I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

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dario_gaston
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 3:32 am

I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by dario_gaston »

Well, I had pretty much no problems on veteran on lw 1.1, but now at 1.3 I keep fucking up every ironman campaing. This is what so far gives me a solid start, but when may-june comes advent simply mops the floor with me:

Start buying an engineer and a scientist. I know most prefer GTS but I kinda got tired of lacking scientists and the engineer pays himself after the first month. And the scientist helps getting those extra infiltration times.

I research resistance coms while doing all the missions I can do without spending intel and contact a new (and a third) region asap. Those newly contacted regions will mostly have 2 rebels on recruit and 4 on supply, new rebels go to supply. If I have spare soldiers I assign them to these regions for a recruit boost and a chance of getting corpses from rendevouz.

I'll focus all my starting region rebels on intel, aided by the scientist and do every mission I can.

Things usually start very well, missions with plenty infiltration let me level up to lcpl my whole rooster of rookies in no time. I don't get to pick their classes but I work with what I get.

With the scientist laser weapons come with no delay and with the engineer and supply incomes I build the GTS and train that 72+ aim rookie into a DFA sniper that will pretty much carry every mission.

Usually I get to finish the 3 liberation missions in may and get the network tower asap. The base raid usually has to wait a week or so until my best soldiers come back from their missions.

And then things get totally out of control. Even with 10 rebels on intel and a scientist I fail to detect supply raids and counter ops on time, advent strength spikes, I still manage to liberate the region but then I never get to detect the supply lines running away. Then advent just snowballs out of control, I might last one more month cherry picking missions on my recently contacted regions but advent starts dropping supply lines with elite mutons and heavy mechs while I am still researching battlesuits.

Any tips? what do you usually do during the first months?.
Has anybody tried rushing psy-ops?
LordYanaek
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by LordYanaek »

dario_gaston wrote: I research resistance coms while doing all the missions I can do without spending intel and contact a new (and a third) region asap. Those newly contacted regions will mostly have 2 rebels on recruit and 4 on supply, new rebels go to supply. If I have spare soldiers I assign them to these regions for a recruit boost and a chance of getting corpses from rendevouz.
Not sure it's the issue but i tend to go heavy recruit in new regions (even if i'm lucky to have a 6 rebels region next to start) so that once i can no longer run missions in my home region (due to high str or liberation) i can switch to full intel with a lot of guys and keep doing missions in those regions.

That being said, Muton Elites in June seems impossible. I still haven't seen one in August. Or maybe you're trying to do Supply Raids with low infiltration which is, from what i've read, a really bad idea in 1.3/1.4
sacho
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Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:08 pm

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by sacho »

dario_gaston wrote: And then things get totally out of control. Even with 10 rebels on intel and a scientist I fail to detect supply raids and counter ops on time, advent strength spikes, I still manage to liberate the region but then I never get to detect the supply lines running away. Then advent just snowballs out of control, I might last one more month cherry picking missions on my recently contacted regions but advent starts dropping supply lines with elite mutons and heavy mechs while I am still researching battlesuits.

Any tips? what do you usually do during the first months?.
Has anybody tried rushing psy-ops?
Joinrbs has tried rushing psi-ops. You can see it in on his twitch channel.

From your description, it sounds like you may have two possible problems. One is that you are doing missions a single intel region, and two is that you're trying to do supply raids at low infiltration.

The way you described your strategy to do missions, it seems like you're focusing on one region while letting the rest do nothing. This will increase alien activity in that region, which will lead to a quick climb in strength as Advent rush to reinforce it. It helps to spread out the missions you do over several regions to keep them at a lower strength.

The second issue you described is high level enemies on supply raids. Underinfiltrating a supply raid causes a massive increase in "Alert Level" which gives higher level soldiers than what you would normally get, especially in the new "command pod". It's generally not a good idea to go under 100% or maybe 92% on them, unless you are sure you can handle the command pods.

I don't think you're required to do supply raids urgently - scanning several regions for smash and grabs should give you a lot of resources, and between rendezvouz and the base assault you should have some corpses to work with. I don't know how this balances out later in the game.
dario_gaston
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 3:32 am

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by dario_gaston »

I never do supply raids at less than 100% infiltration.
On the other hand, yes I always focus on missions in one region at a time. Thanks for pointing out that spreading my missions will make advent spread it's strenght!. I will definitely give that a shot.

About the rushing psy ops videos: I don't really enjoy wacthing them, I am more into reading a summarized experience and I was wondering if I could find such thing. Will keep searching :).
Daergar
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Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by Daergar »

(Advice from veteran campaign, not commander.)

While not fully applicable, I am curious why you focused on supply over intel in your newly contacted regions?

