X-Com

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by korme

After you attack the alien base is the game over? I've been delaying going there just because I like my squad so much

It's the halfway point.

[korme]

I've got an alien abduction mission that I can't beat. I keep re-loading like a wimp, but my squad is so depleted I don't know if I can recover if I lose these guys! So many mutons, and some new alien I haven't discovered a name for yet. I just know they are sweet.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Cruised through my first 4 hours or so (XBox version), last night was less pleasant. Playing on normal, everything was pretty hunky dory until I finished whatever month it was and suddenly the difficulty of the missions ramped up to the point that it reminded me of original on PC. I'm at the point where the round spinner bladed thingies show up, the problem isn't them per se, it's so damned many of them & everything else at once.

Have had one country withdraw so far but there's a stack of 'em likely to follow soon at the rate things are going. I'll admit to reloading once so far, I felt so assraped by the abrupt change in difficulty (no, I didn't change my settings or anything) that I felt kinda justified in doing so.

[Glengoyne]

My lightly modded Classic campaign, took one of those big steps up in difficulty last night as well. The first abduction mission where Mutons appeared. I ran an assault guy forward to finish off a Muton, knowing that one of his friends was near by. I figured I'd have to deal with that Muton on Overwatch or my assault trooper was at risk.

Well it turned out that there were actually five or six Mutons and a few thin men over there. All of it activated at once, and I lost the assault trooper and a guy hiding behind a fork lift on the Alien turn. I'm not sure if the fork lift blew up from a hit that turn, or if I didn't notice a hit the turn before.

My sniper went down the following turn, shot in full cover. I fought a withdrawl back to the Sky Ranger, only to find it....missing? "Those bastards took off without us?" So I re-engaged with the three remaining troopers, and finished the mission off. Everyone beaten and bloodied.

[jeff061]

Mutons wreck me in classic. I have no clue how to beat them. I think I just need better tech.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Mutons wreck me in classic. I have no clue how to beat them. I think I just need better tech.

I was pretty successful against them, until they cut my funding.

My general strategy is to move very slowly. I rarely "dash" unless necessary or I feel comfortable I won't "pop" any aliens. And I try to keep my squad pretty cohesive, so I can concentrate fire power if necessary. And rockets. Mutons seem to move a bit more slowly than others, so I was pretty successful in hitting more than one with a rocket and, thus, softening them up for smaller ordinance.

By the time I got to mutons, I had laser rifles and laser pistols, but nothing better than that.

[jeff061]

I do that, but with a crit it takes 2 hits to kill, 3 without a crit. In turn it takes 1 or 2 hits for my guys to die.

I try to put myself in the best position to overcome that, but the odds eventually work against me. But my tech sucked. I didn't have laser. Being able to 1 or 2 shot kill would make a huge difference.

[Marmel]

I am by no means an expert, or even really that good at this game, but my basic strategy seems to do pretty well. I just cleared the alien underground base and I have lost 4 good soldiers over all (along with a handful of rookies along the way), 2 of them in this mission, and one when I clicked on the wrong square and moved him into the open instead of in cover.

Once I am up to a 6 man squad I always bring at least 1 or two rookies, or lesser trained soldiers with me, depending on mission difficulty. One, it builds them up while still having a strong squad, and two, if I have a tough mission with lots of injuries, I still have some great soldiers who sat that one out and are ready to go.

I have yet to upgrade a single weapon, but I try to get the best armor I possibly can. I rarely leave my people out of cover and try to use hunker down or oversight on each turn.

I focus all my efforts on one alien at a time. In my personal order of threat: Those discs, followed by those hulking green ones. The rest I have encountered are all about the same to me.

In a perfect squad I would have: 2 heavies, a sniper, 2 assault and I support. I'll sub in a second support for a heavy or an assault. I don't think I use the sniper to the best of their ability yet though. I find run and gun to be the most useful skill there is. Soften one up with a rocket or grenade, then run and gun to point blank range and use the double shot with the shotgun to finish them off. It does tend to leave the assault soldier a bit exposed, so I make sure I do it when it seems I have reasonble odds of having them survive the turn and get back into good cover or get healed.

I really suck at all the parts of the game in the base, but I think I have gotten pretty good at the missions.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by Marmel

... I find run and gun to be the most useful skill there is. Soften one up with a rocket or grenade, then run and gun to point blank range and use the double shot with the shotgun to finish them off. It does tend to leave the assault soldier a bit exposed, so I make sure I do it when it seems I have reasonable odds of having them survive the turn and get back into good cover or get healed.

....

