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XCom Long War Ironman Impossible


Balcerzak
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RIP Cynthia. :(:

I'm glad I didn't mass-murder everyone else when I went nuts!

Interestingly enough, Long War makes it so that the response to being panicked is to always hunker down. I read that the reasons were twofold: removing an exploit where you could panic your own men by grenading them, thus letting them run to cover. Also making psi panic not bite you in the ass when you have your psi-troopers learn it and then use it on the enemy (mutons or whatever suddenly shooting you on your turn because you panicked them would be bullshit). Edited by Balcerzak
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My first response on seeing this thread was "is that even possible?" so I wish you the damn best of luck. When I played EU vanilla Impossible/Ironman I basically had to give up in tears after god knows many tries, and this is after finally getting good enough to beat Classic/Ironman pretty handily. I never really got into Long War, through (I played a pirated copy the first time and I could never get the mod to work), so I don't know how much more (or less) difficult it is at the highest level. It seems like it gives you a lot more tools which is nice. Also, I'm just not sure it's possible to get harder than Thin Men already are <_<.

I'm a little distraught now, perhaps operating in panic mode under pressure to clean up and get out without anything worse happening to my boys, so I toss the flashbang. I probably should have done so from a different spot so somebody could have used this flank position, but I wasn't thinking clearly I guess.

Playing in panic mode was probably the single biggest reason for my XCOM playthroughs failing (well, after Thin Men) when I'd try and double down on a stupid decision by taking even more stupid risks, or even worse getting a little angry and doing something way to aggressive or careless. At least you made it.

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I make no promises this will make it to, let alone complete the temple ship, but I'm curious to see how far I can actually manage. I predict I'll wipe a squad on a landed large, then spiral into chaos after that huge setback, and probably fail a base defense/assault to seal the deal. But who knows!

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I probably glossed over it last time something like this came up, but there's a line in there that says: "Situation Room: New request from Canada." That's actually pretty lucky for us, as at this stage in the game all requests from council nations are going to be about satellite coverage. Our first two requests are from nations on our continent, that's pretty rare, in my experience.

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Nap of the Earth (NOE) UFOs have different missions than Low or High ones do. They're usually landing for either: abduction, terror, collecting supplies. Sometimes NOE are Destroyers on bombing runs, to increase panic. At any rate, our air game isn't even close to being able to take on a Medium, let alone a Large, so I just let it go. I suppose I could have sent up a bird and immediately aborted in order to see the UFO profile and take a guess at its mission, but honestly, I was pretty sure it was an abduction, and it's not like the knowledge would change my play, even if it wasn't.

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Curious, not an abduction after all. Must have been a supply barge after all. I suppose it's all well and good it landed where I didn't have satellite coverage, as I might have felt compelled to field an attempt, even though we're in absolutely no situation to do anything of the sort. The UFO disappears from our Missions tracker, and we complete our first Research Project, codenamed Mobius. That unlocks a new objective, with a host of subobjectives. Capture a Live Alien requires: Construct the Alien Containment Facility, Research Xenoneurology and Construct an Alien Stunning Device, Capture a Live Alien, Interrogate the Captive Alien.

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qG4denA.png This technology has a number of potential applications. I'm sure the science team is eager to begin. I'll notify you as soon as we have something to report.

I'm not posting another cap for the scrollbar because the last line literally only adds "to these questions." as the end of the final sentence. I've never built the small item this unlocks, because I feel like there are almost always better options, and we have neither the available power, nor the inclination to build Alien Containment just yet. "So why did you research Xenobiology first then, Bal, if you're not going to use it? Alien Weaponry was a choice last time too, you know." Patience, all will be explained in time.

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IqjubJj.png I still can't believe Dr. Vahlen expects our troops to try and bring one of those things back here in one piece... much less alive.

Yup, I was afraid this was coming up. I'm not sure why Bradford took this opportunity to share his misgivings about the new research priority, but I guess he was waiting for me to leave the labs and get away from Vahlen?

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Rrqb4AT.png Excellent, we look forward to seeing your progress.

It's a bomb disposal mission. Oh boy, my favorite (this is sarcasm folks). At least the rewards are juicy.

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eclipse is our first rocketeer, I also make Life an Assault like planned, The End becomes a Scout, Destiny Hero becomes a medic, and Axioma takes the Sapper perk, which increases grenade damage by 1 and increases her damage to the environment. I'm probably going to do a hybrid path on her, to be honest, but we'll see how things develop.

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This is the final squad. Council missions are serious time, especially in early game. No fooling around with any rookies here.

