The best mod for XCOM: EU, Long War, is in the process of being updated to work with EW. The Long War dude just released EW Beta 6, and seeing as how this latest patch (which has this massive change log) has been a huge leap forward as far as the general buginess of the mod is concerned, I was wondering if anyone here had played the EU version or is currently playing the EW version.

If you're not familiar with it, this mod makes a TON of changes. So many, in fact, that I'm not sure I should begin to list them here. The Nexus Page offers a staggering list of changes made to the base game. It is a significantly different experience. I would describe the game as a compromise somewhere between the original XCOM and the new one. Generally, I'd say that they've greatly increased your number of tactical options, and balanced them all so that there isn't always one right choice (squad sight changes come to mind), and just added a ton of tactical variety into every mission/battle. There are two main things that I really appreciate about this mod.

The first- the early game is a lot more interesting now. As someone who has put in a ton of time trying to do I/I runs on the base game, I found the early game I/I to be a huge bummer. You only have 4 dudes, with few abilities, and a single item to bring with them (inevitably ended up being frags for everyone- because otherwise rookies are too limited). Now, with 6 characters, 2 item slots each, and a ton of new items to play with, there are a lot more interesting decisions to make early on.

The second- is how they've made things which were marginally prevalent in the main game a much bigger deal. Such as the old Chrysalid grenades (which I don't think anyone ever used, ever) being rebranded as "AP Grenades" and given at the start of the game. The fact that every soldier has two item slots by default now means you don't have to be so exclusive and choosy when it comes to bringing items with you, so you get to see a lot more variety in what you are actually doing with your soldiers. This extends to SHIVs being available from the opening of the game. I really loved the idea of SHIVs in EU, but I found that you got them so late in the game they just couldn't keep up. I even really liked the changes they made to the SHIVs in EW, but it felt like by the time you got them, you were in that XCOM late game steamrolly nothing-can-stop-me mode already, so they didn't really matter. The mod makes SHIVs an integral part of the strategy of the game from beginning to end. The expanded squad size (default 6, can be upgraded to 8) also encourages SHIV use, because you have more room to have different kinds of Squad members. In the base game, I felt sometimes as though I didn't really have room for a SHIV to take the place of one of my BAD ASS high-ranking soldiers.

So, if you are playing it, or have played it, what are your favorite changes the mod makes? If you haven't heard of it before, could it possibly interest you in pick up the game for another play through? I know I mostly spoke from the perspective of someone who always play I/I but the mod isn't exclusively for that kind of XCOM play style, and they've rebalanced every difficulty to work well with it. I also didn't mention any of the geoscape changes. That is not personally my favorite part from either the new or the old XCOM, but I know some people really dig the geoscape, so know that the overarching, non-battle-to-battle game and balance is also significantly different.

Oh yeah, the mod also supports a more free camera with new angles. Have an imgur gallery of cool screenshots taken from previously impossible angles (images courtesy of BeagleRush).

I haven't played this or EW but thanks so much for posting, will have to check this out when I finally have enough dough for the expansion or it drops in price. Looks amazing and sounds like it addresses a lot of the issues I had with the game.

Modders are pretty incredible.

First I've heard of it, sounds cool though. Does this mean you'd now have to have EW to play the Long War mod, or is there a vanilla version still available? Seems like it'd be a more interesting change-up for a second playthrough than the Second Wave options.

The original EU version of Long War can still be found here as "Long War EU". There were a couple of "pre-EW" patches that came out before the expansion launched, and they blew up all of the mods from the original game. You need to roll your game back to version 4 in order to play it. Here is a patch rollback mod to help with that.

On another note- anyone who would like to see the mod in action, but doesn't want to commit to the always-fun process of modding your game should tune into BeagleRush's stream later tonight (usually starts around 1-2 hours from now, and goes late into the night). You may remember his excellent and funny Ironman Impossible series. He'll be starting a new game on the latest Long War patch tonight, and the stream is usually pretty fun, so JOIN US

I might give it a shot when they finish it for the expansion and i'm itching for some Xcom again. I've seen it go around for the vanilla version but by the time they made it I've already played EU through and through even finishing and impossible ironman run. My problem with both EU and EW was never really the early game, which is always a challenge and jam packed with stuff to do, it's always been the late game when you are rolling over everything, even with increased monster strength in the expansion at later stages.