Before switching to lasers, I also found run and gun to work fairly well if I gave a soldier an assault rifle rather than a shot gun. You can run/dash in any direction, and still get off a couple of shots.

I've used it to move forward from cover probing for aliens. If any are revealed, you have the flexibility to move back to where you started, and still fire. In fact, I'm considering modding the laser rifle so that Assault troops can wield it. Just so I can continue to have that flexibility deeper into the game.

[Mota]

My sniper is a madman, he has 55 kills in 21 missions. Put him as high as you can, get line of sight on bad guys, and watch him pick them off one by one. Now that he's a major he actually gets 2 turns sometimes and has picked off 2 guys in a single turn, awesome.

[Marmel]

Originally Posted by Mota

My sniper is a madman, he has 55 kills in 21 missions. Put him as high as you can, get line of sight on bad guys, and watch him pick them off one by one. Now that he's a major he actually gets 2 turns sometimes and has picked off 2 guys in a single turn, awesome.

I really got to learn how to use my snipers. Doesn't having them up high leave them exposed though?

[jeff061]

Just leave them way the hell back and make use of squad site.

Psy with snipers is awesome as well, because they can move and use Psi on same turn.

[Lonnie]

Here's a good guide on base management.

A guide to classic ironman for the rest of us

[Wolfpack]

I've started again with an Ironman Classic game and so far I've learned pretty well the lessons of my last game. I've only lost a couple of guys so far through about a month and both of those were just bastard shots by the aliens as they were reasonably covered. Had a pretty well-executed observatory evac mission where I used the fenceline to my advantage, taking away one half of the possibilities of where aliens could come from out of the equation. One poor thin man dropped right into the middle of three of my squad at one point, all on overwatch. Needless to say he was gunned down in very violent fashion. It wasn't a perfect mission, though, as after I had evac'ed the scientist, one of my guys got killed by another thin man after he hit but failed to kill the thin man on an overwatch reaction.

It's definitely a different game than the first one since I'm playing with a base in Asia and now the research is almost unbearably long compared to having the base in Europe which I think cuts research time in half. I'm still on default weapons for the most part, though I do have some of the easier-to-get peripherals like scopes and medikits.

[CarterNMA]

Though the graphics are amazing and the atmosphere is spooky if you play it in the basement in the middle of the night with lights out this game kind of falls short of my expectations.

For me the game is all about the soldiers and tactics. I love that as the soldiers get more advanced they get deadlier and deadlier skills. But being limited to six kind of kills it for me. I wish you could get up to 12 by researching a more advanced craft.

The way is see it the Attributes definitely have certain patterns that are supposed to create special sub-classes. For example, if you look at the choices for Support, it's clear that you can create a Medic. Also, seems there are two kinds of snipers; one has a more stand-off kind of skills set while the other can move with the rest of the squad. I did some analysis and came up with the following sub-classes:

Assault - Reactionist
Assault - Closer
Assault - Survivor
Heavy - Beast
Heavy - Suppressor
Sniper - York
Sniper - Léon
Support - Attacker
Support - Cover
Support - Medic

The Attributes and explanations are as follows:

Reactionist: Run & Gun, Aggression, Lightning Reflexes, Rapid Fire, Close Combat Specialist, Extra Conditioning, Resilience.
In the original XCOM I preferred have about 4 soldiers who were really high in Reaction and they'd run for the entrance of a ship and wait for the rest of the squad to clean things up before going in. That's kind of what I envision the Reactionist to be like but the current game really doesn't allow for it. Still my favorite type though.

Closer: Run & Gun, Aggression, Close and Personal, Rapid Fire, Close Combat Specialist, Extra Conditioning, Killer Instinct.
These guys are better at dealing with being up close and personal with the enemy. Probably have the best chance to go toe-to-toe with a Berserker.

Survivor: Run & Gun, Tactical Sense, Lightning Reflexes, Flush, Bring 'Em On, Extra Conditioning, Resilience.
I see these guys as having the best chance of making it out alive if they are on their own.

Beast: Fire Rocket, Bullet Swarm, Shredder Rocket, HEAT Ammo, Grenadier, Will to Survive, Rocketeer.
Just like it says...mass damage everwhere. I wish there was a chain gun option for this bad boy ala Jesse Ventura in Predator.

Suppressor: Fire Rocket, Holo-Targeting, Suppression, Rapid Reaction, Danger Zone, Will to Survive, Mayhem.
Basically the poor bastard who gets to lay down the fusillade and reaps none of the glory.

