2731

Now this might be the Friday evening cocktails talking…

I think XCOM2 is the best squad based, turn based game ever made. Just the best. Convince me that I’m wrong. :)

2732

I’ve played 423 hours of it so far, and as I mentioned above I periodically get the itch and run another entire campaign so that number isn’t even finished.

Which puts in my top 5 most played games ever, and the next closest at 396 is XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

So you won’t get any argument from me. I’d spend another 400 hours in this before I’d ever spend even 5 more minutes in Phoenix Point.

2733

This may be a Friday Manhattan answering, but I want to believe in the Switch version. If it’s good I’m in.

2734

No arguments here. The RPG mods make it even better imo.
It is just so polished and well made.

I hope that the new tactical Gears game come close!

2735

I don’t even get 5mins because I refunded during pre-release because they went exclusive, not that I am against Epic store. But because I have very dim view of people who break Kickstarter promise to give steam keys. And breaking promises purely for money is unforgivable, especially when they claim that they are not under any financial pressure at all.

2736

Yeah it has the unique distinction and honor of being the very last game I will ever kickstart.

Hope Gollop is proud of himself.

2737

My wife calls this G.I.Joe Chess. I love it. Super polished, masterful UI, multi layered but brilliantly simple systems. It’s a masterpiece.

Now turn the overworld map into a better version of the one from XCOM:Apocalypse and I’ll play that game for-ever.

2738

Played over 100 hours myself so yes I love it too but I think I enjoyed Jagged Alliance more.

2739

Nope, it’s great. G.I. Joe chess is a great description, if you only watch. If you play, you know how deep it is.

2740

You’re wrong.

2741

Yeah, that’s what I find lacking in XCom 2 is character. Sure enough, the emergent character development that happens through the game is ok, but a roster of soldiers/operatives to choose from I think would have injected more interest in the game for me. I don’t remember any of my squad I’ve had across my playthroughs beyond the lackadaisical Aussie sniper with his ever casual bucket hat. WotC at least started to meet that desire. I desire something beyond every rookie being a clean slate lacking any real character traits, both good and bad. Jagged Alliance at least has memorable characters with their own quirks and abilities.

2742

I strongly prefer the purity of the “story-telling” in XCom, and I wasn’t crazy about some of the ways they tried to shoe-horn more story into the expansion.

I had my character pool set up with about 100 people that I know in real life and maybe 20 celebrities, with their appearances set to very vaguely resemble them. That was more than enough set the stage in my mind for all kinds of interesting drama to play out. You will immediately read way more into little random events when they are being ascribed to people you know well. And it’s fun when, The Postman-style, Geddy Lee pops up as needing to be rescued from the aliens.

edit: I do find it interesting that some people put a character in this game that is supposed to be them. Never would have occurred to me in a million years. I’m not someone who recreates myself in games, in general, though.

2743

You know I tried this out maybe nine months ago or so, because I figured it would be right up my alley because I love XCOM and tactical shooter thingies like this, but for some reason I just couldn’t grok the interface or figure out what was going on and therefore it wasn’t… fun. I didn’t even make it through the first map. I’m kinda sad about it.

2744

It can be a little daunting at first, but that’s mostly because of how many options the game offers, both on tactical and strategic layer. I hope you give it another chance, even in its vanilla iteration (1.12) it’s still head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to tactical options. The 1.13 mod pushes that beyond anything you could imagine in your wildest dreams, and then some.

2745

I really should. I think I might have also been having an issue with not all of the keystrokes getting correctly translated on the linux laptop. (I think I was trying the GOG version, maybe?) Is there a good “here’s what you do for the first half hour” guide somewhere? (There must be.)

2746

Couple years ago there was a linux port available, might want to look into it. I think it’s called straciatella and its aim was to preserve the vanilla experience while updating the code for modern systems. I don’t know if it supports modern resolutions, but 1.13 does for sure.

As for early game tips - hire 3-4 mid tier mercs - some good early game choices are Ice, Igor, Wolf and a few others. Characters with high wisdom will advance their skills faster. Also do the psych evaluation test so you can make your own custom merc for 3000$ and 0 wage. I recommend you completely dump mechanical, explosives, medical, max health, strength, marksmanship around 70-75, leadership ~60. Try to get Night Ops and Stealthy as traits.

Your first priority will be to secure Omerta, this will be relatively straight forward. Once the enemies are dead, find Fatima, give her the letter, meet the rebels, get Ira into your team. From there your next and most critical objective will be to first secure Drassen airport which will allow you to fly gear and other mercs into the country. After that liberate the rest of the town and make sure you talk to the head miner to transfer the operating income to you. This will give you the proverbial foot in the door and from there on you can do whatever you want. At this point I wouldn’t train militia yet, especially if you’re playing on easier difficulties. After Drassen I usually scout the nearby sectors for Skyrider (heli pilot), take out nearest SAM sites and then make my way to the center of the map and liberate Cambria. After that you can go pretty much anywhere you want except Meduna, but NW will be easier than Alma or Belime.

If you have night ops mercs with NVGs and silenced weapons you’ll be able to fight on your terms.

Other than that, use your head. If you think of an action that you think would work in real life it will probably work in JA2. That means you can use gunfire to draw enemies into ambushes, a feature that is for some reason absent from virtually every other tactical turn based squad game. You can also blow holes in building walls, which is hella impressive if you consider that the game came out in 1999.

Once you get your feet wet with the game I would strongly urge you to consider 1.13 - the sheer array of tactical options and hundreds upon hundreds of items that in many ways directly affect gameplay in a realistic manner are simply breathtaking and a thing that absolutely must be experienced by anyone who likes their TBS games a little more on the simulation side.

2747

Fuck me, now I want to play JA2 again.

QT3 Xcom 2 thread: Come for the aliens, stay for the regime change.

EDIT to add: For anyone following me down the JA2 rabbit hole…

2748

Hell yeah!

Heads up, the mod enables Drassen counter attack by default and that can be very brutal, especially in combination with other features like sector reinforcements turned on. Last time I played I had to fight off about 100-120 enemies in one night. At some point I had to leave my well defended building just to scour for ammo from the dead bodies just outside the door.

2749

I played 1.13 a few years ago a few times (it can be brutal), but i didnt read the readme, didnt realize you could reset the resolution. How does it look it you up it?

please dont say, better…lol…my ‘to play’ list is full despite a pandemic. lol

2750

Better :P. It’s pixel resizing so some elements of the UI might be a little problematic on high resolution monitors because they’ll be very small. I don’t remember if there are any settings to rescale the UI.