Vanilla XCOM too easy for you! Not enough depth to it? Welcome to the Long War, a mod for XCOM:Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within that feels more like an expansion pack instead of a mod.

Difficulty wise, the Long War is on par with Classic EU/EW difficulty on its NORMAL setting. Its recommended you play on NORMAL until you get used to all the changes Long War does to the game. Long War is basically a fan made expansion pack for XCOM EU/EW, and the XCOM head dev himself said that EU/EW was just a tutorial for how to play and win the Long War!

The first half of this guide is here to help you ease into the mod, or if your familiar with the mod and want a more detailed strategy on how to win the Long War, that's what the latter half of this guide is for.

When playing XCOM: Long War, I'd suggest enable the "Soldier VO" option in the options menu. This mod adds many new voices, including British English, Australian English, and many others and its very nice hearing such a diverse cast of soldiers!

Remember, if you have a question that's not in this guide, check the wiki!
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Long_War

• An extended campaign requiring far more missions to complete
  
• Tactical missions that allow up to twelve XCom soldiers per mission with the right upgrades
  
• Eight soldier classes: Infantry, Assault, Sniper, Scout, Gunner, Rocketeer, Medic and Engineer, and eight MEC classes: Valkyrie, Marauder, Jaeger, Pathfinder, Goliath, Archer, Guardian and Shogun
  
• Eight soldier classes: Infantry, Assault, Sniper, Scout, Gunner, Rocketeer, Medic and Engineer, and eight MEC classes: Valkyrie, Marauder, Jaeger, Pathfinder, Goliath, Archer, Guardian and Shogun
  
• New and modified perks, including Ranger, Sapper, HEAT Warheads, Lock N' Load, Fire in the Hole, Hit and Run, and Javelin Rockets
  
• New and modified technologies, including Xenopsionics, Alien Biocybernetics, Pulse Lasers, Gauss Weapons and Advanced Aerospace Concepts, and many new foundry projects
  
• Five tiers of XCOM weaponry, many new armors and small items and S.H.I.V.s that can be equipped with perk-granting small items!
  
• Earlier access to psionics and an expanded psionics tree
  
• A system of commissioning and promoting XCOM officers who provide bonuses to your entire squad during missions (replaces the Enemy Within medals system)
  
• Overhauled interception game, with five new UFO classes such as the Fighter, Raider and Harvester, as well as six interceptors per continent, foundry projects to upgrade your aircraft, individualized pilot names and pilot experience, and the Stingray Missile weapon system
  
• Overhauled strategy game, in which the aliens gather resources and conduct research -- efforts XCOM must interdict if it hopes to save humanity. XCOM can now retake countries by finding and conquering alien bases in those countries. Help council countries defend themselves by fulfilling their requests for alien technology!
  
• Aliens and EXALT forces grow tougher over time, gaining stats and perks.
  
• More Boss Aliens!
  
• New weapons for XCOM soldiers
  
• Soldiers rest after each mission, requiring the player to build a much deeper roster of soldiers
  
• Modified Second Wave options to support longer campaigns
  
• New Tactical Combat options and additions, including Damage Resistance!
  
• Aliens act much more intelligently in Tactical Combat. Don't Ignore Seekers!
  
• As well as a bunch of nice misc fixes. Remember, perks in Long War might be different than they were in Vanilla!

Read all about it on NexusMods![www.nexusmods.com] REMEMBER Long War is FREE!

You may need to make an account on Nexusmods. You do not need to pay any money to them to make an account.

1. Download the mod from NexusMods![www.nexusmods.com]. You may need to sign up to download it.
2. You must have a legitimate version of Enemy Unkown with the Enemy Within Expansion. Slingshot DLC is optional.
3. If you have ever played with any other mods on your EW install, or have changed some files yourself, verify back to a vanilla installation of EW before installing Long War. If you have any trouble with installation, do this as well.
4. Disable any antivirus software. We have specific reports that Comodo security software prevents a proper install, and BitDefender free crashes the game on startup.
5. Make sure you have the latest .NET framework[www.microsoft.com] installed
6. Run the installer.
7. When you select your path to install the mod, you should receive a warning that the directory already exists. If you didn't, have you may have missed a step.
8. Start the game once. You may receive a crash to desktop (CTD) error; this appears to be some aspect of the mod completing installation and then making nice with Steam. Start it again, and it should run.
9. If you have been playing vanilla XCOM in a language other than the one you installed it in, switch XCOM to the installed Long War language via its properties in Steam.

NOTE

• This mod will overwrite several game files and likely render multiplayer unplayable until you uninstall.
  
• A Mac and Linux version is available via separate downloads.
  
• The mod will not work properly on vanilla Enemy Within campaigns, so you'll need to start a new one. Campaigns are saved even if you uninstall, so you should be able to return to vanilla campaigns. Long War campaigns probably won't work well in vanilla.
  
• If Firaxis/2K Games issues any patches to vanilla XCOM, it will overwrite and disable Long War, and almost certainly make the mod unplayable until the modders are able to update it. Unfortunately, turning off automatic updates to the game in Steam, via the game's Steam Library context menu / Properties / Updates tab, does not prevent patches from loading. Your savegames should be preserved, though.
  
• If you want to use alternate game textures via TexMod, install them AFTER you fully install Long War.
  
• If you install this mod over an existing version you won't be able to uninstall back to vanilla; to do so, you'll have to go to Steam and use the Verify Integrity of Game Cache option (under the game's Steam Library context menu ? Properties ? Local Files tab) to restore your game to its original settings. You should also do this if something goes wrong with the uninstall.

Troubleshooting
If you want a cleaner version of this mod, you should play the EU version or wait until this version is final.
If you get multiple CTDs upon boot, or when starting the first mission, or you start with only four soldiers, or see graphical glitches with some of the new weapons, try the following steps:

• Go to C:/Users/YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME/Documents/My Games/XCOM - Enemy Within/XComGame/Config
  
• Delete all files in that directory.
  
• Start the game and see if it works.
  
• 
  
• Go to C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/XCom-Enemy-Unknown/XEW/XComGame/CookedPCConsole. (This may vary if you have a nontraditional Steam installation.)
  