York: Headshot, Snap Shot, Gunslinger, Battle Scanner, Opportunist, Low Profile, In The Zone.
Not a full-fledged sniper as he can run and gun, per se, and be more effective if the battlefield is larger.

Léon: Headshot, Squadsight, Damn Good Ground, Disabling Shot, Executioner, Low Profile, Double Tap.
Your more traditional sniper. I like to use a Ghost Suit so he can get into a good position more forward and up high. Get one of these guys with a Plasma Sniper Rifle and the enemy starts dropping like flies.

Attacker: Smoke Grenade, Sprinter, Smoke and Mirrors, Rifle Suppression, Combat Drugs, Deep Pockets, Sentinel.
The closest a Support dude can get to being Assault. Love that they have those three extra tiles and carry extra stuff. Usually give them a S.C.O.P.E. so that they have a little more extra umph in the battle.

Cover: Smoke Grenade, Covering Fire, Smoke and Mirrors, Rifle Suppression, Dense Smoke, Deep Pockets, Sentinel.
Kind of like the Suppressor but can help you retreat as well.

Medic: Smoke Grenade, Sprinter, Field Medic, Revive, Combat Drugs, Deep Pockets, Savior.
Like having your own little M.A.S.H. unit by your side.

My ideal XCOM unit would have 6 Reactionists and 3 of each of the rest so in case I get any injuries I'm still able to field whatever I think I might need for a particular mission.

[Wolfpack]

So, got a brutal lesson in what Chryssalids can do and my own failing in understanding of Bulletstorm. Terror mission in a multi-level bookstore. Started poorly after I lost my assault man on the second floor after he stormed up the pipe to take on one Floater and suddenly found himself surrounded by four. Managed to get help on one from below and took out another before going down. The mission progressed reasonably well until one of my rookies went around the building to rescue people, she woke up the Chrysallids. Bad: Chrysallids are fast. Good: they are stupid. Somehow she avoided getting attacked after getting spotted as she retreated into the bookstore. I had sent the rest of the squad up top to clear out the remaining Floaters, but had to send them back down once the Chrysallids revealed themselves. I reached a Mexican standoff with two guys standing face-to-face with Chrysallids and a third backing them up, leaving me the horrible choice of either sacrificing one man or making a run for it back up the stairs and hope for the best. I made a run for it. Miraculously (I thought), the Chryssalids didn't follow me up the stairs. This is where my first mistake came from. I somehow deluded myself into thinking that Chrysallids, for whatever reason, couldn't climb (they look like they couldn't because of their small footprints, I told myself). So, I thus hoped that I could just stand them off on the roof and just gun them down from up high. Unfortunately, it just turns out that they are fast but stupid. The moment one of my guys stuck his head over the edge to spot them, I found out not only that they could climb, but they could climb drainpipes. One of the Chryssalids validated this by climbing up and stabbing my guy to death in an instant. So, now I've got three soldiers against a Chryssalid, one of whom is my heavy gunner with Bulletstorm. She's on the other side of the roof with about a 70% chance to hit. For some reason, I thought Bulletstorm meant I could shoot-fire-shoot again, but no. It's just that shooting doesn't cancel out movement afterwards. Once you move, that's the second move. I ordered her to fire, but she wasn't very effective (hit but nothing serious), so I sent her forward for a better shot. Oops. Lost the second shot. Then the two other shooters left couldn't finish the Chryssalid off. Now, not only am I facing a very angry Chryssalid, my soldier who got stabbed to death is now back as a zombie. You can imagine how things progress from there.

The heavy still had a shredder rocket, but I was holding on to it in the hope that I could bag both Chryssalids with it and make it easier for the rest of the squad to take them down. Never got the chance. I've been kicking myself pretty good since then for those mistakes.

[jeff061]

And btw, they don't climb, they can jump up on any elevated surface. With or without a ladder. So yeah .

[Edward64]

What do you guys do to shoot down the overseer craft?

[jeff061]

Haven't made it that far on classic, but on normal a Firestorm took it down easily for me.

[Poli]

Am I reading right you can only take 6 on a mission at a time?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Poli

Am I reading right you can only take 6 on a mission at a time?

You start by only taking 4 on a mission and can eventually upgrade to the point where you can take 5 and then 6 on a mission.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

You start by only taking 4 on a mission and can eventually upgrade to the point where you can take 5 and then 6 on a mission.

OOOO all of six.....I am so giddy....

It's not a bad game by any stretch but I still prefer playing the first two. After the initial euphoria and putting in 10 hours this game went to join the dusty stack of new games. Out came the first two.

Maybe Guild Wars II will sate my never-ending quest for gaming goodness from bygone years.

