Long War 2 - Opening Strategy Outline
This is a rough sketch of my Research and Engineering build order. Works for me on Legendary difficulty.
EDIT: After writing this post I played through a campaign, and I now feel that my pace was a bit slow, and thus vulnerable to the Avatar Clock. I have made several revisions to correct this - moving forward the deadlines for Liberation and the Golden Path missions.
STAGE 1 (March to May)
Research:
Resistance Communications - Allows you to connect to nearby regions
Modular Weapons - Allows use of Weapon Upgrades
Basic Research - Gives you one extra Scientist
Alien Biotech - AP Rounds to deal with MECs
Hybrid Materials - Nanoscale Vest
Sectoid Autopsy - Needed for Psi Technology
Psionics - Psi Labs
Advent Trooper Autopsy - Proving Ground, Alloy Plating Project
Laser Weapons
Adv. Laser Weapons
Advent Officer Autopsy - Incendiary Grenades, Skulljack
Engineering:
GTS
Scientist/Engineer from Black Market
Wet Work
Scientist/Engineer from Black Market
Psi Lab
Power Relay
Proving Ground
Alloy Plating Project
Incendiary Grenade Project
Vulture Project (if feasible)
Other Objectives:
Contact another Region
Train 3-4 Officers.
Get an Officer to Captain rank to acquire Trial by Fire
5 Shinobi. 4 Specialists. 3 soldiers of every other class.
Start Liberating a region.
Comments:
When the game begins the first thing to do is switch all the Resistance Personnel to Intel gathering and assign a Haven Advisor (I find a Ranger or Assault work best early). Do not scan the Black Market. Scan your region till you find 2 missions, hopefully with enough time, then scan at the Black Market. Do not boost a mission - you will need that Intel to expand to the next region. Once you have found 2 missions, and the Black Market, contact your second region.
Regarding Engineering, you can skip some of what I have listed such as the Black Market Scientists/Engineers and Basic Research. You will need 3 Engineers to get Incendiary Grenades, so whether you purchase a Scientist or Engineer depends on whether or not you can get to 3 Engineers by May without buying one. Buying Engineers always feels wasteful as eventually you have more than you need, but if you are going to buy one, earlier is better, as they speed up your acquisition of resources from clearing rooms.
I buy a lot of Alloy Plating and Nanoscale. By the end of the campaign I have 20+ of each. These are great for most of the campaign so buy some now to keep your soldiers safe. Also every team should have a shooter with AP Rounds so that they can deal with MECs. I suggest 5 Shinobi officers, enough to have 3 primary teams, and a couple stealth specialists to run stealth missions. The stealth missions officers should grab Ghost Walker and only need one Officer rank so that they can use Command.
You will need a lot of supplies, but I do not recommend putting your Haven Personnel on Supply gathering, as missions are far more lucrative. Eventually Advent strength will be too high to run most missions (5+), but I would suggest staying on Intel until you find a Troop Ambush. When you find the Ambush switch to Supply gathering for 14-18 days, then switch back to Intel (cooldown on Troop Ambush mission is 21 days from inception for each region). By then you should have a second region in which to mine Intel for missions.
This plan works because I make room for the Psi Lab by pushing the AWC back. I still have to sell a lot of elerium cores, datapads, and other loot. I try not to sell Advent Troopers, Alloys, Elerium. And I never sell corpses unless I know I won’t be needing it. Its just not worth it. I am also frugal with weapon purchases, and will try to get by with only 2 of each weapon tier, swapping them over to other soldiers due to injury or whatever. I will purchase a third weapon in any tier if it means I can run a mission that otherwise I would not attempt.
Its nice to do Liberation 3 by the end of May. This will set you up for a quick liberation.
STAGE 2 (June - July)
Research:
Magnetic Weapons
Advanced Magnetic Weapons
Stun Lancer Autopsy (delay if you don’t have at least 2 corpses)
Advent Robotics (delay if you don’t have at least 4 drones)
Combat Armor
Battle Armor
Render for Alloys
Resistance Radio (if you have the chance to get a continent bonus)
Engineering:
Vulture (if not done in STAGE 1)
AWC
Skulljack (if you have done Advent Robotics)
Skullmining project (if you have done Advent Robotics)
GTS Upgrade (optional)
Integrated Warfare (If you have enough PCSs in use)
Tactical Infiltrations
Resistance Comms
Other Objectives:
Train up most of barracks to Sgt. rank using Trial By Fire
Find Troop Ambushes and acquire corpses
Expand to a 3rd region.
