[WOTC] Enhanced Order: Art of War

The Templar Resistance Order Art of War increases personal Ability Points earned through promotions. However, when a veteran soldier later improves their Combat Intelligence, the game’s retroactive AP calculation does not fully reconstruct the career total that the soldier should have earned with both the improved intelligence and Art of War.

Enhanced Order: Art of War corrects that interaction. When Combat Intelligence genuinely increases while Art of War is active, the mod tops up the soldier’s personal Ability Points to the expected career total. It also fixes Firaxis’ zero-base exclusion so SPARKs and similar classes receive the AP component associated with their randomly assigned Combat Intelligence.

• Detects real Combat Intelligence increases on the strategy layer.
• Makes Art of War correctly retroactive after the increase.
• Supports regular soldiers, Reapers, Skirmishers, and Templars.
• Supports SPARK and robotic soldier classes.
• Awards the Combat Intelligence component even when a class has `BaseAbilityPointsPerPromotion=0`.
• Applies zero-base Combat Intelligence AP on promotions and future intelligence increases.
• Accounts for every eligible promotion already earned by the soldier.
• Counts both unspent and already-spent personal Ability Points.
• Never removes Ability Points.
• Idempotent: repeated events cannot award the same correction twice.
• No broad class overrides.
• No configuration or MCM setup required.

The Art of War career correction runs only when all of the following are true:

• A unit’s Combat Intelligence is higher than in its previous game-state revision.
• The Art of War Resistance Order is currently active.
• The soldier has reached a rank that can have relevant historical AP gains.
• The unit is not marked as a super soldier.

The mod listens to `AbilityPointsChange`, but it does not assume that every such event is a Combat Intelligence reward. It compares the current unit with its previous state and proceeds only when Combat Intelligence actually increased.

This supports the vanilla Improve Combat Intelligence Covert Action and compatible modded effects that use the same normal event lifecycle.

Zero-base non-hero classes have one additional path: `UnitRankUp` supplies their current Combat Intelligence component even when Art of War is inactive. This is necessary because SPARKs receive a random Combat Intelligence value when created, while Firaxis suppresses their entire AP result solely because their class base is zero. If Art of War is active, the same component is scaled by the order.

Instead of blindly adding a fixed amount, the mod calculates how many personal Ability Points the soldier should have earned across their career using:

• their current rank;
• their new Combat Intelligence level;
• their soldier-class base AP progression;
• the Combat Intelligence bonus, including for zero-base classes;
• the Art of War scalar;
• the Resistance Hero AP formula when applicable.

It then compares that target with:

Only a positive difference is awarded. If the soldier already has the correct amount, nothing happens. Ability Points are never removed.

A veteran soldier has already completed several promotions with Standard Combat Intelligence. Art of War is active when the soldier completes an Improve Combat Intelligence action.

Vanilla raises the Combat Intelligence level and grants its normal immediate adjustment. This mod then checks the soldier’s entire eligible promotion history and supplies only the missing Art of War-adjusted difference.

The result is the same career AP target the soldier would have reached if their current Combat Intelligence and Art of War calculation had applied to those eligible promotions.

• It does not grant AP merely because Art of War is activated.
• It does not recalculate an already-Savant unit unless a relevant rank or intelligence event occurs.
• It does not change the frequency or availability of Covert Actions.
• It does not modify Combat Intelligence chances or thresholds.
• It does not change Training Center ability costs.
• It does not add abilities or change how a class is allowed to spend personal AP.
• It does not process super soldiers.

The mod uses a Community Highlander strategy event listener and does not replace soldier, headquarters, reward, or Resistance Order classes.

It is compatible with mods that allow Resistance Heroes, SPARKs, or other soldier classes to improve Combat Intelligence. Non-hero units are calculated from the active class template’s `BaseAbilityPointsPerPromotion` plus the standard Combat Intelligence bonus.

Unlike Firaxis’ helper, this calculation does not discard the Combat Intelligence component when the base value is zero. The unmodified vanilla SPARK therefore receives 1 AP per eligible promotion at Above Average, 2 at Gifted, 4 at Genius, and 7 at Savant. With Art of War active those targets become 1, 3, 5, and 9 respectively. A Long War of the Chosen SPARK additionally uses its configured base value of 4.

The correction can be added during an existing campaign. It applies to future Combat Intelligence increases while Art of War is active; it does not scan or rewrite soldiers immediately upon installation.

The mod adds no menus, messages, abilities, or other player-facing text. It uses the game’s existing localized Art of War, Combat Intelligence, and Ability Point interface, so no separate localization package is required.

• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
• X2WOTC Community Highlander

• Subscribe to Community Highlander and this mod.
• Enable both mods in your launcher.
• No MCM or INI configuration is necessary.
• Activate Art of War and improve a soldier’s Combat Intelligence normally.