XCOM: The Long War Intro and Part 1

XCOM: The Long War Intro Post

This is going to be my second ongoing video game series I write up. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a 2012 remake of the original 1994 UFO: Enemy Unkown, the remake being done by Firaxis games. Enemy Unknown later had a sequel XCOM: Enemy Within (and later XCOM 2). What I am looking into is XCOM: The Long War, which is a community mod of the XCOM: Enemy Within game adding a large amount of difficulty and length to the game. I'm inspired again from watching BlueAnkylo's Let's Play of the Long War Mod (although I haven't finished the Let's Play), and I have tried a little bit of the mod via a Steam version of the game, and also played a little bit of Enemy Within as released on iOS. However BlueAnkylo's Let's Play is from before the Long War beta 14, and the version I have is the most recent version (beta 16 I think?) so I'm not sure what will and won't be different from his playthrough. I have downloaded an additional mod to mitigate the difficulty a little bit (basically I start with a little bit more resources than the Long War otherwise gives you) because I really want to play this for fun and not get too frustrated and quit the game.

The premise of the game is the player is in charge of an extra-governmental paramilitary force trained to fight an alien invasion, and as it turns out, there is an alien invasion happening as we start the game. It's a turn based tactical game where you command a squad of soldiers and traverse a map, fighting aliens as you go. There is permanent death in this game. The Long War mod also adds a fatigue mechanic, so the soldiers you take with you into battle get fatigued from the fight for a certain number of days, and if you bring them along on a mission while fatigued they will become wounded after the fight (and wounded soldiers cannot fight and also take a penalty to their willpower). The game has a vague storyline that plays out in cutscenes, but is otherwise pretty much a sandbox game. While the enemies get stronger the longer you play you can certainly drag it out a long time.

Soldiers level up in one of a number of classes. The Long War mod expands the original games 4 classes into 8: Assault (based on running close to the enemy and shooting them with high critical chances and shotguns), Scout (soldiers with good reflexes and high mobility who can move ahead of the main squad and draw enemy overwatch fire) Infantry (steadfast soldiers who can shoot twice in one turn if they don't move), Gunner (soldiers with the big guns), Rocketeers (soldiers with rocket launcers!), Engineer (soldiers who get extra charges of expendable items like grenades), Medic (soldiers who get extra charges of medkits) and Sniper (soldiers with sniper rifles). There is both the tactical missions to play and also the long term strategic game including creating a satellite network to track the alien's movement, maintaining a fleet of fighter craft to attempt to shoot down UFOs, researching alien technology and building a base to support your efforts, all while managing limited resources. It's a challenging game, but I've really enjoyed the small amount I've played it, and I'm looking forward to a recorded attempt.

Finally, before I get started, my favorite part of this game is that the individual soldiers you play with all have very customizable appearances, gender, nationalities (the Long War mod adds additional languages in the voice acting as well, so your Spanish soldier will shout about killing aliens in Spanish, and your German medic will reprimand your injured soldiers in German), and names. I always like playing these games with renamed soldiers to represent my friends in the game, so I invite anyone reading this who would like to participate to let me know what name they'd like (I can give first and last name, and if you survive a few missions I can give you a nickname as well). For instance, in my test run of the game, I renamed a soldier Cold Run, and he got the random nickname Scotch (this amuses me to no end) so he shows up in the mission as Sergeant Run, and his full name is Cold “Scotch” Run. If you think you have a preference for what class and appearance you'd like your representative to be, let me know as well. And the Long War encourages a large army as so many soldiers end up fatigued between missions, so if you want multiple people I won't limit you to one!

Ok, on to starting the game.

I choose Normal difficulty, the easiest setting (designed for new players, and as I've not played very far in I'm definitely still new to this). I'm also going to choose a few secondary options that will make this a little easier for me. Commander's Choice allows me to choose what class to promote rookie soldiers into (instead of the choice being randomized). I want this option so that I can make sure I give people classes they request. Save Scum will reset the random number generator if I restart a mission (say because I got everyone killed and can't live with the guilt) so that the same action could have different results (the shot could miss instead of hitting this time, etc.) Dynamic War and Cinematic Mode are the options the modders recommend to reduce the difficulty to close to that of the original game. Finally I'm checking The Friendly Skies to make my aircraft better (the air game is not the best part of this game and I don't want to have to stress about it too much) and We Are Legion, which gives me two extra squad members to start with (8 instead of 6 on a mission) because that just sounds like fun.

Anyway, let's see how this goes.

The opening cinematic starts with a meteorite crashing into a city street. 

Crash!

People gather around the pod that is in the crater, taking pictures with their phones (obviously a game from the last decade...) Suddenly, green stuff explodes from the pod, grabbing people and dragging them back to it. 

Camera focuses on one guy running away, but another pod crashes in front of him. 

All that remains are green human shaped silhouettes on the ground. 

A shadowy man instructs me (Commander) over a series of military images that a council of nations has approved the XCOM project due to recent extraterrestrial activity. My actions will have a profound impact on our planets future. He wishes me luck.

All aboard!

I get to pick a starting country now. I'm going with Nigeria, which gives me a bonus to the mobility of my soldiers (everything I've ever learned about these games from Final Fantasy Tactics onward tells me that if you can outmaneuver the enemy, you can pull out a victory. Nothing is more frustrating than being one square short of an optimal move). Also the bonus is called Pax Nigeriana which is spectacular.

Launching first mission!

The squad starts standing in the open, in the drop zone. 

Let's move into cover behind these cars parked on the street. One of my soldiers spots 3 aliens inside the building to our right as he moves into cover behind a car. The aliens immediately activate and move into cover themselves.

 Let's see how good my starting squad is. First soldier shoots and makes the 49% hit chance! 