• Look for the files XComGame.upk.uncompressed_size, XComStrategyGame.upk.uncompressed_size and Engine.upk.uncompressed_size. If they are present, delete them.
  
• Start the game and see if it works.
  
• 
  
• If not, Go to C:/Users/YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME/Documents/My Games/XCOM - Enemy Within/XComGame/SaveData
  
• Delete or rename the file profile.bin and start the game. You may have to re-set your graphics and other settings ingame after this.
  
• Start the game and see if it works.
  
• Install Long War EW again, over the current copy. This will probably make the included uninstaller not work, so you'll have to verify back to vanilla via Steam to uninstall.
  
• 
  
• If you are getting slowdowns in plays or CTDs when loading user settings, Play in Steam Offline Mode! Steam > Go Offline

Check NexusMods![www.nexusmods.com] for the most recent troubleshooting tips, installation tips, and new versions!


How to Fix the Freezing while Saving bug

Block Outbound Traffic for XcomEW.exe found in Steam/steamapps/common/XCOM Enemy Unknown/XEW/Binaries/win32

If you don't have Enemy Within then just remove the XEW part above, and the .exe should just be XCOM or XCOMEU

To block outbound traffic for Windows computers, check this link. http://www.howtogeek.com/227093/how-to-block-an-application-from-accessing-the-internet-with-windows-firewall/?PageSpeed=noscript

So you've begun the arduous task of starting a Long War Campaign? There are a few things you need to know.

• Expect to run into missions that are EXTREMELY difficult. This mod is designed to have missions that are extremely hard and are meant to run away from, these are mostly in the earlygame. Don't be ashamed to lose a few missions or run away from something you can't handle yet. This mod is balanced around that fact.
  
• Aliens and Exalt grow more powerful as the game goes on, and they all gain perks as well from time to time. Example, a Thin Man or Chryssalid with Lightning Reflexes.
  
• There are many more UFO types, and you will find that you may have Large or Very Large UFOs in the first month, this is natural, as the Aliens are also playing their own metagame, and its expected for you to ignore these until you have the firepower to take them down.
  
• The air game is greatly expanded upon and is VERY VERY IMPORTANT. You will run into UFOs you can't kill without very powerful weapons and upgrades, and you will have to let some UFOs go after taking 50% or more damage (Yellow explosions come out of the UFO) just to save yourself the extremely long Intercepter repair times. You don't wanna be out of intercepters when the aliens are coming to shoot down one of your satellites!
  
• During the first month a council member will leave. This is normal, as the aliens have taken it over as their base.
  
• Aliens have different AI patterns and abilities. For example, Sectoids linked to other Sectoids or units that are killed don't kill the linked unit, but instead do about 2-3 damage to the linked unit instead. In addition, Xcom PSI units can gain Mind Link as well as a Psionic ability, and its nowhere near as punishing as in vanilla due to this change.
  
• When you can finally assault alien bases, you can reclaim countries and have them re-enter the council.
  
• In order to win, you just beat the Temple Ship. In order to lose, you have to lose all 16 countries from the council.
  
• Panic is a value of 100, instead of being 5 stages like in Vanilla.
  
• The small blue shield next to a country's panic is their ability to defend themselves against Panic and to help in defending the satellites you have deployed there. This is increased by completing Council requests.
  
• Damage Reduction, shown as a blue shield under your damage number, shows how much damage 'bounced' off an enemy. You can also obtain this on your troopers as well.
  
• Soldiers have Fatigue, meaning that after a mission if they go on another before Fatigue wears off they will come back injured no matter what. This means you need to make a huge roster of soldiers which you rotate around and might need to bring fewer than the max amount of soldiers on easier missions. (IE, downed scout UFO)
  
• In order to interrogate aliens, you must autopsy them first. Some alien autopsies are also behind other research paths such as Alien Biocybernetics.
  
• During Terror missions, IE missions where you need to save civllians, each civillian killed raises that countries panic by 2 and the panic of the continent by 1 (Meaning 3 panic per civvie killed for that country.) Losing terror missions or ignoring them means the country immediatly leaves the Council.
  
• This mod on NORMAL is a bit harder than Vanilla IRONMAN CLASSIC. That being said, it isn't that bad but still challenging. If you want an easier game, Enable Cinematic Mode in the Second Wave options. If you want a shorter game, enable Dynamic War. If you want a longer game, enable Liberator.
  
• Do NOT play in IRONMAN mode unless your ok with a glitch ending your run or your save file getting corrupt for no reason. (It can happen!) Due to this, if you do choose to do Ironman, Periodically back up your game.
  
• I'd recommend enablingCommander's Choice Second Wave option. Commander's Choice is something almost everyone uses so you don't have RNG ruining your class picks for a soldier. You can also pick Strict Screening if you don't want random stat variations between your soldiers, but all random allocated stats on soldiers equal the same total anyway and I feel that random stat soldiers make them feel more realistic.
  
• Remember, this is a very long war!

Read the UFOwiki[ufopaedia.org] for more information.

See the wiki.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Soldiers_%28Long_War%29

This has all the info on classes, officers, and the like.

A few tips for each class when it comes to builds...

Rocketeers have only one good build.
HEAT Warheads
Fire in the Hole
Shredder Ammo
Mayhem
Shock and Awe
Your choice between Tandem Warheads or Javelin Rockets

Additionally you should Steady Weapon before you launch a rocket with a rocketeer, and never launch a rocket on your yellow move.
Also if a rocket has a chance to deviate, make sure that it doesn't say "Rocket is blocked" when your firing it. If it does, that rocket will explode on ANYTHING it hits if it deviates, including your own soldiers. If the rocket is NOT blocked, it will go through all objects and cover until it hits the spot it deviated to.

Gunners have many builds. Check
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Gunner_%28Long_War%29
Additionally Gunners make great officers.
My favorite build is the Bullet Wizard, as they do guaranteed damage, have AoE suppression, and Shred/holo target everything they hit.

Infantry have a couple builds. Check
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Infantry_%28Long_War%29
They also make decent officers.
My favorite build is the crit build, as it allows them to kill bigger units later on.

