War of the Chosen vs. Enemy Within

[N0TaProphet]

Which expansion do you think brought more to thier respective base games?

[Casual Sun]

WotC changes a lot of stuff in the strategic overworld and it feels like a very big change to the way the game is played. EW greatly expanded what was in the actual tactical gameplay but I don't feel like it changed the strategic gameplay really. EXALT was kind of underwhelming tbh, but MECs and Augmented soldiers were amazing additions.

[istari101]

That's a tough one. Both XPACs really added a lot, at least IMO, but I'd tentatively give the edge to WOTC if I had to pick one. Even though XCOM2's strategic is still a little too busy for my liking, I feel like WOTC really adds or enhances a lot of stuff at both the strategic and tactical layer, and I find fighting and hunting down the Chosen to be a really fun, dynamic game mechanic, whereas EW never felt quite as impactful to me. But I agree that soldier augmentations and what Meld did for the standard overwatch-creep of the tactical layer were huge in EW, and I really liked the idea of EXALT in story/roleplaying terms even if the execution felt kind of weak to me.

Edited to add: and I love me WOTC's bond mechanic, which I hope makes appearances in future XCOM-esque games.

[frdnwsm]

EW was a nice step up from EU in the original XCOM, and Long War took this several steps further. (To Istari 101 ... you might want to try LW mod to EW, it makes things rather more challenging).

I just got XCOM2 vanilla a few days ago, and will probably install WotC in the near future. Obviously I can't really comment on WotC at this point, but from what I have read, it seems like a similar uptick in difficulty from standard XCOM2.

XCOM2 being a relatively new game, it appears that nobody at NexusMods has come up with a complete work over for the game the way they did for XCOM:EW. Which is fine, since it sounds like I will have a fair amount of new mechanics to absorb when I finally do get WotC installed.

[istari101]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

EW was a nice step up from EU in the original XCOM, and Long War took this several steps further. (To Istari 101 ... you might want to try LW mod to EW, it makes things rather more challenging).

I just got XCOM2 vanilla a few days ago, and will probably install WotC in the near future. Obviously I can't really comment on WotC at this point, but from what I have read, it seems like a similar uptick in difficulty from standard XCOM2.

XCOM2 being a relatively new game, it appears that nobody at NexusMods has come up with a complete work over for the game the way they did for XCOM:EW. Which is fine, since it sounds like I will have a fair amount of new mechanics to absorb when I finally do get WotC installed.

I've got a friend who played hundreds and hundreds of hours of both LW1 and LW2, and after talking with him originally I wound up skipping vanilla EW and went straight to the LW1 conversion mod. It was pretty rough at first, even just on normal difficulty, but I still had a great time. :)

[frdnwsm]

Oh, my bad. Apparently there actually is a LW2 mod, but it isn't compatible with WotC? Hmm. how odd.

[Jack Smythe]

It was made before WOTC came out and hasn't been updated for it (likely won't either seems). Both are still pretty fun on their own.

[Jack Smythe]

Personally think that (relatively) EW added more to its game (WOTC added more over-all, but the base game also had much more). Tactical gameplay gained a lot of new dimensions and the scarcity of meld made determing mission priority a bigger deal, especially when your A-team wasn't in good shape. Made soldiers a bigger investment (or just cheap meatshields, depending how much meld). Still prefer WOTC overall, I think, but it kinda felt like a more personalized Alien Hunters pack in a way, with the Rulers showing up for more than just a 'hi-bye' every so often.

[Voodoo]

wotc

[istari101]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

Oh, my bad. Apparently there actually is a LW2 mod, but it isn't compatible with WotC? Hmm. how odd.

No worries. I effectively skipped vanilla XCOM EU/EW in favor of jumping right into LW1, but at this point I still like vanilla WOTC best. In fact, for me it would be WOTC > LW1 (EW) > XCOM2 in terms of fun factor. I used a ton of QoL mods in all cases, though, so it's probably not totally accurate to describe my non-LW playthroughs as "vanilla."