How To To Clean Install Xcom 2

When information technology comes to hardcore tactics games, it doesn't get much better than XCOM. The classic PC franchise is still in full force thanks to Firaxis' XCOM 2 and the excellentState of war of the Chosenexpansion, every bit well every bit the recent XCOM: Chimera Squad.OurXCOM twobeginner'southward guide will get you started on the right foot, detailing soldier classes, Avenger rooms, and general gameplay tips.

General XCOM ii tactics

Programme your turns in accelerate

XCOM iiis a turn-based game, so y'all can take as much time as y'all desire to plan out your turns. That includes swapping to other members of your squad for a tactical advantage. Earlier making your moves, you'll want to take stock of your squad and what they're capable of. Although it's tempting to dive in and start shooting targets right away, information technology'southward better to programme what you lot're going to do with all your squad members before confirming a single action.

State of war of the Called added a clutch feature that many players had already modded in, which is the ability to preview available targets when deciding where to movement your units. Holding Left Alt volition bring up all of the targets your soldier will be able to shoot from the tile yous're highlighting, taking out all the guesswork and making information technology much easier to program your turns precisely.

Concealment and Overwatch make a deadly combo

New toXCOM 2,you'll begin many missions "concealed." While y'all're concealed, enemies will be unaware of your presence and volition have a much more limited range of sight. This gives you an opportunity to position your troops before the fight begins, or, if you have a stealth soldier in your squad, sneak upward and have out enemies undetected.

While you're concealed, position your soldiers on high ground and effectually flanks, if possible. Then, have all simply 1 of the members of your squad activate Overwatch, attempting to target as much of the enemy field every bit possible. With your last soldier, burn at one of the aliens and let the fireworks begin. Enemies will outset pouring into the battlefield, triggering Overwatch and giving you a free attack. Only make sure to position your Overwatch to take out as many targets as possible. It's better to face three enemies at full wellness than five enemies at 25% wellness.

Brand sure to extract your soldiers

Permadeath is nevertheless present inXCOM 2,so if y'all lose a soldier on the battlefield, yous lose them forever. Notwithstanding, their bodies remain on the battlefield, forth with all the gear they have equipped. Whenever a soldier dies, make sure to extract their body dorsum to the Avenger. Doing so allows you to re-equip any gear they take and salve their torso from alien desecration.

Lead with explosives

Armor works a scrap differently inXCOM two than its predecessor. The yellowish lozenge at the finish of a character'due south health bar acts equally a constant reduction on all damage taken. Nevertheless, armor tin can be shredded by explosives (or normal grenadier attacks with certain upgrades), which permanently removes it for all subsequent attacks. Furthermore, many of the cover-providing environmental elements tin can exist destroyed past grenades.

Appropriately, it is oftentimes best to pb a round of attacks with explosives, which will shred armor, destroy comprehend, and generally brand enemies more vulnerable to attacks from the rest of your squad, ensuring the well-nigh value for your deportment. This is especially pertinent for ambushes from concealment, when unwitting enemies are more than closely clustered than they will be one time engaged.

Abound the resistance early and often

While the geoscape strategic metagame is certainly much more interesting inXCOM 2 than edifice satellites inEnemy Unknown, in that location are sure similarities to how you should approach it. The game will present yous with lots of tempting options for ways to spend your fourth dimension in the Avenger, picking upwardly valuable resources or recruits. Focus on expanding the resistance early in the game, contacting new regions, and building radio towers in regions y'all own, once yous have researched them. All of these will increment your monthly supply income, which is critical to your long-term success.

Radio towers likewise have the added bonus of reducing the intel cost of contacting new regions, which is based on the distance to the nearest tower. Global access becomes increasingly important as the game goes on and you are prompted to investigate alien facilities around the globe. Having to spend weeks contacting multiple new regions in order to access a disquisitional story mission or Avatar Project facility on the other side of the world can completely kill your momentum.

Stay classy — Grapheme roles and builds

Grenadier

While all of your soldiers can conduct grenades into boxing, grenadiers specialize in raining downwards explosive devastation on the battlefield, and accordingly tin carry more with them than anyone else. Propelled by a specialized launcher, their grenades fly farther and hit for more than damage over a wider radius. Because so many of the cover-providing environmental elements in XCOM ii are destructible and armor tin can be shredded past explosives, grenadiers serve primarily equally a control class, reshaping the battlefield in your favor.