Snipers have many builds, and due to their sharpshooter rifle, can move with the rest of the squad if you want. (Usually for disable snipers.)
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Sniper_%28Long_War%29
Do note that enemies love shooting at Snipers if they can.
I'd also advise making one or two disable snipers. They need more aim than normal snipers due to disabling shots -15 acc penalty, but are very useful when your assaulting bases. Make Sectopods and Bosses much easier.

Medics make great PSI units as they usually have the highest will out of everyone.
Engineers also make decent PSI units, but they'll be mostly throwing grenades with Sapper to blow away enemy cover or capturing aliens.
Assaults and Scouts are pretty straightforward. Both make pretty decent Covert Ops.

Scouts additionally can use Concealment to give your squad sight of a pod without activating it if you keep them to high cover. Its really finicky to use right and isn't as straightforward as XCOM 2's concealment, but its still really helpful when combined with Squadsight, In the Zone/Double tap, or Javelin Rockets.
Do note that Lightning Reflexes ony gives the scout 90 def instead of making reaction shots miss. This means that while eating overwatch shots with lightning reflexes means 3% chance to hit shots for the most part, eventually the scout will be hit. Also if the alien has a buffed overwatch, the chance may be 20% instead.


Check the wiki for MEC classes. Note that a Sniper MEC class starts with In the Zone, and is a great cleaner.

Alien Research

Aliens in this mod have research just like you! This means that as the game goes on, they will get stronger just as you get stronger. This could mean that they push out new units, or old units get upgraded with more health, armor, or even abilities!

Aliens get research every time you don't shoot down a UFO, an XCOM soldier gets killed, an XCOM soldier gets left behind, A landed UFO is ignored (Besides a Supply Barge), an Abduction mission is ignored, every month per captured country, or just over time.

Out of all of these, you can manage quite a few of them, although as the game starts, you wont be able to shoot down every UFO, so aliens will get research that way. That is normal.

You can lower alien research by quite a bit if you assault an alien base, but other than that, you can't really lower it, just reduce the amount that they can get.

Alien Resources

Additionally Aliens have Resources. Depending on how much of a threat they think XCOM is, they will spend more resources each month to launch more and more UFOs/Abductions/Terror missions, or if they deem XCOM a serious threat, just take over a country instantly or Assault XCOM HQ itself. Both of these take a lot of resources from the aliens to do however.

How aliens get resources is by successful UFO missions involving a Transport, Harvester, Raider, or Scout. They will also prefer to do these missions in countries where you don't have satellite coverage. This is normal. However if you see a UFO land, there is a good chance that if its not an abductor or one of the bigger UFOs, its a resource mission.

Disrupting alien resource missions means that next month you may not get as many alien attacks as you did in the current month, which is great as it slows down their research and gives you breathing room. Of course this also might mean they will try more to shoot down your satellites so they can gain more resources.

UFOs and the air game are much more important in Long War. All alien missions are made from UFOs, from abduction to terror, UFOs are behind it all!

Interceptors

Remember to name Intercepters to see thier level!

At the start of the game, you will sort of struggle dealing with small UFOs like Scouts and wont stand much of a chance vs Medium UFOs, and have no chance vs large or very large UFOs. This is normal, and as the campaign goes on, eventually you'll be able to take down every kind of UFO.

Because of how important the air game is, you can now have 6 interceptors per continent, and aliens will eventually assault your hanger bases near the start of the next year if they don't assault XCOM HQ.

Additionally you shouldn't engage every UFO. If a UFO is NoE (Nap of Earth) and it isn't a bomber, there is a high chance that it'll land, meaning you can just assault it when its landed and save yourself possible interceptor damage.
If a UFO is High, that means its hunting your satellites and should be intercepted. If its a large or very large in early game though, say goodbye to that satellite. You don't need to down a High UFO, bringing it to half (yellow explosions appear around it) means that it failed its mission.
If a UFO is low, it could be doing a ton of things. You should assault small low flying UFOs as they are pretty easy to take down (Except maybe in the first month or so when your trying to get your infrastructure up.)

Also if you don't engage a UFO, you will get a small bit more panic than if you engaged it, but this is negligible as its better to protect your satellites than having a country gain 2 more panic. But if you have more than 2 active interceptors, then it might be worth it to take out all the UFOs you can, as they reduce alien research and resources. Of course until you have Advanced Phoenix Cannons from Gauss weapons, you wont be able to do much but take down small UFOs and the occasional Medium UFO.

Dealing with Interceptor Repair Times

Due to the longer repair times of Long War, a heavily damaged interceptor could be out for over a month! For this reason if an interceptor is doing poorly vs a UFO, you can hit the Abort button to bring it back to base. You definitely do not want an interceptor to die if you can help it, as they cost 200 dollars to replace, plus an additional week to put a cannon on them.

So how do you deal with interceptors being damaged? You build additional ones on continents that you don't have satellites on and swap the interceptors between the continents so you can keep a couple interceptors ready to defend your satellites.

Upgrading Interceptors

You can upgrade interceptors by a few methods.

The biggest upgrades come from the Advanced Aerospace Concepts research and a few alien autopsy's. These give a global upgrade to all your interceptors.

You can also craft temporary upgrades called Modules in the Engineering interface upon researching the correct research. These are great for helping an interceptor take down a UFO, a bigger UFO then it should be able to, or fight a UFO without taking any damage. the Dodge and Aim modules are very very useful, and its usually a good idea to have 3-5 of each.

Finally remember to name your interceptors so you can see their ranks. Every few UFO kills an interceptor gets, the better its aim. Interceptor pilots get +3 aim(Capped at 30) and +1% damage per UFO they take down. While their aim bonus is capped out by 10 UFO downs, their damage has no cap (As far as I know).

For more interceptor information, check the wiki.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hangar_%28Long_War%29

UFOs

UFOs do quite a few things and there are quite a few UFOs. Read up on them in the wiki.

About UFO missions
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Alien_Missions_%28Long_War%29

The Different type of UFOs.
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/UFOs_%28Long_War%29

But in essence...

