XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[FPAlpha]

Yes.. grenades are good for rookies for getting that one critical hit and kill because even with 90%+ chance of hitting you're still able to miss and in return lose a soldier.

As soon as you have researched your first armor and advanced gun grenades beside smoke (which is rather an ability) are useless because you won't kill anything with it as the opposition gets stronger and more resilient.

 

[Yoda]

Well Reverend, your post on the previous page said grenades aren't worth it till "much later," so you're kind of contradicting yourself . I know there is a two grenade upgrade on one of the classes, and you can upgrade to 5 damage grenades at some point.

I'm finding that whenever I have a medkit or two, the guys that get taken down are the ones carrying them. If you could run up and scavenge the medkit from the guy bleeding out to use it, it would be one thing. But very rarely have they come in handy for me. Frustrating. I've had better luck just rushing to finish missions when guys are bleeding out than managing to stabilize them. Out of curiosity... there is an abort mission option in the menu. What does that do? Do you lose all your troops? Do the living just evacuate to fight another day? If someone is bleeding out do they die or get saved?

I've had a bad run on my Iron Man the last couple of months after a great start. I don't think I have any troops above Squaddie level after screwing up a couple of abductions. I had to let both South American countries walk away from the program. I really stupidly ran my rapidly leveling sniper too far on the opening move on one abduction and got her killed. Extra stupid as I had just got the Battle Scanner... so why didn't I just toss one into the map to see what was going on? Really dumb.

My income is good, my tech is lagging... but what I really need to do is just get through some missions without losses so my squad levels up. I do have Wet Work going for me so hopefully that'll be enough of a boost to get some levels, the extra health, and a positive feedback cycle keeping them alive.

Uhh, and so that this isn't entirely just me resurrecting a thread to rant about my gameplay experience 6 months after the fact. Here's some content:

Old XCOM guy and new XCOM guy. In a room. Together!
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8zZsecTRfM[/yt]

 

[Reverend]

Well Reverend, your post on the previous page said grenades aren't worth it till "much later," so you're kind of contradicting yourself

Or my opinion changed over the course of months? That happens sometimes.

Really though, grenades are only worth having early on up until you start rolling out the vests and even then only as a last resort since you want those bodies intact. Later on...well it depends on where you are in the tech tree compared to what kind of enemies you're facing. They can be useful if you suddenly find yourself up against berserkers, cyberdiscs and heavy floaters before you've researched plasma weapons. So again, they're a stop-gap measure. You'll very quickly find there are more useful things to put in that equipment slot.

IMO it may have been better if they had some sort of gear/weight system rather than a take-it-or-leave-it inventory of 1. It could have meant a little more latitude in how you spec out the various classes, especially in regards to consumables like grenades and medkits. Or something as simple as a skill proficiency, so non-support soldiers can use medkits (and yeah, salvaging them off of downed squadmates would be fantastic!) but they can't stabilise or revive and don't heal as much as a trained medic can. Likewise with grenades, everyone can use them but assaults and heavies do more damage and/or can use specialized varieties like flashbangs, chaff or EMP.

Actually, while I'm thinking about it an engineer/demolitions class might have been good. It'd certainly make the SHIVs more appealing if they're remotely operated by some combat engineer who's immobile while controlling the bot, and so has to be protected, and if he gets taken out the bot is useless, but if it gets taken out, he can still pull out a pistol/grenade and be useful

So yeah, for the next game I hope they take what they've done and just increase the scope and depth.

 

[Yoda]

My game spiraled into disaster. I did figure out how the mission abort works... but it's buggy. Most of the time the extraction zone doesn't show up. I can usually get it back by quitting out and reloading the save but that's a pain. At the end it wasn't pretty. 6 rookies with a couple of laser rifles between them, all with nanotech vests and carapace armor vs tons of Mutons and Cyberdiscs. As they got slaughtered I tried building some Alloy Shivs with lasers to mix in with the cannon fodder rookies, but they promptly got into the field and all missed multiple 70% shot opportunities and got overrun.

I for one welcome my new alien overlords.