TheDemolitions Proficient skill tree has skills like Heavy Ordinance, Volatile Mix, and Salvo, allowing for grenade fire to be more frequent and effective.
Heavy Gunner, on the other paw, emphasizes the cannon and shredding armor through direct fire.
All of the grenadier's grenade-related bonuses apply toall grenades, such equally the defensive smoke grenade or the diverse experimental grenades from the proving grounds. Armor-melting acrid grenades are particularly synergistic with what grenadiers are already trying to do.

Ranger

Similar Enemy Unknown'due south assault class, rangers are up-close-and-personal heavy damage dealers. Their biggest change this time around is enhanced synergy with the new darkening mechanics. Able to dish out huge damage in single shots, they're perfect for finishing off the well-nigh imminently threatening enemies on the field.

TheLookout tree focuses on stealth, allowing your rangers to extend and abuse the tactical advantage granted past darkening.
Set on instead emphasizes the Ranger's new sword for melee attacks.
Both builds are greatly supported by the Spider/Wraith Suits from the proving ground and the enhanced mobility that they provide.

Sharpshooter

Redesigned fromEnemy Unknown's sniper grade, the sharpshooter's name modify reflects more than robust support for their secondary weapon, the pistol. Sharpshooters focus on impairment from a distance, either concentrated into powerful, unmarried attacks with the sniper burglarize or spread out through a series of rapid pistol shots.

TheSniper tree supports the traditional role of a loftier damage dealer who provides cover for the residue of the squad from a distance.
Gunslingers, on the other hand, are much amend at maintaining force per unit area while staying on the move, reserving rifle shots for more specialized situations.
Keep in mind that weapon upgrades only utilize to the sniper rifle, and cannot be used for the pistol.

Specialist

A flexible support class, specialists primarily human action through their flying gremlin drones, which heal and protect their squadmates or harass and disable robotic foes. They likewise specialize in some other ofXCOM 2's new mechanics, hacking. Having at least one specialist focused on healing with you at all times is practically a requirement for keeping your squad alive every bit the game goes on. Because the two skill trees fill such different roles, doubling up on Specialists can be one of the best ways to capitalize on the increased squad size bonuses from the guerrilla tactics school.

Battle Medicskills do exactly what you would await, allowing for the Specialist to keep their squadmates fresh with medical and revival protocols.
Gainsay Hackers become more than of import as the game goes on and you see some of its nastier robots, such as the avant-garde MECs and the towering sectopods.
Note that all of the gremlin's protocol abilities require a single action and do non end the turn, allowing for immense flexibility in how Specialists carry their turns.
Because Specialists benefit the most from medkits or the hacking-aiding skulljacks, they are especially well served by the additional utility item slot in the basic Predator and Warden Armors.

Psi Operative

The 5th soldier class introduced inXCOM ii ,the psi operative works differently from the others. Instead of gaining promotions through field feel, Psi operatives level up through training in a specialized facility on the Avenger. Moreover, rather than progressing linearly through a sequence of choices for new abilities, psi operatives choose each successive ability to train from a random selection, significant they can get access to their most powerful abilities from the beginning, or acquire both abilities from the same tier. These powers can exist extremely impactful on the field, so it behooves you to get a jump on training your psi operatives equally early on as possible, which is easy with some focused research.

In order to access psi operatives, first kill a Sectoid in the field. Instructing Dr. Tygan to consummate the Sectoid Autopsy will unlock the Psionics research project, which volition in plow let you build the Psi Lab. Stick a fresh recruit in there and commencement them training, and you'll be mind-controlling aliens in no fourth dimension. Staffing the Lab with an engineer or gremlin substantially accelerates the training process.

SPARK

SPARK soldiers are robotic units similar to MECs inXCOM: Enemy Within. SPARKs are very powerful soldiers with high defense and attack. That makes them devastating on the battlefield, allowing you lot to position a SPARK soldier as a high-powered impairment dealer, or as a high-defense support unit.

