Starting Country Withdrew from my council

[cwayne59]

Playing Long War. I started for the first time in Australia. 2-3 months in. Panic is at maybe 1 or less in Australia. Now suddenly Australia itself withdraws from the Council. Is it normal for your starting country to withdraw? I've never had my starting country withdraw before, though I have seen other countries on the continent do so. Seems really cheesy.

[cwayne59]

Also, I don't get the option to research Floaters. I have 53 Floater corpses. Am I going to need to re-install this?

[Relvor]

I think it is random which country withdraws within the first few weeks. But one definitely will, regardless of panic.
You just got screwed by a 1:16 roll, or in X-com terms, missed a 94% shot. :-)

Floaters require the Alien Biocybernetics tech.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Research_(Long_War)

[cwayne59]

Thanks for info on Floaters. I'll go check my research. On Australia, it wasn't the first country in the beginning. It was the third country. I had lost 2 South American countries , Argentina and maybe Brazil at first. I was doing ok panic-wise I thought. Total of 3 bars in the total panic . Australia only had 1/2 blue panic. It was in the third or 4th month.

[Guilliem]

Depends on how well you are doing as to if a country withdraws. I only lose a country due to alien abductions. But you can also lose them to terror attacks and Exalt attacks.

I have always assumed all X Com games have the principle. If you are not covering that area, then the aliens might be whispering to them.

[Fins]

Originally posted by cwayne59:

Thanks for info on Floaters. I'll go check my research. On Australia, it wasn't the first country in the beginning. It was the third country. I had lost 2 South American countries , Argentina and maybe Brazil at first. I was doing ok panic-wise I thought. Total of 3 bars in the total panic . Australia only had 1/2 blue panic. It was in the third or 4th month.

Panic is one, but not the only, mechanic which can cause a country leave the Council. The other is "Infiltrate" mission, which according to LW wiki does not need any specific panic level at all. The mission involves couple big ships flying over the country 1st, including a battleship - so if you spotted those, then it's very likely this is what you had happened. Then short time after those two big ships, an Overseer UFO comes in (which you do not see if you do not have hyperwave decoder, of course) - and if Xcom does not shoot it down or at least damage it enough to scare it away (which you couldn't do because you didn't even detect it) - then infiltration mission is complete.

The wiki says this is one very expensive mission for aliens, and even when they can afford it resource-wise, they would not normally do it if XCom is percieved by them as a big threat (in which case they'll spend their resources to try and hunt down XCom sats instead). So, if in your game you 1) happened to have them aliens successfully doing relatively many resource-gathering missions and 2) did not manage to do enough damage to alien forces to raise their internal "XCom fear" high enough - then yep, you'd lose countries like that now and then, with no panic involved whatsoever.

Obviously, you counter that by advancing in the main plot enough to be able to assault alien bases and then, well, taking out their bases. This massively reduces Alien resources, massively increases Aliens' concern about XCom ops, and frees 'em countries - win/win/win sorta situation in terms of reducing number of countries dropped out of the council both "now" and in the future.

And of course, note that in LW, losing even 8 countries is not the end; you can keep going even with all but 1 country left (though obviously it's best not to allow that situation to happen, as then it'd be extremely difficult to recover).

[red255]

it still sucks that the 1/16 roll killed his first satellight. and he doesn't get advance warning when the Aliens are going to raid his base, unless that was changed. Only lost my base country once. that run was not good times.

[cwayne59]

Ok.

1). I see i need Alien Computers to research Biocybernetics, so that is why I can't autopsy the Floater.

2) @Fins--Ahh! This explains things. Thank you. It really sucks though.

I finally decided to try to play w/o Save Scumming. Since it's July on this game, I can't take on landed Large or Very Large ships. I can't shoot them down either, or even damage them much. 24-48 hours before Australia defected, a Very Large ship landed there. I didn't even try, cause I know my guys will just get shot up and I'll loose the whole darn drop squad. Previously, I would have Save Scummed my way through the Large ships, and probably would not have even gotten the Very Large ship landing, at least not in my starting country. That's probably why I've never seen this kind of defection before.

