So I was at my second campain, my very first one set on Ironman.
Everything was going so well compared to my first campaign: I only had lost one soldier in the first 10 missions, I had already built guerrilla tactics which made me able to fight with 5 men teams, proving grounds with which was experimenting new ammos, grenades, and made the skulljack. I already had the first upgrade for all the kind of weapons, and I even made a couple of my first flawed missions. This made me feel like a was ahead of advent, and could dare to attack the Blacksite (a mission who had been an absolute trauma in my first campaign).
As I am preparing to attack the first group of mobs, i notice an enemy officer and decide to use the skulljack to complete that objective aswell. I thought it would have also come in handy since it would have been a quick way to neutralize a target.
Now, in the first campaign, I had no idea what I was doing (I was winning missions only by saving and loading an infinite amount of times), I had no idea what proving grounds was, so I built said facility extremely late, like when I was already using 6 men teams, colonels, plasma weapons and end game armors. So when I used the skulljack, the Codex came in but was instantly one-shotted by a ranger.
This made me totally forgot that when you use the skulljack the Codex even appears, and also gave me no knowledge of how much of a threat it can be so early in the game, and this completely ruined the Blacksite mission tuning it into a wipe, as fighting the codex also led me to pulling a group of vipers while moving way from his aoe.
While I had just lost my best soldiers, I thought I could still save the campaign by doing easier missions for a while to make new experienced soldiers and then coming back to the Blacksite and this time not using the skulljack.
BUT NO, IT WAS TOO LATE NOW
The codex would have appear in every single mission, making it impossible for my new teams of squaddies at best to win even a single objective.
Moral of the story never again follow the story and try to appease those dumb npcs (Bradford and Co.) that gaslight you calling you Commander while ordering you left and right, as it easily lead to killing a very promising campaign in an instant!
RIP bro, unfortunately the story objectives are a huge noob traps, we've all been there :/
Yes! This game HATES noobs! 😭🤣
What's even more of a newb trap is Julian. Why is that Available so fucking early!?
Julian?
The Lost Towers mission from the Shen's Last Gift DLC.
It has an (albeit damage-nerfed) Sectopod as its final boss. I think you can imagine how that goes down if you're not adequately equipped.
Damage nerfed, but health and armour gigabuffed.
Dies whenever Repeater decides it dies lmao
I dunno, I think Julian might be immune to it. I've fought him several times (modded sitreps) and I've never proced the repeater kill.
I don't think any enemies are Repeater-immune (otherwise the Rulers definitely would've been, lmao), you just got unlucky or didn't roll that die enough.
Thanks for the answer. Don't really remember that mission, last time I had to was before WotC.
Is there a benefit to not playing integrated?
Getting one free SPARK, instead of having to pay for your first full price.
If you have neither integrated DLC nor the Lost Towers checked, unlocking SPARKs in the Proving Ground gives you one for free. If you're running Lost Towers, you get one from the mission as you'd expect.
Whether this is worth letting Rulers on the loose on any mission without warning with neither integrated nor The Nest checked is up for you to decide.
You can actually do that as the 3rd mission I believe. And the majority of the mission actually seems winnable with OP Shen, until you get to the end zone with your badly injured corporals armed with basic weapons and equipment.
Especially since on my first playthrough there's no real context for what they mean by hard/difficult missions.
oh yeah i did that mission SUPER early. and i was mildly traumatized.
now whenever i go for that, i don't take it on until i have at least squad size 6 (if not 8. i have a lot of mods) bluescreen rounds for everyone, and predator armour. *minimum*
I wish gatekeepers waited to show up until you'd done the gate mission 😄 would make way more sense storyline wise, and you could avoid them for a while by not doing it.
Do codexes show up on their own eventually too?
No, Codex won't show up until you Skulljack an officer. It's weird that the same rules don't apply to gatekeepers. My current run has both Sectopods and Gatekeepers showing up before the Codex
The first XCOM was even worse about this, clearing the alien base replace the guy in the UFO mission with multiple sectoid commander.
In WotC the "feedback" templar card will made codex very easy since they will kill themselves if they use psionic bomb.
lmao I remember the first time I played EW I diligently followed Vahlen's advice and researched the Arc Thrower, built the alien containment facility, researched the various story autopsies, stunned a Sectoid... and then Cyberdiscs showed up and I was still rocking basic gear lmao
Whoa. What card is that?
deal damage when targeted by psionic, it will apply for every soldier that get ammo drained by the bomb, likely resulting in the codex death
Thank you for this information. I've got SO MANY hours invested in XCOM2 and I still get new information/strategy.