SPARK units have the key Overdrive power, which allows them to take upwards to three actions in a plough with no plough-ending actions. This is the outset skill in the SPARK tree. After unlocking a few more than, yous'll have 2 class trees to choose from:

TheMilitaryskill tree focuses on raw power, allowing you to pause through walls and cover, avoid recoil penalties in Overdrive, and rush forward to deal a massive melee assault to any enemy.
TheFuture Combatis a general skill tree that balances crime and defense, offering boosts to Heavy Weapons and extra armor points.

Home is where your jet is — Base Building

At first glance, your base within the mobile Avenger looks similar to the side-on view of your underground facility inEnemy Unknown —a bisected grid of stacked rooms reminiscent of Fallout Shelter orThe Life Aquatic. Conforming the smaller, scrappier scale of your operation this time effectually, still, the grid is half the size at three past four rooms. That many fewer decisions make each one all the more important, so here are some tips for getting the nearly out of your base:

Brand sure all of your engineers are always busy. Shen reminds you when they are totally idle, only be mindful of ones that might be staffed in inactive rooms, similar a proving basis with no projection or the advanced warfare center with no injured soldiers.
Exposed ability coils are randomly distributed with (as far as nosotros accept seen) two in the lower half of the filigree. These either reduce the power cost of rooms built on them or increase the output of ability relays. The latter is ideal for getting the well-nigh use out of them. Similar to Steam Vents in Enemy Unknown, program your base of operations appropriately.
Unlike inEnemy Unknown, side by side rooms of the same type no longer confer any bonus to efficiency, and thus should non gene into your layout decisions. In general, you will rarely want to build more than one of whatsoever given facility, upgrading those you accept instead of redundant expansion.
Clearing out rooms comes with the added bonus this time effectually of giving you valuable supplies and conflicting resource for your problem. Disallowment anything in particular yous need them to exercise, this is the all-time default job for your engineers to be doing.

Build the Guerrilla Tactics School and showtime preparation soldiers

The most important room is the Guerrilla Tactics School, by far. First, it allows you to invest in Combat Tactics, a new feature toXCOM twothat offers bonuses such as actress experience from kills for your squad and an increased squad size for missions. That concluding one, in item, makes some of the later missions much easier.

Additionally, the Guerrilla Tactics School allows you to train rookies to take on whatever grade you want. Every bit y'all recruit new rookies, make certain to e'er take one of them training in the Guerilla Tactics Schoolhouse. That volition allow you lot to invest in skills, shortening the gap between rookies and your key soldiers.

Build enough of Power Relays

Each room in the Avenger has a ability price, and at the beginning ofXCOM two,you'll only have enough power to provide electricity to a few rooms. The mechanic is pretty elementary, then: Build Power Relays as you lot need them, and you'll be fine. That works, in theory, but the reality is that you generally won't have enough time or resources to build Power Relays every bit you need them.

Considering of that, consider edifice an actress Power Relay or two from the showtime. Doing then will give you lot plenty of juice to ability other rooms without worrying well-nigh running out, particularly as you start to build out the Avenger.

Pay attention to adjacency

Although placement isn't always important, there are a few key rooms that care nearly the rooms around them. The most of import is the Workshop, which gives yous two extra engineer drones to staff other rooms. The catch: Yous can but send Workshop engineer drones to rooms immediately above, below, or to the side of the Workshop.

You only have a certain amount of space to build new rooms, and then make sure to go along in mind any adjacency conditions when building. Using the Workshop as an instance over again, yous'd want to make certain to either leave space around the room or to build the Workshop effectually rooms you desire to staff.

War of the Chosen tips

Become hunting

The eponymous called are the headline feature of the new expansion, and accordingly, yous will want to prioritize dealing with them very highly. They will start to evidence up during random missions early in the game to mess with you, simply their harassment apace extends to the strategic layer also where they will clench downwards on regions you lot control, steal from you, and somewhen hunt yous down. The longer they get unaddressed, the more powerful they become, so it's in your all-time interest to handle them as early equally possible.

