Alien Deployment (Long War)

Troops: Similar to vanilla, aliens tend to deploy in tiers, with new aliens being unlocked as time progresses. In addition, aliens will gain substantial bonuses from research, adding health, aim, DR and mobility increases in addition to new perks. Month One will be dominated by Sectoids and Drones, with Thin Men making appearances for Council missions. Month Two adds Floaters, Seekers and random pods of Thin Men to the mix, and is when Terror Missions featuring Chryssalids are first introduced. Month Three introduces EXALT, a constant threat, and will likely see the late introduction of Mutons. Following Mutons are Cyberdiscs and Mechtoids, adding a substantial mech element to the mix. Be sure to have HEAT weaponry available by the time these missions spawn, as mech DR is no laughing matter. Berserkers, Muton Elites, and Heavy Floaters follow slowly, with Sectopods and Ethereals making appearances in the late, late game.

Pod counts increase over time, though some rounds can contain as little as two dependent on alien resources. Pods can often be mixed, but typically always include some form of squad leader, a notably healthier member of the squad who may have a higher count of unique abilities. In the later months pods can also include "bosses", who are larger, can boast over twice as many hit points, and have a plethora of skills. Expect Squad-Sight Thinmen, Giant Drones and Chryssalids, and many other towering terrors. Bosses and squad leaders will also occasionaly come with scouting navigators in addition to the regular led pod.

Geoscape: Aliens will consistently run harvest, research, and abduction missions wherever they like, but will focus air raids, terror missions and infiltration missions on geographical locations, swallowing whole continents before moving on to the next. Scout missions happen often, usually as a precursor to other missions, can be used to determine ideal locations for harvesting missions but will most often be used to locate your satellites so that a hunter may be sent in. When starved for resources, the aliens will sometimes run "eco rounds", sending lightly-manned ships out to gather resources while prepping the majority of their forces for a huge, rapid-deployment push, straining XCOM to its breaking point. Even at high resources, they are limited to two terror missions per month - but those terror missions can be clumped together at the end of one month and the beginning of another, so be wary! If the aliens consider XCOM a large enough threat, they will begin to focus more effort on sabotage, and will likely initiate a base assault when they have the (substantial) resources required. As of Beta 14, they may also attempt to cripple your interceptors by launching the new Air Base Assault mission. This will only happen after the first Firestorm is built.