Do you rush contact with all factions?

[happyscrub]

So you can get more orders at the start of the month? Is that how it works?

[red255]

you get more orders at the start of the month from doing the chosen missions for the factions.

you get more OPERATIONS by contacting the other orders which allows you to get vital engineers and scientists off the covert operations which is generally more important.

[Tamiore]

I'd rush faction #2 (skirmishers for HQ bonus, reapers for the hero unit).

Faction #3 (templars) can wait. If I have nothing better to do I'll contact them, but that's not a priority.

If Templars are your STARTING faction, well… since they are literally the worst starting faction overall, you clearly have something particular in mind — so just proceed with that plan of yours.

[phillip_lynx]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

I'd rush faction #2 (skirmishers for HQ bonus, reapers for the hero unit).

Faction #3 (templars) can wait. If I have nothing better to do I'll contact them, but that's not a priority.

If Templars are your STARTING faction, well… since they are literally the worst starting faction overall, you clearly have something particular in mind — so just proceed with that plan of yours.

I do not think Templars are the worst. All 3 have ther advantages and disadvantages. You only have to play em right ;).

So, I rush as fast as I can to get all three Factions. More diversity is better.

[TheSuit]

Getting all 3 means you get 4 orders per month.
which can make a huge difference early game .

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by phillip_lynx:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

I'd rush faction #2 (skirmishers for HQ bonus, reapers for the hero unit).

Faction #3 (templars) can wait. If I have nothing better to do I'll contact them, but that's not a priority.

If Templars are your STARTING faction, well… since they are literally the worst starting faction overall, you clearly have something particular in mind — so just proceed with that plan of yours.

I do not think Templars are the worst. All 3 have ther advantages and disadvantages. You only have to play em right ;).

So, I rush as fast as I can to get all three Factions. More diversity is better.

This has already been discussed quite a few times and it's a rather well-supporter claim that Templars are the worst starting faction for L/I runs.
Do notice that I'm not saying they are unplayable or somehow actively harmful — just that, on balance, they are the worst starting faction of the 3.

As for "more diversity", not really. Having some ACTUAL BONUS (extra engineer or scientist or whatever) early on beats "diversity".
Diversity in this context does nothing by itself, you need to actually pick something and get it.
And you don't get things any faster once you have contacted extra factions.
So if you see a reward you want from the factions you already have contacted, it's much better then get the reward right away.

XCOM 2 is the kind of game were even a small actual bonus in early game snowballs into HUGE advantage very fast. So long-term investments are, quite often, not actually worth it as they only break even by the time the game has been decided (and in reality never break even as the opportunity cost they entailed could have been used for more immediate gains that would have snowballed into something even better).

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by The | Suit:

Getting all 3 means you get 4 orders per month.
which can make a huge difference early game .

Except you don't. You gain 0 actual order slots for just contacting the faction. You need to get higher standings to get actual order slots.

Simply contacting a faction gives new order cards, but the number of slots remains the same.

[wckowalski]

Yes, you get two order slots per faction, but they are unlocked by doing the first two hunt the chosen ops.

[TheSuit]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Originally posted by The | Suit:

Getting all 3 means you get 4 orders per month.
which can make a huge difference early game .

Except you don't. You gain 0 actual order slots for just contacting the faction. You need to get higher standings to get actual order slots.

Simply contacting a faction gives new order cards, but the number of slots remains the same.

Until you contact them you don't get the opportunity to unlock those slots.
with a bonded team - you can get 4 order slots very early

[red255]

To get the order slots you need to find locations owned by the chosens to unlock the missions. in one of my games I didn't find the hunter until I'd contacted 13 regions. And even if I wanted to, its far more important to get those engineers going

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by The | Suit:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Except you don't. You gain 0 actual order slots for just contacting the faction. You need to get higher standings to get actual order slots.

Simply contacting a faction gives new order cards, but the number of slots remains the same.

Until you contact them you don't get the opportunity to unlock those slots.
with a bonded team - you can get 4 order slots very early

Getting extra order slots is gated by:
- contacting the faction
- finding it's chosen
- having high ranking soldier to actually do the covert operations
- doing the operations

All of that simply can't be "rushed" simultaneously for all 3 factions.

Thus you might as well not rush contacting all 3 factions asap, because you will get more order slots faster by focusing on getting high standings with you first and second faction.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Originally posted by The | Suit:

Getting all 3 means you get 4 orders per month.
which can make a huge difference early game .

Except you don't. You gain 0 actual order slots for just contacting the faction. You need to get higher standings to get actual order slots.

Simply contacting a faction gives new order cards, but the number of slots remains the same.

You can use the xcom slots for additional faction orders. If nothing else contacting factions does give you more cards to use.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Except you don't. You gain 0 actual order slots for just contacting the faction. You need to get higher standings to get actual order slots.

Simply contacting a faction gives new order cards, but the number of slots remains the same.

You can use the xcom slots for additional faction orders. If nothing else contacting factions does give you more cards to use.

It certainly does give you that. The question is, are those random extra orders going to be more helpful that all the OTHER things you could have got doing different covert actions instead?

Not to mention RNG could have already generated the orders you really want with your first/second faction, so extra orders without extra slots would do nothing.

[Tiasmoon]

Those other covert actions are also subject to heavy rng. You might not get anything really good out of those either.

It's certainly not a must have to rush them, but its nots a bad thing either.

[Devoras]

It's situational, you don't get extra order slots by contacting them early, but you do get the extra soldiers and open up more possible covert operations quickly. All the factions have their uses, I find templars to be invaluable on clearing Lost missions, almost as good as sharpshooters and their pistols; and they can do a lot of damage if you use them right. Either way, the sooner you get them, the sooner you can start to level them up. With how long it takes to recover on legendary difficulty, it's important to have a lot of powerful soldiers you can send out instead of basic rookies early on.

In most cases I find it's the most effective strategy to contact the factions first to get the soldiers and extra covert options; but not always. I find the only covert operation that doesn't vary between games is to lower the Avatar project countdown. That's so important that I never choose any other option over that.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Devoras:

It's situational, you don't get extra order slots by contacting them early, but you do get the extra soldiers and open up more possible covert operations quickly. All the factions have their uses, I find templars to be invaluable on clearing Lost missions, almost as good as sharpshooters and their pistols; and they can do a lot of damage if you use them right. Either way, the sooner you get them, the sooner you can start to level them up. With how long it takes to recover on legendary difficulty, it's important to have a lot of powerful soldiers you can send out instead of basic rookies early on.

In most cases I find it's the most effective strategy to contact the factions first to get the soldiers and extra covert options; but not always. I find the only covert operation that doesn't vary between games is to lower the Avatar project countdown. That's so important that I never choose any other option over that.

Just FYI:
you can contact a faction very late, dismiss the rank 1 soldier you get, and do a covert action for a new soldier that will be of whatever rank is "baseline" for you current cycle.

So you can get a mid/high rank faction hero almost right away if you want in mid/late game.