I think by the end of July (its the 16th now) I'll have Alien Grenades and maybe a Laser Sniper/laser marksman/laser scattergun, and can start building laser cannons if money. So I'll see how it goes. Thanks for the explanations guys (and gals if any out there)

Man, I feel like a stupid wus if I save scum, and if I don't the aliens mug me! Does this happen to everyone else? What do you do when those Large ships land and all you have are your weapons with one or two laser rifles and carbines? Or should I have better weapons by June? Am I doing something wrong or is this just how it usually plays out?

[Fins]

Originally posted by cwayne59:

Ok.
...I didn't even try, cause I know my guys will just get shot up and I'll loose the whole darn drop squad. Previously, I would have Save Scummed my way through the Large ships, and probably would not have even gotten the Very Large ship landing, at least not in my starting country. That's probably why I've never seen this kind of defection before.

I think by the end of July (its the 16th now) I'll have Alien Grenades and maybe a Laser Sniper/laser marksman/laser scattergun, and can start building laser cannons if money. So I'll see how it goes. Thanks for the explanations guys (and gals if any out there)

Man, I feel like a stupid wus if I save scum, and if I don't the aliens mug me! Does this happen to everyone else? What do you do when those Large ships land and all you have are your weapons with one or two laser rifles and carbines? Or should I have better weapons by June? Am I doing something wrong or is this just how it usually plays out?

1st, it was one big mistake to not try. You see, Long War handles "never assaulted" and "assaulted but retreated from" in quite different manner. You should still send a squad there, possibly with couple useless stat-wise rookies as cannon fodder, and _try_ to take it out. If things go south, just return to starting zone and abort the mission, saving all the soldiers you deem important.

2nd, save-scumming is nothing to be ashamed of - and not because it's a good practice in general, but because Long War is by default designed to be so. With many soldiers starting with aim so poor they miss nearly half of their shots to enemies out of cover, and will so low they panic whenever some bird on a roof farts too loud? Long War practically _begs_ to be save-scummed through. By design. Fortunately, there is .ini settings which allow to remove this said feature of LW tactical combat. I recommend following changes to it - playing it myself and enjoying it immensely, they both improve gameplay and are far more realistic IMO, when combined with each other:

- increase partial cover from 30 to 45, and full cover from 45 to 80. This works for both soldiers and aliens, and represents much more realistic probabilities overall: what kind of "full" cover it is if soldier is still hit 55% of the time? In real life, that's no cover at all and no soldier would use it in their sane mind. 80% is much closer to reality;

- increase "soldier" class base aim to 95, and set "minimum" aim to 80 (assuming default not-created-equally setting is played). This represents real life's soldiers ability to hit in-range, not-covered target nearly 100% of the time. Yet as son as there is partial or full cover boosted per aobve, their hit chances drop down back to pretty much "LW default" chances, for full cover and lower-aim rookies - even less. Facilitates way more tactical play for the player: flanking, cover destruction, height advantage all become even more important, but in the same time no longer will you have those "dude the enemy was right in front of this rookie why did he miss!!!" stupid moments which urge you to save-scum so much.

3rd, by mid-July, you are expected to have at least a few Mind Control psions. LW enables psi training early on, and you should take full benefit of it. Those are the key to defeating larger landed UFOs if everything else fails. I strongly recommend creating at least 2, better 4 Concealment scouts based on your highest Will rookies and train Mind Control on them ASAP. Not Medics (who get slightly better Will progression than Scouts), because between bit higher Will in compare to ability to sneak into MC-applying range undetected any number of times - the latter wins by a mile. Further, Lightning Reflexes allow those psions be rarely hit by reaction shots whenever they need to retreat (say failed MC attempt). And of course, keep an officer or two behind them to Command those psions out of harm's way in cases like two MCs failing in a row, etc. Overall, Mind Control allows you to make aliens kill _themselves_ instead of doing what you just said - get _your_ guys shot up.

4th, skipping large landed UFOs is one MAJOR loss in terms of alien matherials and loot. LW boosts selling price of many alien items, even basic ones like Alloys. You are well expected to try and grab every last landed UFO except very few exceptions ("trap" UFOs, and very few cases when pod placement randomly resulted in too big a wave of enemies rushing into your cornered team). Without gaining all those major loot amounts, including all the intact internals (power sources, computers, full Alloy / Elerium amounts, etc) your progress through research / requests is massively slowed, which with time have major weakening effect. It's a kind of downward spiral, see.