Ignore NoE UFOs as they will probably land or are doing a bombing run. You can start shooting them down later when your interceptors are upgraded and the like.
ALWAYS go after High flying UFOs that are Small so they don't shoot down your satellite. You might be able to discourage medium UFOs as well, but that might be costly. Ignore High Flying large or very large UFOs. Near late game you can shoot these down, but early game you should expect the satellite to go down so begin building a new one.
Attack Low flying UFOs at your discretion, usually beating small UFOs to deny the aliens research or stop a scout UFO from spawning a satellite hunt mission.

Clown Car UFOs

If a UFO lands, it has a small chance of being a Clown Car UFO. What this means is that a small UFO, instead of having like 10 units, might have more than 20 with units you wont see until next month like cyber discs or whatnot. Same with other landed UFOs having far more alien units than normal, hence the name Clown Car. A shot down UFO will NEVER be a Clown Car UFO.

Destroyed UFO

If you do lots of overkill damage to a UFO, there is a chance that you will destroy it outright. The XCOM council will give you a cash bounty for destroying a UFO, and you will get some alloys, Elerium, and the like, but not much. Additionally the crashed UFO mission will not spawn since you destroyed it. If you don't want this to happen, it might be worth it in the late game to have some interceptors with lower tiered cannons to take down smaller UFOs.

The first thing you will notice when starting a Long War game is the massive amount of countries you can start in. Unless you desperately want to start in a country, some country bonuses are better than others. Here is the list of country bonuses, what they do, and if they're good or not.
On Our Own means you get no bonus if you want a harder game.

Continent Starting Bonus

Unlike Vanilla XCOM, in order to get a continent bonus you must have full satellite coverage over the country. Here is a list of all the continent bonuses.

North America Air Superiority: Aircraft and aircraft weapons cost 25% less to purchase and maintain. (Takes 3 satellites for full coverage)
South America Power to the People: Power facilities cost 30% less to build and maintain. (Takes 2 satellites for full coverage)
Asia New Warfare: Foundry projects have cash, alloy and elerium cost reduced by 25% percent. (Takes 4 satellites for full coverage)
Africa Architects of the Future: Laboratories and Workshops cost 30% less to build and maintain. (Takes 3 satellites for full coverage)
Europe Wealth of Nations: Monthly XCOM funding increased by 20%. (Takes 4 satellites for full coverage)

Since these are continent bonuses, they're all useful. The most useful one though is probably Air Superiority due to the fact that it reduces interceptor costs from 200 to 150 and reduces the maintenance cost of them per month, saving you tons of money over the course of the game. Additionally Asia's bonus is very useful if you can get it early enough as it reduces the cost of foundry projects, and foundry projects get very expensive very fast.

Country Starting Bonuses

Here is a list of countries, their starting bonuses, and my take on how good/bad the bonuses are. Nothing is as bad as On Our Own which is no bonus, but not all bonuses are made equally.

Country (Continent) Name Effect
Argentina (South America) Patriae Semper Vigilis All soldiers receive +5 will.
+5 will means more psionic resistance, less panicking early game, and better PSI soldiers. C-B tier

Australia (Asia) Per Ardua Ad Astra All soldiers receive +5 ability points for stat rolls upon recruitment.
Point distribution is random. Still decent though. C-B tier

Brazil (South America) Jungle Scouts Early armors (Tac Vest and Tac, Kestrel, Phalanx and Aurora Armors) receive an additional small item slot until Tactical Rigging is developed.
This means that all of your armors have 3 slots instead of 2 for extra items. Very very useful early game making this one of the top tier bonuses. A-A+ tier

Brazil (South America) Expertise +15% bonus to research credits from interrogations.
Not that useful, because the satellite bonus for Brazil is +10% bonus to research credits anyway. D tier

Brazil (South America) On Our Own No unique bonus.

Canada (North America) Advanced Preparations XCOM HQ starts with a Laboratory and Workshop already built.
Almost as bad as On Our Own as you can't choose where these are placed, and they are placed next to each other, ruining your base layout. Additionally they don't circumvent the Engineer/Scientist requirement for new Workshops/Labs, and in total its only worth about 400$ which you will only keep 200$ as you need to disassemble one anyway to fix your base layout. You do start with a lab though which means you have faster research in the first month.D-C tier

Canada (North America) Cadre Start with four corporals in the barracks, one of each supraclass.
I don't find this useful as Corporals are fairly fast to get. That being said, this could mean that you can get an Officer Training School up fairly fast and get your squad size upgrades that much faster. Up to you on how you value that. D-C tier

China (Asia) Wei Renmin Fuwu Start with a Workshop and Repair Bay already built.
Just like Advanced Preparations, this isn't very good. But unlike Advanced Preparations, at least the buildings have the same adjacency bonuses and you could potentially make them work with your base layout, especially since they don't bother your Satellite Uplink/Nexus area of your base. That being said, they're only worth 250$ and workshops early on aren't that important for how cheap and fast they are to build. D tier

China (Asia) Xenological Remedies 100% bonus cash from alien corpse and wreck sales.
If your playing Brutal or Impossible, there could be a serious case for this as a great starting bonus. The problem is most of your money comes from selling Meld, damaged ship parts, or stuff like that. Include the fact that China's satellite bonus is 1/3rd of this and you see why its not good. C tier

China (Asia) Deus Ex 50% reduction in Gene Mods' Meld and cash cost and modification time.
Not that useful as gene mods are cheap. Shame really. D tier

Egypt (Africa) Gift of Osiris Fatigue from Psi-powers, Gene Mods. and Officer ranks reduced by 50%.
Sattlite bonus for this country is for Gene mods at 25%. And that's where the fatigue is short of using lots of PSI D tier

Egypt (Africa) For the Sake of Glory Start with Advanced Repair foundry project, which grants faster repair time for aircraft, mechanized units and damaged soldier gear.
This is a very good bonus as the Foundry Project itself is expensive and doesn't appear until much later. Plus lower interceptor repair time means you can potentially shoot down more UFOs. Saves you 500$, 100 Alloys, and 80 Meld. B tier