 

[Reverend]

The trick is to not rely too much on the same team early on. It's always tempting to keep using your "super squad" of elite troops on every mission, but if a few of them get injured in a normal fire fight, you may find yourself facing a terror mission with a half rookie team which can mean a total wipe or abort. Best to keep rotating troops through, leveling squaddies up until you have at least enough in reserve to field a whole squad. Abductions are best for this since you're not on any kind of clock, there's no worry about civilians and the maps tend to be fairly forgiving.

Right now I'm churning through recruits to try and get myself a full squad of psychics all levelled up and ready to go before I start the endgame mission....and just for fun and because it'll take a while to accumulate enough elerium to build all the psi armour I'll need anyway, I'm making it an all female team. For some reason, I'm having difficulty finding assault troops with psi ability. Only have one so far and only just got my second psi sniper. No shortage of supports though for some strange reason. Way more than I could ever use in fact.

 

[Yoda]

I went right back at it right after my failed run. Had a couple of false starts. Figured it was better to restart on Iron Man if something went bad in the first couple of months than to try to roll with it.

Anyway went through quite a few months without failing anything. Had a couple of snipers up to Colonel. Had a heavy as well... and a healthy assortment of Captain and up troops. Well long story short, I did maintain my perfect streak for a few more months... but the casualties mounted up. They're all dead. I lost at least one of them to the user interface... Why do the actions have to shift around in between moves? I did my move one, was off to click run n gun, but as my soldier got into position and his second turn started all the icons shift and I clicked overwatch or something. Was not happy.

Right now my only senior-ish soldier is a sinper I got as a reward from my last abduction mission. I have all the Officer School upgrades at least, so I have an endless reserve of squaddies. I did manage to get full satellite coverage thanks to the sacrifice of all my senior troops. But with mostly squaddies, and underequipped squaddies it's been a struggle. I managed to afford one Ghost Armor. But everyone else is still on Carapace. I have the tech for Titan and soon Archangel but I'm shit out of luck on alloys. That shortage is also limiting my weapons severely. I have Plasma Rifle tech, but can only field 2 Light Plasmas that I snagged from stunning enemies.

It's frustrating because I made it a point to stay disciplined and not sell that stuff for quick cash. I do have 4 Firestorm interceptors with EMP cannons. Maybe that's the problem. I tend to only look at the cash when I am building stuff and I don't notice what salvage they require. But I started to fail to shoot down the newest UFOs miserably and thought the EMP cannon would net me more valuable salvage.

The first mission I failed was when a Firestorm failed to take down the UFO (didn't have the EMP cannon yet). I attacked with my mid-level Sniper and gaggle of squaddies. It was hilarious. Cyberdisc, its two Drones, like 6 Heavy Floaters, 2 Sectoid Commanders, maybe 4 Thin Men, and a squad of Mutons charge me right at the start. Pretty hopeless. I try to fight it out, in the end only the sniper with her Ghost Armor retreat survived.

This resulted in many of my laser weapons being lost. So now a lot of my squaddies are stuck with defaults. Ugh.

Then there was a Council escort mission. Once again I get attacked right at the beginning before I can get into decent position. Would've pulled it out... but of course one of the squaddies panicked and killed the escortee. I think that mission would have been pretty easy had I gotten some Titan armor. I think every soldier I had got poisoned at least twice. 3 survived, at least I got some salvage out of the deal.

Last mission I played, and surely where I would expect everything to fall apart was a terror mission. Tons of Chrysalids, Mutons, Heavy Floaters, Thin Men... killed them all, everyone except my Ghost armored Assault is pretty heavily wounded... but there's still at least one enemy on the map. I run around with my last couple of turns of Ghost and find... a Sectopod. First one I've seen. It seemed to be stuck in a corner. I couldn't lure it out. Finally I took a pot shot at it (a five point hit!) and it responded with an angry 10 health depleting laser of doom. I run away. It doesn't follow to my well set up ambush of wounder warriors. I think the AI is stuck. So I have to bring the ambush to it.

