XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[NIPPER]

I don't get the appeal of ironman mode. I'm playing this to have fun not to torture myself. I don't have time to keep replaying the early game over and over just to give myself a false sense of accomplishment. I would like to play through to the end at least once before I do that.

Of course I played the original since it came out and only won it for the first time around 2006 or so.

[Hellboy]

I've started cheesing saves a little (apparently the only difference in Ironman is that you are unable to cheese saves, which according to the devs, is very difficult and is not suggested for your first several games. what? they suggest you cheese saves for at least your first few games? that's what I hear)

Not so much cheese saves but saying that at least you can come back from something that would otherwise lead to failing the game, which is not possible in Ironman because you only get one save file and it auto-saves after missions.

I've had to do that a few times because way early on it was nearly impossible for me to complete a difficult council mission without losing my entire team because I wasn't playing conservatively enough. Since then I've been able to up my squad to 6 and a lot of my guys have leveled up, so I'm playing much better tactically. I'm getting concerned in terms of the global scale, however, most of the UK is panicked (I'm based out of Germany as well), Japan, and a bunch of other places are at four or five terror level and I just started my first terror mission with Chryssalids, which is going to be a romp.

Still haven't been able to capture a live Outsider, those guys really are walking goddamned death at this stage.

And to Nipper, the appeal of Ironman is basically that you're playing the game in the most fair, albeit incredibly brutal if you're on Classic or Impossible, manner possible. It's a surefire prevention of savescumming, which a lot of people learn to rely on to win the game rather than doing damage control because of the poor tactical decisions they've made or the shit luck they've encountered.

[Avvatar]

Yeah I dunno. As one of the many effects of being horrifically under-funded, my squad is still at 4. I can't afford a damned officer training whatever. I probably can't afford not to have one either, but whatever. A mission or two back, I shot down a "larger" UFO. Still relatively small, but larger than the first 2 which were smaller. Thing took down my interceptor simultaneously. Anyway. Captured an Outsider without too much trouble. 2 assaults moved in, one shot a pistol at him, the other tased. Easy. The harder part was surviving the rest of the ship as my soldiers repeatedly panicked. There wasn't even that much left in there, like 2 Sectoids and 3 Floaters. Kept fucking panicking. Didn't cheese saves or lose anyone that mission.

[Derp]

Yeah, my earlier post about the game being way too easy on normal, nevermind. Once you start messing with Mutons and Chryssalids things get a lot more dangerous, obviously. I feel like I may have started rather badly in terms of what I spent my initial funds on... I'm almost 3 months in now I think and I really should have more satellites, but I'm still at 2 and my first satellite uplink isn't finished yet. I'm still doing very well in actual combat, but I think my "economy" should be much better at this point. Not sure, I don't understand it 100% yet, but it seems like getting more satellites up ASAP would be a good idea, since those increase your funding I think. Basically you have to choose to invest a large sum of money into a satellite uplink + additional satellites rather than immediate support in the form of weapons/armor/upgrades in order to increase your income.

[NIPPER]

Yeah, my earlier post about the game being way too easy on normal, nevermind. Once you start messing with Mutons and Chryssalids things get a lot more dangerous, obviously.

hahaha I just got to the same point. Just did my first chryssalids terror mission and I was getting rushed by like 8 chyssalids at once. they turned 2 civilians into zombies on their first turn it was chaos and it was amazing.

And to Nipper, the appeal of Ironman is basically that you're playing the game in the most fair, albeit incredibly brutal if you're on Classic or Impossible, manner possible. It's a surefire prevention of savescumming, which a lot of people learn to rely on to win the game rather than doing damage control because of the poor tactical decisions they've made or the shit luck they've encountered.

ehh taking away save games isn't making it fair though it's just making it more of a hassle for you when you fail.

[Hellboy]

ehh taking away save games isn't making it fair though it's just making it more of a hassle for you when you fail.

