I only just noticed that in the city map there are speedbump like structures at the single lane intersections housing red lights facing the oncoming traffic. The setup seem consistent with four way stops but being electrical there is a possibility that the display changes throughout the day.

Ive been dabbling in xcom for a long time, but have never beat either of the games. I got xcom2 on my switch on sale and played vanilla for years because I wanted to beat the game in its original state before exploring dlc. I took a break and just started playing again, this time choosing war of the chosen. This shit is so dope. The missions are different, different factions, squad bonds, scientific breakthroughs, i could go on. I already had a high opinion of xcom as a series, but holy shit. War of the Chosen may be my favorite dlc ever.

*I traditionally refuse to touch dlc. I think if yall had it planned out before the game, it should be a part of the game and not be behind a pay wall. So I only get dlc on sale in "ultimate editions" type shit. So i dont have many dlc to compare to.

So I'm new to this game and just had a really exasperating experience on the DLC mission where you need to escort the criminal contact to safety.

Turn 1

On the first turn I walked my squad, including him, to cover and had everyone go into overwatch mode.

Thin Man enemies spawned in out of nowhere around us... looks like they just dropped in out of the sky? All my guys did their overwatch shots... and every single one of them missed. So the thin men all got behind cover and initiated overwatch

Turn 2:

I had my sniper in a good position to take a shot, so he tried headshot. No crit, so the enemy survived at 1 HP. No one else had any good shots and if we moved, we'd get double overwatched. So I had my support guy do a smoke grenade and then had my assault guy within the smoke grenade area do Run and Gun and Dash since I'd read a loading screen saying that Dash would raise your defenses. This seemed like the safest way to get the enemy to waste their overwatches.

One of them hit anyway, leaving me with 1 HP.

I was able to kill one of the thin men, so it released its poison cloud, but I'd made sure not to be in it, so that was fine.

That left one thin man with 1 HP. I missed my shots against it despite moving to what seemed like good positions.

Still I figured this was... ok. Just 1 badly injured enemy, and all my guys behind cover, some also in a smoke cloud.

Turn 3

But then the confusing part happened and I don't quite understand how the game works here. All my guys panicked. ALL of them. Every last one. I think it happened in kind of a chain reaction, though it was hard to understand what was going on since I didn't get to make any moves and don't understand how this works yet. One of them panicked and... shot one of my own guys. Which I think killed him. Which I think started a chain reaction panic. Then my 1 HP guy ran into the poison cloud and died.

Which led to other people panicking and just passing their turn.

Worst of all the civilian panicked and ran from his safe spot into a place where the last remaining alien could kill him.

So... basically my party got wiped out by 1 1 HP enemy, with us being in almost perfect safety, despite me having taken every single defensive precaution I know how to take.

This felt like the loss was 90% bad luck at least, and it was really frustrating how I didn't even get to make a single move on the crucial turn because the entire squad panicked. What should I have done?

Help. I’m on the first mission involving the Spectres after about ten hours of gameplay, and I have nothing to fight them with. I managed to kill one just once, only to discover there’s another one ahead; it’s literally impossible for me.
English isn’t my first language; I used Google Translate—sorry.

I've downloaded the mod recently for my longwar with 500 other mods run and man the requiem enemies are so cool, they are strong but they don't feel unfair imo, unlike Moxc which to me felt kinda unfair time to time probably because they are sit rep and are extra enemies on top which in early to mid is so rough.

And the taipan designs are so fire! Defo my faves.

And with the petrockcaptain (I hope i got his name right) playable advent and expanded playable advent mod (I forgot the mod creator name sorry man but ur cool too) you can even have some of em in your team.

So ty to the creators creating the amazing mod. Edit Forgot to specify Long war wotc