So i wish you good luck there. If your current campaign is beyond saving - then in the next one. I'm sure you'll find ways to beat it without save scumming, even without any .ini edits if you for some reason do not want to do any. Cheers!

[cwayne59]

@Fins--Really helpful advice and tips. Thanks! Don't know how I'm gonna get Mind Control that fast. Heck, I don't think I've ever captured an Ethereal to interrogate which the Long War Ufopedia saw states that I need.

So, If I send that Skyranger after those ships, do I actaully have to attack. Or can i just land, look around and run? hehe.

Yeah, my research has been slowed dramatically. Didn't have the money to build labs/power plants etc.I thought that was just it being Long. Because Long War.

Its kind of hard to get that research done that fast since you have to build stuff and research and then make you weapons and catch aliens to interrogate for you psi powers. I'll see what I can do.

I'll have to look for the ini file. And try those changes.

[cwayne59]

yeah, where are the ini/config files?

[Fins]

The .ini you want is \Steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config\DefaultGameCore.ini . Has lots of comments in it explaining what's what. Best to NEVER change anything in there you are not 100% sure about. And of course, make a backup of the file before changing anything.

You can just land, look around, spot and kill something and then retreat to the starting zone (visibly highlighted on the ground) and retreat. Not sure how exactly alien losses are handled / calculated in ground missions, but if it's anything like air war - any bit of damage dealt affects things. Best to do exactly the most damage you can, and then retreat if you see you can't win or losses would be too high.

To get MC ASAP, it's to research alien containment and arc thrower 1st, then proceed with the main plot ASAP. Always research priority tech as soon as it gets available, no matter what. But then yeah, to think about it, all default LW settings and psi training times, MC ops in July is very hard to get. I was wrong about timing of it, above. Sorry. Panic may be way easier to get in July, as it's just 1 rank above Sectoid interrogation and Berserker interrogation. With 120+ Will users, iirc, Panic in LW is guaranteed to disable affected target for 2 turns, which is still very big help. And unlike vanilla, in LW panicked aliens never shoot, so it's perfectly safe. But of course, MC is the best and getting it ASAP is still very much a thing to aim for.

[cwayne59]

How oh how do you get 120 Will???? I am doing something really wrong.

In the.ini file I found a section called "Solder Values and Starting Stat Modifiers" There iis a line "Low Aim=58" which is low aim for rookies, but there is no High Aim. Have not yet identified any cover variables, if even the solder variable i found is the correct one.

Oh. Tactial Constants section. Low cover bonus and High cover bonus. So I can change them. Thank you very much.

So I just need to verify the location of the Aim variables.

Also, The aliens mugged me recently. Last mission was a swarming abduction that I had to abort. 3 Mechtoids, 2 Mutons and a Sectoid Commander. Plus a host of sectoids putting a sheild on the Mechtoids. I did kill one Mech, 1 Muton and a couple of sectoids. And a flyer. I really just got tired of playing the mission (and scumming the heck and back). The AI won't fall for bait where you run up, see them and run back. They won't follow into your overwatch or stable fire. They actually back up often, which means I get no Meld.

I have no $ so I can't build anything or do foundry projects. I could sell a few Alien power sources or computers, but then I can build other things. I may only need a couple of power sources to build the Elerium power plant, so maybe I can sell 3 of those. I'm just starting to research Gauss weapons (9 days) and have to build them. Plus foundry projects and other items.

Not sure how long I will continue to soldier on. I've been seeing Muton Berserkers and Elites.

Is there a way to change the name of your save game so that you can start a new game, but recognize the game so you can come back and keep trying later?

[Huillam]

Originally posted by cwayne59:

Also, The aliens mugged me recently. Last mission was a swarming abduction that I had to abort.

Swarming abducations are usually not worth it until fairly late in the game. If you're seeing one early that means the aliens are having the upper hand in the war (which is to be expected for your first LW playthrough).

As for your save you could back it up. They are in: Documents\My Games\XCOM - Enemy Within\XComGame\SaveData