Difficulty (Long War)

I'm fairly new to XCOM. What difficulty should I start with?
Normal.

I'm an XCOM veteran. What difficulty should I start with?
Normal.

But I'm really awesome at --
Sorry to interrupt, but just start with Normal. We don't have easy difficulties in this mod that hold your hand while you learn the ropes and we've removed every bit of code we can find that cheats for the player on the lower difficulties. It's going to be hard. The other difficulties are just harder versions of Normal; feel free to move up when you get a handle on all the new mechanics.

OMG, this is hard. I'm having to save and load lots to win all my missions
You are not intended to win every mission, and in fact if you do you'll have a very imbalanced game. You can and will see Supply Ships and Battleships in March or April and you're not intended to beat them. Take heart though, Long War is balanced around winning some and losing some. You can get countries back if you lose them and you can keep fighting as long as even one country supports you. You're expected to have dozens of soldiers on your roster, so losing your highest ranked sniper isn't the end of the world. There will be a lot of UFOs to assault, so if you don't shoot some down or fail to assault them there will be many more.

Difficulty levels

In general, higher difficulties cause you to have less resources at your disposal, while there are stronger and more numerous Aliens present on tactical missions. Aliens also advance their research faster, granting them extra abilities, stats and stronger alien types earlier in the game.

Normal

Tactical

• Drones, Floaters, and Heavy Floaters have -5 defense.
• Floaters also have -1 mobility.
• All Elite EXALT units have -1 base HP.

Strategic

• More weapon fragments are recovered after missions.
• UFO missions grant 40% more Alien alloys.
• More elerium is recovered from UFO Power Sources.
• Alien research rate is at 70%.
• Council members with satellite coverage grant 110% of their maximum funding.
• Council members without satellite coverage grant 50% of their maximum funding.
• 200 points of panic is spread to Council members at game start.
• XCOM base gets +2 "free" power.

Classic

Tactical

• All enemies have +5 aim.
• Thin Men and Outsiders gain +5 extra aim (+10 total).
• Floaters have -5 defense.
• All EXALT units get +1 base HP.

Strategic

• Slightly more weapon fragments are recovered after missions.
• UFO missions grant 20% more Alien alloys.
• Alien research rate is at 100%.
• Council members without satellite coverage grant 40% of their maximum funding.
• 400 points of panic is spread to Council members at game start.

Brutal

Note that these base values mentioned do not include leader, navigator or alien research bonuses.

Tactical

• All enemies have +10 aim.
• Thin Men gain extra +5 aim (+15 total).
• Outsiders gain extra +10 aim (+20 total).
• Floaters have 6 base HP up from 5.
• Mutons have 10 base HP up from 8.
• Berserkers have 22 base HP up from 20.
• Drones have 4 base HP up from 3.
• Zombies have 15 base HP up from 12.
• Mechtoids have 27 base HP up from 25.
• All EXALT units gain +2 base HP.
• +5 will: Sectoid.
• +10 will: Floater, Thin Man, Muton, Heavy Floater, Muton Elite, Chryssalid, Zombie, Mechtoid, Berserker, Outsider, all EXALT.
• +25 will: Sectoid Commander, Ethereal, Uber Ethereal.
• Uber Ethereal gains +5 def.

Strategic

• Alien research rate is at 110%.
• Council members without satellite coverage grant 33% of their maximum funding.
• 600 points of panic is spread to Council members at game start.
• Less elerium is recovered from UFO Power Sources.

Impossible

Tactical

Unchanged from Brutal difficulty:

• All enemies have +10 aim.
• Thin Men gain extra +5 aim (+15 total).
• Outsiders gain extra +10 aim (+20 total).
• Floaters have 6 base HP up from 5.
• Mutons have 10 base HP up from 8.
• Drones have 4 base HP up from 3.
• Zombies have 15 base HP up from 12.
• All Exalt units gain +2 base HP.

Changes in Impossible:

• Sectoids have 4 base HP up from 3.
• Seekers have 5 base HP up from 4.
• Berserkers have 27 base HP up from 22.
• Mechtoids have 30 base HP up from 25.
• Cyberdiscs have 21 base HP up from 18.
• Heavy Floaters gain +1 mobility.
• Sectoids gain extra +5 will (+10 total).
• Zombies and Mechtoids gain extra +10 will (+20 total).
• Floaters, Thin Men, Mutons, Heavy Floaters, Muton Elites, Chryssalids, Berserkers, Outsiders, and EXALTs gain extra +15 will (+25 total).
• Sectoid Commanders, Ethereals, and Uber Ethereal gain extra +10 will (+35 total).
• Uber Ethereal gains extra +5 def (+10 total).
• +1 base damage: Muton, Cyberdisc, Chryssalid, Zombie, Outsider, ballistic EXALT.
• +2 base damage: Sectoid Commander, Heavy Floater, Berserker, Sectopod, Ethereal, Elite EXALT.
• +3 base damage: Muton Elite, Mechtoid.
• +4 base damage: Uber Ethereal.