France (Europe) Quai d'Orsay Country item requests occur 40% faster; fulfilled requests provide 40% additional defense, and intel scans cost 40% less.
This is an amazing bonus and is contender for one of the best country bonuses out of all of them. What this means is that council requests will appear more often, meaning you can get faster scientists and engineers, more money, ext... from all the extra requests. Sadly they are random, but they're still usually pretty good to take if you can spare the items. 40% additional defense means that those 'shields' next to the countries fill up faster, and 40% less for intel scans saves you about 500$ or so if you do your scans.. A+ Tier

France (Europe) Foreign Legion Start with 20 additional soldiers in the barracks.
This is a horrible starting bonus as you don't need rookies that early on, and you can easily get more as you need them as they aren't that expensive anyway. Plus its going against one of the best starting bonuses. It is 500$ saved though, but considering you start with 40 rookies anyway its not that useful. D tier

Germany (Europe) Skunkworks XCOM HQ starts with the Foundry already built.
This is 200$ saved and forces you to put your workshop block to the right of your satellite Uplink block. Its not that great considering there are better perks that save you far more money. D tier

Germany (Europe) Baumeister Facility construction time reduced by 33%.
Its hard to judge how powerful this bonus is as it lets you build rooms in your base faster than normal. I don't have much experience using this, but it looks like its pretty decent as that's 33% faster build times for PSI/Gene/Labs/Uplinks which looks useful C-B Tier

Germany (Europe) NeoPanzers 50% reduction in cash, alloy and Elerium required for MEC and SHIV primary weapons.
If you want to have a game where your heavily invested into MECs and SHIVs, this feels like it could be fairly decent or average. D-C tier

Germany (Europe) On Our Own No unique bonus.

india (Asia) Jai Jawan Start with 2 additional interceptors in your home base and Elerium Afterburners foundry project, granting extended interception time.
Elerium Afterburners are one of the latest Interceptor upgrades in the game. That being said its not as useful as all the other bonuses that aid interceptors in some way, hence the extra 2 interceptors. In total this saves you 600$, 30 alloys, and 30 elerium. C tier

Japan (Asia) Ring of Fire XCOM HQ has 3 additional Steam Vents.
This is a very interesting bonus. While it may take a few base restarts til you get the vents in good locations, this bonus can completely eliminate your need for Elerium Generators, saving you lots of elerium and money, as well as allowing fast base expansion due to having so much power. I really like how this one shakes up the game so much. B tier

Japan (Asia) Ghost In the Machine SHIVs receive +10 aim, and you start the campaign with two SHIVs in the barracks.
If you want to have a mostly SHIV game, this is the bonus for you. That being said, normal SHIVs are terrible, you'll want Alloy SHIVs when you can make them as they are vastly superior. D tier

Japan (Asia) Kiryu-Kai Commander Start with a Master Sergeant of a random class on your roster.
This means that with Commander's Choice, you will have a Max ranked soldier after your first mission of a class of your choice. Considering soldiers get bonus stats every few missions they participate in once they reach Master Sargent, this bonus lets you work towards making a Super Soldier if that's a play style you want to try for. C-B tier

Japan (Asia) Robotics +5 bonus aim for new SHIVs and MEC troopers.
A slightly better version of Ghost in the Machine as it also benefits MEC troopers, which make great (although expensive) troopers. C tier

Japan (Asia) On Our Own No unique bonus.

Mexico (North America) Wealthy Benefactor Start with 500 bonus cash
A very flexible bonus as its 500$ which you can do whatever you want with, which is the baseline amount that other cash saving perks attempt to save you. B tier

Mexico (North America) Ancient Artifact Start the campaign with an Illuminator Gunsight small item.
This starts you with a SCOPE that also gives Executioner as a bonus perk, meaning your soldier will have more aim vs targets with less than 50% hp. Considering you only get 1 other item like this later in the game, its up to you if this is worth 500$ or not. Note that this can't be stacked with a SCOPE item or Neural Uplink. D tier

Mexico (North America) Legacy of Uxmal 20% bonus to psionic training chances.
Soldiers have a base 50% chance for their psionic training to succeed. This brings it to 70% which if you want a strong PSI game and don't want too much failure, could be useful. That being said, the country sattlite bonus is 10% chance to PSI training chances. D tier due to Country Satellite Bonus

Nigeria (Africa) Pax Nigeriana All soldiers receive +1 mobility.
This means all soldiers can move 1 additional tile. A very powerful bonus. B-A tier

Nigeria (Africa) The Old Path 50% reduction in psi training time.
Instead of 10 days to train a psionic soldier, its now 5. Not that good, considering the satellite bonus is this bonus at 20% reduction. D tier

Nigeria (Africa) On Our Own No unique bonus.

Russia (Europe) Sukhoi Company Start with Enhanced Avionics foundry project, granting +10% to hit during air combat.
A very nice bonus early game as you wont get this until Advanced Aerospace Concepts and early game you sort of struggle to hit Scouts as your pilots aren't trained or have good weapons. It also saves you 400$ and some alloys from the project itself. B tier

Russia (Europe) Roscosmos Start with an additional satellite uplink, and all satellites cost 50% less to build.
This is one of the other top tier bonuses, as this lets you build 2 sattlites for the cost of 1. And like it or not, satellites will be shot down from time to time, so the cost reduction for new ones is great. Plus the extra uplink is right next to your first one, not hurting your base layout at all. And if you have the Second Wave option Diminishing Returns enabled, this helps deal with that. This saves anywhere from 500$ to over 2000$ depending on Second Wave options and how many times your satellites get shot down. A tier

South Africa (Africa) Resourceful Start with Alien Metallurgy and Advanced Salvage foundry projects (bonus alloys and weapon fragments).
Another Top Tier bonus as this saves you 500$, 70 alloys, and 140 meld and lets you get extra alloys and weapon fragments from mission one, which you need lots of. A tier

South Africa (Africa) Survival Training All soldiers receive +1 hit point.
1 extra hp means that a hit will not put soldiers into med-bay for as long and they may survive shots that would otherwise kill them. Up to you how much you value this. I personally don't value this much as its better to not get hit at all. C tier

United Kingom (Europe) Special Air Service All soldiers receive +3 aim.
Aim is always good. B-A tier

