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After beating XCOM 2 in Commander Difficulty, these are some of the tips I came up with after learning some very tough lessons, this is more aimed to players who already know the basics and want advice on how to get through the mid and late game.

Research Bluescreen Protocol

Some of the most dangerous enemies in XCOM 2 are robotic enemies, but they are also some of the toughest one to take down. You can’t spend three turns trying to take down an Advent MEC or an Andromedon when you’re in a mission with a timer of eight turns. The fastest way to take care of robotic enemies is Researching Bluescreen Protocol in the Proving Grounds and equipping Bluescreen Rounds in your soldiers, during Mid-Late campaign, the game will start throwing a lot of robotic enemies at you, and without Bluescreen Rounds you’ll find yourself hitting a wall.

Get Shredder ability on your Granadiers

No ifs and buts. Armored enemies are a nightmare to deal with, and as the game progresses, enemies with more and more armors will show up, and not all of them are robotic enemies so Bluescreen Protocol will not help against all of them, I would even say that taking two Shredder Granadiers on your 6-man squad is not too much.

The worst enemy in XCOM 2 is… your wounded soldiers

Having many (or all) of your soldiers Gravely Wounded in one mission is one of the worst things that can happen, especially if that is your A Team, because you’re basically out of the game until they recover, not to mention they can be Shaken and have their Will reduced, and at some point someone is going to be wounded no matter what so the best way to mitigate it is to staff an Engineer in your Advanced Warfare Center so your soldiers recover faster, try to rotate the soldiers you take on missions so you don’t overly rely on a single squad and train all your Rookies in the Guerrilla Tactics School.

Granadier + Shredder + Bluescreen Rounds = Dead Sectopod.

Another tactic to avoid being injured is to be aggressive and end fights quickly, you don’t want to be in a prolonged firefight where your soldiers can be injured. You see. In XCOM 2, soldiers are much more powerful than in the first game and have very strong abilities to win fights quickly, be liberal when it comes to using those abilities to take down the highest threats as fast as possible, and make sure to develop the right technology, you don’t want something like a Sectopod to be on the playing field for more than one turn. A Shredder Granadier with Bluescreen Rounds will help you cut through it-like butter.

Always be on the move in timed missions

I’ve found that some of the hardest missions in XCOM 2 are those with a timer, especially those that only give you eight turns, you cannot afford to waste a single turn by standing around so always be on the move, even if you are fighting the aliens at least use one action to move and another one to fire. You can be creative with explosives, and blow up walls if it allows you to get a shorter path to your objective. I literally blew up half a house so my Specialist could get a line of sight to a terminal and hack it, or used the Wraith Suit to walk through the walls of a building, get inside an Advent truck and loot a container, all in a single turn.

Null Lance deals damage through armor and cover.

Abilities with 100% Hit Chance are a must have!

There are some enemies in this game that are tough to kill because of their armor, but there are other that are hard to kill because they’re very tough to hit, and some of them even also have to armor. Some abilities in this game have 100% chance to hit, and they are absolutely necessary to deal with some of the most evasive aliens. And I don’t think I would have beaten the game without them. Some of these abilities are more on the weaker side (Combat Protocol or having a Stock on your weapon) but others are devastating. For example, the hail of Bullets in the Granadier has saved me from tough enemies many times. As it perfectly with Holo-Targeting and Shredder, in a single attack you are guaranteed to damage, reduce armor and increase your squad hit chance against that enemy.

The Psi Operative is another class brings 100% hit abilities such as Null Lance and Soulfire. Sure, maybe they’re not necessarily needed early in the game. However, you will really want at least one or two of them later on. As some Experimental Weapons for the WAR Suit (like the Blaster Launcher) can be just as devastating as the Null Lance. So having one or two of those weapons wouldn’t hurt either.

Pain comes in many different shapes, colors and forms in “XCOM 2”.

Take your time when the missions allow it

While some of the missions have a truly strict timer, others do not. So make sure to take your time and make the right moves. For example, if you just took out a pod of aliens. Then make sure everyone reloads their weapons before moving on, because sometimes enemies patrol the maps. In other words, if you know they’re coming you can wait for them in Overwatch, some very powerful abilities have a Cooldown, so taking a turn or two to Overwatch also helps you get those abilities ready for the next fight.

Always work to make contact with new regions

The geoscape is much better than in XCOM:EU. As XCOM 2´s geoscape is a lot more complex and there’s more to do. However, the new geoscape “may” also distract you for the very same reason (tons of things to see and do, keep your eyes on the ball!). I almost lost my first game because I was supposed to destroy a Blacksite in Chile, but I was in Russia. I was sidetracked with all the other activities in the Geoscape, and before long the Avatar Project completed and the countdown to defeat started. I reached and destroyed the Blacksite when I was 20hs away from losing the entire game and stopped the countdown. Nevertheless, it could have gone either way, so make sure you’re constantly expanding your network to avoid that, conserve Intel because it’s always needed to make contact with new regions and be sure to build Resistance Comms.