^Clearly, you didn't read up enough. In other news, I just got my first battleship mission, managed to get through the whole thing without any fatalities (though many injuries) aaaaaand the game crashed... On the up side I did save about half way though, just after destroying the sectapod, so it's not a total do over. Mostly I'm annoyed because I was able to get my new psi-talented support solder enough kills that I'm pretty sure she would have gotten a promotion. It involved a lot of careful softening u of enemies and luring them into her field of fire because she's just not a very good shot.
It's definitely worth a good look. It took me a couple missions to get use to the controls and the angles, but it was well worth the purchase.
I have attempted thirty separate games. I am running into the issue that there isn't enough money in the game to keep the troops updated with the latest equipment and armor, to keep a minimum number of satellites in the air, and to fund all the research and foundry projects. In one game, I was shoehorned into assaulting the alien base when I didn't feel ready. I think of returning back to Fallout 3, where I can set my own pace, or buying and playing Far Cry 3. I like games where I can develop at own pace. I feel that XCOM has its pace, and the player is attempting to play catch-up.
^The trick is to hold off on doing the "priority" research projects until you're ready for the next story mission to unlock. You also need to be pretty aggressive with your base expansion early on to get enough satellites in the air ASAP. You should always have at least one satellite on the build, if not more. They take 20 days to construct, so if you need one in a hurry you'll find yourself up a certain creek, sans paddle. Another thing to remember is that you're not really supposed to be able to get *all* the new equipment. You're supposed to choose what you think you need the most and prioritise accordingly. Personally (I'm still on my 1st playthrough btw) I only made about 4 or 5 laser rifles and two or three laser pistol. Didn't bother with the other laser based weapons and went straight to plasma, which was a huge saving in resources. Thist was possible early on as I was capturing as many aliens as possible and stockpiling their dropped weapons.
Believe it or not, there is a different XCOM game (preview) coming out very similar to what you described next year.
I was watching one of the videos connected to that one called "The many delays of XCOM" (sorry, I can't find it for some reason), and it said that it has been pushed back to the nebulous date of "Fiscal Year 2014, or sometime between I think April 2013 and March 2014.
Well, I bought it during the last Steam sale. Lots of fun so far. At times very scary. I'm still figuring things out, but I selected the tutorial and normal difficulty and I'm basically using this as a trial run-through. I almost got depressed during the mission with the downed spacecraft because I lost two people in a single turn. Then, a third person in my mission began to have a panic attack and became useless. I literally won it with my last person on a lucky shot. Then the next mission, I lost somebody else in an ambush. But I've gotten better. I haven't lost a single person since that point (last round, someone was bleeding out, though, and I won a turn before he died). I still don't quite get cover the way I should and I definitely have trouble getting the situations where aliens can shoot at you when you run from one cover to another, but I think I'll eventually get the kinks out.
Double post because I have a question. Is there a good reason not to give technology to member states who ask for it?
Depends on the technology.. if they ask for something you can easily produce like a laser rifle and make some profit of it go ahead. You'll need the money. If it's some critical parts like non-damaged UFO components like Nav Computers and such i'd think twice.. without wanting to spoil things you might think about using these components in future projects and they are often hard won (especially in the later stages of the game) so the reward must be significant. It's sometimes a tough choice. As to your other problems.. effectivity of cover depends on where you are shot from. If the cover is in front of the alien your soldier will get a boost in his defense rating depending on several factors (like distance, type if cover, i.e. half/full etc). If you are shot at from the side or the back then obviously cover is useless. Best bet is to move with a single action from cover to cover and use the second to place your soldier on overwatch so when an alien comes into his sight on his turn you get a shot at it and might kill it before it can act further. Obviously the aliens can also overwatch fire which is the reason they can shoot at you when you move from cover to cover. Your assault troopers get a useful skill to counter that.. Lighning Reflexes which makes the first overwatch fire miss automatically. Useful for advance recon, get the location of the alien and then nail him with a sniper for example.
It took me five games but I finally finished a game, though I only restarted for the fifth game so that I could access the DLC content. I only played it on normal and I didn't accept any casualties, so I replayed quite a few missions. My next step is to try Ironman and see if I can handle it.
