I'm still learning a lot about LW2. Had played XCOM 2 on Legendary but not to the finish. Decided to play LW2 Legendary non-Ironman because the game changes too much when the difficulty shifts and I don't want to learn bad habits. I do want to be able to back up a bit in both strategy and tactics if I make a major mistake, because that makes the game more fun to play. Some mistakes I live with though.
There's a lot of details that interact with each other. I like to study and plan ahead to avoid painful lessons as much as possible. I've restarted my campaign twice because certain decisions early on can limit or hurt you for a time until you fix them. But I'm going to push on now.
Stidji wrote:
1. What's your goals? let's say the first 3 months? for example, how fast will you try to liberate a region?
Be sure to read everything in the XCOM Archives in the Commander's Quarters on the Avenger. Lots of good info there.
To start, expand and establish everything, troops, Avenger, resistance, research, missions.
You need a plan for each of those items. And they depend a lot on each other. Resistance gets you the missions in enough time to infiltrate well. Avenger and research prepares the troops. Missions give experience to the troops, provides troops and advances the resistance and the story.
1. Troops. Takes several months to get a good roster and more to train them.
You will need several Shinobi and Specialists, as stealthing, scouting, and hacking are a major part of most missions. Grenadiers and Technicals are important as pod crackers with their AoE attacks. Rangers and Gunners are the direct fire killers including overwatch and suppression and area suppression. Sharpshooters are the distance killers and holotargeters, often having a concealed Shinobi to spot for them. Assaults, Shinobi, and Rangers all have good close quarters attacks, but in LW2 that's very dangerous as it can activate another pod unless you've stealth scouted and know there's none. Psi Ops (after building a Psi Lab) currently are less useful but should be buffed in later LW2 versions. If you have the DLC Shen's Last Gift, you will get SPARK's as well.
You get more troops either from the Black Market (one a month Squaddie or higher rank, worth the supplies) or Rookies you free in free VIP missions or buy for supplies (eventually will need to). Never consider Rookies disposable.
2. Avenger. You need a plan to excavate and build out the rooms.
I posted here about it.
You need to built the GTS first, to train up Rookies into particular soldier class and to train officers, later to buy various New Combat Tactics, like Wet Work to improve experience from killing ADVENT. After a month or so every mission should have an officer to add their special perks. After that, when you get Engineers (freeing them in various free VIP missions) you can start excavating the rooms. Next room will be the AWC so when you have a Scientist (free another VIP) troops will heal their wounds faster. As well you
3. Resistance. You start with the resistance Haven in one zone. The rest of the world you need to expand the resistance to.
You have a number of resistance members under your control in each zone expanded to. They do various jobs on a daily basis: Hiding to avoid drawing ADVENT's attention, Supplies to gather for XCOM, Intel to gather for XCOM and to learn of possible missions with longer expiration times, Recruit to find more members. You can also get more of them in free VIP missions. Some of them could be Faceless spies. You can also assign an advisor, best a Squaddie or better ranked troop or officer to recruit and lead others if they find a spy. Later you can use Scientists or Engineers as advisors.
Eventually in a zone you will find a mission labeled as part of the Liberation Chain. That's a series of 5 increasingly diffuclt missions to free the zone from ADVENT control. The last two, the Network Tower and the ADVENT HQ, are particularly hard missions. Lots of good info on them in these forums. You need to free at least one zone to progress the story and win the game.
4. Research. Learn more to do more, make your troops stronger, and advance the game.
You will need a certain number of Scientists (free the VIP...) for some techs and to research faster. As well, you will eventually need to build and upgrade a Laboratory in the Avenger. Later will come the Proving Ground and the Shadow Chamber.
5. Missions. Found with resistance doing Intel. Infiltrate to get troops into action.
Free VIPs, train the troops, get loot (under a lot of restrictions), and advance the story. Special missions will require different squad troops and different tactics. Some special hard missions advance the story and eventually win the game.
Stidji wrote:
2. Will you focus on region at the time or will you start doing missions in every region you can make conctact with as you go?
Even on Legendary, I research Resistance Comms first and expand to a 2nd zone. Do the missions that you can infiltrate a right-sized team and benefit from by succeeding and getting out without wounds and death. If it's too tough and there's not enough time, pass it up (although some missions can be done by small teams, even just 1 or 2 Shinobi). Most missions don't have a penalty for ignoring them.
Stidji wrote:
3. What kind of rooster do you have? what soldiers do you prefer to use?
What I mentioned above under Troops. As I've planned it, I have multiple builds for all the troop classes except Rangers and SPARKS.
You will need ASAP about 3 to 4 Shinobi and about the same number of Specialists for stealthing and hacking. The First Rule of XCOM Club is "Don't get hit", but you will need a Specialist Medic for the tough missions as soon as April, so I'd train the first Specialist as a Medic. A fire base of eventually 5-6 Gunners can be used on the very heavy missions like Troop Ambush and Supply Raids. You will eventually need troops as Haven Advisors; I and others use LCpl/2Lt Technicals. For Squad Officers, I use Shinobi and Holotargeter spec'ed Sharpshooters, as they can most spare the actions for commands. Other troops as mentioned above.
Stidji wrote:
4. how do you prioritize the missions, what goes first and last?
Have the troops to send the right squad to do the mission. Need to have enough infiltration time. Early campaign tend to send small teams, especially around 1-3 troops, tailored for the mission. Not enough time, not enough troops, don't go. Only some missions have consequences for ignoring them.
When the Avenger is threaten by a UFO searching for it, that's when you need your 12 best troops as tailored for that mission on the Avenger. Recall them if needed. You lose the Avenger Defence Mission, you lose.