In short, here's how I am currently dominating my campaign; start with gts, engineer and scientist during the first month, that's a given. Contact two new regions asap, put everyone on intel minus one guy who pretends he's helpful while recruiting.

Scan with the Avenger in a region until a mission pops, then move on to the next region. I do this without looking at the code, I just pretend it helps fill that"intel bucket" or whatever. Missions are generated, soldiers are sent up, levels and loot and supplies are gained; oh my!

I'm sure it's not what the cool kids do, but I try to do every single mission that's generated. Obviously on commander, you may have to cherry-pick a little bit, but I find it far better to have an abundance of choice than soldiers sitting on their arses in the Avenger.

I do not liberate my first region until maybe month three. I need the missions it generates, I need advent spreading itself around slightly, I need the cherry-picking options and I certainly need the loot.

I focus hard on buying and finding engineers and scientists. Obvious, yes, but I do mean focus. I will move heaven, earth and Shen's bathtub rubber ducky to acquire more minions for the Avenger's salt mines.

I rush psi-ops. I started using the "make psi ops great again" mod, which I find mostly adds flavor and diversity and nothing over-powered that breaks the balance. You still have to invest a lot of time in every single psi soldier, and the good ones seem few and far between in my run (currently have three). They are most helpful and I need them for my fun.

tl;dr Difference in strategy being almost full intel in three regions. Liberate region much later.
joefo
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Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by joefo »

Basically, to win at Commander you need to have 2 fully healthy squads running missions at all times (Ironman you basically need 3, I'm finding). That tempo of missions allows you to generate enough resources, scientists, etc. to keep pace with Advent technology. On L/I that translates into zero room for any squadwiping. You aren't running nearly enough missions, it seems.

Besides being too conservative and not running enough missions, the other non-obvious pitfalls are

1) you are just unlucky and can't get liberation missions before the home force counter starts slipping out of control and you have to go into hiding, wait for it to go back down (since retals are potentially lethal),--> this can delay your HQ assault a fatally long time. Loot and corpses from HQ assault are what really allow you to keep up with Advent tech.
2) you suffer a fairly early C-team squadwipe/near squadwipe that doesn't feel like it kills you outright, but it cuts your mission tempo down fatally from ~8 total missions per month to ~5
3) you invest in Psi labs, which are still somewhat of a waste, even after 1.3. The only argument I can see for Psi is that on L/I, they can allow you to quickly turn rookies into somewhat decent squad support, especially with pistol AWC training. And I hear but haven't confirmed that they are good at sniffing out Faceless in havens, which on Legendary seems to be a huge problem (I am losing 80% of my ~600 supplies every month, and non Psi soldiers only very rarely detect Faceless. I'm obviously doing something wrong here and dunno what it is). Psi soldiers, at the end of the day, cannot deal meaningful damage unless they mind-control someone, or unless you've invested an insane amount of scientist-boosted training time into them, which comes at a big cost to your technology progress since that scientist is counted as no longer contributing to research (although he does still help you meet minimum scientist thresholds for new techs). If the LW2 gods eliminated that issue, Psi soldiers would become a worthy investment IMO, but the required lvl of investment to turn a Psi operative into a meaningful damage dealer still seems unjustifiably high.
4) you are unlucky and don't get scientists early enough, or enough supplies to make up the difference

Anyway, it seems that from March thru September you need to be adding basically 1 scientist and .8 engineers (or so) per month. By July you need roughly 5 scientists and 4 engineers at a minimum, mag weapons, and predator armor. That means you must have also liberated the HQ region by then, managed 1 supply raid or troop column per month, have a good hacker for the intel missions so that you can hack a decent amount of goodies (these really add up), and not experienced a fatal level of attrition in the process.

I usually try an HQ assault in May with full laser weapons, a medic-hacker specialist (to hack drones which you can use as decoys), and nanoscale armor (waiting for predator armor arguably takes too long, and in my situation the AI barely even had mutons by that point). The HQ assault is priceless for jumpstarting your research. Before the HQ assault I go GTS and then tossup between Lab or AWC, depending on how many injured soldiers there are and whether I shielded a power coil by then. (Lab needs to go on the coil) 2 scientists at the lab cuts your required research time almost 40 percent.
Alketi
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Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 3:11 pm

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by Alketi »

Yes, I can confirm Muton Elites on 100%+ Supply Raids in June. Joined by multiple MECs as well. I'm guessing this was a command/armor pod. I thought the region strength was 4, but it might have been 5. Fun times.

I completely avoid gathering Supply in the opening months and rely solely on base digging and selling Elerium Cores for funding. Those two things should power your economy until you liberate a region.