One alien down. 

Dr. Vahlen pops in in a voice over and explains the alien weapons appear to self-destruct when the operator dies, but we should look for weapon fragments to help us learn about their capabilities.

Nobody else can see any aliens, so I have the whole squad go on overwatch. (Overwatch allows them to take a reaction shot at reduced accuracy if an enemy moves into their line of site during the enemy turn). One alien moves forward to get a line of sight on my people, and dies to one of the three reaction shots my people take (the other two reaction shots break a shop window and the windscreen of the car we're hiding behind). The third alien unleashes a suppression barrage on my first rookie. Then another pod of 3 aliens runs into view and takes cover behind various objects on the street.

Dr. Vahlen expresses her awe that we are seeing alien life on our planet for the first time. I'll be more awestruck if they'd stop shooting at us...

One of the aliens is flanking several of my people (I can tell when their cover shields turn yellow) which gives the alien extra bonuses on hitting and hurting my people. I move and toss a grenade hoping to eliminate the threat, but the alien survives. So I move another soldier behind a trash can and toss a second grenade, finishing the alien off. The grenades seemed a better bet than a 37% hit chance, since the alien was hiding behind a truck.

GRENADE!

Dr. Vahlen advises me to use restraint with explosives, since the explosives destroyed the corpse which we'd like to study. But the lives of my soldiers comes first!

Two aliens remain but I can't get a shot on them with my remaining soldiers. I dash two forward to better positions (dashing is a double move that takes both of a soldier's two actions per turn), and the third soldier is suppressed, so he'd better hunker down to get better cover.

One alien moves to the spot behind the truck where it's friend was annihilated by my grenades, and lands a hit on one of my people. She takes 5 damage from the shot, but does not panic. The other alien misses its shot.

My turn is a flurry of shooting, and while most shots miss, I get enough to connect that the remaining two aliens go down. That clears this initial zone area, but there's still more aliens on the map. The building in front of us looks like a bookstore (that is partially on fire). I can climb a pipe to the roof or go through, or both. I also see a glowing yellow pod of to the side. I send two people to check it out (I know from my previous playthrough that this is a Meld canister, and I'll need that as a resource later).

I send two soldiers to the roof, which turns out to be a fancy outdoor restaurant (which is partially on fire...) 

Fancy rooftop cafe.

3 more soldiers go into the bookstore (kicking open the door on their way in) while my wounded person takes position behind a van. She's on 1 HP left, and I don't want to lose her in the first mission. Overwatches for everyone who can, and let's see if the aliens show up! One of the guys in the bookshop heard something from his left and towards the back of the building...

"Do you hear that?"

4 aliens burst through the back door, but one goes down immediately to reaction fire! 

Get them!

The other 3 take up positions, and it's my turn again. My people on the roof dash to the edge to get angles below, while my meld team pick up the meld and start running back to join the rest of the squad. The people in the shop move to better positions, but because they need to reload I'm unable to take advantage of a flank shot. I hope that doesn't come back to bite me.

A lucky overwatch shot from the only person with a loaded gun last turn takes down another alien.

One of my rooftop guys jumps down two stories to flank the alien, and we finish the mission. Good job team!

Point blank range.

Dr. Vahlen is excited to get to the researching.

XCOM Central HQ

Returning to base, we're introduced to Central (as BlueAnkylo calls him) who informs me there is a soldier awaiting promotion. 

I will only ever call him Central from here on out, but apparently his name is Bradford.

As it turns out, everybody from the mission gets to be promoted. (Promotion is leveling up in this game.) 

"Operation Hidden Engine." The operation names are randomized.

They are all out for 5-7 days with fatigue, except the one who got shot who is gravely wounded and will be out for 26 days. So that went better than it could have (the first time I tried this mission someone died) but I wish I'd paid better attention to that flanking shot.

Time for a tour of the base! First the research labs, where Dr. Vahlen formally introduces herself, and explains researching alien technology. 

Next, engineering, where they build the things we research. (He doesn't tell me his name at this point, interesting. I wonder if it's because he's introduced in the tutorial mission in the original game, which got changed to this random mission in Long War?) 

Finally I check out the situation room, where I can track my satellite coverage.

Let's start researching Xenobiology, to get a better understanding of what we're up against. It's going to be slow, taking 18 days, but I don't have any real research capability yet. Then I head to facilities to start expanding the base. Ooh, lucky! The two steam vents are next to each other. I can build thermo power generators on steam vents, which are better than the fission generators I otherwise can build for electrical power. And building like facilities next to each other grants me a bonus (it's game mechanics, I'm good at remembering that sort of thing even if I've only done it once). I'm going to build a satellite uplink, which will let me launch additional satellites, and an access lift to the next level down so I can start expanding further. Then I'll excavate the remaining space to prep for another facility. That leaves me with just under $300 cash, so let's build a satellite so I can start expanding coverage ASAP.

Finally, we'll go to mission control, and scan for activity. This is where I progress time, so that my research and building projects get completed. But advancing time also means the aliens get to do stuff, and right now I can't see any of it, so it's a little concerning. No matter, we must proceed onwards!

We almost get through a week with no activity (there are 3 left of the 7 days the access lift would take) when a UFO appears. Let's try shooting it down.

Raven-1 launches and lands some shots in return for about half damage, but is unable to shoot down the UFO in time. 

Let's go Raven-3! (I can rename the fighters but only to a random name. I will likely do that later).

I can only choose to abort the combat, which I will do if my fighter takes too much damage.

Alright, we shot it down! 

That means next time I can do a crashed UFO mission. 

It's still largely intact, even though we shot it down and it crashed...

I can do customization before I do this one, so who's coming with me?