You proactively take on the chosen with a series of 3 covert actions with each of their respective rival resistance factions (which are randomly assigned each game), where completing the final action unlocks a conventional mission to raid their stronghold and destroy the regeneration device that keeps them coming back. In add-on to the advantage of no longer having such a powerful enemy bothering you, each Chosen also rewards unique and powerful weapons when defeated, which will requite you a major leg up for the residue of the game.

Lost and gone forever

A zombie past whatsoever other name would smell as putrid. The Lost are another new and interesting threat that tin can seriously change up how y'all approach missions. They prove up in large groups that, in some missions, will merely spawn endlessly until you exit, making concluding stands a futile, losing suggestion.

Fortunately, to bargain with them you become the added bonus of whatsoever conventional, ranged kill shot giving you a free action, which lets you lot chain Lost kills for as long equally you accept targets and/or ammo. Although information technology's mostly important in any mission, keeping your germination tight and not over-extending is crucial in Lost missions, where it's possible to get swamped past unexpected pods.

Melee works in a pinch, simply annotation that information technology will not trigger the headshot gratuitous action, then salve that for when your ranger has run out of ammo/actions otherwise and won't be left as well exposed. Explosives can be helpful for dealing with big mobs, only continue in mind that they similarly exercise not trigger the complimentary action and that the sound volition draw more than Lost. Use them merely as a concluding resort, if you're already close to your objective, or if there are too Advent troops to soak upwardly their attention.

When chaining Lost headshots, be certain to accept note of their wellness pools: Regular Lost take 2-iv health, and thus can be 1-shot by nearly of your troops without also much problem, but the Brutes accept a larger health pool that often takes 2 shots, and so don't accidentally stop your turn early on by failing to terminate the job if you don't have an marry to aid mop up. Once your squad is securely at the evac zone, within reason you can stick around an extra round or two to mop up XP from endless Lost waves, but don't get cocky.

Manage fatigue

In addition to worrying about your soldiers' physical health and ensuring you lot ever accept enough in active rotation,War of the Chosen now adds their mental health to your concerns. Soldiers tin can be "tired" after missions even if they were not physically injured. As long as they are otherwise in good health you can always bring tired soldiers along on missions, merely information technology gives them a much better risk of developing negative personality quirks that can go a real headache for you lot downward the road. These include phobias of detail aliens, causing them to sometimes panic at the sight of sectoids or mutons, for instance, or compulsions that might cause them to act out of turn, similar an obsessive-compulsive need to proceed their ammo topped off, or a paranoia that leads them to hunker downwards sometimes on their 2d action.

This can be utterly devastating in later game missions where every action counts. You can mitigate this by fugitive bringing tired units along if yous tin. Sometimes you need to bring a sleepy soldier along for a crucial mission, nonetheless, and even fully rested troops can develop neuroses. When that happens it's worthwhile to stick them in the hospital for a few days,Darkest Dungeon-style, to purge the negative trait.

Believe in the power of friendship

Your soldiers can now form relationships from fighting alongside one some other, called Bonds. Every member of your team has a compatibility rating with every other. Sending them out on missions together causes their Cohesion meter to make full, the charge per unit at which it does depending on how compatible the soldiers are.

In addition to merely going on missions together, soldiers grow closer by doing things like reviving 1 another from debilitating mental states, or surviving when the rest of the team is wiped. Bonds lets them practise things like lend their deportment to one some other once or twice per mission, reduce the time spent on covert deportment together, or eventually take simultaneous attack actions. Level 1 bonds can be established instantly equally presently as both soldiers' cohesion meters are full, just advancing the bond to levels ii and iii requires both soldiers to spend several days in the Training Center, so y'all're going to want to have that up and running by the mid-game.

Note that bonds are monogamous and "'til death exercise us part," so don't lock in those level i bonds if you lot are hoping to pair them off differently.

Maximize your AP

Rather than unlocking new abilities once per level, your soldiers at present purchase them with a organisation of earned power points. In practise, this works out the same in that you still pick i of several potential skills at each new tier, simply now you can also go back and spend points on abilities from previous tiers as well, fundamentally changing the need to specialize your soldiers. Furthermore, where building the advanced warfare center in the base of operations game gave you lot a chance for each unit to pick up one random off-grade ability, now y'all have a selection at random levels available for buying with points, opening upward even more than customization options.

