Long War - Uniform vs. Specialized Squad Composition

Do you want to build squads that will always work great, or would you rather try to build your squads to perform optimally for certain situations?

I use a single build for almost every class, when playing Long War. And the squads that I field, are mostly uniform as well. There are some exceptions; I have 2 builds for the Assault class and on Exalt data recovery missions I can never bring enough CCS assaults, and will always leave the rocketeers at home. Also my squad composition goes through some changes as MECs are added, and when aliens need to be captured, but for the most part, I have a mostly uniform squad that does not alter very much from mission to mission.

Here is what I am doing in more detail. In March and early April, when my barracks is filled with rookies, I make due with what I’ve got. But after I have acquired Squad Size I, and have a decent array of soldiers, I start to bring a core group of 5 classes; Scout, Sniper, Gunner, Engineer, and Rocketeer. After obtaining Squad Size II and MECs, the core grows to 6 soldiers, adding a Pathfinder or lesser MEC. The remaining 2 slots can go to other classes depending on the mission difficulty, and what is available. When the barracks is heavily fatigued and for hard missions in April - June, I want a SHIV; on easier missions I want a rookie or low ranked soldier. For early game raiders, I like to bring an assault to handle the command pod. In all situations the infantry class is a solid pick and leveling up medics is a high priority. And so with the final 2 spots in my squad, I am able to obtain some measure of flexibility, and targeted leveling.

My core 5-6 classes were chosen based on what has worked for me in the past. Some classes are critically important in specific situations, and other classes become incredibly powerful when leveled up. Gunner, Engineer and Rocketeer are part of the first category; they are often crucial to success regardless of rank, all three classes being extremely effective at CPL. The Sniper and Scout are not as good as the Infantry at low ranks, but not significantly weaker. It is a small compromise to guarantee slots for the Scout and Sniper class, rather than the Infantry and Assault, so that they can reach that higher potential at TSGT and MSGT, respectively. The Pathfinder is both extremely powerful at any rank, and a high priority to level up.

I wouldn’t claim that this is the best core of soldiers. Perhaps it makes more sense to go with officer medics, replacing either the scout or sniper. I am considering that composition for my next campaign. I’m not certain that my squads are the best, but I am extremely confident in stating that a uniform core of 5-6 soldiers, has many significant advantages.

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The Case for Class and Squad Uniformity

The most obvious benefit of uniform squads is that you can easily build your classes to complement each other. You know what you are going to get from the Medic, smoke perhaps, and so you know you can build your Engineer to perform a different role, such as throwing battlescanners. And while these complementary builds are not ideal in all circumstances, they will be well suited for dealing with the hardest enemies, and capable of handling every situation, because that is how you must build them, when you have a single build.

Another benefit is that it will help you manage your barracks. When a flurry of missions fatigue most of your soldiers, those remaining will always be compatible. They become interchangeable parts, and that makes your barracks more resilient to fatigue, injury, training, and death.

Another advantage is that you won’t need to worry about squad composition so much. You won’t have to think about mission type, and ponder all the various combinations of soldier builds in your barracks at every loadout screen, especially for those missions that could go either way in size of map or allocation of cover. You won’t have to weigh the consequences of buying gear for one specialization, that isn’t needed by another. You won’t have to decide on whether to take the sniper built for large maps, on this mission that might be a small map, because she is the only Sniper available, or instead to exhaust some other sniper that is better suited to small maps, or to maybe not bring a sniper at all, and then consider how to compensate for that. And all this effort and complication is premised on the idea that with various soldier builds you can optimize your squads for different missions to gain an advantage, but because the maps within each mission type vary, as do enemies and the circumstances of each encounter, isn’t it also possible that all this pondering and tinkering could actually backfire, and you end up with a squad that is uniquely unsuited for the mission?

I imagine that proponents of specialization would argue that maneuvering around all these difficulties, isn’t all that difficult; and that it is not hard to find substitute soldiers, and pull a squad together from any collection of their builds, and then adjust how they play when the map or enemies aren’t what was expected, and it should all be fine. But if that is their position, and any soldiers of a given class can adequately substitute for another, because they are all good, and the differences in specialization, and maps, and enemies, can all be managed with some adjustments, then what exactly is the point of specialization? If it doesn’t really matter so much, why bother? I ask this question, already guessing at the answer: because its cool, and fun, and sometimes it does indeed matter, perhaps to your disadvantage, but more often in your favor, and so that’s fine. I would also guess that commanders who engage in lots of specialization enjoy tinkering with class builds, and navigating these issues. For them, it is probably a fun part of playing the game.

But there is one more reason to consider running uniform squads, and I have saved this, my strongest justification, for last: You will play better at the tactical level. Using the same build and the same squad exclusively, will deepen your familiarity with both the build and the squad, and so increase your understanding of what they can do, and what they cannot do, and what they are good at, and how to use them effectively. It will become instinctual, and this will allow you to focus on the terrain, and the enemies, and other important tactical concerns in this situation, and you will know how to respond in every situation, because you have been running these builds, and this squad, all campaign. It is still possible for you to make mistakes and perhaps forget which skills your soldiers possess, but it is less likely because those skills are only based on rank, rather than rank, and build and squad composition. This is important because confusion regarding abilities can lead to disastrous mistakes. You can start your turn thinking a soldier has smoke, or disabling shot, or suppression, or whatever, and then make a series of moves based on that belief only to discover, near the end of your turn, that your soldier does not, in fact, have that skill, and that realization will immediately be followed by another; that you are, in fact, screwed.