Therefore, with everyone on Intel in your first three regions you'll be able to bounce around between the three to avoid vigilance spiking any one too much. This will give you a constant supply of Extremely Light missions, including Smash & Grabs. Once a region gets to AS 3, I let it cool off and ignore missions and/or redirect rebels to recruit.

Also, prioritize Vulture to greatly increase your gearing and income (elerium cores). You find 2 elerium cores on a mission, that's like gathering 40 supplies.

Using this strategy, I'm a month ahead of Advent in gearing. This is playing on Veteran/Ironman, to get my 1.3 feet under me.
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WanWhiteWolf
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Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by WanWhiteWolf »

I never put rebels on supply the first 3 months or so.

If you have soldiers that are not infiltrated -> go intel
If you don't have anyone available -> go recruit

Your income comes from smash and grab and loot. Loot is risky to pick and sometimes you will lose a soldier now and then because of that but it's still worth it. Any less than CPL that picks a single core pretty much paid for himself.

I think you can skip GTS at start but you still need it for commanders. A single squadie technical can dash into enemy, get a command and burn everyone.

If you are lucky you will see some supply raids but in my experience supply raids are not really worth it because:

- You need 13 guys on intel to detect a 3-4 days one
- You need to boost (costs another 25 intel)
- The loot you get is on par with a smash and grab

The exception is, of course, the corpses. But early you can't afford any autopsy and selling them won't give you much.

My timeline (commander):
- April lasers
- May/June mag
- July coil
- September plasma

I recruit like like a madman; I have 8 squads of 6 people on October.

Squads have mixed weapon tiers. Grenadiers are still with balistic SMG weapons while infantry runs with coil rifles.
LordYanaek
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Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by LordYanaek »

joefo wrote:Basically, to win at Commander you need to have 2 fully healthy squads running missions at all times (Ironman you basically need 3, I'm finding). That tempo of missions allows you to generate enough resources, scientists, etc. to keep pace with Advent technology.
Agreed that being able to run enough missions is key to success. Besides having enough soldiers to field 2-3 squads at once, this also means you need to be running full intel in 1-2 regions with large enough havens to reliably detect them which is why i tend to go full intel or full recruit if the haven is smaller then 6 rebels but don't run supplies early. Those missions give you intel to contact regions or boost important missions (smash 'n grab and liberation being the first priories early), scansites that give you various but always useful bonuses, additional personnel and possibly most importantly experience for your soldiers.
1) you are just unlucky and can't get liberation missions before the home force counter starts slipping out of control and you have to go into hiding, wait for it to go back down (since retals are potentially lethal),--> this can delay your HQ assault a fatally long time. Loot and corpses from HQ assault are what really allow you to keep up with Advent tech.
This can slow you down a lot in the early game. It occurred in my Commander campaign. I managed to get to lib 2 but not lib 3 and then str quickly rose to 8 and i stopped scanning and ran some supplies instead as those raids are easy. I had to wait until early July to finally raid my first HQ in the second region. That being said it's not the end of the campaign if you can't get an early liberation as i'm now in September and still alive and making ADVENT's operations complicated so don't give up. Running enough missions is much more important than an early liberation which might actually leave you in a bad position if you can't start detecting missions in other regions quickly.
4) you are unlucky and don't get scientists early enough, or enough supplies to make up the difference
This also happened in my campaign. I didn't buy one as i thought i would finally get one from a mission but my first scientist came pretty late (not sure when exactly but i was able to complete the early techs, basic research and decrypt a datapad or two before i got him. Second one came in June. As a result my July HQ assault was with Laser weapons.
That means you must have also liberated the HQ region by then, managed 1 supply raid or troop column per month, have a good hacker for the intel missions so that you can hack a decent amount of goodies (these really add up), and not experienced a fatal level of attrition in the process.
It seems extremely unlikely to me that you can run 1 supply raid per month unless you're extremely lucky. I've ran 2 of those by September 10th and both required boosting infiltration. Even with 13 rebels on Intel and a scientist (once i could afford one) i rarely detect raids with more than 3 days which is way too few to infiltrate. Troop columns are slightly better (and easier to infiltrate) but even those i ran 4 IIRC which isn't 1/month and this was with several 13 rebels havens running full intel in 6+ str regions.
Alketi wrote:Yes, I can confirm Muton Elites on 100%+ Supply Raids in June. Joined by multiple MECs as well. I'm guessing this was a command/armor pod. I thought the region strength was 4, but it might have been 5. Fun times.
I haven't seen any Elite until now in September :o My guess is those were either going into or coming from a very high str region. The alert level (strength) of a supply raid is the highest of the home or destination region and some uncontacted regions seem to have very high str.

