First Campaign in the Books...

SpinDoctor
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First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

Well, I finished my first campaign. Thanks to all for the advice and conversation on the game. There were some dicey, “why am I playing this game anyway?” moments, but I got through.

The final mission wasn’t as hard as some of the others I played throughout the campaign, but of course, I had my best guys and lots of them.. I had some lucky "fist pump" moments, like the time I had a the Commanders "Dimensional Riff" going with a group of 8+ enemies in it, and another big group of RNFs showed up and walked into it right before it went ka-boom… Chain Lightening saved my bacon where my Assault stunned 2 gatekeepers, 2 Codex, a Sectoid Commander and a Hive queen with one shot.

131 missions, over 1980 aliens killed. Had maybe 40-45 soldiers total…

I've immediately started a new one, lol...
gimrah
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by gimrah »

Congratulations!

You're ahead of me. I did get to Waterworld on my Commander mag rush campaign but for some reason never ran the last mission.

Now trying to beat Legend on Ironman (or very nearly Ironman). Just wondering how advent will curbstomp me this time. Last campaign I got through an avenger defence in November with 2 sectopods, only to get crushed on an invasion with a bad beacon location. This campaign I got through both no problem so far. They tried to wipe me on blacksite with surprise doom rnfs, but I got 5 of 7 soldiers out. They tried to wipe me on a UFO with a flanking MEC ball, but I got 4 of 7 soldiers out (admittedly only 2 upright and 1 of those on 1hp).

Top tip though: don't use the actual ironman setting. By way of example, I got a hilarious new bug last night: moved combatives shinobi to lock down muton, muton teleports to a completely different tile and guts someone else instead. Would have been rather less hilarious had I not been able to re-load.
SpinDoctor
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

Thanks for the Congrats!

I'm never gonna do ironman since I've heard the saves are kept somewhere in the steam cloud and they can "go away" for reasons unknown. I just do a quicksave and a hard save at the beginning of a mission and go from there.

So this time around, I started in the Artic. I was gonna Liberate the starting location, and have 2 Libs done there (End of March), but I'm thinking I may try something different. Gonna contact East Asia and Indonesia, and eventually liberate Indonesia, while using my starting region as a Strength Attractor and Troop Column/Supply Raid farm. I will attempt to keep East Asia as a buffer between the two. I'm not gonna move too fast with that yet, because I'm infiltrating a mission in the Artic that I think is a facility lead and if it happens to be in the Artic, I don't want the strength to be thru the roof before I hit it.

This may work because I'm not nearly ready to attempt an HQ raid anyway, so by the time I get to Indonesia, I should have lasers and therefore a decent chance of Liberation without getting everyone killed. I can't remember how I approached the first campaign, so I may start taking notes. I'd like to get the Liberation done by the middle of June at the latest and maybe be on the way to doing a 2nd lib, but I won't do more than two.

I know a few people here document their missions, but honestly, I'm way more interested in their strategic choices than their tactics. Tactics are pretty personal and so vary from person to person, but 99% of the time, whatever tactics you choose will work since you know how you want it to go (generally). It doesn't matter if I hate Close Encounters and someone else loves it. It just means, they know how to use it and I don't, lol. I just go a different direction and it works fine.
Psieye
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by Psieye »

Gratz on your first campaign win.

I don't recall ever reading an AAR diary which didn't write up what the strategic choices were. Sure most of the words may get spent discussing tactical missions, but the context is there.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
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SpinDoctor
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

Psieye wrote:Gratz on your first campaign win.

I don't recall ever reading an AAR diary which didn't write up what the strategic choices were. Sure most of the words may get spent discussing tactical missions, but the context is there.
Thanks!

True the info is there. I just don't wanna sift it out, lol. I may journal my strategic stuff, and where the tactics are concerned, just say, for example, "Ran S&G with 5 man team". For me, I'm not overly concerned about how many grenades were thrown.

But that's probably because I'm not that familiar with the strategic layer.
faket15
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by faket15 »

SpinDoctor wrote:
Psieye wrote:Gratz on your first campaign win.

I don't recall ever reading an AAR diary which didn't write up what the strategic choices were. Sure most of the words may get spent discussing tactical missions, but the context is there.
Thanks!

True the info is there. I just don't wanna sift it out, lol. I may journal my strategic stuff, and where the tactics are concerned, just say, for example, "Ran S&G with 5 man team". For me, I'm not overly concerned about how many grenades were thrown.