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IqjubJj.png Strike-One, Council intel indicates the aliens are charging a plasma bomb of some kind in your vicinity. Time is running short, we need to locate and disarm that weapon before they're able to finish priming it. New objective received.

Oh boy, it's the fountain map... After we load in, Bradford gives us the skinny on the bomb disposal mission requirements.

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My first move reveals a lone thin man pod, who moves to flank. I have to fall back with The End, as none of the other positions I can take will let me get eyes on him, so we're going to have to try to overwatch trap him, while still making progress towards the other end of the map. Easier said than done.

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It doesn't actually trip any of our overwatch, moving into sight at just the last square, apparently.

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Power nodes are like doors, can be disarmed without costing movement, and for each node you disable, you get one additional turn before the bomb explodes. Anyway, Axioma destroys the thin man's bench, opening up an easy flank shot.

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When thin men die, their bodies release a cloud of noxious acid, which will debilitate units passing through it. It lasts a few turns before dissipating.

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It might be a little early to throw the scanner, but I want good info before rushing downfield to try to keep pace with the countdown. There's no sign of any contact, so we can go a little more aggressively, but we still should keep in mind things could patrol into us.

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Instead it seems we catch one pod of two sectoids patrolling away from us. Neat.

FIKYFa0.png Good work. That'll buy us a little more time, but you still need to find that bomb!

Each time you disarm another node, Shen has some encouraging words for you.

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The pod of two continues heading northwest (according to our current orientation), but a pod of three patrols into us instead.

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Marthur bags one on overwatch, no problems.

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Good cover is a little scarce, and it's hard to get angles on the aliens that have any hope of hitting. Fortunately, eclipse finds a flank, and even with the decreased damage the SMG does (in exchange for higher mobility, to offset the weight of the rockets she's hauling around) the crit still manages to get the job done.

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I have Marthur throw smoke to try to protect my men, but despite appearing to be covered in the indicator, the smoke radius is actually somewhat glitchy, and neither of them receive the defense buff. fml

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The one pod of two we knew about is almost all the way back by that far car, and we catch sight of another unactivated pod of two coming to rest in between the benches.

FIKYFa0.png Good job, Strike One. That should buy us a few minutes.

Destiny Hero disables another node, right by where that thin man spawned, then I have to figure out how to approach the last active sectoid, who overwatched.

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I end up trusting in the 4%, but I activate the pod by the benches as I advance.

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I have zero patience for that, so I try to align a rocket to hopefully deal with that problem. The rocket, like a grenade, will affect its full radius but with diminishing effects as you get farther from the center. Unlike grenades, there's an inherent scatter on the rocket affected by your soldier's current aim. It has a 68% chance (one standard deviation) of its epicenter falling within +/- x tiles of your chosen epicenter, with an equal probability of scattering in any direction. This is more or less what happens here, with eclipse pulling it several tiles southwest of where I aimed, but it still takes out one, wounds the other, and blasts away the flowerbed cover.

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The End misses a ~40% on the near sectoid, while the others are still trying to get to better positions, closer to the action.

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They get suppressed for their trouble, and the full health sectoid falls back in a double move to cluster next to its friend. The unrevealed pod stops just nearby them as well.

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I tried getting Axioma into range for a grenade, but she was too far away, so we're gambling on another rocket here. We only hit two of four, but honestly, that's just fine considering how wide the scatter could possibly have been. I count it a very lucky shot.

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This allows me to keep pressing forward, like the turn counter mandates I do, without worrying about activating too many aliens at once.

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Unfortunately the alien was still behind the statue when this reaction fire triggered, so it had shittier than normal odds and misses.

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Destiny Hero makes their Will save though, so I'm okay with this situation, the alien came closer and should be flankable next turn.

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Life takes a wound that doesn't pierce past their armor HP, so that's great news as well.

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The End manage a snipe flank on the further back 'toid.

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It ends up that I need to blow up the flowerbed to flank the near one after all.

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Destiny Hero keeps clearing nodes, and takes the alien out of commission. At this point there are no more aliens on the map, we just need to find the bomb, disable it, then deal with drop-ins.

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I still take it kind of cautious, because I don't know for sure that there are no additional pods lurking. So I advance, and clear all the nodes, take time to reload and reposition.

FIKYFa0.png That's another power node down.

Power node, powered down.

Lights out on that power node.

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I have Destiny Hero heal up Life, just so that if there's another light graze hit, they won't have sick bay time.

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IqjubJj.png Strike-One, you've got a wave of X-Rays closing on your location. Eyes up. Objectives updated.

