I had the exact same confusion (I think?) Once you free the civvies they move on their own.

...wait I'm rereading this and I think I'm mistaken. This sounds like a map bug? Just a head's up- on Retaliation missions where you have to extract civvies, you move next to them to activate them and then they have to physically run to the exit zone.

No it wasn't a retaliation mission, it was where i'd been sent into an advent city to free some captives (one of my soliders and a civillian for resistance personnel).

I opened the cell door the civillian was in and it gave me the option to control them, but the only thing I could do was hunker down rather than actually move to the extraction point, whereas my captured soldier could move freely.

That's a bug. Occasionally captives will spawn incorrectly in the cells and will become stuck in terrain etc etc. Now there's a couple of things you can do when this happens; I have found that carrying a breaching charge is extremely handy for these situations as you can toss the bloody thing at the piece of terrain/map that is "trapping" your VIP.

There is also the much easier TTC (Teleport to Cursor) option if you enable the console in Steam Launch Options. Nice to have when you misclick a soldier occasionally and don't want to reload an entire auto save as well as moving your civilian when eventual bugs do occur.

Disclaimer: I do not condone the usage of the dev console to chest your way through missions.

I have a mission with a stuck prisoner. How do I use this teleport command?

Go to your Steam Library. Right click on XCOM 2, click properties. Find "set launch options" and add the line -allowconsole

To use the console, hit either the tilde key or your apostrophe key.

The command to teleport is TTC; put your cursor on the tile you want the civ to go to, then input the command into the console.

Ok that sounds like a big help thanks!

Thank you very much. 😊

I have found that when you have moved everybody else in the same turn, the stuck civies will be freed to move. It works for me, maybe its worth a try.

Originally posted by AlienObserver:

I have found that when you have moved everybody else in the same turn, the stuck civies will be freed to move. It works for me, maybe its worth a try.

The issue isn't whether an NPC is blocking the door/path out of the cell. The issue is that the civilian after everybody has been moved is physically incapable of movement due to being spawned into a bench in a cell, or halfway inbetween a wall. etc etc.

The only way to fix this sort of thing is A. Throw a Shaped Charge at the piece of terrain or cover that is trapping your civilian, or use console commands to TTC your guy one space in the cell so he isn't stuck anymore.

I know what the issue was about, but even when civvies are stuck I can move them at the very end of the turn. Dont ask me why,

Originally posted by AlienObserver:

I know what the issue was about, but even when civvies are stuck I can move them at the very end of the turn. Dont ask me why,

Then you haven't had a civvie completely stuck in terrain yet. Perhaps Pavonis hotfixed this, as I actually have not had this problem in a week or so, knocks on wood just in case it still is an issue.

Originally posted by TheNinjaCat:

Originally posted by AlienObserver:

I know what the issue was about, but even when civvies are stuck I can move them at the very end of the turn. Dont ask me why,

Then you haven't had a civvie completely stuck in terrain yet..

Well, they were positioned right inside a desk, wall or counter and wouldnt move, totally stuck. they still nehaved funny and could not get into full cover after moving out at the end of my move phase. Believe me I was surprised too.

It is still a bug but sometimes this wotrkaround seems to work for me. You dont have to believe me, but thats the way it is.

Then you got lucky that you did not have to use the dirty dirty dev console to do your work, or alert all the enemies on the map after using a shaped charge. ;)