That's pretty much the idea, you don't get the quickfix of loading a save, basically leveling the playing field between you and the game- it's the challenge of seeing if you can go through the whole thing that way. I'd like to try it once I finish the game once through.

Also, some cocksucker UFO shot down the satellite I had over China right at the end of the second fucking month and the council got pissed at me, I wound up losing both Nigeria and China and I had to sell my goddamned Foundry which I hadn't even used yet just so I could make the month without being in the red- I had to build another goddamned satellite while working with the limited funds I had. Luckily got another one up over the UK, which I can actually send an interceptor to, so now my I'm actually earning income again.

Plus side, my troops have been getting promoted like crazy thanks to the Academy bonus and I've been kicking ass on my past 5 or so missions. Only lost one guy (RIP Isaac Clarke), managed to capture an Outsider, and I only lost two civvies on my first terror mission! The downside is I'm still using archaic weaponry because I didn't have enough money to build a workshop and I've been ridiculously low on engineers up til now.

[Avvatar]

Restarted Classic Ironman last night. Got my ass handed to me. I don't know how many missions in I was but the one guy who survives that tutorial mission had made it clear up to captain when everybody died. Well, technically the squads sniper managed to kill the last 3 aliens alone and survive, but the other 5 died. I'm doing something very very wrong. I'll be playing Normal Ironman now. Normal should make my apparently awful tactics workable and Ironman should keep me playing the game.

[Django]

X-cum

[Derp]

This game is SO GOOD I love it. Terror missions are absolutely nuts, the first time you run into multiple Cyberdiscs on a terror mission centered in a large building you will have a rough time, those things are insane before you get the high powered weaponry. Still doing well on my Normal sissyman game (I've loaded a few times to restart missions that went horribly wrong), have a satellite up in every country now and a fairly well-equipped balanced squad, rolling out upgraded aircraft and armaments now. Still haven't used the skeleton key to assault any alien bases yet, I better get on that once my Firestorm fighters are done. Not sure if I'm way behind in the main "story progression" compared to my technological progress, probably. As far as battle tactics go, all of the classes seem fairly balanced and useful, with the exception of Snipers. On fairly open maps, properly perked Colonel ranked snipers are insane, they can sit on the other side of the map and get over 90% hit rate and 30 - 75% crit rates with gigantic damage on pretty much anything your squad can see, and they can FIRE TWICE IN ONE TURN. But I guess that's balanced out by the fact that they are far harder to utilize in urban/indoor settings, of course, unless you pick snapshot and such, which in my opinion kind of eliminates the point of a sniper in the first place. I guess they still huge huge damage and high crit rates, and if you get up to Colonel rank they get so much aim that snap shot would probably be fine even with the -20 aim penalty.

One thing that I honestly find extremely annoying in this game is how your squaddies become random classes and you have no control over it. I wish I could just pick if I wanted them to become an Assault, Heavy, Sniper, or Support. I've gotten upwards of 10 snipers and 8 supports before I got ONE additional assault or heavy recruit, I'm not even exaggerating at all, it's a huge pain in the ass.

Definitely going to try out some Classic Ironman soon, maybe after I finish this game, though I don't expect to get very far my first few times. For those of you who are playing Classic Ironman already, If you haven't progressed to the point where you have to start doing Terror missions (the first doesn't count, it's a gentle introduction) and facing Cyberdiscs and Mutons with Plasma Rifles (normal, not light) regularly, then you haven't really seen how hard the game gets. Things just start doing so much damage it can get extremely hard to protect your valuable high ranked soldiers. Getting through some of these missions on Normal with a high-ranked extremely well geared squad is hard enough, Classic Ironman must be insane. If you want to have any shot at actually finishing the game soon (unless your skill level is far beyond mine) I would go down to Normal Ironman or just play Classic with saves so you can load and retry some battles if your squad ends up completely wiping. Normal Ironman should present plenty of challenge for an interesting game with lots of damage control after the first couple months, don't think you need Classic difficulty for that.