But that's probably because I'm not that familiar with the strategic layer.
I really want to make an AAR focused on the strategic layer. The problem is that I play with a lot of bugfixes and some of them I don't have any idea how to turn into actual mods.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Hmm. Strategic choices are few. Scan, get intel , expand rapidly, find regions with one or two connections. Liberate region with one connection and force black site to region with two connections (or less).
Don't put Tower in every region (at start) to move Strength. You can skip bad Liberation 2 in good region to avoid strength build up . Hope that you can detect moving strength. Scan in low Strength regions after you done shitload of missions to get UFO and Super UFO.

Every region where you done Supply Raid will increase vigilance in neighboring non contacted regions. This regions will spawn Dark Evens missions. So spiking vigilance with supply raid is good for hunting Dark Events if you have Dark Events at all
Every region with Strength 4 and more will give you boost to detect Supply Raid.
After reading a lot you don't need to liberate any region at all. Black Site will reveal Avatar also.

Jailbreak is key to detect missions in multiple regions and scientist help a lot if your haven is above 8. Less than 8 scan with Avenger or you will detect 3 days missions and less. Full haven and Scientist have bad chance to detect Liberation 3, it is better to let it go and respawn with full timer.
Can't find any other strategic choice except micromanaging Avenger time and Switching rebels from intel to other jobs (timed). One day before you are finishing the missions switch them before 7:00 AM to get more in detection bucket. 7:00 AM is time where game checks rebel jobs.

This is all that I can find for now.
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SpinDoctor
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

SonnyWiFiHr wrote:Hmm. Strategic choices are few. Scan, get intel , expand rapidly, find regions with one or two connections. Liberate region with one connection and force black site to region with two connections (or less).
Don't put Tower in every region (at start) to move Strength. You can skip bad Liberation 2 in good region to avoid strength build up . Hope that you can detect moving strength. Scan in low Strength regions after you done shitload of missions to get UFO and Super UFO.

Every region where you done Supply Raid will increase vigilance in neighboring non contacted regions. This regions will spawn Dark Evens missions. So spiking vigilance with supply raid is good for hunting Dark Events if you have Dark Events at all
Every region with Strength 4 and more will give you boost to detect Supply Raid.
After reading a lot you don't need to liberate any region at all. Black Site will reveal Avatar also.

Jailbreak is key to detect missions in multiple regions and scientist help a lot if your haven is above 8. Less than 8 scan with Avenger or you will detect 3 days missions and less. Full haven and Scientist have bad chance to detect Liberation 3, it is better to let it go and respawn with full timer.
Can't find any other strategic choice except micromanaging Avenger time and Switching rebels from intel to other jobs (timed). One day before you are finishing the missions switch them before 7:00 AM to get more in detection bucket. 7:00 AM is time where game checks rebel jobs.

This is all that I can find for now.
Thanks for the info Sonny

I'm not sure I really agree that strategic choices are few. They are only few if you choose to play the game the same way all the time. I'm sure there is some optimal method (max/min) to the strategy layer, but I don't really want to "game the game". Definitely not watching the clock to change jobs, but it is an interesting tidbit.

You mentioned that you don't need to liberate a region at all? How would you get supplies? One aspect I'm really not crazy about is the constant scrounging you have to do. It's like living out of a trashcan. Liberation allows you a lot more freedom to get stuff done.
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by Dwarfling »

SpinDoctor wrote:You mentioned that you don't need to liberate a region at all? How would you get supplies? One aspect I'm really not crazy about is the constant scrounging you have to do. It's like living out of a trashcan. Liberation allows you a lot more freedom to get stuff done.
You (try to) concentrate your intel in a single region, then when it's strenght is too high to handle (I call it quits when it's gonna hit 6), you switch the rebels to supply and move the intel to another region, one that was doing full recruit, for example. You'll get retals there but for the majority of the game you actually want them to happen (experience, instant trial by fire promotions). If strenght 10+ full retals are too much for you, you can always try to force them on another region with Hiding, then switching to supply while retals are on cooldown.