My timeline (roughly)
-Laser : late June
-Psi : early July
-First HQ : early July (this was a huge boost)
-Mag : July
-Predator armor : July
-T2 secondaries : July to August

I'm now in September and my Mag weapons really start to feel weak but i'll get Coils reasonably soon. I plan to finish liberation of Asia next as i have liberated one region there and have the location of the remaining HQs. I've also uncovered 2 facilities and contacted the Blacksite region so i can start hitting their avatar project once the bar progresses too far (it's roughly at 1/2 now). I have 13 regions contacted.
I have 6 squads. 3 general 5 men squads with different classes but roughly the same use in most GoPs. 1 fast and hard hitting squad that did most radio towers missions and some Smash 'n grab. 1 long range killing squad that did the HQ and all ambushes (3 snipers) and 1 2 men stealth "squad". I've usually been able to run 9-10 missions/month. I'm slowing down on missions now but plan to come back en force with Coils.

Overall i'm perfectly aware i had a bad start that lead to a slow development but it feels far from hopeless so don't give up if you can't get the weapon techs "fast enough" or fail at another "milestone".

Good luck Commander.
dario_gaston
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 3:32 am

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by dario_gaston »

Well thanks for the feedback. My main issue was focusing on one region, using too much intel boost, and getting it liberated asap; but then had only one more region contacted and it's strength grew too fast. I honestly didn't know advent was actually moving troops world wide, kinda thought each region was separated.

Anyway, new campaing, didn't optimize building usage, pushed the hit and run around the globe too much and never really got a network tower before I got raped in the avenger defense mission (which also hit me with quite a lot of bad luck in not being able to run into cover without activating too many mutons and mecs that just bombed the shit out of me when I ran out of flashbangs).

Going to try a more balanced approach now.
sbi85
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Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:57 pm

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by sbi85 »

Rushing Psy-ops:

My take is that it's a pretty good strategy (so far).
I am closing to end of April and having 9 Psi initiate provides more killing power and control than most of my other troops.

See it this way. They do the same amount damage every 2 turns as a soldier would do with Laser Weapons every turn, but the difference is that Soulfire is a 100% hit (with the smaller pods you are not firing every turn anyway and def don't hit all shots). It instakills most advent trooper at this stage. And because of this it does not feel a big issue that you are behind on Laser tech. (I just finished it but haven't produced any yet)
Plus the other 2 skills are there for support purposes.

Also I don't think it slows down research as much as most people think. 2 scientist train a Psi soldier VERY fast. Once you trained your first ~8 soldiers the scientists only need to pop back when you get to promote your troops. People seem to believe the 2 scientist is gone after you build your Psi lab. No, they spend some time there and occasionally come back but most of their time are still devoted to assist Tygan.
Antifringe
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Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by Antifringe »

I think that I might be the only one that likes extreme Intel based strategies. Once I've hit 13 rebels in a region and have kicked up vigilance to 12 or higher, I go full Intel, with a scientist advisor and everything. By now, I will have usually done the network tower mission, so I have a radio tower as well. At high vigilance, the Smash and Grab is the only GOp you will get, but you will get one every month at high duration. This doesn't quite cover the opportunity cost of running supply, but you also will get supply convoys and UFOs, since vigilance is so high. The corpse and loot is good, but the real prize is that you are regularly destroying ADVENT strength.

Once they finally reach strength 5 (it will take them a while, because I keep killing their reinforcements), I close the trap and liberate, knocking their strength down to zero right when they were finally taking control.

The command pods take some getting used to, but I've gotten to where I can handle them with ballistics reliably. Expect a Muton, a Mk II Muton, a Heavy MEC, an Archer MEC, and a Shieldbearer. The command pod is on a short leash, so you should be able to pull and kill all the other units before dealing with it. You want some mix of the following abilities"

1) Stealth (mandatory)
2) Sharpshooter with high crit (highly recommended)
3) Specialist with Combat Protocol (very nice to have, remember that CP works at squadsight and ignores armor). Haywire is good, but probably too risky to try on the MECs.
4) Large AoE with shred (HEAT Grenadier is ideal because they can bombard from outside LoS, but a Technical works in a pinch)
5) Lots of people with AP ammo

Point 5 was the big personal breakthrough for me. A Ranger with AP ammo can handle even Heavy MECs if he's being supported by other damage sources. Stopping the MECs is the hard part. The Mutons can at least be controlled by Flashbangs and Suppression, or even by a Gunner/Shinobi with Combatives. But the MECs just have to die.
Dlareh
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 9:41 pm

Re: I keep fucking it up on commander, help!

Post by Dlareh »

No mention of Blue Screen Bombs? I thought command pods were like the 1 use for them. Although it's hard to stomach the opportunity cost of not having one of the other SGT perks the rest of the time.

And I thought lots of people with AP ammo was standard fare, but yes it's good.
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