Good luck.. Ironman on Classic difficulty level was the hardest thing i ever played and after about 2-3 months in game i gave up everytime. Aliens make ridiculous shots many times (and of course often enough just kill my guy) and even if you make it through the normal combat missions with minimal lossess when the game presents you with the first Terror Mission you are most likely screwed if you play it and also screwed long term if you don't. Classic without Ironman is ok.. hard, but manageable if you don't mind reloading saves but otherwise the difficulty levels are brutal (i haven't dared the Impossible level for fearing i'd deinstall the game ).
I have little doubt that within a short period of time I'll be swearing at the game, closing it down and walking away from the computer in a huff, muttering under my breath about how much BS everything that has ever happened is.
^My advice: be aggressive with the base management and cautious on the battlefield. The most important thing is to get off to a solid start and get as much cash as possible. Focus on getting as many satellites built as you can afford, with South America & Africa being the priorities since their bonuses give you instant autopsies/interrogations and an overall cash boost respectively. Also capture as many enemies as you can early on because those light plasma rifles will come in handy later. even more so if you follow my advice and skip right past most of the laser weapons and go right to plasma asap. You'll still need laser rifles and pistols, but I wouldn't bother with the scatter, sniper or heavy. As for the armour, all you really can do is settle for carapace armour until you can get to the titan armour. Don't worry too much about the more specialised ones until later. Oh and nano vests are literally a lifesaver early on. All assaults not carrying the arc thrower should be so equipped. Grenades just aren't worth it till *much* later.
They've released a second, free DLC this past week that includes a variety of options to change how the game plays. I haven't had a chance to check it out, but I think these would be pretty cool!
Started a new game on Classic difficulty.... and I'm stunned at how horribly difficult it is! In 4 missions, I've already lost 8 soldiers with 4 more being completely useless for most of the time due to injuries. I'm going to be going into my next mission with 4 soldiers that I just hired because none of my "veterans" are alive or available. I don't think I've landed a single shot where I had a better than 63% chance of hitting. Lots of 75%+ shots missed. I lost the first Slingshot mission, so I'm not sure if the remaining missions will be available to me or not. The stupid bastard I was escorting panicked when one of my guys died and ran right through a reaction shot (speaking of which, I don't think the aliens have missed a single reaction shot yet while I've missed every single one. WTF, mate?!?).
Started playing this game in earnest over the past week or so. Great stuff! So wtf I'm bumping this thread because this is a damned good game. Tried starting on Classic which... was probably not the best idea seeing as I didn't understand a lot of the basic mechanics of the game. So I was stuck doing way too much save/reload abuse to get the results I needed. I think the biggest problem is I didn't get satellites up beyond the first extra one for quite a while. The game complained about me not having interceptors and I took that to mean I shouldn't bother with satellites until I had an appropriate air force.. and of course I was never going to manage that while my underequipped troops were getting slaughtered in the field. Anyway, with enough save abuse I think things were finally going well, got some satellites up, the tech tree was getting pretty fleshed out, my super soldiers could curb stomp their way through missions with a little care... so I did the only fair thing I could think of. Deleted that save, started fresh on Classic with Iron Man turned on. So this time I am getting satellites up... I have an idea of what I need to research and build. Just got through the first terror mission, even managed to not lose any troops on that particular mission... though a Chrysalid conveniently ran away from my sniper whom he had dead to rights, but I digress. I have lost probably 7 or so troops getting to this point including my most senior... Iron Man can be cruel. Lost him to panicked friendly fire in a chain caused by me sending a soldier through some Thin Man remains.. which apparently causes poison. Ugh. That was bad. Haven't failed a mission yet, though did come very close on one abduction where I was left in a 1v3 situation. After getting the first two guys in ultra-defensive doorway camping mode, charged the third (hoping it was the last one) blindly with run n gun (knew he was outside somewhere but no idea exactly where) and hit the 60% all or nothing shot for the win. I read some smack talk about grenades upthread. I don't know if I agree. They're free. Can't beat the price. Rookies can't hit the broad side of a barn, but their grenade tosses are as true as anyone's. Nothing else early in the game is going to do that kind of consistent damage as you can usually get at least two enemies in the blast radius. I also love rockets. Boy do I love rockets. Unfortunately I've only gotten two heavies assigned so far and one of them was a victim of an untimely flanking. Just got the second one, looking forward to making some inconvenient walls and enemies evaporate! XCOM!
I probably said this up-thread somewhere, but yeah, grenades are only really useful in certain specific circumstances. Mostly early on when you might be out numbered and out gunned and need to even the odds, but later on the equipment slot is better used for other things.