Late game is the hardest

[Infinite Monkeys]

I generally take no losses at all until late mid game (playing legendary), when almost all missions start getting ranked as very hard and pod numbers and alien count increases to high numbers. It's true that you get more gadgets and your soldiers are generally better late game, but because weapon damage doesn't scale entirely to enemy hit point increase and pod composition, I find that in late game enemies get to shoot back, while in early game almost any hit insta-kills the enemy.

During a whole legendary play through, I typically lose about half a dozen soldiers (unless I end up with a meatgrinder campaign, but that's another story), and almost all of those losses are late game.

Am I the only one that has this opinion?

EDIT: To clarify: I am not looking for advice on how to handle late game. I am fully capable of finishing the game. I have merely made the observation that comparing early, mid and late game, I lose more people late game. It's become clear why that is through the posts in this thread - so no further posts to that affect is necessary.

The question remains however: does anyone share that opinion?

[Commander Gorda]

No late game is easier even on legendary. You definetly do some tactical errors if you get soldiers killed when you have plasma weapons and warsuits.

[Infinite Monkeys]

Care to bolster your argument with... Well... Anything at all I guess?

Minimum damage for most weapons early game is equal to the HP of most enemies. Late game, all weapons do less damage than even the weakest late game enemy. Meaning: energy weapons are not the cause of late game being easier.

The extra ability added by the war suit does not undo pod composition or number of enemies late game. During early game, return fire is unlikely to kill you because of low enemy aim scores, twice so mid game. Late game, there are attacks that can one shot inexperienced troops, and the risk of return fire is a lot higher because of enemy survivability, in addition to shots taken being more likely to hit because of higher aim scores.

Veteran or commander was a cakewalk late game, but I find legendary to be harder late game. I take no losses early to mid game, barring extremely unlucky RNGesus events.

[Commander Gorda]

The pods are still 3 even in the late game and its the same amount of enemies. You simple have better soldiers, more options and i cant think of any Enemy able to oneshot a high ranking soldier in a warsuit. Early game you have less options many enemies can oneshot your troops. Early game has more rng, late game can be controlled even with bad rng.
I can take a look at a late game mission you do if you record and give some tips.

[Infinite Monkeys]

Originally posted by Commander Gorda:

The pods are still 3 even in the late game and its the same amount of enemies.

Pod size, yes, number of enemies on the map, no. Early game it's easy to engage just one pod at a time. Late game it gets harder since the number of enemies compared to map size makes it less improbable that you end up fighting two pods at once. While the ideal is that it shouldn't happen, it does happen.

Originally posted by Commander Gorda:

You simple have better soldiers, more options and i cant think of any Enemy able to oneshot a high ranking soldier in a warsuit.

That's why I wrote "inexperienced troops" and not "high ranking soldier."

Originally posted by Commander Gorda:

Early game you have less options many enemies can oneshot your troops.

Only if you fail to kill them first turn, which is easier early game than late game.

Originally posted by Commander Gorda:

I can take a look at a late game mission you do if you record and give some tips.

I'm not in need of help. I am checking if I am alone in the opinion that late game is harder than early game.

[Gregorovitch]

I would say later game there is no single pod that cannot be eliminated in short order on legend if you know what you are doing. Multiple uber-pods at the same time, that's another matter, but then again if you end up fighting multiple pods at the same time then usually you have made a mistake.

I had two missions on my last run were for different reasons I was unable to avoid fighting 3+ pods at once. Those missions were extremely difficult.

[Commander Gorda]

^this

[.O.]

Completely disagree. Once you get 2-4 captains, everything is just a cake walk on legendary ironman.

Especially in WotC, by that point in the game you have so many free actions and your stats are so high each one of your soldiers can take out a pod by themselves. For example, in vanilla legendary ironman, my colonel level sharpshooter with support from one grenadier and one ranger (to soften up the enemies) was able to kill 18 enemies in a single turn using serial. This includes one Gatekeeper.

Also, in legendary iroman WotC I once took a team of 6 rookies with T3 equipment and demolished an entire map with no wounded. Because the equipment makes up for the lack of soldier experience. I did that when working on getting 'Beginner's Luck' achievement.

In legendary ironman, if you have 6 powerful colonels, you can even complete the final mission using nothing but T1 equipment. I did that for the 'Who Needs Tygan?' achievement.

These days the only time I ever lose a soldier playing legendary ironman is within the first 3-4 missions, because at that point in the game, you have less room for error.

[KRON]

Yes, for me late game is far easier than early game. Soldiers get abilities which allow them to attack several enemies per turn, or attack one enemy several times. By the end game I always find myself experimenting on how many soldiers do I actually need to complete a mission and came up with 2 soldiers on commander difficulty and 3 on legendary, on average. Two completely trained psi-op with tier 3 gear and war-suits generally is enough even for legendary.
With WotC, if you buff your soldier enough and if he get lucky with extra abilities, one soldier can complete a mission solo.

[Abrakadabra]

Yeah, something got a little mixed up there.

Its the opposite.

Also depends what late game enemies you have in that particular run. Without mods (or some of the harder late game mods) you become so powerful in late game, that it doesnt even matter just how many pods you pull. You can easily, easily, pull the entire map at once and dominate them, teach them manners, punish them, and then kill the entire map.

Thats how poewrful you get. Youre way more powerful than anything unmodded advent can throw at you. Literally anyhthing. The tools and skills you have access to are just too powreful in unmodded runs. Its certainly not harder late game than early game. Late game is where the excitement usually dies cause you get so op.

[Kaelus Von Sestiaf]

Originally posted by Anoxic event:

Minimum damage for most weapons early game is equal to the HP of most enemies.