Liberate a region.
Comments:
We just got Laser Weapons, so why are we immediately going for Mag weapons? Shouldn’t we get the Combat armor first? You can do that. But Armor is very alloy costly, and you won’t be able to outfit your team in Predator Armor for months to come. You will be lucky to afford 6 suits right away. If you have a lot of alloy this would make sense. Otherwise go for Mag Weapons first, which don’t require huge outlays in resources to deliver a huge benefit. I build 2 of each Mag Weapon, and switch them among the soldiers of each class, using the laser tier as a backup or on Haven advisors.
You need to rank up your barracks using Trial By Fire. That is a crucial objective to achieve. You also want an Incendiary Grenade in each squad, and a Nanoscale for the soldiers who don’t use ordinance. This will help you survive until you get more Predator Armor. By the end of July I hope to have an E.X.O. suit on each team as well.
Often I am not able to do the Stun Lancer Autopsy or Advent Robotics as I don’t have the corpse loot. These only help you if you have additional corpses beyond the Tech cost, to build Arc Blades and Gremlin MkIIs. If not, there is nothing to be done about it, except push toward liberation, as the HQ mission is sure to have what you need. It doesn’t make sense to build the Skulljack until you get Advent Robotics as that is required for Skullmining, which makes the Skulljack an incredible asset.
It is still early in the campaign, but with Mag Weapons and Predator Armor your squads will be quite strong. This won’t last. Your next big bump in power is at Coil guns, a long way off.
The most important goal is to liberate a region and the end of July is a reasonable goal to have, though not always feasible. Both the Network Tower and HQ missions are challenging and unique. If you have not attempted these missions before, you can read about them in my Liberation Guide. Liberating a region by the end of July means you have opened the campaign well, even if your Technology and Engineering is a bit behind this pace.
STAGE 3 (August - September)
Research:
Elerium
Viper Autopsy (hopefully INSTANT)
Muton Autopsy (hopefully INSTANT)
Turret Breakdown
Alien Encryption
Coilguns
Advanced Coilguns
Archon Autopsy (delay if you don’t have at least 2 corpses + 7 engineers)
Engineering:
Venom Rounds
Battlefield Medicine
Plasma Grenades project
Stay with Me Project
Power Relay Upgrade
Defense Matrix
Laboratory (optional)
Shadow Chamber
Other Objectives:
Liberate a region! If you failed to get this done by the end of July, hit the panic button. Pick a region to liberate and prioritize it above all else: mine Intel, boost liberation missions with Intel, ignore ancillary missions in that region to control Advent Vigilance and Strength if necessary.
Expand to 4th and 5th regions
Raid the Blacksite
Use Skullmining and Gremlin MkII to obtain/stockpile Intel
Skulljack a Codex (requires Shadow Chamber and project to complete)
Comments:
You will want to start spreading out quickly now and this is necessary to reach the Blacksite region and other Facilities. Taking those down is essential to stalling the Avatar Project.
Skullmining is very helpful during this stage of the campaign because it helps you obtain Intel. Skullmining gives you an extra chance at a hack reward when jacking an Advent trooper, and with +20 hacking, all your likely hacks are more likely to succeed.
Stage 4: Racing the Clock
Do not delay on Golden Path missions. Always expand towards the next Golden Path Mission as soon as it is revealed. The Avatar Project kills many campaigns, and your only way to delay it is by moving forward on the Golden Path, and knocking out facilities.
Regarding Facility Leads, you cannot get them from Skullmining, and they are not available until you have liberated at least one region. Also you cannot stockpile more Facility Leads, than the current number of unrevealed Facilities. Facility Leads can only be obtained from missions that look like normal guerilla ops, except that they are harder to detect. The mission types that may have Facility Leads are Hack / Recover / Rescue / Extract missions with "Find a Lead" as an objective. If the mission is a Hack or recover, the rewards listed will be Intel and Intel Package. If it's a Rescue/Extract, the rewards are a Scientist and Intel Package. In both cases, you will gain a Facility Lead instead of a scan site.
One more thing. When the Avatar Clock is activated the aliens are still making progress, but in a hidden fashion. At the end of my last campaign, I managed to halt the Avatar Clock, only to have it immediately advance 3 pips in a couple of days, and start ticking again. You cannot use the 27 days of Avatar Clock as any kind of extension to your golden path timeline.
Besides the clock, you still have a few big tests at the tactical level; Psi Gate, Forge, and Invasion. If you can win those, and delay the clock long enough, then victory is almost assured.
Good luck, Commander!