Usually in Legendary I can't pull off the liberation chain in the home region before it blows up in strenght from the 1st month of missions. So when it hits strenght 5 (after I already did the Troop Column), I switch it to Supply, with 1 or 2 rebels on Recruit. And move on to region #2 where I repeat the same procedure.
SpinDoctor
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

Dwarfling wrote:
SpinDoctor wrote:You mentioned that you don't need to liberate a region at all? How would you get supplies? One aspect I'm really not crazy about is the constant scrounging you have to do. It's like living out of a trashcan. Liberation allows you a lot more freedom to get stuff done.
You (try to) concentrate your intel in a single region, then when it's strenght is too high to handle (I call it quits when it's gonna hit 6), you switch the rebels to supply and move the intel to another region, one that was doing full recruit, for example. You'll get retals there but for the majority of the game you actually want them to happen (experience, instant trial by fire promotions). If strenght 10+ full retals are too much for you, you can always try to force them on another region with Hiding, then switching to supply while retals are on cooldown.

Usually in Legendary I can't pull off the liberation chain in the home region before it blows up in strenght from the 1st month of missions. So when it hits strenght 5 (after I already did the Troop Column), I switch it to Supply, with 1 or 2 rebels on Recruit. And move on to region #2 where I repeat the same procedure.
Nice... That sounds pretty good.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Liberating region with one connection is not always best choice. If it is far away Global Threat must be Severe and you must focus on Skulljack and Skuljacking the Codex. This will remove one or three pips (not sure).
Global Threat - Severe and higher will reduce Avatar progress for Late Liberation. 12 Pips will be always build.
You will face Super UFO-s (+4 Strength on map) on Global Threat - Severe

Best advice - ignore region with one connection tip.

@Dwarfling - not detecting is a bitch. I spend a lot of intel on few Supply Raids in first month. Contacted second region in under 15 days and third ( 21 days- I guess) just to prevent that. One region never recovered from constant supply raiding (high vigilance = bad haven) but my starting region is still on Strength 3 (no Tower to make it safe). I have buffer of strong havens (Tower/HQ regions) to search for UFO-s and Advent is dropping on them.
My conclusion is - Liberation 2 will trigger first UFO or you will miss it but you will get supply raid for sure. Tower will add more tension. When HQ spawn on map put everything on intel - UFO will visit you or even two (Super and normal). I m collecting them like crazy. Will try that again after another Tower. My regions are hitting 30 vigilance after double UFO-s and Advent will try to reinforce them.

Regions are safe until Liberation 2. Up and down in strength in those regions just indicate where to put ambush or you can scan them for easy Troop Columns.
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by Psieye »

SpinDoctor wrote:How would you get supplies? One aspect I'm really not crazy about is the constant scrounging you have to do. It's like living out of a trashcan. Liberation allows you a lot more freedom to get stuff done.
If anything, liberating gives you less freedom. The supply job has +20% if the region is liberated - that's not a lot. Sure there's a low chance to get a sci/eng on recruit in liberated regions but I don't know anyone running Recruit jobs after liberating. Not liberating the region (but still going up to Lib 4 for the radio tower) lets you gather supplies and farm supply mini-retals as well as full retals. If you don't care for neighbour vigilance, you could also use the region to hard-farm Troop Columns and supply trains (then sell the 30+ corpses per run) but that'll bite you a couple months later unless you've specifically sculpted the strategic layer with that in mind. In addition to all that, S&G will still spawn when other GOps get blocked out by high vigilance so a Lib 4 hot region doing intel can still generate income.
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Yes , twice per month (max) for few days of scan.
This S&G have better timers and less baseline difficulty. Had a lot of Extr. Light in Strength 3 or 4 regions. In early and mid game they give more than supply job per region. I m regretting putting one region on supply , recruit + intel just give more but I can't cover that many missions. Not jet. This missions are by default training grounds for rookies.
Smash and Grab should be avoided in "working" regions (after 3rd contact) for more Jailbreaks and VIP-s. Any mission with reward - soldier should also be avoided. I had only one mediocre soldier from them (he needs 3 PCS to even be a soldier) and this mission is done only to counter Dark Event.

Spawn Specialists and build upgraded skulljack for 100% lamp-posts. If You do not have 12 Specialists in late may You will be in trouble (free intel, alloys, Supply) . Than research Skullmining for extra intel / PCS . GTS should spawn Specialists and other classes can wait.