The case for uniform class builds, is not that there is one best set of soldier builds. Rather, it is because a single strong set of builds will make the campaign smoother in many ways, and help you to play at your best.

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The Case for Specialized Classes and Squads

One thing I have learned by writing about XCOM, and then reading responses to my posts, is that there are a lot more valid builds for every soldier class, than I had imagined. Many commanders are finding success using strategies that I have never tried, or have abandoned, or didn’t even know exist. And that’s great. This is a deep game, and there are still lots of nooks and crannies to explore for seasoned veterans.

Unfortunately I have not explored them. Instead I have become somewhat calcified in the builds I use, and the way I play. And this is because I run uniform class builds in mostly uniform squads, which vary little between campaigns, and this greatly limits how much experimentation and exploration one can do. In my most recent campaign I made a few changes to my builds, but only a few, and have learned much from it, and am wondering why I didn’t start doing this sooner, and more often, because it would have helped me get better, quicker. I have regrets.

I’ve tried to make up for this limitation by reading and watching other players. There is quite a bit that can be learned this way. But this cannot replace actually playing around with things on your own. And because there are just so many possible builds, and combinations of builds, the only way to explore them in a reasonable amount of time is to use multiple builds for every class as a rule, and then try to deploy those soldiers in squads and on missions in which their strengths will shine brightest. and that means running with specialized squads.¹

The best example of the specialized squad is taking 2 Assaults with CCS on data recovery missions. Or what the hell, take 3 or 4. You can’t have too many. Everyone knows this, and does this, and it works extremely well. And so why not try to do something similar on other missions?

The next mission type to optimize for has to be landed transports. These are nasty hard and long, especially during the summer, when you haven’t yet leveled all your troops, and don’ have all the best equipment. Prepping for this mission, is a top priority. You will want lots of dense smoke and lot’s of fire power. You will want to have a plan for the command pod. Perhaps one that includes a CCS/CE Assault, and a shredder rocket, and plenty of killing power in your shooters, which might mean Hit and Run on your Scout. Bring a Pathfinder if you have one; if not a crit build Infantry is good. To deal with two pods activating at the same time, or a double Mechtoid pod, it is very nice to have Disabling Shot on your sniper, as that will buy you a turn. And you better have a plan to deal with Berserkers, and that probably involves chem grenades, perhaps carried by your engineer, who should also have lots of battlescanners, and so now can’t carry that dense smoke that you also need. And so let’s put the dense smoke on the medic, and get the battlescanners ability on our engineer, so he can still carry both grenades and chem grenades. And you know what, let’s get battlescanners on the scout as well, because I want to know where every goddamn pod is on this mission, so my squad doesn’t get surrounded out of cover, and cut to pieces.

If you take this squad that I have just described, and compare it to all my class builds, you will find it to be remarkably similar; in fact, the same, because this is the mission that I optimize for when choosing all my builds. And I stop here, going no further in attempts to optimize, thinking that this squad is so good, and having all these complementary abilities so important, why jeopardize the campaign by diverging from it. So I haven’t sought to optimize for terror missions or for small maps, or large maps, or for the base defense, or to deal with Ethereals. My squad does very good in all those situations; thank you very much.

And so to keep arguing in favor of specialization, given my limited efforts, I now have to rely on other commanders and what they have written, and there is an enormous supply of these posts, mostly in reddit comments, explaining how to specialize classes for different missions, and for different stages of the campaign. Look to any “Lets Build a Sniper” post and you will find not just a variety of builds, but also many arguments for multiple builds, and in which circumstances they excel. Here is one example: in the reddit comments of my post for the Medic build, perhaps the build I was the most comfortable with, I read compelling arguments for taking suppression, taking combat drugs, making medic officers instead of scout officers, using smoke engineers as well as, or instead of, smoke medics, building medics for the early and midgame, then chopping them into Guardians when their abilities are no longer as useful, and so on. You can read those comments here. And I was stunned that many of these ideas I had not even considered. And that is just one of my builds, and this has been the pattern every time that I have posted a build, thinking I have it nailed down, only to find myself surprised to learn that there are many other options I have not considered fully, or at all, and they sound very compelling, and also very cool. This was especially true for my sniper build post.

Even if you believe in an optimal build, or optimal squad, how can you possibly know that what you think is the best, is really and truly the best, when there are so many people arguing for something else? Different skill levels and playstyles can only explain some of the discrepancy in preferences. A better explanation is that Johnny Lump did an excellent job balancing abilities, providing multiple paths to victory, with interesting trade offs that make your soldiers more powerful earlier, or later, or in tandem with other classes and abilities, or in different situations, but that also leave your squad handicapped in some other way. This is very cool, but also scary, because it means that we should be trying new and different things that we don’t fully understand and that may mean losing a campaign, but this is Long War, and so that is part of the fun.

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1. Or just use Dev Console to switch around your perk abilities mid campaign.