X-COM Enemy Unknown

Serpent said:
I've never even seen a critically injured alien, only soldiers.
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I think it may have just been the mouse had passed over an alien corpse as the camera panned at the beginning of my turn or something. I just remember that in the original there was a slim chance that aliens could be knocked out from gunfire if there health got low enough without being too low to kill them.
 
Yea... I remember that too.

What's great about the old one is that both teams had very similar characteristic... probably the only thing different was the amount of people on the field, and even that can be rectified at the end cycle where you can basically bring a battalion of soldiers on your avenger.
 
Just encountered UFO battleship class, lost 2 firestorms, skyranger is on route, Im pissed off and ready to melt some alien face!
 
Damn I wish I had an open weekend to spend on impossible. I think I can get through it. I just need to suck up some losses and continue on,
 
the more I play this, the more I'm hating it. not so much because it sucks, but because of all the wasted potential. combat just has way too many bugs and inconsistencies to be balanced in any sane way, so any fun you're having is constantly ruined by the inevitable rage, especially after getting into ironman on classic/impossible. I get how the whole game is really just a series of dice rolls, but there are obviously certain things you should be able to rely on, like tactics and position play that should never be left up to chance. I've already beat it on normal but I refuse to return to this mode, until they clean it up a bit more down the line.

check out second wave though, it's a must have mod imo. didn't try any of the "balance mods" since I never agree with all the sweeping changes being made, but that really helps to balance out some questionable decisions, I can totally see why this mode was started off in the first place.

chaikovski2002 said:
Any of you guys use pistols?
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good sidearms are vital to survival, heavies are actually at a disadvantage without one (countered by the ability to carry 4 explosives ofc). especially later when you get the improved pistol techs, they become life saving and very useful to do good damage and conserve ammo for position play.

the pistol buff for sniper is useless though, just like the snap shot ability, choosing either one is a pointless gimp. really disapointed in the sniper rank tree, where most of the abilities in the other classes are all valuable sidegrades, your only real choice for sniper is basically just to decide between disabling shot and battle scanner.
 
I know this isn't the way the game is meant to be played but I cannot resist the reloads and attempting alternate strategies to get the best possible outcomes :p

Even though it can be called a form of cheating, there is definitely a great deal of satisfaction in totally blitzing everything that is thrown at you and to a certain degree it kinda teaches you the mechanics of how the AI works. Will undoubtedly be valuable for when I do actually try the ironman mode, which I am sure will offer a whole new degree of satisfaction when pulling off those difficult missions successfully.

Overall, Xcom is a great game in it's own right, I still rate the original higher in most regards.
 
mr_zen256 said:
I know this isn't the way the game is meant to be played but I cannot resist the reloads and attempting alternate strategies to get the best possible outcomes :p

Even though it can be called a form of cheating, there is definitely a great deal of satisfaction in totally blitzing everything that is thrown at you and to a certain degree it kinda teaches you the mechanics of how the AI works. Will undoubtedly be valuable for when I do actually try the ironman mode, which I am sure will offer a whole new degree of satisfaction when pulling off those difficult missions successfully.

Overall, Xcom is a great game in it's own right, I still rate the original higher in most regards.
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It's not cheating, and also is kinda the way it is meant to be played. The original X-Com allowed for reloads in battles and it could be near mandatory on higher difficulties for TFTD.

I think Ironman is a great addition to the game but don't feel like you need to play on it. Don't like the ITG crowd try and convince you it is "cheating" to play it on regular mode. It wouldn't have it if it was.

Not saying don't play an Ironman game, just saying play the game how you like. If Easy with lots of reloads is what makes you happy, then that is the right way to do it and no it isn't cheating. If Ironman on Impossible with many a soldier death is what makes you happy, then that is the right way to do it.

Whatever make it fun, go for it.
 
mr_zen256 said:
I know this isn't the way the game is meant to be played but I cannot resist the reloads and attempting alternate strategies to get the best possible outcomes :p

Even though it can be called a form of cheating, there is definitely a great deal of satisfaction in totally blitzing everything that is thrown at you and to a certain degree it kinda teaches you the mechanics of how the AI works. Will undoubtedly be valuable for when I do actually try the ironman mode, which I am sure will offer a whole new degree of satisfaction when pulling off those difficult missions successfully.