Other uses for horde of Specialist is far better described by Psieye . Read his posts about 8 man GOPs and how You can win vs 30+ Advent with few scratches. He is tactical Master and He knows how to use perks that I do not pick on my first 12 Specialist (last 4-12 will have Airdrop and Threat Assessment for sure) .

Hmm, we are expanding Strategical layer and reading again about Tactical layer is always good.
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SpinDoctor
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

SonnyWiFiHr wrote:Yes , twice per month (max) for few days of scan.
This S&G have better timers and less baseline difficulty. Had a lot of Extr. Light in Strength 3 or 4 regions. In early and mid game they give more than supply job per region. I m regretting putting one region on supply , recruit + intel just give more but I can't cover that many missions. Not jet. This missions are by default training grounds for rookies.
Smash and Grab should be avoided in "working" regions (after 3rd contact) for more Jailbreaks and VIP-s. Any mission with reward - soldier should also be avoided. I had only one mediocre soldier from them (he needs 3 PCS to even be a soldier) and this mission is done only to counter Dark Event.

Spawn Specialists and build upgraded skulljack for 100% lamp-posts. If You do not have 12 Specialists in late may You will be in trouble (free intel, alloys, Supply) . Than research Skullmining for extra intel / PCS . GTS should spawn Specialists and other classes can wait.

Other uses for horde of Specialist is far better described by Psieye . Read his posts about 8 man GOPs and how You can win vs 30+ Advent with few scratches. He is tactical Master and He knows how to use perks that I do not pick on my first 12 Specialist (last 4-12 will have Airdrop and Threat Assessment for sure) .

Hmm, we are expanding Strategical layer and reading again about Tactical layer is always good.
Good and interesting discussions here...

I'm not sure the tactical layer requires this much overthinking. As I mentioned, I believe tactics are a personal choice. If you know how to use what you want, you will be successful. I'm not the type to build 12+ specialists. I don't see the point. 4 or 5 good ones is plenty. You can only get one reward for a lamppost, so why do you need a bunch of specialists on a mission?

I prefer balanced squads, i.e. "combined arms" in military jargon. It works great. I don't have injuries usually in my missions, because in the vast majority of my encounters, Advent never gets a single shot off. I try to ambush every pod I encounter. Last campaign I ran 131 missions. 89 were flawless, so I don't see a need to change much right now. So far, I've never adopted anyone else's playstyle, but I do like to watch certain videos to see what perks work better than others. If I had to pick a playstyle, I'd say mine most closely matches DerAva's. He has good videos on the Tube and he generally only runs combined arms squads. That guy is a true tactical genius. He pulls off maneuvers that I never would have though of. I think he might try to stand his ground a little too stubbornly, but that's ok too. I have no problem pulling back a bit to set up a killzone for Advent to charge into, since I know they will.

Speaking of perks, I haven't used Airdrop since I'm a big fan of Grenadiers and their ability to debuff large numbers of enemies during a turn. Two grenadiers with Rapid Deployment can debuff every enemy on the map in a Light encounter. The rest of the squad kills them. Easy... I agree that Threat Assessment is a good perk. Airdrop might be worth considering.
Last edited by SpinDoctor on Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Psieye
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by Psieye »

Tactical layer talk should be read while always considering "on what difficulty?" and "how much Advent activity?" But the AI is the same on all difficulties so once you're on the map you'll find your way of getting things done. There's a few things which stop being reliable at higher difficulties (because of the extra HP) but you'll find solutions that work given time. It's the strategic layer that will strangle you, be it by resource scarcity, the tech race or from suitable mission availability.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
SpinDoctor
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

Psieye wrote:
SpinDoctor wrote:How would you get supplies? One aspect I'm really not crazy about is the constant scrounging you have to do. It's like living out of a trashcan. Liberation allows you a lot more freedom to get stuff done.
If anything, liberating gives you less freedom. The supply job has +20% if the region is liberated - that's not a lot. Sure there's a low chance to get a sci/eng on recruit in liberated regions but I don't know anyone running Recruit jobs after liberating. Not liberating the region (but still going up to Lib 4 for the radio tower) lets you gather supplies and farm supply mini-retals as well as full retals. If you don't care for neighbour vigilance, you could also use the region to hard-farm Troop Columns and supply trains (then sell the 30+ corpses per run) but that'll bite you a couple months later unless you've specifically sculpted the strategic layer with that in mind. In addition to all that, S&G will still spawn when other GOps get blocked out by high vigilance so a Lib 4 hot region doing intel can still generate income.
Lol, not sure how dealing with a bunch of retaliations constitutes freedom, but ok... Supply retals are fine, but the rest pretty much suck. I would think that you want at least 2 liberated regions which makes a 20% increase very significant over time. That and the fact that all those retals increase your chances of injuring key personnel in situations where you can't control or dictate the course of the battle is really not worth it, odds wise. The problem with retals is that you are constantly having to react to the enemy, which is never an optimum strategy.