Every soldier has an individual AP count earned through experience, which scales to a new stat called "Gainsay Intelligence," merely there is now too a shared XCOM pool that can exist spent on whatever character. These shared points are earned through several in-mission actions. Your soldiers taking shots from loftier ground, from a flanking position, or from concealment all have a chance to grant a single point to the shared pool, which increases in likelihood with college gainsay intelligence.

Taking out the called during a mission will besides internet you five points for the organization. We recommend belongings onto these for a fiddling scrap until yous have a stand up-out team in which you are ready to start investing.

A Priest, a Purifier, and a Spectre walk into bar

Across the chosen, Advent has too introduced a few new types of minions to complicate your missions. The priest is primarily a support class, similar to sectoids in that they like to hang back and manipulate the battle with psychic powers such as mind controlling, freezing your troops, and buffing their allies. Prioritize taking out priests early to get in easier for yous to take down their allies — they're not too tough, so it shouldn't exist hard if you become the drop on them.

Purifiers wield flamethrowers to boom out arcs of flame that seem particularly well suited for taking on hordes of Lost. The most important thing to note is that they explode on expiry, and so don't terminate them off with melee attacks unless your rangers are expendable.

Spectres are a highly mobile pain in your barrel that expect like lithe humanoids but are actually an amorphous deject of nanobots. Their most obnoxious power is called Shadowbound, which instantly knocks out one of your soldiers at melee range then creates a shadow clone of them for you to fight. You can revive them either by killing the clone or the Spectre itself, which volition also accept the clone down with information technology. You can also bring them back while both Spectre and clone are withal up if you accept a Specialist who can Revive.

Resistance faction classes

Countering the new threats of the Chosen are your three new resistance faction allies: The Reapers, Skirmishers, and Templars. All 3 of them are extremely powerful, so y'all will desire to brand sure that they are all recruited as early as possible.

During your first playthrough of the expansion with its narrative missions that innovate the new content, you will get hooked up with the Reapers early on, have to rescue Skirmisher Mox, and so locate the Templars in order to recruit them. During subsequent plays, you can commencement with any of the special faction soldiers in your ranks. Covert actions in the resistance band will allow you contact the other two factions, which will give you one of their powerful soldiers.

While information technology'due south possible to recruit additional faction soldiers subsequently in the game through covert deportment, but these are rare and require very high influence with the faction in question. Accordingly, you will want to treat these soldiers like precious resources, breaking them out to tip the scales on crucial missions, peculiarly when their rival Called is likely to exist involved, simply don't throw them around similar any regular recruit, since they are highly useful and hard to supervene upon.

Reaper

Step aside, rangers, because the reaper is the all-time stealth unit in the game, bar none. In addition to being faster and existence able to get substantially closer to oblivious enemies, taking actions that would ordinarily break stealth now merely provoke a take a chance to do and so, allowing your reapers to lookout and flank from the shadows for potentially the entire mission if you build them for it.

Pairing this aggressive mobility with a sniper burglarize makes them a dandy counterpoint to the sharpshooter, who tends to hang back from the squad, providing a lot of coverage if you employ both. Although their damage output isn't e'er quite every bit high as a comparably leveled ranger or sharpshooter, the added versatility of their stealth, plus their ability to have sniper shots on the 2nd activity, more than brand upwardly for it.

Stealthskills practice what you lot would expect, enhancing the reaper'south ability to maintain and go dorsum into darkening while existence increasingly aggressive the more you invest.
Saboteurskills enhance the reaper'due south destructive capability equally a stealthy grenadier-lite, buffing their claymore mine and letting them carry an actress.
Marksmanenhances the reaper's sniping capabilities, substantially increasing the corporeality of damage they tin put out.
Permit reapers atomic number 82 the charge and scout alee whenever they're on a mission, since they are least likely to kicking up trouble from an unexpected Advent pod. Inside reason, y'all should be aggressively positioning your reaper to go maximum data and provide flanking encompass that other classes couldn't.