United Kingom (Europe) Their Finest Hour Start with Penetrator Weapons foundry project, granting interceptor weapons increased armor piercing capabilities.
This is another aerospace upgrade. This lets you possibly take down Medium UFOs with a Phoenix Cannon, a couple interceptors, and some luck. It saves you 300$, 80 alloys, and 45 weapon fragments. C tier

United Kingom (Europe) Sandhurst 33% reduction in ranks required to unlock Officer Training School projects.
Not very useful as you don't care about officer training school rank amounts due to how many soldiers you need to have leveled anyway to avoid Fatigue. D tier

United States (North America) Special Warfare School Officer Training School Projects cost 90% less.
This over the course of the game saves you 1500$ and basically lets you get squad size upgrades for dirt cheap whenever they're available. B-A tier

United States (North America) Cheyenne Mountain XCOM HQ starts with all elevators already built, and excavation costs are reduced by 50%.
This is a fun RP build since if XCOM ever existed IRL it would be located here. This gives your base +3 power, and lets you start to expand it quickly and cheaply. It saves you upwards of 500$ or 600$ over the course of the game which is above average. C-B tier

United States (North America) We Have Ways 75% reduction in time to complete autopsies and interrogations.
I don't find this useful as autopsies and interrogations are fast anyhow and at points even with them at normal speed you may run into times where you can't research anything due to not having enough weapon fragments anyway. D tier

United States (North America) On Our Own No unique bonus.


Country Satellite Bonus

In addition to a continent bonus, each country also gives you a bonus if they have satellite coverage. Most of these bonuses are weaker versions of starting bonuses, but some are unique as well.

Check them out on the Wiki, as well as the starting amount for each country.
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/The_Council_%28Long_War%29

Commander's Choice is a recommended Second Wave option so you can choose your soldier's class.

SHIVs are amazing. Alloy SHIVs make excellent tanks with the correct upgrades. (Crit immunity and more DR, alongside 2hp/turn Foundry project) and don't have fatigue if they finish a mission undamaged. They can also be upgraded to suppress targets, making them some decent support as well. SHIV kills give no XP.

Don't neglect the Steady Weapon option. Additionally always Steady Weapon on a Rocketeer before you fire its rocket so the rocket doesn't deviate.

Full Cover gives some DR in addition to its defensive bonuses. Try to stick to it as much as you can.

Use Grenades to remove alien cover. Really helps vs mutons that like to hide in cover.

Remember to scan for EXALT every 16 days.

Remember to disable EXALT relays. Disabling a relay forces EXALT weapons to malfunction. EXALT can still use their alternative abilities such as firing a rocket or throwing a grenade though.

Assaults make great Covert Ops since they can Run and Gun to disable an EXALT relay.

Don't feel ashamed to sell items on the Grey Market. Its necessary on higher difficulties. Plus once you can get alien captives, those make better trades for the council than corpses. Only corpses you don't wanna sell are Cyber discs since they make Dodge modules for your interceptors. You also need 15 thin men for an acid grenade, ext... But since you get aliens like crazy as each mission has 10-50 aliens on the map at once or more, well, corpses are aplenty! And captured alien weapons sell for a lot themselves.

Try to always have 1 satellite in stock just in case the aliens shoot down one of your satellites. That way you can instantly put up the new one.

Suppressing an Overwatching alien will suppress its Overwatch until your Suppressing Fire is canceled. Likewise dealing damage to an alien using Suppression fire cancels its suppression.

To finish Long War, you need a PSI unit with Rift. To obtain Rift, they must mind control an Ethereal. This is very difficult due to the obscenely high will of the ethereal. To help this along, a Combat Drugs soldier and a berserker serum, as well as a 2nd psi unit that mind links with the first unit, can help out a bunch. Even with all of this, you might only have a 60% chance to mind control the ethereal. Its the hardest part of the campaign for sure.

Fatigue is a new mechanic in Long War. Basically what it means is that after a mission, those soldiers will be injured for 1 hp if you send them into another mission before their fatigue wears off. Psionic soldiers and Gene modded soldiers have longer fatigue than normal soldiers, and SHIVs have no fatigue at all.

What this means is that you need to rotate your soldiers. Instead of the base game where you had one super great squad, in this game you will have, 4, 5, or maybe even 7 squads rotating in and out.

A good way to help manage fatigue is to in the first few months, bring some Rookies in alongside your squaddies, improving them and getting your next few squads ready for when you need them later on.

In addition you can build some SHIVs (I'd recommend Alloy SHIVs, they're good all the way til the end.) to help alleviate your roster's fatigue as they don't suffer fatigue. Just remember SHIV kills don't give XP!

Planning your Base Layout

Building a base for the Long War is actually fairly straightforward. A few things to keep in mind...

1. Lots of rooms have adjacency bonuses, forcing your base to have to dedicate places to certain areas depending on their adjacency bonuses.

2.. Restart if any steam vents are in the top left most 2x3 grid, as thats where your satellite nexus/relays have to go.

Now, for the actual buildings, there isn't that much to say about the layout. Essentially your going to try for a specific layout for your satellite relays/labs/workshops and your base will basically have spots dedicated to certain bits. What this means....

1. The top 2 rows to the left, you will have 3 adjacent Satellite Relays and 3 Satellite Nexus, filling out a 2x3 grid. This will give you exactly enough satellite uplinks to cover the entire planet.

2. Find a spot in your base with a free 2x2 grid. In this spot you will put 2 labs, your Gene lab, and your PSI lab. If you want more Research speed, you can put a temporary lab somewhere if you have spare materials/power.

3. Your Workshop section, comprised of Workshops, your Foundry, and the Repair Bay(Cybernetics Lab), will either be a 2x2 block, a 2x2+1 block, or a 2x3 block depending on what you can fit in your base.

4. Your Power Generators you probably wont have much of a choice on, but try to get as many adjacency bonuses that you can with them without interrupting the other 3 base areas.

5. Place the Alien Containment Facility, Officers School, Hyperwave Relay, and Gallop Chamber wherever you want that doesn't interfere with any of the above as they have no adjacency bonuses.

Now that you have an idea on how to layout your base, what do you build first?