Sigh

[Shepp]

Patch 1.02 is up on Steam. No change log yet.

[Wolfpack]

Hm. Maybe it'll fix what I think now must've been a graphics glitch that I saw last night. I had sent my sniper up a pipe to a roof where she took position on a corner. On the aliens' move, a sectoid on the floor below on the outside of the opposite corner of the building shot and killed her (in other words, he shot diagonally across the building up through the ceiling to do it). At the time I thought it odd, but also thought it must've been an alien on the roof that didn't reveal itself when I came up in the first place. But, as the rest of the level played out, it became obvious that wasn't the case.

Only consolation I can draw from it was the fact that she was a lousy shot for a sniper and I didn't lose anyone else the rest of the level.

[sterlingice]

So, is it safe to say that this is a lot like the remake of Pirates from the 2000s where they kept a lot of the original, update the graphics, and only added a little gameplay? It's very similar to the original but updated.

SI

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

So, is it safe to say that this is a lot like the remake of Pirates from the 2000s where they kept a lot of the original, update the graphics, and only added a little gameplay? It's very similar to the original but updated.

SI

Actually they removed some gameply, it's not nearly so dynamic / random as the original, with less replayability. Although the battles remain fun to fight.

[flounder]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

Hm. Maybe it'll fix what I think now must've been a graphics glitch that I saw last night. I had sent my sniper up a pipe to a roof where she took position on a corner. On the aliens' move, a sectoid on the floor below on the outside of the opposite corner of the building shot and killed her (in other words, he shot diagonally across the building up through the ceiling to do it). At the time I thought it odd, but also thought it must've been an alien on the roof that didn't reveal itself when I came up in the first place. But, as the rest of the level played out, it became obvious that wasn't the case.

Only consolation I can draw from it was the fact that she was a lousy shot for a sniper and I didn't lose anyone else the rest of the level.

There is a bug where aliens teleport around the map. I've had that happen to me once.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by flounder

There is a bug where aliens teleport around the map. I've had that happen to me once.

Haven't had that, though thin men drop from the sky sometimes and those damn floaters and their flying!! Luckily they usually land in positions that are not advantageous to them

[Shepp]

Can anyone say if the patch improves anything? I've been waiting and waiting for it and of course its released at the beginning of a long work week for me.

[Edward64]

Finished the game. I enjoyed it and played my $50 worth but I don't feel the urge to play it again anytime soon ... so replayability may be an issue. Looking forward to any DLCs.

[Eaglesfan27]

I also finished the game on the normal difficulty level. It was interesting to see my stats compared to others. I lost more than an average number of soldiers, but was much less likely to use explosives which seemed to account for that at least a bit. I'm looking forward to 1 more play through on the harder difficulty level now.

[revrew]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I also finished the game on the normal difficulty level. It was interesting to see my stats compared to others. I lost more than an average number of soldiers, but was much less likely to use explosives which seemed to account for that at least a bit. I'm looking forward to 1 more play through on the harder difficulty level now.

I haven't finished my first normal yet, but am considering the whole experience a tutorial for Classic. At this point (I've probably got about 5-8 missions left), I've only lost 1 ranked soldier (and a couple of rookies) and haven't lost a single country from the council.

I'm loving it and looking forward to playing through again on the harder level.

[twothree]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I also finished the game on the normal difficulty level. It was interesting to see my stats compared to others. I lost more than an average number of soldiers, but was much less likely to use explosives which seemed to account for that at least a bit. I'm looking forward to 1 more play through on the harder difficulty level now.

Picked up the game recently, and played through a normal ironman game. Lost the game at the end of November 2015 never having finished the alien base invasion. My stats compared to the current world stats:

Days Survived: 245 (average 188.62)
Battles Fought: 32 (average 23.09)
Battles Won: 18 (average 21.45)
Battles Lost: 14 (average 1.64)
Aliens Killed: 235 (average 184.77)
Soldiers Lost: 86 (average 18.82)
Average Shot%: 62.1 (average 60.51)
Average Damage per Shot: 4.3 (average 25.72)

In only the second month I made my first attempt at invading the alien base. My highest ranking soldier (Captain) at that time was out with an injury, but I took everyone else who was above rookie rank. They all got wiped out and I never recovered. The Captain, who was the only survivor of my very first tutorial mission evetually got promoted to Major before getting killed on his 12th mission with around 25 kills.

Right before the eighth nation left, I tried a final alien base assault. I made it all the way to the boss before getting wiped. I know next game I need to work on raising my average damage per shot and saving my alloys for weapons.