This is a particularly useful bit.
As much as I love this game, yeah it super uber punishes you for being inexperienced.
Next time you will know what to expect so it'll be "balanced".
You have learned the hard way to always complete objectives as the first act of your turn if you can help it, because things are about to get worse and you need soldiers with actions left over. EU/EW taught this lesson by having aliens drop down from the ceiling and overwatch after you reach the rescue VIP etc. This was not a big deal if you knew that this was a possibility and had soldiers on overwatch to shoot them as they drop in. The first time, I hadn't taken out the existing enemies before trying to run the VIP to safety because I figured there was a time limit before he died. Between the existing enemies and being flanked by new guys pinning us down with overwatch, I lost the squad. You are correct that the game doesn't broadcast that a codex will spawn because of your actions. Finding out was painful, as is tradition.
Playing the game on Ironman before beating it is a choice, and if that is what you choose then you have a hard road ahead of you. Good luck, Commander.
Happens to the best of us. Wait till you get to do something similar to skull jacking again. That’s what tripped me up when I was finally there haha.
You should be able to load your squaddies up with blue screen rounds (now you have the proving ground)? This will help massively in dealing with them.
Haha yeah... The game really is not kind to newcomers and/or those who do not have skill yet.
However... Live and learn! You will be ready next time.
Yessir 💪😎
now you know, I do black site only if the avatar progress is full
I would never think of using skuljack on blacksite, but now I consider it a challenge ;-)
Oh it's a great place to use it, because no turn counter. I always try to run up the clock and then do both at once.
The codex would have appear in every single mission, making it impossible for my new teams of squaddies at best to win even a single objective.
Codexes can be annoying, but they're often less dangerous than the enemies they replace.
That's XCOM, Baby!
We go again! 💪😤
I'd rather fight Codex instead of Muton or Trooper\Lancer\Officer.
it suck but that kind of jankiness is what makes for emergent narratives and dynamic gameplay. You got the raw end this time
Sounds like a bit of a skill issue. If you aren't mentally prepared to have your decisions and lack of memory hurt you then you aren't really ready for iron man.
Yes bro, when you first start playing a game, you arent skilled at it. This process is called "learning" and it happens when you try something new, hope this helps!
Thank you, there are people who seems to enjoy to interact for the sake of being mean or just to annoy.
The exact same thing as in your OP happened to me a few months ago after not playing for a few years. Even when they're not being malicious, a lot of extremely online Redditors forget that not everyone just picks a single game to play all day every day for years on end. More power to them, enjoy how you want of course, but sometimes I'll replay a beloved favorite like XCOM after not touching it for five years, and this shit happened to me all the time. I take notes now for future replays lol
It's not their first campaign though? I do think the game relies a bit too much on you knowing stuff you can't until after an entire run - but you can definitely avoid going straight up to ironman on run 2. Pump the difficulty instead.
I chose Ironman because in the first campaign I really abused the fact that after a mistake I could simply reload the file, and it didn't feel like a fair win in the end. And if the game allow me to, i will do it again, sooner or later, that's why I chose Ironman. If I pump the difficulty by a level, I am afraid it will simply result in me saving and loading even more times. But if you suggest that it will be easier than an Ironman run (i played on second difficulty) maybe I will try.
Ok, so be prepared to take some very bad outcomes and take things as a learning experience. After your first game especially you had the info that a codex will show up when the skulljack is employed. So you had that bit. You decided to do that on the blacksite.
Fundamentally ironman is about playing through and adapting to errors and circumstances as they come or potentially having to walk away from a campaign when it's a lost cause. This entire rant is "i'm playing ironman, and Ironman things happened and now I'm angry about it."
The rant is I played ironman and got bait-griefed by the story mission. Does the game punish for doing what he tells you to do? Yes. Is that an ironman-only thing? No it's not, it's how the game is designed. Now, even if you do not see this as something that is valid to complain about: should a RANT be objective and rational? Not really, no? (Althought from the feedback everyone that play this game for the first time has to go throught something like this). So what did you exactly expect? Next time I will make a RANT thread about how things went perfectly fine from my perspective and I have nothing to complain about! And, by the way, in my reply before this one I was not talking to you.
Bro shut up, nobody forces you to interact with rant threads
If you're not on console there is a mod for bronzeman, that only lets you reset the entire current mission. Ironman is kinda fucked, there are bugs that can cause a mission fail/squad wipe, and misclicks happen tbh, especially when learning.
If you're going for the ironman achievement that's the only time I'd bother tbh 😂