Last campaign I had supplies in the thousands and engineers sitting with nothing to do. But that was Veteran level, and Legendary sounds like way to big a PITA for me to even consider doing. So I dunno...
Last edited by SpinDoctor on Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
SpinDoctor
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

Psieye wrote:Tactical layer talk should be read while always considering "on what difficulty?" and "how much Advent activity?" But the AI is the same on all difficulties so once you're on the map you'll find your way of getting things done. There's a few things which stop being reliable at higher difficulties (because of the extra HP) but you'll find solutions that work given time. It's the strategic layer that will strangle you, be it by resource scarcity, the tech race or from suitable mission availability.
Exactly! That's why I'm more concerned with strategy than tactics. If someone is able to win a battle with 6 Shinobis and a Holobot, hey great... I'm not doing that though... Sorta like the idea of Specialist spam. I'm just not doing that...
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Picking combo perks and double suppression is not something that You will use on first play.
Commander difficulty is very close to Legendary. Detection is the same but some of enemies have less HP.
Laser is good on Commander and just OK on Legendary. This is just minor problem.
Penalty on boosting, low income on intel and supply is big problem.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/fil ... =617993180
Is list of buffs that you will get on every difficulty except Legendary. This is true change on tactical layer. 50% to hit is always miss and you can't shootout with advent knowing if you miss you will hit or hack.

So picking synergy perks is must for difficult missions. Critical Ranger must be supported by Threat Assessment Specialist for Kill Zone or OW shots.
Airdrop Perk will give Grenadier two bombs for probably red fog.
Double suppression will prevent AI to wipe out your squad or move or use any bad action like Micro Missile.
After encountering MEC in early April you will pick Shredder on every class. AP rounds will be always equipped.
8 man squad on OW can miss 3x basic troopers making OW ambush less efficient. You need Fire Control PCS to make OW ambush actually useful.

This are few tactical tips if you choose to press Legendary.
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by Psieye »

SpinDoctor wrote: Lol, not sure how dealing with a bunch of retaliations constitutes freedom, but ok... Supply retals are fine, but the rest pretty much suck. I would think that you want at least 2 liberated regions which makes a 20% increase very significant over time. That and the fact that all those retals increase your chances of injuring key personnel in situations where you can't control or dictate the course of the battle is really not worth it, odds wise. The problem with retals is that you are constantly having to react to the enemy, which is never an optimum strategy.
The "resource" that doesn't feel like a resource: EXP. I haven't set aside time to see if it's viable on Legendary, but Commander campaigns for me always had MSGTs coming out in July. Granted, that's more than just retals but I'd get MSGTs coming off a 'conveyor belt' of EXP. The standard thing of infiltrating until Advent activity is Light or less is "wasting" a lot of EXP - if a squad can do a GOp at HQ levels of activity and come out with no wounds, why should EXP be thrown away?

Mag/Coil is the time when you should be ahead of Advent on tech in Commander. If you also secure an "EXP advantage" over Advent, you have a lot more freedom on what missions to take. Mind, not total freedom - my final Commander campaign ended because I was winning too frequently (due to less infiltration time) on the tactical layer with no thought on how the strategy layer would buckle from the abnormal play pattern. Str 8 missions at 100% infil were the only things I was doing in late August and that's when I concluded I'd fucked up too hard.
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

5 man mission usually V. Light will net you MSGT-s in May.
If you play Shen's Last Gift you will have them in early May.
Laser in May is enough and only option because I did not build any Armor even after research. I m running 10 Specialist in hope to catch up.
Few basic tech are only thing that you will get on your soldiers. Cheap ones and spend rest on Scientist and Specialist. I m upgrading Lab and have 15 scientist and Mag is still 8 days research. I can Afford only one Mag rifle -free one :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