That's only true in veteran where advent troopers, lowest of low, have 2-3 hp, mostly 3. In commander they have 3-4, mostly 4. Legendary I assume is an even bigger beast.


But also assuming you're correct, tons of things in the early game are perfectly capable of oneshotting your soldiers without a crit. Stun lancers come to mind.

By the time you have powered armor, sure you can't kill enemies in a single shot... But neither can they, and chances are your damage-dealing soldiers can shoot more than once in one turn.

[Infinite Monkeys]

This is almost funny. Our experiences are inverse. I haven't lost a soldier early game the last 1000 hours or so (not that I can remember anyway). I can't even see how it could be possible. Enemies have 4 HP. FOUR. Only the pistol and assault rifle can possibly fail to kill such an enemy. And their aim is horrible, if you ever get return fire. Unless you're flanked, regular troopers can't kill you. If you get height bonus, you will typically hit, and if you hit, they will always die. I only start getting problems third retaliation mission, when mag weapons doesn't seem to be enough to kill 4 berserkers going bananas on civilians.

But early game? Pscht.

When I lose people, it's in scenarios like Gregorovitch wrote about; pods all hanging around the same area for unknown reasons, not patrolling. Or collateral damage opening up LOS to a pod that hadn't been spotted. If I have time, I try to pull individual pods with a sharpshooter, but sometimes, that's just not possible. There isn't enough time. Especially if the pods are all hanging around the evac.

Example: during a council mission, I move towards the objective while taking out pods. If I end up just moving, then i've added difficulty because the turn wasn't expended combining fighting with moving. So when I cross the entire map without encountering a single pod, only to find that all five pods are hanging around the evac, having a barbecue or whatever, things get difficult. I can't reliably kill all of them (as in every time), sometimes because of LOS issues, sometimes because they've moved into non-destructible cover, and sometimes because they're lucking out with graze mechanics.

That's when I lose people. During return fire. Andromedons critting me through full cover for 15 damage, insta killing whoever it was.

It doesn't happen often, and once I'm at this point, I have so many high level soldiers a loss doesn't really matter. But that's besides the point. The point being: i don't lose people early game, late mid game/early late game. The transition between mag weapons and energy weapons is where the losses tend to pop up.

I have been told a gazillion times that people in general experience the opposite - early game being hard, late game being easy. But that's just not my experience.

[Kaelus Von Sestiaf]

That's very weird.
Well I mean, I haven't dared face legendary yet, I'm currently playing my first commander ironman campaign. I picked the mutator thing that makes dark events permanent, specifically to counter the late game easyness by making it get harder and harder as my army got tougher and tougher.

Recently got the dark event that makes my squad not have concealment, that's going to hurt.
After this campaign I'll try ironman legendary and see how that goes.

[Commander Gorda]

^ why are you fielding inexperienced soldiers in the late game if you dont get soldiers killed in early/midgame and also have also have so many high ranking soldier a loss doesnt Matter?

[Infinite Monkeys]

Originally posted by Kaelus Von Sestiaf:

That's only true in veteran where advent troopers, lowest of low, have 2-3 hp, mostly 3. In commander they have 3-4, mostly 4. Legendary I assume is an even bigger beast.

That's not correct. Most enemies are troopers, an advent trooper has 4 HP on legendary difficulty, and the minimum damage for a cannon, shotgun and sniper rifle is 4. Only assault rifles and pistols can possibly not kill a trooper. Sectoids have raise dead OCD which means there's no point in taking them out first as long as there's corpses around (or you create corpses during your turn). Officers being the only exception that absolutely must die first. The only possible return fire is therefore a pod of 2 troopers and an officer. All other configurations means you win.

Originally posted by Kaelus Von Sestiaf:

But also assuming you're correct, tons of things in the early game are perfectly capable of oneshotting your soldiers without a crit. Stun lancers come to mind.

A dead soldier cannot shoot back. Stun lancers must absolutely die first turn. Unless you've activated two pods at the same time, then they will die first turn. Early stun lancers, like officers, simply don't have enough HP to survive a turn where the player is dedicated to kill them. And it's only later that pods with officer/lancer combos pop up. By then you should have mag weapons or utility items making eventual problems irrelevant. You can disable them as a problem with a simple flashbang even.

Originally posted by Kaelus Von Sestiaf:

By the time you have powered armor, sure you can't kill enemies in a single shot... But neither can they, and chances are your damage-dealing soldiers can shoot more than once in one turn.

Andromedons and Gatekeepers are fully able to one shot soldiers if they land a crit, even late game.

Originally posted by Kaelus Von Sebastien:

Recently got the dark event that makes my squad not have concealment, that's going to hurt.

You can compensate with refraction fields. Ice some spectres and it'll be fine. : )

Originally posted by Commander Gorda:

^ why are you fielding inexperienced soldiers in the late game if you dont get soldiers killed in early/midgame and also have also have so many high ranking soldier a loss doesnt Matter?

Because fielding inexperienced soldiers is how you get experienced ones.

[KRON]

Originally posted by Anoxic event:

Andromedons and Gatekeepers are fully able to one shot soldiers if they land a crit, even late game.

Don't let them shoot? There can't be more than two Andromedons per pod and late game even on legendary they're not that tough. Gatekeepers don't shoot their gun if they can use their psi-abilities, which means you have at least two turns to deal with them until they start shooting.

Originally posted by Anoxic event:

You can compensate with refraction fields. Ice some spectres and it'll be fine. : )

So, you are playing WotC. Late game in WotC is even easier than vanilla. Ranger with blademaster and bladestorm equpped with Katana and researched breakthroughs on +1 damge to swords and +1 damage to tier 3 weapons deals 12-13 damage per strike, which means that one said ranger is more than enough to deal with one Andromedon(which has 24hp on legendary).