Long War Baalor Edition - More Challenging Long War

Description

Long War: Baalor Edition is a custom configuration for XCOM: Long War that I created to challenge myself.   As a veteran of the Long War mod for XCOM: Enemy Within, I found that the mod suffers from an inverse difficulty curve that is hard at the start and gets progressively easier as you outpace the aliens, as well as having a problematic late-game where XCOM is dominating tactical missions but starved for resources resulting in severe grind. I created Baalor Edition to try to resolve these issues.

Main features

• []Significantly increased enemy numbers and variety at all stages of the campaign[/]

  []Dramatically increased Alien Research progression[/]

  []Revamped difficulty curve that actually starts out easier and gets harder as you progress (instead of starting hard and getting easier)[/]

  []Balance tweaks to various starting bonuses, equipment, alien species, and perk trees[/]

Requirements

Baalor Edition requires XCom Enemy Within, Long War, and Escalation Mod in order to function.

Long War: https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88

Escalation mod: (https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/603)

Installation instructions

BE requires multiple mods for XCOM in order to function.  Long War for Enemy Within is required.  Additionally, to modify enemy spawns Escalation Mod is required.  There are two different ways of installing Escalation which are detailed below.

Option 1: Escalation Mod

1. Install XCOM: EW

2. Install XCOM: Long War

3. Download PatcherGUI (https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/448)

4. Download Escalation mod (https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/603)

You need both “Mutators to enable new Strategy AI and SHIV XP” and “Configurable leader levels and pod difficulty” files

5. Use PatcherGUI to apply the XGStrategy. NewGame.txt and XGUnit. RecordKill.txt patches to Path-To-SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW folder. To do so, click "Browse" to the right of "Mod file" and find the forementioned two files. After selecting each file, click "Apply" and you are done. Do this as many times for each file.

6. Copy four .u files from inside "Mutators to enable new Strategy AI and SHIV XP" to Path-To-SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\CookedPCConsole folder. Answer "yes" when prompted to replace existing files. Be sure to use the newer file from http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/download/1000005238 as it has the newer and updated file.

7. Copy two .ini files from inside "Mutators to enable new Strategy AI and SHIV XP" to SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW

\XComGame\Config folder.

8. Copy DefaultStrategyAIMod.ini from inside "Configurable leader levels and pod difficulty" to SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config folder.

9. Open SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config\DefaultEngine.ini file with notepad.

Search for this line:

+NonNativePackages=XComLZMutator

Add these two lines right after it:

+NonNativePackages=XComStrategyAIMutator

+NonNativePackages=XComSHIVXP

10. Open Path-To-SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config\DefaultMutatorLoader.ini file with notepad.

Search for:

arrTacticalMutators="XComLZMutator. XComSpawnAlienMutator"

Add right after it:

arrTacticalMutators="XComSHIVXP. XComSHIVXPMutator"

Search for:

arrStrategicMutators="XComLZMutator. XComFCMutator"

Add right after it:

arrStrategicMutators="XComStrategyAIMutator. XComStrategyAIMutator"

11. Extract the Baalor Edition archive inside Steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown and overwrite when prompted

12. Use PatcherGUI to apply each of the .txt files inside of the "PatcherGUI Mods" folder to your game

13. (Optional) If you desire to play without perk tree changes from Baalor Edition, rename "DefaultGameCore - No Class Changes" to "DefaultGameCore.ini" and place inside \SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config.  Overwrite when prompted

14. Start a new campaign!

Option 2: Long War 1. 1

LW 1. 1 is not an official patch by the Long War team, but rather a mod compilation that combines dozens of mini-mods into one convenient install.  I use a hand-configured version of this for my on-