XCOM 2 – How to Start (Tips and Tricks)

There are basic tips include (but are not limited to).

Tips for New Players

Don’t start with the tutorial turned on. While it’s good for some extra story, it’s terrible for helping you play the game.

With it you start the game with one soldier with a class. Without it you can start with up to four of them (or three, if you picked a starting faction hero in the advanced options).

Once you are out of the starting mission (known as Gatecrasher) head into engineering and buy a flashbang. This thing is going to be your fallback panic button for at least the first third of the game. So always have someone carry it into a mission, and then have that person towards the rear of the group and acting last in a fight.

I normally stick it on a Spec (the one with the little robot) if there’s the option to.

Just keep in mind that if you flashbang a sectoid before it has tried to use any psionics on you, this means they will shoot at you instead. It can often be better to hide the person with it, let them mind control someone and then flashbang the alien to remove the effect.

Normal grenades are your friends, and you should abuse your friends (ok, that sounded better in my head…).

The standard grenade is a 100% chance to hit, will always do at least three damage (which on rookie is enough to one-shot a normal ADVENT trooper) and blow up most cover making people easier to hit with an extra 40% chance to crit.

Speaking of cover. Low cover gives a 20% less chance to hit (or be hit) while high cover gives a 40%. If possible you always want people behind high cover.

Though a counter to that is, try to avoid grouping up. Your people aren’t the only ones with grenades.

Shooting someone on a lower elevation (most commonly because the one shooting is on a roof) gives a bonus to aim for a better chance to hit making them great if you can get the drop on people. Downside is you will almost never find a roof with high cover and most rooves will also blow up with a single grenade at which point fall damage is a thing.

If you’re playing on WotC there’s a new game option to double turn timers and the avatar doom clock, good for newer players.

For the shorter turn timer (green missions) if you can get to and complete the main objective the timer goes away letting you hunt down and finish the rest of the enemies at your leisure.

For the longer ones (pale blue missions) you don’t need to kill all the things to win, just get who you are there to get and then get them and your squad to the evac.

Using the evac option to get out is a free action and can still be taken if that person has no actions remaining so it is safe to dash to safety so long as your move ends inside the glowing square.

For research I would personally recommend grabbing Modular Weapons followed by Alien Biotech and then keep an eye out for Resistance Communications. After which it’s often time to get a better gun (at least a better rifle and pistol as these are you weakest offerings).

For more general research

Better weapons > better armor. Better armor may help you live longer if shot at, but better weapons stops you from being shot at in the first place sooner.