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what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 1:39 am
by namad
What's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

It's august, I've just liberated my first region (because I didn't know how liberation mechanics worked and I hadn't looked them up, but I've been stomping missions left right and center)... have I blown the game? is this standard pace? am I 50% done? 75%? done? 90% done?

One reason I ask is because I haven't played my savefile in a couple months and I'm wondering if I should just start over? even though I'm doing well? If the's games almost over I should probably restart a fresh run, but if it's half over I think it's worth re-remembering all my favorite characters and their skills.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 9:13 am
by Plockets
First liberation typically happens very early in the campaign (maybe something like 15-25% of the way in). It's hard to say, but I would guess an XCOM vet new to LW2 will probably win in Dec-Jan, or (more likely?) give up in Oct-Nov. Missions per month should increase pretty dramatically after May-June (as you expand to new regions and increase the barracks), so Jul-Oct probably takes about 4 times longer than Mar-Jun.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 9:28 am
by Psieye
namad wrote: It's august, I've just liberated my first region... have I blown the game?
Not enough information. Have you banked enough intel to get to Golden Path regions quickly? Do you have a Facility Lead or two you can follow through to keep the doom meter down? Have you been doing weird things to cause Advent to concentrate Strength in the inconvenient places? "I've been stomping missions everywhere" isn't a good indicator for if your campaign is going well - your midgame is going well sure, but whether that's leading to a good lategame is another matter.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 3:12 pm
by Dwarfling
Depends on the difficulty. I'd say a July liberation in Legendary is fine. August in lower difficulty is slow but won't end the campaign. What really determines if your campaign is going to fail is if you haven't expanded wide enough to get to the Avatar important regions (Golden Path, Facilities) before the bar is full.

My campaigns usually finish close to the end of the first half of the 2nd year because I like to extend them so I get to use all the toys.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 3:40 pm
by SpinDoctor
I've only played 1 campaign at veteran which ended in February of the second year and am working another that will end much later (victory is questionable). Mine is currently in January of the 2nd year and I haven't even Researched the Blacksite vial or even skull jacked a Codex although that shouldn't be too big a deal. I've done the Psi Gate and Blacksite and that's pretty much it.

I have expanded fairly widely so getting to whatever region I need to shouldn't be a problem. My problem was that I got distracted and spent way too much time on troop columns. I'd gotten really caught up in removing strength from regions around my Liberated havens. That kinda became the game for me until I realized, "Hey these missions are getting pretty tough." I was running some fairly routine mission where the map enemies included a two pods, each with Andromedons and the RNFs included a Sectopod... Oh and the Rapid Response Dark Event is active... This was a "light" mission...

It's going to be interesting for me getting to the end, I think. I'm almost done getting all the shiny toys, so it's mainly gonna come down to my tactics.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 7:25 pm
by namad
Thanks for the replies.
I do have a "doom" region with "super" high strength that's 1 jump away from home base and 1 jumps away from the liberated region (because I liberated my home region). Doom in this case is uh.... like 8. With normal regions more around 4.
I've expanded a lot and gotten a lot of intel.

My main worry wasn't so much losing, as, being ABOUT to lose (or win). I'm infiltrating with 3-4 teams at a time, at all times, so yeah, things have slowed down. From what I gather (from your posts here) my campaign might be on pace to end in march, win or lose, and that's ideal, for me wanting to pick this campaign back up, rather than starting from scratch, knowing the mechanics of how liberations work.


edit specifics:
south africa liberated
east africa strength 8
east europe strength 7
total regions contacted 12
intel in bank 200
blacksite in usa 1contact away from accessability...
avatar at about 35-40%
home region south africa....
meaning I liberated my home region, which, everyone on this forum says is very stupid, but again, i didn't know how liberation worked.
I'm also at the network tower stage with a 2nd region though, which I can in theory liberate soon, if that's wise. Not sure if liberating the wrong region, then liberating the right region, improves matters any.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:05 pm
by SpinDoctor
I don't think there's anything wrong with liberating your starting region. At least, I haven't found anything wrong with it. But I think you want try to skip over the adjacent regions to do most of your missions, if possible. I generally try to avoid Liberation Retaliations but they can go either way. I've one turn into a massive battle that literally crashed my machine from the smoke and flames, with 58 dead aliens after it was done and I had one that was over in 6 turns because I could easily see the RNF spike and my Sniper Destroyed it on turn 2.

Maybe someone will speak on the hazards of liberating a starting region.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 6:22 pm
by gimrah
The logic of not libbing your starting region is twofold: 1) the network tower mission gives you a free relay but your starting region already has one, and 2) libbing drags strength to regions around it, which is not great if those are all your contacted regions.

I think 1) is not a big deal because each relay costs more baswd on how many you have. So if you lib somewhere that doesn't help you reach GP regions, it can be a hindrance as it jyst makes your next useful relay more expensive.

2) is perfectly manageable provided you have other regions not neighbouring your starting region and/or enough intel to contact new ones.

It's fine to have contacted regions with high strength. Strength and retals have to happen somewhere. Just stick the rebels on supply.

The retals on libbed regions are invasions. These can be pretty tough but they kill 2 strength and give you lots of corpses. Bring multiple ways of taking out the relay. And if the relay is really inaccessible then you might have to evac.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:59 pm
by Psieye
namad wrote: I'm also at the network tower stage with a 2nd region though, which I can in theory liberate soon, if that's wise. Not sure if liberating the wrong region, then liberating the right region, improves matters any.
Consider carefully whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages of liberating a 2nd region. You get the network tower by revealing the HQ, actually clearing the HQ is a separate mission.

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 10:33 pm
by namad
If an invasion happens, in my home region, and I evac, and lose the mission... I assume what? I lose the liberation? and the contact with the region? I don't lose the game or anything though? all my resistance members die? but... I could just re-contact it? if I wanted?

Re: what's an average month to win by for players who are experienced at xcom, but not at longwar2? on veteran?

Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:30 am
by gimrah
Yes. Dead rebels. I think you lose contact. But you definitely don't lose the game and you won't need to liberate again even if that was your only liberated region.