've started rolling with 9 people in my squad for some missions, which is pretty fun.

Go full crazy with that and insert a 6 man squad of nothing but Psi Ops. Mind Control for days.

 

[RunTheGhouls]

I can make a cup of tea in the time it takes a level on the PS4 version of WoTC to load.

It's atrocious.

 

[Naar]

Man it is so pathetic that neither Blind Squirrel games ( who did the console port ) and 2k/Firaxis/XCOM2 DEVS ( Mr Nauta ) just will NOT comment on the status of the console version.

They sell us a 40$ expansion, which is cool but in all honesty runs like total garbage on a normal ps4 or pro ps4. Nobody says anything about it, the game sold like shit so there is no press coverage about it. While on pc the game runs like a dream and has a lot less bugs and errors. Talking about how they hardcoded optimization improvements in the WOTC expack. Fucking BS.

I am swriously not EVER supporting another 2k/Firaxis game on consoles.

I LOVE Xcom, and both EU and Xcom 2 are amazing games, the fact they run like shit, 0 community outreach from anyone involved and a version thats hardly playable.

Fuck Firaxis, and screw the higher ups who worked on the game and refuse to adress the state of the console port on Twitter or any other form of social media.

I honestly thought that since the expansion was announced for ps4 that they would fix performance issues and bugs, but honestly this feels worse than before the expansion except for the load times, which feel slightly better

I really want to try iron man on veteran but I'm afraid I will encounter a bug where I can't see or target the enemy or something ridiculous like that and then lose the mission

 

[Grimsen]

Yeah, the silence from 2K regarding the ports is inexcusable.

It sucks that the console ports went under the radar from review outlets. Some scathing reviews might have helped to get feedback from the devs and the publisher.

 

[Incendiary]

So I answered my own question: if you Dominate a soldier in the first part of a Chosen Stronghold, you do not keep them for the second part. Still managed to wipe the floor with the Warlock pretty handily though. Was way easier than even the Hunter. Only the Assassin left now and then I'm homefree for the endgame.

Also just had something super funny happen on a Retaliation mission: a pod with a Heavy MEC wandered into view, the MEC went into Overwatch like it normally does, but one of the other soldiers in the pod ran past a civilian who then scattered. MEC's Overwatch was activated - and it was a Faceless so the MEC annihilated its own ally.

 

[thepotatoman]

It's annoying that they have the wrong number of days written into the warning message for removing negative traits. I would have used a lower rank soldier if I had known so I could have my Major ready for the retaliation.

It says 5 when it's 10 or more. I didn't notice until i passed some small amount of time.

 

[BlackJace]

Don't send Squaddies on Covert Ops with a risk of ambush

 

[harriet the spy]

I know i can attack black sites to lower avatar progress, but does the one in the middle of the pacific eventually ends the game for me. It has six clicks right now and I’m not sure there is a way to do anything about it.

 

[mbpm1]

I know i can attack black sites to lower avatar progress, but does the one in the middle of the pacific eventually ends the game for me. It has six clicks right now and I’m not sure there is a way to do anything about it.

You stop the Avatar Project by beating the game pretty much

 

[illusionary]

I know i can attack black sites to lower avatar progress, but does the one in the middle of the pacific eventually ends the game for me. It has six clicks right now and I’m not sure there is a way to do anything about it.

Those six blocks are an indication of overall progress, so if you take out individual Avatar facilities you should see them reducing.

 

[Sentenza]

I know i can attack black sites to lower avatar progress, but does the one in the middle of the pacific eventually ends the game for me. It has six clicks right now and I’m not sure there is a way to do anything about it.

Just don't worry too much about it. It's mostly an empty threat.

As far as you'll lower one click here and there it will never become an actual risk.
Even after the bar is filled you'll have plenty of chances to lower it again, and from some point of the campaign going on the enemy just won't be able to keep up with your ability to lower the threat and the bar will get cleaned on a regular basis.

 

[SRG01]

The Avatar Project countdown is supposed to prevent the player from playing the game indefinitely, so that there was some sort of urgency behind completing the game.

It's poorly implemented though, since there are too many ways to bring down the counter.

 

[illusionary]

The Avatar Project countdown is supposed to prevent the player from playing the game indefinitely, so that there was some sort of urgency behind completing the game.

It's poorly implemented though, since there are too many ways to bring down the counter.

"Sabotage" covert ops in WotC are particularly good for this - it's relatively easy to get the counter all the way down to zero.

 

[Jintor]

what they should have done is tie in permanent dark events to the counter so the closer it gets to situation critical the more bullshit conditions get layered on top. Dark Horizon is amazing, but it's not balanced particularly well.

 

[Baalzebup]

The covert ops and chosen stuff kind of help to move it to that direction, but there are still whole layers that could be added to the mix in flavor of Long War and general player pro-activity. More options to be actively aggressive, to mount operations to fuck shit up and gather intel. Like Dark Horizon but with more options to delay, prevent and sabotage those otherwise permanent Dark Events.