Skirmisher

Once the genetically engineered puppets of Advent, the Skirmishers have thrown off their shackles and accordingly have a lot of acrimony to work out with Advent. Highly mobile and able to take as many shots as they take deportment, skirmisher units excel at flanking and adapting to unexpected situations. Their grapple lets them zip effectually the level, particularly to high ground, without using an action, making them perfect for swooping behind a troublesome enemy and chewing them up quickly.

Hussar skills are the core of why skirmishers can do and then much on a single turn. Actress deportment tin be extremely powerful in the right circumstance, so both Reflex and Gainsay Presence are clutch skills.
Judge primarily enhances your Ripjack melee attacks.
Tactician offers a grab bag of skills to complement both reactive and damage-focused builds.
Because firing their bullpup rifle does non end their turn, skirmishers are particularly good at taking advantage of additional actions, which can come from their own abilities (such equally Reflex) or from other soldiers, through combat presence, soldier bonds, etc.

Templar

If you lot e'er wanted to mod Protoss Zealots fromStarcraftinto XCOM, templars are for you lot. They wield two wrist-mounted blades of psionic energy and cause havoc up close. The templar might be the most nuanced of the three new classes to use because of their unique Focus mechanic. Killing enemies with their primary Rend attack gains them one point of focus, up to a maximum of two (or iii if you lot cull the Deep Focus power when reach Captain rank).

Focus increases your stats overall but also lets y'all employ certain special abilities. Ghost, for example, costs two Focus and allows you to create a indistinguishable of a Templar from the body of a fallen human.

Psiblade skills heighten the Templar'south melee powerful capabilities, and taking these skills straight downwardly the line is a solid, straight-forwards build.
TheDynamo tree makes the Templar the closest XCOM has to a direct-up spellcaster, giving him or her back up abilities that let you spend focus to manipulate the battleground.
Sage is another back up and focus ability tree, assuasive yous to stun and mark enemies, besides as gain Focus from various other actions.
Templar are dandy in a lot of situations merely are not especially well suited to dealing with the Lost, as their chief Rend set on does not trigger the headshot gratis action do good that most units get.

New facilities in War of the Called

Resistance Band

The most crucial new facility, which you will want to build as soon equally possible, lets you coordinate covert actions with the three resistance factions. Transport your soldiers away for several days in commutation for a whole plethora of rewards like equipment, intel, and recruits (eventually including the more special resistance class soldiers), in add-on to experience for the soldiers involved. Most importantly, this is how you track down the Chosen in a series of iii missions with each faction to rails down their respective rival's lair, unlocking the mission to kill them one time and for all. This also nets yous influence with the faction, unlocking new resistance orders and slots for you lot on subsequent months.

Infirmary

This assumes half of the advanced warfare center'southward functionality because staffing information technology with an engineer increases the healing rate of your injured fighters. Yous tin also place your soldiers hither for several days to eliminate any adverse characteristics they accept procured, much like the Sanitarium in Darkest Dungeon . Calculation the Hypervital Module allows you to return hurt soldiers back to total health merely for an private mission, reverting to their former state immediately following. However, yous can only exercise this one time per game, per fighter. This is a medium priority to develop but grows more disquisitional in Ironman way, or if you lot're concentrating on generating a more small, aristocracy unit rather than a broad, rotating character lineup.

Training Center

Elaborating on the advanced warfare middle's ability to provide your warriors with premium talents from other classes, the grooming center employs War of the Called 'due south new method of personal and shared skill points to purchase upgrades from any level in the course, including a random array of out-of-class powers.

You can also remove fighters from their duty for a few days to retrain their skills rather than acquiring new ones, which will refund their personal AP (but not any XCOM AP) you used on them. This is also where you gear up soldiers to raise their bonds beyond the principal level because it takes a while before your warriors motility to level two bonds. And it doesn't necessarily merit investing loads of points in extra abilities until you have a more refined coiffure, which is a lower priority build. Still, we know you lot volition want it past the time you reach mid-game.

Editors' Recommendations

The best weapons in Dying Calorie-free ii
Destiny ii: Where to observe Xur for the weekend of Feb 18
Everything nosotros know nigh Dune: Spice Wars
The best gaming keyboards for 2022
Xbox Game Pass adds Madden 22, just loses Titanfall