Strategic

Unchanged from Brutal difficulty:

• Less elerium is recovered from UFO power sources.

Changes in Impossible:

• Alien research rate is at 130%.
• Council members without satellite coverage grant 25% of their maximum funding.
• 800 points of panic is spread to Council members at game start.

Easy Levels

We really want to support all levels of pain tolerance: since Beta 15e, the Long War download has 4 additional easier difficulty levels included, but you have to make a file change to get them working. Doing this will replace the key settings for the four default difficulties. It does not change static in-game text, so the difficulties will still be labeled "normal", "classic", "brutal", "impossible"; however, this "impossible" is still a bit easier than standard "normal".

To play with the easy settings:

• go to your version of C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config\
• rename the file DefaultGameCore.ini to AltDefaultGameCore.alt or something like that. The goal is disable the usual settings file.
• rename the file DefaultGameCore - Training.ini to DefaultGameCore.ini -- this enables the alternate settings file to be used by the game.
• after doing this, you MAY have to also delete the file XComGameCore.ini in your version of C:\Users\John\Documents\My Games\XCOM - Enemy Within\XComGame\Config

This last step is troubleshooting and shouldn't be necessary for most players, but sometimes the game fails to update the file it actually uses (XComGameCore.ini) with changes to the file users should edit (DefaultGameCore.ini), and this will ensure that the update does take place.

Changes

Changes among difficulties (Normal, Classic, Brutal, Impossible) remain the same as above, unless noted otherwise.

Tactical:

• Civilian: +4 HP
• Soldier: +1 HP, +5 Will
• SHIV: +2 HP
• Sectoid: (nothing)
• Drone: -1 HP
• Outsider: -5 HP
• Floater: -1 HP
• Thin Man: -1 HP, -5 Aim
• Seeker: (nothing)
• Muton: -1 HP, -5 Aim, -10 Def
• Chryssalid: -1 HP, -10 Def
• Zombie: -4 HP
• Cyberdisc: -6 HP, -5 Aim
• Mechtoid: -7 HP
• Berserker: -5 HP, -10 Def
• Sectoid Commander: - 5 HP, -10 Def
• Heavy Floater: -3 HP, -5 Aim, -10 Def
• Muton Elite: -5 HP, -10 Aim, -10 Def
• Sectopod: -15 HP
• Ethereal: -5 HP, -10 Aim, -20 Def
• Uber Ethereal: -30 HP, -20 Def
• ballistic EXALT: -2 HP
• Elite EXALT: -3 HP
• -15 Def for flying units
• +1 Motion Tracker charge
• Arc Thrower stun chances back to vanilla (90%)
• much lower chance for offscreen kills during terror missions
• aliens are less likely to use Alien Grenade

Strategic

• +3 base power on Normal, +2 otherwise
• +10 starting soldiers, -5 credits hiring cost
• +10% psi training chance, +3 psi training slots
• -20% soldier XP and PsiXP requirements
• Alien Research is 50% slower, Bonus Research starts at -120 (down from -90)
• Council funding is 150%/140%/130%/120% N/C/B/I (up from 110%/100%/100%/100%)
• Initial cash amount +200
• Weapon Fragments from missions x2.5
• Alloys recovered for UFOs: 200%/170%/140%/120% N/C/B/I (up from 140%/120%/100%/100%)
• +10 Elerium recovered per UFO Power Source
• +40% chance to recover artifacts due to EMP Cannon (up from +20%)
• -60% ship repair and rearm time
• +5% Interceptor penetration (up from 0%)
• 50% chance for a Terror mission to hit most panicked country (down from 85%)
• Initial panic spread down to 200/300/400/500 (from 200/400/600/800 N/C/B/I)
• -1 panic increase per civilian killed during Terror missions
• Respirator Implant costs 4 Meld (down from 8 Meld)
• Alloy Carbide Plating grant 0 extra HP (down from 4) but Extra Conditioning Perk
• UFO Scanners Foundry project cost down to 20 cash (from 65) but 4 UFO Flight Computers (up from 2)