Black market gets closed? Mount an assault to break "the siege"and help them relocate after scouting out a suitable new spot. Perhaps invest some of your resources to help them set up shop faster. Advent starts to deploy heavier armor? Follow the logistics chain of these new types of armor to their production sites to blow them up and try to hack the network to delete or corrupt the designs for the improvements etc.

This would also favor the use of even larger roster of troops, since while the current game certainly makes you use a larger pool of troops than vanilla, you can generally still get by with a relatively small pool, especially once you get the infirmary staffed and your troops base HP up via levels and armor so as to lessen or prevent one-shot deaths.

 

[Green Card]

Is there any way to skip the first War of the Chosen mission (where you get a reaper)? I think I'm safe right now but I failed a lot of my playthroughs and I'm kind of sick of playing that one if I do another run. It's not even that difficult it's just tedious. I must have done it 10+ times and I only lost someone once.

 

[Murman]

Is there any way to skip the first War of the Chosen mission (where you get a reaper)? I think I'm safe right now but I failed a lot of my playthroughs and I'm kind of sick of playing that one if I do another run. It's not even that difficult it's just tedious. I must have done it 10+ times and I only lost someone once.

Yeah you can disable the Lost and Abandoned DLC, I think that lets you skip that mission altogether. If you have the second wave option to start at a particular hero class base of operations, you get said hero class in your team for gatecrasher.

 

[Skade]

Is there any way to skip the first War of the Chosen mission (where you get a reaper)? I think I'm safe right now but I failed a lot of my playthroughs and I'm kind of sick of playing that one if I do another run. It's not even that difficult it's just tedious. I must have done it 10+ times and I only lost someone once.

Yes, when starting your new campaign, just deactivate "The lost and the damned" mission.

Bonus is that you then start randomly with another starting faction than the reapers (can still be them though) and get your new class soldier directly in Gatecrasher. The first chosen you'll met is also randomized.

 

[Incendiary]

Skipping Lost and Damned is probably the best decision to make because Reaper vs Assassin is pretty much the worst pair up in the game of faction vs Chosen. And the Assassin is the most BS to start with, too.

 

[Green Card]

Thanks guys wish I asked earlier haha. Just to confirm this will only disable that one mission and everything else is the same?

 

[illusionary]

Thanks guys wish I asked earlier haha. Just to confirm this will only disable that one mission and everything else is the same?

Pretty much, yes. For completeness, I'd mention that it will also mean that your first Reaper/Skirmisher is randomly generated, rather than being Dragunova/Mox.

 

[Green Card]

Pretty much, yes. For completeness, I'd mention that it will also mean that your first Reaper/Skirmisher is randomly generated, rather than being Dragunova/Mox.

Thanks. I'll be doing that from now on. I thought I was good but my team died assaulting the chosen stronghold. The end of the fight was intense but losing someone early to a dumb mistake is probably what cost me. I had objective done to 2 shots when I lost everyone.

 

[harriet the spy]

I can't prevent myself from save scumming. I wish ironman was unlocked from the beginning, I would play with ironman on easy (if that's even a thing) - I don't want the uber stress / difficulty of regular xcom + ironman, but I want the tension from knowing bad mistakes do matter. And yes, the occasional thrill of losing my favorite soldier.

But ultimately, as much as I enjoy many things when playing this game, I think I don't really enjoy the 'real' xcom. I like the tactical positioning and the actual battles, but I don't enjoy the moment right before the battle, the pod discoveries and metagame around making sure you're not awakening a pod with your last soldier's last turn.

I get it's part of the core of xcom mechanics, but it just feels unfair (on the other hand, I have no trouble with the RNG itself). The enemy always gets to go behind cover or get closer to you for free.

This with the time pressure the game added - I don't know. I must also be one of the few that prefers xcom to xcom 2. The procedural maps often feel a bit wonky - and some mission types are just not fun to me. The worst being the ambush - it's not that hard, but for some reason I find these extremely unfun.

(On the other hand, my favorite type of mission is the rescue, so perhaps I should just go play metal gear solid :/ ).

The chosen base missions are pretty good, too.

One final note - I only played xcom 2 with WOTC (same with Xcom 1, only played EW). I dislike the fact they removed missions! It almost feels like I am missing part of the story. For instance people keep referring Valhen when meeting alien kings, but without the intro mission, that tidbit of dialogue makes no sense :/

 

[Archaix]

Skipping Lost and Damned is probably the best decision to make because Reaper vs Assassin is pretty much the worst pair up in the game of faction vs Chosen. And the Assassin is the most BS to start with, too.

Does starting with the mission on also guarantee the assassin has immunity to overwatch? I played that mission twice and have watched at least three others, every time shadowstep was one of her starting skills. When I played through with the mission disabled she didn't have it. If this isn't just crazy luck, that's even more reason to skip it because that's basically the most broken trait on her.