[Dr Lecter]

This game is so good, it makes me feel bad for pirating it.

Snipers, holy fucking shit, does anyone else whore them as much as me?

6 man team,

two snipers, one has the skill where he can shoot at any ally's sight radius, other has the quick snap skill. Map fucking superiority there with overwatch + assault class with the flush out skill.

1 support for heals

2 assault, one for capturing and dealing crits other with high defense and flushing out.

1 heavy for the guns.

[Magnus]

Yeah, the double-tap ability with damn good ground is stupid.

Does anyone else think that the alien movement is a little unfair? I'm sure many of you have noticed, after moving the last man in your squad up which manages to reveal aliens, it does that little cut scene, then they move into position. Which wouldn't be so bad except because that was the last man in your squad to move they then get ANOTHER move + action. Essentially they get a free move against you upon revealing them and you are unable to react accordingly.

I've found that always having my guys move the minimum and overwatch curbs this a bit, however there are some times where you move to flank, you reveal enemies, they get a freemove against YOUR flank then get to move AGAIN flanking you further.

[Derp]

Yeah, the double-tap ability with damn good ground is stupid.

Does anyone else think that the alien movement is a little unfair? I'm sure many of you have noticed, after moving the last man in your squad up which manages to reveal aliens, it does that little cut scene, then they move into position. Which wouldn't be so bad except because that was the last man in your squad to move they then get ANOTHER move + action. Essentially they get a free move against you upon revealing them and you are unable to react accordingly.

I've found that always having my guys move the minimum and overwatch curbs this a bit, however there are some times where you move to flank, you reveal enemies, they get a freemove against YOUR flank then get to move AGAIN flanking you further.

Yeah, I find this pretty annoying honestly, it makes you have to be even MORE cautious and slow/methodical in order to avoid these terrible situations. I just advance really slowly in dangerous missions and try my very best not to reveal any new terrain after my first one or two soldiers move forwards. A lot of the time this involves me pulling people backwards into cover to properly position myself against new threats, sometimes somewhat awkwardly, but upgraded smoke grenades can help with that. It's just too risky to move forwards into cover with existing threats if you're uncovering new terrain as you do so. Most of the time if you just move forwards a little you'll be fine and you'll get some nice cover that will give you a tactical advantage, but every so often you'll alert a squad of three Chryssalids or something and they'll use their free movement to run right up to your squad, then tear you apart next turn.

[Magnus]

I would agree, however I've had situations where I've been exceedingly cautious revealing an enemy, react, then a second set of aliens gets revealed and has a full 2 moves to flank me.

[Avvatar]

I think the alternative would be for all the aliens to start in cover where they'd be harder to spot. I'm okay with them chilling out in the open and then scurrying for cover.

[Hellboy]

I think the alternative would be for all the aliens to start in cover where they'd be harder to spot. I'm okay with them chilling out in the open and then scurrying for cover.

Pretty much- the other alternative would be after getting revealed for them to just stand there and get shot like morons, completely trivializing the game. I think, though, that if the enemies are actively looking for you that you shouldn't get the little intro cutscene and then scrambling to cover, it should play out how it would in a multiplayer match.

The one thing that annoys me are end-level enemies that just camp out until you get to them, like Outsiders or Sectoid Commanders- I wish they were a bit more dynamic, not just stuff you see in the last room. I hope this game gets a good mod scene going, my issues with the game are pretty miniscule in the face of how good it is already, but I'd like to see some changes to a few things.


While I'm here, fuck Sectopods forever. I ran into maybe one or two before doing the alien base mission and was able to kill them without having to move or get shot, which apparently was a goddamned miracle in of itself because they get as much reaction fire against you as tiles you can move, they can rain hell on you from across the map without even needing to be in your line of sight, and they've got, like, three different attacks that do upwards of 10 damage uncritted, and I don't think you can disable their big fuck-off cannon with a disabling shot. It made that mission a living fucking hell.