What month are supposed to win the game by? How long can you extend the campaign with good play?

[idleray]

I've been watching the streamers like Xwynn and it seems they all skip plasma weapons and win the game by mid November-December.

Is it possible to roll back or at least slow down ADVENT progress through having a large number of squads (40-50 soldiers say) and optimal tactical and strategic play?

I would like to at least extend the campaign to March of the 2nd year.

What would optimal strategic play look like if I wanted to do this (probs won't need help with the tactical aspects as i'm pretty confident about my tactical game)?

P.S. And of course I mean on Leg difficulty.

[stefan3iii]

I think the 1.4 campaign is longer than 1.2, because it's no longer possible to stealth every mission. A few L/I campaigns have been posted and they ended early in year 2, like Feb/March.

I had a failed campaign in Nov, that would've ended around that time if I hadn't lost to avatar progress. My current campaign is probably going to be a win unless I fuck up, and is likely going to end around there too.

[WanWhiteWolf]

I was in May second year with 7 bars left on Avatar progress when I ended the campaign (7 regions liberated) . Pretty sure I could have prolonged it at least 3 more months.

I had 112 Soldiers (10 squads + leftovers) and 12 -or so - deaths at the end. If you are going to spike Vigilance all over the place you need to expand relatively fast since regions become STR6+ really fast if you focus on a single one.

I think the difficult part is getting to the blacksite in time. After you unlock the golden path + facilities + HQ, you can postpone the timer almost endlessly (you probably need to do some tricks like losing an invasion and take the HQ back to keep bouncing the Avatar bar).

[idleray]

I was in May second year with 7 bars left on Avatar progress when I ended the campaign (7 regions liberated) . Pretty sure I could have prolonged it at least 3 more months.

I had 112 Soldiers (10 squads + leftovers) and 12 -or so - deaths at the end. If you are going to spike Vigilance all over the place you need to expand relatively fast since regions become STR6+ really fast if you focus on a single one.

I think the difficult part is getting to the blacksite in time. After you unlock the golden path + facilities + HQ, you can postpone the timer almost endlessly (you probably need to do some tricks like losing an invasion and take the HQ back to keep bouncing the Avatar bar).

How did you get the supplies to equip all your soldiers? Which month was your first liberation? How many Max level soldiers did you end up with? How important were psionics in your strategy?

[WanWhiteWolf]

I was in May second year with 7 bars left on Avatar progress when I ended the campaign (7 regions liberated) . Pretty sure I could have prolonged it at least 3 more months.

I had 112 Soldiers (10 squads + leftovers) and 12 -or so - deaths at the end. If you are going to spike Vigilance all over the place you need to expand relatively fast since regions become STR6+ really fast if you focus on a single one.

I think the difficult part is getting to the blacksite in time. After you unlock the golden path + facilities + HQ, you can postpone the timer almost endlessly (you probably need to do some tricks like losing an invasion and take the HQ back to keep bouncing the Avatar bar).

How did you get the supplies to equip all your soldiers? Which month was your first liberation? How many Max level soldiers did you end up with? How important were psionics in your strategy?

I liberated first region in June. I mostly used OW (Spec + rangers) and snipers as core strategy. The other ones I started liberating in September/October. That's mostly when you have coils up and MSGT team. The PSI and snipers are pretty much carrying the hole squad.

I went Lasers -> Predator -> Venon rounds-> PSI -> Magnetic weapons as baseline research. I had 2 Monster PSI soldiers,4 good and 2-3 low level. The top-PSI soldiers could 100% mind control an Andromedon or a Heavy Archon - which were my top picks for HQ / Base clean missions.

I had 25 - or so - MSGT at the end. Commander Difficulty. Have to mention that I started with 5 extra Recruits the campaign (edited the .ini).

As for the gear, you have to be a bit efficient. I think I built 2 laser rifles in total. Most people went with SMGs + Venon Rounds. Reason for that is -> A laser SMG is still good on later game for grenadiers / technicals / Shinobys...etc. Whereas Rifles become useless. Also, half of the soldiers don't really need a weapon. Technicals, Grenadiers , Shinoby , HACK specialists, PSI are fine even with balistics end game.

There is also a snowball effect - the more squads you have, the more loot / resources you can gather. A squad pretty much pays for itself after 2 Smash & Grab missions. You also have to be a bit selective - only go to Ex light / V light missions with min 6 people. As for Armor - pretty much everyone had Predator , 1 Heavy suit/squad, no armor/grapple on snipers. A team had Warden.

The bane of my campaign were SuperHeavy MECS (black ones). The top loot farming squads had a Kubikiri Sniper to deal with them but I couldn't afford to field one for each squad. So whenever one of them popped on a lower geared squad, I was usually running to the objective / aborting the mission.