[revrew]

Where did you get those averages from? The Damage per Shot is way off. I've never seen a shot hit 20 damage even once, let alone averaging more than 20.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by revrew

Where did you get those averages from? The Damage per Shot is way off. I've never seen a shot hit 20 damage even once, let alone averaging more than 20.

Yeah, that average looks really high. I think the most I have done is 19 with one shot. And that was the exception rather than the rule.

[jeff061]

Last time I played through a lot of the numbers seemed out of wack for whatever reason.

[twothree]

Originally Posted by revrew

Where did you get those averages from? The Damage per Shot is way off. I've never seen a shot hit 20 damage even once, let alone averaging more than 20.

Those averages are shown when you load a save game that has ended in a defeat. I just start the game then click "load game". Then I click on my save game that is finished. It then shows your score along with the averages. The average damage per shot is now down to 25.49. Perhaps I caused that.

It seems very high, maybe a lot of people use a mod or cheats or something.

This game was played on normal ironman. I don't know if the averages are just for that type of game or if they are for all games. Also, I don't know if the averages are shown if you load up a save game that is won.

[Eaglesfan27]

I also saw some crazy damage numbers and other things. I figured it was either a math error or people running cheats. I saw my numbers (and the average) at the end of my winning game.

[dubb93]

You guys must be terrible. My white hits are upwards of 20k. My crits...well lets just say they aren't really necessary.

[moriarty]

Picked this up in the Cyber Monday sale ... what's the conventional thinking? Play through on Normal to learn the ropes, or jump right into Classic and learn the hard way.

Do people consider 'normal' too easy.

[Eaglesfan27]

I enjoyed normal. It was fairly easy, but I still lost a fair number of soldiers along the way. I felt like it was a fun training level for Classic which has frustrated me at times even after having played through normal.

[Lonnie]

If I was just starting again I would start on Classic and save scum when things go bad. Nothing like playing the same mission 4 times to teach the ropes. Pay attention to cover, as low cover is pretty much worthless in Classic. You still might not get one shot like in open ground, but it will hurt. Also cover is 180 degrees, so sometimes it looks like you are open to a shot, but you get the full benefit of the cover.

Then once you have a handle on the battles you can attempt a classic ironman. That's the real pain.

[Mota]

Definitely try normal first. I'm enjoying my first playthrough. I'll give classic a try afterwards.

[revrew]

Originally Posted by dubb93

You guys must be terrible. My white hits are upwards of 20k. My crits...well lets just say they aren't really necessary.

I'm tempted to call B.S.

I haven't tried the alloy cannon yet, but the plasma weapons (highest short of the alloy) only do a damage of 10. You can crit them up to about 17 or so, though heat ammo on a robotic enemy can send you over 20. But I'm about to do the final mission, and I haven't seen a hit as high as 20 yet.

[twothree]

With the knowledge from my first attempt at the game, I was able to easily win my second playthrough on normal ironman difficulty. You get to see 4 pages of stats about your game when you win as compared to the one page of stats when you lose.

This time I won 32 battles and lost only two battles. I only lost 26 soldiers instead of the 86 that I lost in my first attempt. And only two countries left the project, so I had plenty of cash, though still way smaller than the world average.

Those are some still some insane numbers that are shown as the world average in certain sections at game end.

[Critch]

Looks like Slingshot has been released. I'm a bit doubtful about throwing 7 bucks at a handful of new missions, some new equipment and a new character but it would be good to have before my 2nd play through.

So I'm going to need somebody here to test it out and tell me if it's worth the cash.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Slingshot Pack on Steam

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Critch

Looks like Slingshot has been released. I'm a bit doubtful about throwing 7 bucks at a handful of new missions, some new equipment and a new character but it would be good to have before my 2nd play through.

So I'm going to need somebody here to test it out and tell me if it's worth the cash.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Slingshot Pack on Steam

I'm sure they'll be offering it as a Xmas sale deal. I can wait 20 days.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Critch

Looks like Slingshot has been released. I'm a bit doubtful about throwing 7 bucks at a handful of new missions, some new equipment and a new character but it would be good to have before my 2nd play through.

So I'm going to need somebody here to test it out and tell me if it's worth the cash.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Slingshot Pack on Steam

I love the game. Playing it like crazy, but this DLC does little for me.

[jeff061]

Yep, I'll definitely buy the DLC, but not until a discounted pack is released.

[Ryan S]

If anyone wants to pick it up right now Green Man Gaming have a 30% discount offer.

Discount code - GMG30-DEC01-ARFC9