chaser324

I know people want solider Dan to die a coward's death, but at this point, it's crucial that he survives and continues to get promoted so that they can get the squad size upgrade.

That first terror mission is going to hit sooner than you think, and they're not at all ready for it yet.

I think that's a fair criticism of the timers, and several "true concealment" mods address it. In the expansion, I think I saw that one of the faction bonuses you can earn will also has the same effect of not starting timers until you're out of concealment.

Winter is Coming. (the chrysalids quite literally have an army of the dead)

@dberg: To my knowledge, failing that mission just cuts off the other council missions that are directly linked to it (the ones where you're rescuing the psionic soldiers). The EXALT missions and all of the other Enemy Within features are unaffected.

This was another great entertaining episode.

Dan made some pretty solid choices on the strategy layer that should help keep things on track (however, tearing down any constructed facility is a big waste of resources). Things are starting to look pretty dire with regards to the squad composition, but if they continue to learn and improve with the combat, they still have a chance to turn things around.

That being said, the first terror mission is imminent (probably only 2-4 episodes away) and the odds of success there are looking slim. Squad wipe, failed mission, and first council member withdrawal is very likely.

I agree (although I did use a mod to slightly extend the timers - just 2-3 extra turns is all you really need to help avoid situations where people can't make it to the extraction point).

A lot of the changes in the sequel are a direct reaction to people playing this game at a slow creeping pace and constantly being in overwatch. It pushes you to play aggressively, and I think it's a better game for it. When you're playing XCOM 2 optimally, you're killing every enemy as soon as they appear and never giving the enemy an opportunity to damage your soliders.

@gbrading: XCOM is not an easy game, so failing the mission is always on the table regardless of prep work. Nothing about their playthrough right now is so far gone that they can't recover.

The first real test will come with the first terror mission. If that doesn't go well, it may leave them in a position where the base defense is nearly impossible.

@bisonhero: Regardless of the business/technical reasoning, I think XCOM 2 generally benefited from the focus on PC. It's one of the better examples of mod support on Steam Workshop and they significantly improved the mouse/keyboard controls.

This video series and XCOM 2's upcoming expansion have me in full blown XCOM fever right now. I blew threw an iron man playthrough of Enemy Within and then couldn't hold back from starting XCOM 2, in spite of already having the expansion pre-ordered.

Select Youtube/Twitch influencers have also gotten gotten early access to the upcoming expansion and permission to start showing it as of today, so I've been skimming through some of that as well.

Yeah. It's weird. They put the console release at the forefront with this game and prioritized the gamepad controls, but then they flipped the script with XCOM 2. The sequel was initially only on PC and had vastly improved keyboard/mouse controls and no gamepad support at all until after they released the console ports.

Dan is 100% going to use up all of the meld on himself as soon as he has the opportunity (assuming he survives his time on the front line long enough).