Snipers first from the longest sight line take a couple of shots with their sidearms. I ran them out there to trigger any potential overwatch defense. Nothing. I take a few health down. Next I send in two heavies at medium range, each takes a shot, one hit. Another 6 health off the board. Finally I send in the Assault and Support with the light plasma rifles. Each takes a high percentage shot from close range, I put one adjacent to it, and one a square off. First shot is a hit... he's almost dead... like 6 health left. Second soldier takes the shot. Miss. End of turn.

I'm thinking to myself I'm in big trouble. I know the death laser will instantly kill one of my guys, so hopefully I'll only lose one of the squaddies. But I'm a bit worried. What happens next I don't really understand. He basically blows himself up. I don't know if he has some area of effect rocket attack or what. He does 16 Critical against himself, and also to the soldier adjacent, who doesn't die but instead goes into bleed-out mode and the mission ends with no deaths on my end.

I have a feeling that I lucked out, the way my rocket attack early in the mission took out part of a wall must have screwed up the Sectopod's pathfinding. I think if that behemoth came out of the monster closet will all the rest of them it would have been a total loss. I earned promotions for all 5 squaddies on that mission which is great.

I finally built the Hyperwave Relay to continue the story. And I shot down the cloaked ship or whatever... but then it told me I was going up against Cyberdiscs, Sectopods, and... Ethereals? I haven't even fought one of those yet. I am more than a little worried. I feel that's an assault I can't win. So I ignored it... was also curious to see if it would stay up as an available mission like the Skeleton Key mission did or what. But it went away. A while later I got the chance to shoot down another. Which is where I am at right now.

But, no alloys, no Titan armor, no laser weapons, and my two heavies are still a level away from getting HEAT ammo to fight those metal monstrosities.

It seems like I didn't suffer any ill panic effects from ignoring the downed UFO so I am tempted to go for another terror mission or Council mission to get some resources to equip my troops. Also my Psionics Lab is almost online. I haven't had one yet so I am hoping whatever it benefits it confers will help, and also won't cost resources that I don't have.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah, you really should prioritise soldier gear over interceptors. I find the best way to go about it is get plasma cannons on you default fighters and not bother with the firestorm until *much* later. Those things take a *lot* alloys and elerium to build. At least wait until you have plasma weapons and titan armor before you start cranking out the firestorms, and even then, I'd only do one a month. Remember, there's no shame in sometime aborting an interception. Better the let a UFO go than loose a fighter. So long as you keep pumping out satellites, you should be able to prevent manage the panic levels.

 

[Yoda]

I think I'm in pretty good shape now. Aside from the fact that every time I get a Colonel I promptly lose them. I had 2 gifted in my first test batch... and they both died. Nothing since. I guess your odds are better if you wait until they earn some promotions first? Unfortunately I tested most of my lower level guys already and you can't retest.

I can now field full crew of Titan/Ghost armor. I have one Archangel but every time I use it I seem to get my Sniper killed so... I've been using it less. Ghost is great though. Got most of my weapons going too so everyone now has something Plasma. Assaulted that cloaked ship and ever since then I've been getting a lot of enemy Scout class ships in my airspace to shoot down and pillage. Fairly easy missions all things considered now that I have the artillery to handle those Sectopods. They still take out good leveled up soldiers here and there but now I have a few Supports with the triple med pack, and Ghost ambushes/spotting for my Snipers works wonders.

Starting to feel pretty comfortable, but I'm going to try to level a bit before I move on with the story. Not that I really can at the moment since I have gone like 5 rounds of testing with no Gifted...

 

[Reverend]

Archangel armor is best used on snipers with squadsight. The basic idea is that on the very first turn, you hover them straight up and just have them sit there in overwatch. If you do that and only move them once you've cleared an area and need to get a better angle to cover your squad, you should be just fine. Indeed, if you're worried about your ground troops being a bit fragile, putting your sniper in overwatch before you move anyone is a good way to guard against them being ambushed too badly.

 

[Yoda]

Well the problem I have is one, I don't have Advanced Flight yet, which I am assuming gives you infinite hover. I've tried using it to get up onto elevated positions, but as often as not that just leaves them exposed to enemy fire.