Build Order

In the Long War, there isn't a hard and fast rule of what you build first. Usually you want to get your foundry up while slowly getting over to your steam vents and putting up a relay so you can get your continent bonus. Once this is done, you can usually safely start working on the rest of your infrastructure as you amass more Interceptors so you can protect other continents, and eventually launch satellites on them.

That being said, if you have some Second Wave modifiers active, like say, Wear and Tear, a Repair Bay might be one of your higher priorities. Thankfully its really cheap to make and is usually one of your first buildings anyway after the first Relay and the Foundry.

Ideally the build order for your early game should be this...

1. A second Relay so you can have 3 satellites up at once.
2. A temporary Fission Generator so you can build down to your Steam Vents
3. Work your way down to reach your planned 'Workshop' block
4. Put up a Foundry
5. Work your way to your first Steam Vent
6. Build a Thermal Generator.

At this point you can choose how you want to build your base from here. You can decide to remove that Fission generator if you want since the steam vent one will give lots of power and put another building there, or what have you.

NOTE: On the higher difficulties, especially with Second Wave options War Weariness and Results Driven, you may want to keep that fission generator until much later as money is extremely scarce.

Why Do I have building limitations?

If your on a roll and have lots of money, and thus rapidly expand your base, you'll find out that some rooms such as Labs, Workshops, and Satellite Uplinks/Nexus have an 'engineer' or 'scientist' requirement. This is a new feature in the Long War so you have a need for those people. Just build the room when you have enough scientists and Engineers.

Research in Long War is fairly straightforward at the start, and branches off later in the game depending on how you want to build your army. This section is to explain the standard build path before you start to branch off into other paths.

First and foremost, EVERY research path takes XenoBiology first, NO EXCEPTIONS! This allows you to trade Sectoid corpses to the council for scientists, thus greatly speeding up your future research.

Next you will grab Alien Weaponry to unlock the SCOPE item for you to build, increasing soldier accuracy, and unlocking the way to Beam Lasers

Next you will research Beam Lasers so you can get laser weapons, giving your soldiers a massive accuracy and damage upgrade. At this point you can choose to either get Alien Materials or Advanced Beam Lasers

Alien Materials allows you to trade Meld and other items to the council, but some of those deals might not be worth it. Additionally it unlocks the Phoenix Cannon, which will give your interceptors a huge boost vs UFOs, especially armored UFOs.

Advanced Beam Lasers meanwhile will give you the Laser Cannon for your interceptors, which is stronger than the Phoenix cannon vs non armored UFOs. Additionally it'll give you access to the specialized weapons for every class.

Once you have grabbed both of these, you will get Experimental Warfare which unlocks the ability to make Acid grenades when you autopsy a Thin men. It also unlocks the next and last Early game research you should beeline for, Advanced Aerospace Concepts

At this point you can decide if you want to rush Gauss weapons, rush Psionics, get Armor, rush Plasma, or rush MECs. Each of these paths will be in the ADVANCED section.

Now you have gotten your Xenobiology and maybe your lasers, and you want to know where to go from there? Well there are many paths that you can choose from.

Do note, while Xenobiology is unskippable, you can skip Lasers if you know what your doing, instead picking up Alien Materials for a Phoenix Cannon and taking these alternate routes. Or you could come to these routes from the Early Game Research Path area of this guide.

Additionally you can research autopsy's and interrogations at any time, as well as Alien UFO research projects. One Autopsy that is recommended is Thin men however, as they give access to Acid grenades after you research Experimental Warfare. Interrogations are also very nice as any future aliens of that type that you capture can be traded to the council for AMAZING rewards. 1 muton captive could get you 2 scientists and 200 dollars for example! In addition Interrogations give Research Credits, increasing future Research and Foundry speed for anything relating to that credit by 25%.

Path 1: Armor Tech

This is the next logical step up after Lasers, even though all paths listed here are also alternatives. Just upgrade your armor until you have Aurora or Banshee armor. This means getting Alien Materials, Improved Body Armor, Advanced Body Armor, Elerium, and Mobile Power Armor. You can stop this path upon researching Advanced Body Armor no problem and work towards other goals if you so wish, picking it up later when you have the chance to research Elerium.

Berserker Interrogation increases Armor Research due to an armor credit, but chances are this will only help you with Advanced Power Armor or the MEC armor research lines.

Path 2: Psionics

Unlike the base game, it is very fast and easy to get into Xenopsionics, only requiring Xenoneurology, Xenogenetics, and Sectoid Autopsy to unlock the research option. This research path will give you the Gene Lab and the PSI lab, both of which give adjacency bonuses if next to laboratories or themselves, increasing your research speed and giving you access to PSI units.

Sectoid Interrogation goes a long way to making this research faster, as Sectoid research credits increase Biocybernetics and Xenogenetic research. Sectoid Commanders help Xenopsionics, but chances are you will research Xenopsionics long before you ever see a Sectoid Commander.

The downsides to this path are that if you skipped Lasers, your still using your starting weapons and may be feeling a slight pinch as Alien health has gone up. If you didn't skip lasers, you might be a bit behind on your armor, which isn't too bad.

Path 3: MECs

MECs take a bit longer to get to in Long War and are very expensive, but are still very good. In order to unlock Alien Biocybernetics, you must first research XenoGenetics, Alien Materials, and Alien Computers and have built a Repair Bay in your base. This lets you build a MEC and later on you can unlock the Flamethrower, which is still as powerful in Long War as it was in the base game.

Sectoid Interrogation goes a long way to making this research faster, as Sectoid research credits increase Biocybernetics and Xenogenetic research.

The downside of MECs is that they are expensive to produce, costing more than an interceptor per armor.

Path 4: Gauss

Gauss is the next tier weapon after Lasers, and can be either rushed at the start, or after you finish your Early game research paths. Gauss Weapons only require Alien Materials and Experimental Warfare to be researched before you can make them, and are the middle of the road when it comes to weapons. They also reduce enemy Damage Resist by 2/3rds of a point when shooting at them, and the Gauss Sniper Rifle has built in HEAT ammo. In addition you get access to the Advanced Phoenix Coils foundry project, allowing you to upgrade your Phoenix Cannons to be able to take down some medium sized UFOs with no help or Large UFOs using Dodge/Aim modules and 1-3 interceptors.

