1.3 (and later patched toward infinity) Veteran Honestman Campaign Feedback
This is just a short post, not a huge essay about all of my impressions but I think I can share my experience about my campaign.
The Long War 2 mod (especially after the 1.3 patch) is awesome, I like the game very much with these upgrades. I use a ton of different mods to make the game more realistic (Rebel jobs, Battle Rifle Expansion, Tactical Suppressors, True Concealment, Beatdown Skill, a few modded aliens, a lot of map packs, etc.) but the main thing is Long War 2.
I am at early August in my campaign with:
- 3 liberated and 2 contacted Regions,
- The Global ADVENT Strenght is 49 legions,
- The doom counter is less than half of the pips with three facilities (I have a Facility Lead if I have to destroy one),
- I have over 60 soldiers in my Armory (4 Psi Troopers), most of them are veterans with a lot of sergeants and corporals,
- My A-team is a 8-men squad with high-ranked soldiers,
- I played almost all of the missions I got (over twenty missions per month in 2-3 Regions at a time),
- I Skulljacked the Officer and now building the Shadow Chamber,
- I am pretty good at research (repeated Basic Research thingies, a Lab with four Scientists and more in the Psi Lab and AWC),
- I am mediocre at combat missions (I failed only one but I have 1-2 injured soldiers per mission, luckily I lost no one),
- I am poor at engineering (I can't bulid enough weapons, armours and devices to 60 soldiers but I use the Manufacture Rebel Job mod in my liberated Regions), so about 40 Predator Armours, 36 Alloy Platings, 40 Laser Weapons, 20 Magnetic Weapons are in my stash with a lot of Proving Ground projects finished. I only have 2 Tactical Vests and have a few special grenades for my troops. I have a special "home rule" to train and equip soldiers matching with their stories, so I do not have two similar skill trees or gear and I do not switch gear between soldiers and squads - not even weapon mods! So I have to create a lot of stuff and I am doing it with low skills,
- I have 6 combat squads (with 8 soldiers each) and have more to work as backup team members and Haven Advisors,
- I think I can go further in the campaign but I do not think that I can win this round. This is my first 1.3 campaign after all.
In my opinion there are a few highlights in 1.3:
- I had a lot of great combat-oriented missions with huge firefights but I did a few stealth missions as well,
- Sharpshooters are awesome, I use all different three main versions (DFA, Holotargeter, Snap Shot) with success,
- I like the new Sword Shinobi builds (there are a lot of different path here combining the center and the right branch of the skill tree),
- Overwatch Rangers and Specialists are surprisingly good,
- SPARKs are Terminators at least,
- The greatest improvements are the Psionic changes. My Psi Troopers are useful (and powerful) additions to their squads! They can do reliable damage, protect a vulnerable soldier with Mind Merge, and even Mind Control, Panic or Disorient enemies at THEIR FIRST RANK! I built cheap Neural Whips for them and they are my favourite soldiers with colourful AWC abilities and Psi powers,
- I like the reinforcement mechanic: I have to act fast but I can fight with my enemies if I want to,
- I do not like the UI of training soldiers (any solution to change soldiers in GTS, Psi Lab, AWC from the Geoscape when somebody finished his/her training without jumping there and back between screens?),
- I think the whole mod is fun, mostly balanced now and it is close to the perfection of LW1 1.0 (close but not reached it yet)!
My personal tips for Veteran players:
- If you do not want to rush everything, play on VETERAN. It is hard but fair,
- Do a LOT OF MISSIONS with strong squads! You have to boost their infiltrations but it pays off with experience, loot, additional hacking rewards and fun playtime,
- Get Vulture ASAP! Sell the loot on the Black Market,
- Always use Red Fog for all combatants, fights are grim but balanced this way,
- Buy all the soldiers from the Black Market and do as many missions as you can do, so you will have Engineers and Scientists from combat missions with additional Intel and loot,
- Liberate Regions to slow down the Avatar project, gain corpses, Supplies and Intel from HQ assults, and have a solid Supply basis in liberated territories,
- Never underestimate the power of the Dark Side (or reinforcements at high-strenght Regions), so do your missions in low-strenght areas and kill all ADVENT forces moving into them due to high vigilance (UFO and Supply Raids, Troop Column missions)!
- Managing ADVENT Strenght is the key of this game, watch out for good strategy tips from better players than me!