With about one turn extra breathing room (for an ideal fully reloaded, repositioned, overwatched disarm. I could have easily done a rush disarm a couple turns earlier if I'd been delayed considerably more by the initial pods) we set things in motion.

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Unfortunately, the drop-ins are way far away from us, and Long War changed it so that enemies drop in in-cover, so Axioma was the only one with a shot and she missed the 25%.

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I misjudged line of sight range, and the bus corner Marthur moved to was one-square too close, so they ate a nasty overwatch, that's going to put them out of commission for a long time. I should have just ran it with The End, even though they weren't ideally located and probably would have had to double move for it. In any case, the overwatch did need to be cleared, so Axioma could reposition, as she was bracing against the wrong wall of the bus to deal with that ay-hole.

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Destiny Hero is standing by with medpacks, though, so it could have been worse.

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Axioma moves to flank, and misses the 68%...

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So I have Marthur lay down suppressing fire.

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Since the thin man is already flanked, it tries to bolt, even though it's being suppressed, which grants an Opportunist reaction fire. Marthur gets their revenge.

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I don't have eyes on the other two thin men after the alien phase, so I advance with The End first, but still no sign of them. Destiny Hero tops Marthur off with their last medkit charge, then I set up some overwatches.

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Axioma is just not having any luck with her gun today...

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If I was thinking ideally, I would have had The End move to a different location, as I forgot the Marksmen Rifle's close range penalties would already be kicking in, and the pathing on Life's dash hasn't been fully tested safe of overwatch. However, I luck out.

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The last thin man finally comes forward and spits Acid at Life. When actively acided, you suffer aim and mobility penalties, and after any costly action (aside from hunker) a biological unit suffering acid will take 1 point of damage.

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Axioma makes up for missing all her shots by successfully blowing up the cover I needed gone on each of her grenades (almost certainly helped by now having Sapper), so I'm perfectly fine with her performance this mission.

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A steadied aim, cinematic snipe by The End closes out the mission.

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IqjubJj.png We haven't scrambled our fighters to intercept the latest UFO contact. Let's hope it doesn't do any serious damage.

Curiously enough, as we're heading back to base, we see that UFO from earlier take off and leave Canada. Bradford chides us for our "negligence" but there was honestly nothing to be done about it. Period.

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We also get a pity Meld for our efforts here at the bottom of the scrolldown. Aside from losing three sectoid corpses and fragments to eclipse's rockets, and the goof that sent Marthur to medbay, this was a remarkably smooth council request.

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Rrqb4AT.png We'll be in touch, Commander.

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I start excavating, because I have some cash and it will be needed sooner or later. (The 10 space dollars it costs on the first level won't break the bank, but the five days might if I end up wanting it and it isn't cleared.) I debated starting building a power station and the next access lift, but decided to put it off until they would complete after the council report, so their operating costs wouldn't ding our budget.

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Damn, that panic reduction on India sure was effective. I kind of wish Asia was in the orange instead of Brazil or Egypt though, as with one country already lost there, I'd rather the aliens focus their bombing and terror runs over there where I can't get any continent bonus. I'm pretty sure the aliens like to target the most panicked countries.

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I zoned out a little there until the excavation finished and stopped the scanner (a quality of life change introduced in Long War, if memory serves), so that means I miss a potential two days or so of possible power, but it's whatever, I inch forward far enough for the Access Lift and get them both building. I spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of skipping the top level power square and just leaving it for a far-down-the-line Elerium Generator, but that just didn't seem like a worthwhile option in the end. The two Fission Generators on the top level will be cheaper than a Thermal and provide nearly equivalent power (with the adjacency bonus), so the fact that the Thermal is out of reach for awhile isn't too bothersome after all.

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As we start scanning again, we get our first non-satellite country request. Xenobiology allows countries to ask us for Sectoid corpses in exchange for scientists, and while honestly 6 for 1 isn't the best trade I've seen, I'm not turning down any potential gain to our lab staff at this point.

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We get another UFO contact, finally, and send up Hammer to beat them down.

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zpYY3Nq.png We lost the bubble.

He was doing very well until he got crit (yes, ships and UFOs can crit too) for a huge amount of damage. Pressing Abort immediately after still gave me a heart attack as the UFO launched another shot before he registered and pulled out, but thankfully he dodged that one.

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Webb manages to finish the job without getting hit. I have high hopes for this pilot. I stopped playing here, because I was excited, and didn't want to make any rash decisions on who to bring on the mission.

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Edited by Balcerzak
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