Muton Interrogation Research Credits increase Gauss research, so they may be helpful if you find you can interrogate a muton before you get access to Gauss.

There aren't any real disadvantages for going to Gauss after the early game build as its the next step up other than your armor might be falling behind.

Path 4a: Gauss Rush

This is the same as above, but you skip researching Lasers and just rush straight for guess. Unlike the above, this has some serious disadvantages, but if done right you can get Gauss weapons out 2 months earlier than normal.

The downsides of this are numerous however, first and foremost they take a long time to research and build. It could take upwards of 2 months before you research basic Gauss after starting to research it, followed by another month building the guns themselves! All this time the Aliens are getting ahead of you in research, making the tactical game harder.

Path 5: Pulse Weapons

Pulse is the 2nd best weapon type in the game, and the highest type XCOM can build itself without you needing to capture aliens. It requires Advanced Beam Lasers and Alien Power Systems to research. If you research this and its Advanced counterpart after researching Advanced Gauss weapons, you will get access to EMP weapons, which will give you the 2nd strongest aircraft weapon, the EMP cannon, which is as good as a Plasma cannon but doesn't need an Alien Heavy Rifle to craft.

Thin Man Interrogation help this research path immensely due to the laser credit.

I'd recommend getting this after researching some armor tech, Gauss, and maybe a support tech like Psionics or MECs, as Gauss can get you to the end of the year usually. You can get this after getting Advanced Lasers, Aerospace, and all of that if you want though, but like Plasma, it might make your tactical game harder due to how long it takes to research and build.

Path 6: Plasma

These are the highest tier weapons in the game, and unlike the base game, are actually tricky to make as you need to capture an alien alive to get its weapon, which in turn is used to craft a plasma weapon as XCOM can't reproduce an alien plasma core.

Researching Plasma takes a great deal of time, needing Xenoneurology for the capture device, Elerium, Alien Computers, Alien Weaponry, Alien Power Systems, and Alien Biocybernetics. Naturally if your going this route you will unlock MECs long before you unlock Plasma weapons, so this is a possible research path to combine with obtaining MECs and Lasers.

Heavy Floaters give a Plasma Research Credit.

The earliest I've seen Plasma Carbines come online is late August, so its not necessarily the best research path to beeline for after finishing the early game stuff, and you should definitely not rush plasma at all.


Once you eventually make your way to Plasma and the heavier armor types, all that's left are a few other research paths that I'm sure you can figure out. One that isn't obvious however is Fusion Weapons, which requires Heavy Plasma and EMP weapons to be researched and for you to take down an Alien Battleship and obtaining a Fusion Core. This will give you access to the Fusion Lance Aerospace weapon and the Blaster Launcher, but chances are if you don't have the Slingshot DLC, you may never see Fusion Weapons pop up as downing an alien Battleship is very difficult.

-Hide behind full cover for that extra 0.5-1 DR.

-Hunker Down is a command you can use if your soldier is in a bad spot, but not being flanked. It makes them immune to crits and gives them more defense to survive shots more so they can tank while your other soldiers clean up house. Its not used that often, but don't forget its there.

-Smoke Grenades are great for making alien shots miss. Combine with Acid to make most alien shots a 1% chance to hit.

-Alloy SHIVs can be used as cover, and aliens will tend to shoot the SHIV and not the soldier if they're not using their grenades or other special abilities.

-Smoke Grenades are very useful, especially when they're upgraded.

-Engineers are something your going to take every mission. Being able to blow away enemy cover with one grenade is too valuable, so Sapper is a must for them.

-Repairing a SHIV in the field so that it has all its health points healed up will keep it from going to the shop to be repaired when you get back to base. This is NOT true for soldiers however, who will go back to base with the lowest hp injury they had that round. Additionally if you revive a soldier and they go down again, they will have an even greater resting period.

-Infantry will probably make up the bulk of your squads as they're the most versatile killers.

-Don't forget to use grenades and rockets and other explosives. Sometimes you'll need to lose the alien artifacts to be able to withstand a large alien assault. Even then you'll tend to have a few aliens survive a rocket later on in the game. You only lose alien artifacts if explosive damage kills the aliens, damaging them is fine.

-Shredder rockets are amazing for cleaning up a large group of Drones who are difficult to hit otherwise.

-Explosives deal less damage the further away from the center of the explosion. This includes cover damage. So try to adjust the explosive AoE to be positioned with the biggest enemy taking the most damage.

-Acid Grenades reduce alien accuracy by 30% and deal damage over time, one damage per turn or 1 damage per move. Poisoning a Berserker with an acid grenade for example will damage them for 1 hp per time when they move. Also Acid Grenades reduce enemy DR by 2, which means they let you penetrate and get more damage when used on mechanical units like Sectopods and Cyberdiscs.

-SCOPES and Laser Sights +Aim bonuses stack for the earlygame.

-Mechanical units have 2+ DR for the most part, so if you don't hit them with hard hitting attacks or shred their armor, you may have a difficult time damaging them. HEAT ammo works great for them as well.

Do not change in game .inis unless you have a basic understanding of code. The wiki has a lot of popular mods.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Mods_%28Long_War%29

My recommended mod is the Pistol Slot Arc Thrower. (It is also the easiest to 'install')

With the release of B15, the code required for a pistol slot Arc Thrower is included in the DGC.ini. To make the change, all you need to do is comment out (add a ";") the default line for the arc thrower and remove the comment located several lines lower.
Essentially you tell the game to stop reading the default line of arc thrower code and begin reading the pre-built code enabling the pistol slot. It is explained in the comments of the DGC.ini.

To increase the range of the Arc Thrower to normal vision range, replace line 1673 in DefaultGameCore.ini with this:

(The iAlloys field for the Arc Thrower item was set to 94000)

Remember that each item has 2 different listings.

Guide creation: Archmage MC(Me)
Mod Creation: Long War Studios
Information: UFOpedia

Remember, if you have a question, just reference the wiki!
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Long_War