Psieye wrote:
SpinDoctor wrote: Lol, not sure how dealing with a bunch of retaliations constitutes freedom, but ok... Supply retals are fine, but the rest pretty much suck. I would think that you want at least 2 liberated regions which makes a 20% increase very significant over time. That and the fact that all those retals increase your chances of injuring key personnel in situations where you can't control or dictate the course of the battle is really not worth it, odds wise. The problem with retals is that you are constantly having to react to the enemy, which is never an optimum strategy.
The "resource" that doesn't feel like a resource: EXP. I haven't set aside time to see if it's viable on Legendary, but Commander campaigns for me always had MSGTs coming out in July. Granted, that's more than just retals but I'd get MSGTs coming off a 'conveyor belt' of EXP. The standard thing of infiltrating until Advent activity is Light or less is "wasting" a lot of EXP - if a squad can do a GOp at HQ levels of activity and come out with no wounds, why should EXP be thrown away?

Mag/Coil is the time when you should be ahead of Advent on tech in Commander. If you also secure an "EXP advantage" over Advent, you have a lot more freedom on what missions to take. Mind, not total freedom - my final Commander campaign ended because I was winning too frequently (due to less infiltration time) on the tactical layer with no thought on how the strategy layer would buckle from the abnormal play pattern. Str 8 missions at 100% infil were the only things I was doing in late August and that's when I concluded I'd fucked up too hard.
Ahhhh! EXP - I didn't think of that aspect! So you go in heavy right from the beginning of the game, or is there a point that you need to be Tech-wise to pull it off? I'd imagine there is...

In this new campaign, it's mid April and I just got T1 Lasers. So I felt with the added firepower, I could drop a soldier or two to get light missions. But with your method, I guess I should buy a few more laser rifles, go heavy and hit the 15 to 19+ enemy missions... I only have two squads of CPLs now, so HQ level engagements is prolly off the table for now, lol...

It makes a lot of sense. But as you mentioned, there is a tightrope you need to walk to keep Advent from going into total panic mode and putting a boot on your neck.
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

misprint
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SpinDoctor »

SonnyWiFiHr wrote:5 man mission usually V. Light will net you MSGT-s in May <snip>
I find it "extremely" hard to believe you will get a MSGT in May.... I don't see how it's possible in any way, unless I'm missing something very subtle. Or obvious. I dunno which, lol
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Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

First 12 missions are high risk missions. I managed to pull 2nd and 3rd missions with one soldier and 6 or more rookies. Level up whole barracks is first thing I will do. If I fail I can start new.

Then I contacted 2nd region for extra missions and in same time stared contacting 3rd (researching intel pays off). I m still in shortage of soldiers (65) in May. Did few High risk Supply Raids + many Light UFO-s. Light-Moderate Troop columns you name it. Everything is done with more or less 5 man squads (you start with 21). Gem of all missions are my Heavy Supply Raids with full squads - will never try that again. First month is for taking risks after that lowering the risk is best option. Mag. will bring Light missions in range for GOPs (if must be done) and Moderate+ for non timed missions. I can skullmine so I can boost.

Now I m starting to over infiltrate because there is no benefit to risk if your soldiers have at least two perks.
Pushed luck to the limit (first month) and now I m cooling off.

Tip 1. Flawless mission is always worth three missions in terms of number of missions you can do. (30 days in hospital is no option so Gunners must pick Formidable and be target practice for Advent)
Tip 2. You can start to under-infiltrate missions from start. Begin with 8 man squad who can infiltrate to Light after few perks infiltrate less. You will raise Vigilance like crazy so expand is must from day one. If you wait Super ufo will drop on you. One region approach is +60 Legions on map in six months. You will kill Strength on map by rising vigilance (missions) in region and than scan for hard to detect missions or just scan in regions with 4+ Strength after you do some missions
The Preacher
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: First Campaign in the Books...

Post by Psieye »

SpinDoctor wrote:But with your method, I guess I should buy a few more laser rifles, go heavy and hit the 15 to 19+ enemy missions... I only have two squads of CPLs now, so HQ level engagements is prolly off the table for now, lol...
Mmm, I can let you experiment but "a few extra laser rifles to hit 15~19" isn't what I do. In terms of equipment, the difference between "must stick to V.Light missions" and "I can go on E.Heavy missions" is 1 laser lance depending on how far Advent is with their tech. There is no "oh I can do Moderate but not E.Heavy missions" middle ground, it's all or nothing.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
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