 

[archeryguy1701]

What I usually do with my sniper is get him up to Squad-sight and then keep him pretty close to the mission start location. I'll move him as lines of sight change, but I keep him as far away from the aliens as possible. In all of my play-throughs, my sniper tends to be my most valuable soldier and the only one I can count on most of the time. Giving him Double Tap at the Colonel level makes him that much more valuable.

 

[Yoda]

So doing a little reading... umm. I can float my Sniper permanently and fuel is only depleted if he/she moves? That really wasn't very obvious to me.

 

[Reverend]

So doing a little reading... umm. I can float my Sniper permanently and fuel is only depleted if he/she moves? That really wasn't very obvious to me.

Yeah, the game can be a little light on details at times. I only figured that out through trial and error.

 

[Yoda]

Up to 3 Majors now. Including my first ever Support to get that high. 2 inventory slots? Titan Armor + 3 Med Packs w/ Revive + Chitin Plating? Can you say invincible.

The Archangel Snip[er, now that I know how to use him, is downright overpowered on the open maps. Especially with a dude running around in with Ghost stirring up trouble.

The upgraded rocket launcher is pretty amazing too. Just need to get those Heavies levels a bit more. I do have the Shredder rocket for 2 of them though. Upgraded damage plus magic curving? Same trick as the Archangel for the most part, only for indoor battles. Ghost finds the cluster of enemies, then a Shredder + normal rocket from two heavies curving around walls pretty much kills everything. I did lose a Major-ranked Assault to a sneaky Chrysalid ambush in my last mission. That kind of hurt. But on the bright side he was the one whose abilities I was sort of regretting. My other Assault is going all the way down the right side on the choices. For when the rocket assault only softens up those pesky Sectopods... Rapid Fire Alloy Cannon w/ extra critical damage = game over.

All research complete, just need some more weapon fragments to finish off all the foundry projects. 2 countries in Asia at 2 panic, the rest of the world at one. Ironman Classic difficulty... I think you're done for

 

[Yoda]

The other day I finally finished my game off. The final mission was a little goofy. First I was confused because I couldn't advance through some doors. Then I finally found a couple of Sectoids lurking in the dark after which I could move on. Then my Psychic dude was the first to die. Which apparently is game-ending. That threw me off. But it let me restart the level.

Went through it all. Really screwed up the very end... it came down to two of my guys bleeding out, two under mind control, and a rocket + 2 sniper rounds to take down the 'boss'. I thought I had died anyway but I guess the support troops just evaporate? Then the ending got super weird because all the sound except for the voices got cut down to like 5%, so all I could hear was bad voice acting. It played a little better when I looked it up on YouTube. I loaded up the final save again and immediately failed to replicate my victory (before I just went to YouTube), but it still allows you to restart. Seems kind of strange for Ironman but I guess I won't complain too much since it saved me the first time (though it is a bit unfair to require a particular soldier to survive and not to tell you.

I booted up impossible difficulty. And uhh, 2-3 tries I couldn't even get close to beating the first mission. The sectoids aim better than my soldiers. They have better weapons. There are more of them. And they no longer die to a single grenade? Ugh. Why?!? So I might just be done with the game, but it was a really fun ride, and here's hoping there's a sequel.

I have the old XCOM games purchased from Steam, maybe I'll give them a try, but after glancing at the UI I think I need to find the instruction book somewhere I'm thinking.

 

[Reverend]

^ What I found helpful before playing the old X-Com was check out an "let's play" on the youtubes. May be just me, but I do learn faster seeing the UI used in context rather than than trying to memorize an instruction manual.

Incidentally, I think Steam often has PDFs of manuals available to download, just by right clicking the game in your library. Not sure if it's all games, or even any of the older games at all. Good place to start though.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I wanted to bump this thread for two reasons.

First, an expansion pack was announced: XCOM: Enemy Within

It's very much a Firaxis-style expansion, expanding the content of the main game rather than adding an additional story. They are adding mechs and genetic engineering on top of everything else. In addition, there's a new organization called EXALT that are humans who want to use the aliens for their own gain. Here's a video of a mission against them along with covert spy stuff.

