Covert Actions | Game mechanics XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Game Guide

Covert Actions is another novelty brought by the War of the Chosen, which is directly related to the Resistance. These are basically special missions, where you can send the XCOM soldiers. In most cases (we'll talk about it in detail later on) they don't require finishing a battle with the aliens - you just need to choose the mission from a menu, select soldiers, and confirm your choice. After a few days the mission will end and the player will be adequately rewarded.

• Choosing the Covert Action
• Advice

Choosing the Covert Action

The Resistance Ring grants access to Covert Actions.

Selecting a secret mission is simple - as soon as the previous one is completed, you will see a pop-up that will let you open a new selection window. However, you will not have free access to this window until you have built one of the three new facilities - the Resistance Ring. Once built, you will be given the opportunity to check available missions under secret operations at any time. It is worth creating this facility as early as possible, as it gives you access to two enhancements that allow you to increase the number of wildcards from 1 to 3 (see Resistance Command Sections). They also allow putting the engineer inside, which will shorten the time of all activities by 33%.

Here you choose the operations.

When approaching the newly created station, there will be a button at the bottom of the screen that is responsible for Covert Actions. There will be several to a dozen missions here, depending on how many resistance groups you have already managed to establish contact with and in what relationships you are. The whole window is divided into several parts:

1. A list of actions is on the left (1) - you'll find all available missions here.
2. Description and deadline (2).
3. Soldiers required to finish the quest (3). Every action requires sending at least two soldiers. Often, the mission places additional demands - sending a third soldier, sacrificing a small amount of resources / intelligence, or even sending a scientist / engineer to reduce the risk of casualties.
4. Mission risks (4). Here you will find information on chances of soldiers getting wounded, captured, or ambushed. If a soldier is wounded, they will need several days to heal after the operation. The capture causes you to lose access to the soldier, and it will be necessary to rescue him from the hands of the alien, and the ambush forces you to take part in the mission where you have to get to the escape point, using only the soldiers who were sent to the action.

After a couple of days since beginning an Operation, you will see the above screen.

When you have chosen the squad, you only need to confirm the choice. After a couple days, the operation will be finished, and you will see its summary. Usually, completed tasks will be displayed along with the benefits associated with this activity - additional skill points, unlocked command cards, or reduced progress on the AWATAR project. If the mission had any chance of wounding a soldier, the relevant information will be displayed on the screen if this situation has occurred. The same is true of catching and ambush - in the first case, you will be informed that the soldier has been captured (after a few days you will be able to perform a rescue action - details in the chapter "Trapping and recapturing soldiers from alien hands") and in the second a window will pop-up and you'll have to begin an ambush mission (details in the "Missions" chapter).

Advice

Lets finish off with some advice concerning the discussed mechanics:

1. Only one team can perform a Covert Operation.
2. You cannot abort such an Operation; the soldiers will be unavailable. Keep that in mind when you're planning a difficult mission - making a mistake here will prevent you from using your favorite soldiers when they're needed.
3. Remember that a good portion of the missions only has a single risk factor - soldier getting wounded. The more difficult the mission, the more threads there will be (they'll be more likely to occur as well).
4. If an operation allows allocation of another soldier or resource (engineering/a scientist) to decrease the likelihood of the given thread (especially capturing soldiers), always do it! The costs are ridiculously low most of the time, and the missions of rescuing soldiers aren't very easy.
5. Covert Actions are a great way to develop the less often used soldiers, as some of them offer an immediate boost to the next level.
6. This is a great way to develop a bond of soldiers - some missions give you a reward for advancing to a higher level, which in the case of 2 to 3 level advancement can save you the need of sending soldiers for up to a dozen or so missions. You read more about this in the chapter "Relationships between soldiers".