The second reason I'm bumping the thread is to ask a question for those who have more experience with the game. I put the game down for awhile to do other things, but I'm finally taking a stab at playing through the whole story. I'm at the point of the base assault. However, I feel I need to build up my troops (and hire some more troops) as well as get some important research done. On the other hand, the missions seem to keep getting harder and panic is obviously increasing. So my question is this. Is it better to just advance in the story and hope the pieces fall where they may or should I take a time out from the story and just run some missions so I can be stronger when the time comes?

 

[FPAlpha]

I wanted to bump this thread for two reasons.

First, an expansion pack was announced: XCOM: Enemy Within

It's very much a Firaxis-style expansion, expanding the content of the main game rather than adding an additional story. They are adding mechs and genetic engineering on top of everything else. In addition, there's a new organization called EXALT that are humans who want to use the aliens for their own gain. Here's a video of a mission against them along with covert spy stuff.

The second reason I'm bumping the thread is to ask a question for those who have more experience with the game. I put the game down for awhile to do other things, but I'm finally taking a stab at playing through the whole story. I'm at the point of the base assault. However, I feel I need to build up my troops (and hire some more troops) as well as get some important research done. On the other hand, the missions seem to keep getting harder and panic is obviously increasing. So my question is this. Is it better to just advance in the story and hope the pieces fall where they may or should I take a time out from the story and just run some missions so I can be stronger when the time comes?

I have played it through so my advice is, if time is running out, i.e. panic levels are rising to untenable levels then do the base assault, After it there is a considerable drop in panic across the world, you get much loot to sell/expand your research and the experience boost for the soldiers participating in the assault is also very nice (just be sure to pack a few medkits and to leaping maneuvers in uncertain areas).

I am really excited for Enemy Within and can't wait for it to be released.. i've got a ton of good games at home but they'll all be put on hold once it's there.

 

[archeryguy1701]

I wanted to bump this thread for two reasons.

First, an expansion pack was announced: XCOM: Enemy Within

It's very much a Firaxis-style expansion, expanding the content of the main game rather than adding an additional story. They are adding mechs and genetic engineering on top of everything else. In addition, there's a new organization called EXALT that are humans who want to use the aliens for their own gain. Here's a video of a mission against them along with covert spy stuff.

The second reason I'm bumping the thread is to ask a question for those who have more experience with the game. I put the game down for awhile to do other things, but I'm finally taking a stab at playing through the whole story. I'm at the point of the base assault. However, I feel I need to build up my troops (and hire some more troops) as well as get some important research done. On the other hand, the missions seem to keep getting harder and panic is obviously increasing. So my question is this. Is it better to just advance in the story and hope the pieces fall where they may or should I take a time out from the story and just run some missions so I can be stronger when the time comes?

In my first play-through, I went into the base assault with my research at about a mid-way point... I had laser weapons and I think I had the middle of the road armor. I made it out of there without a problem (this was on regular difficulty). In subsequent games, if I've even made it that far (on classic), I've tried waiting it out and have found that the game gets harder even if you aren't progressing the story. When I went after the base in the first game, I had yet to see Sectopods and Cyberdisks. Now, waiting it out, I'm constantly getting Cyberdisks and have just ran into my first two Sectopods and I'm nowhere close to being ready for the base.

My recommendation would be to not wait too long.... having the best equipment is certainly a boon, but getting straight into the base could come with its own advantages (the previously-mentioned reduction in panic, all the resources you get from the base, etc).

I'm so incredibly stoked for Enemy Within. November is going to be a rough month with the number of good games coming out, but this is the one I'm looking forward to the most. I love that it wasn't a half-assed effort. 40 new maps, lots of new bad guys, lots of new features, and new missions, including a base-defense mission. And your soldiers can be dapper alien-killing MoFos and wear fedoras into the battlefield. Very nice.

 

[Reverend]

What I found works well is to aggressively go after getting as many satellites in orbit as soon as possible. Getting the continent-wide bonuses goes a long way towards accelerating your rate of research, especially "we have ways" as it eliminates the wait on any autopsies. Needless to say this is most useful early on.

Indeed on my first playthrough I almost entirely skipped over laser weapons (only bothered with rifles & pistols) and went straight for the plasmas.