Overall, Xcom is a great game in it's own right, I still rate the original higher in most regards.
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ha you think so, but when you get to ironman you'll never go back, even if you hate it, and probably also realise you've been doing everything wrong. but it was obviously meant to be played this way, or else they wouldn't autosave every turn and allow you to reload whenever you want.

the game isn't balanced enough to really be playable on classic/impossible ironman anyway tbh (nevermind mp). people have beat it (I've seen it with my own eyes) but it all comes down to luck and/or hours and hours of camping. pretty much just overwatch every half turn and trap/lure tactics to get the ai to kill themselves, more than you actually outmaneuvering them. I saw the end of an impossible ironman marathon run the other day, it was completed in 30 hours of just nonstop turtle vs turtle.
 
Do you get to continent bonus when you launch the satelite, or when its up in the air (4 days later)?

I'm still trying to get the second month right, but it looks like if I can get South america's continent bonus (instant autopsy research and interrogation), I can get to the base attack to reduce all panic before the month's end.

Keeping all continents by the third month? I'm not sure I can get every satelite up in time.
 
Pretty sure you get the bonus for the launch. I didn't actually check though.
 
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mas said:
the more I play this, the more I'm hating it. not so much because it sucks, but because of all the wasted potential. combat just has way too many bugs and inconsistencies to be balanced in any sane way, so any fun you're having is constantly ruined by the inevitable rage, especially after getting into ironman on classic/impossible. I get how the whole game is really just a series of dice rolls, but there are obviously certain things you should be able to rely on, like tactics and position play that should never be left up to chance. I've already beat it on normal but I refuse to return to this mode, until they clean it up a bit more down the line.

check out second wave though, it's a must have mod imo. didn't try any of the "balance mods" since I never agree with all the sweeping changes being made, but that really helps to balance out some questionable decisions, I can totally see why this mode was started off in the first place.



good sidearms are vital to survival, heavies are actually at a disadvantage without one (countered by the ability to carry 4 explosives ofc). especially later when you get the improved pistol techs, they become life saving and very useful to do good damage and conserve ammo for position play.

the pistol buff for sniper is useless though, just like the snap shot ability, choosing either one is a pointless gimp. really disapointed in the sniper rank tree, where most of the abilities in the other classes are all valuable sidegrades, your only real choice for sniper is basically just to decide between disabling shot and battle scanner.
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thanks for posting that mod!
 
I have been using firestorms armed with EMP. It is supposed to "preserve" the craft a little more than just destroying it. When I land the UFO has still shown significant damage but I suspect that is just how the map was pre-drawn. After completing the mission I have been recovering more UFO parts. Of course if the EMP knocks out the engines and the UFO crash lands there will still be some impact damage.
 
Ya... but I think the returns on alloy and elerium is higher once you beat the battle.

wow, what a horrid spelling error.
 
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Has anyone else noticed that the elevation bonus seems to be bugged? When I go into the more info screen the bonus is actually counting against me. Am I reading it right?
 
Deads0uls said:
Has anyone else noticed that the elevation bonus seems to be bugged? When I go into the more info screen the bonus is actually counting against me. Am I reading it right?
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yea it's a known bug, certain cover and elevation modifiers are just counted as nothing, or even debuffs as if the perspectives were swapped. their crazy broken gorilla math has gotten my guys killed like this way too many times to count, that's why I stopped playing ironman. a whole bunch of other perks and abilities are not working properly either, pretty sure there got to be a big patch on the way to fix all this.
 
FYI

Something I've run into the last few days, my saved games have been going missing. At first I thought I was just forgetting to save before exiting the game but today I made sure I did before I went to lunch and when I got back sure enough my game wasn't in the list to load. The saves are not gone the game just has some issues displaying them once get too many. 2k forums someone said once you get around 100 it starts. If you go to your saved game directory and delete a bunch of your older games it will fix the problem and your current saves will show.
 
Seelenlos said:
FYI

Something I've run into the last few days, my saved games have been going missing. At first I thought I was just forgetting to save before exiting the game but today I made sure I did before I went to lunch and when I got back sure enough my game wasn't in the list to load. The saves are not gone the game just has some issues displaying them once get too many. 2k forums someone said once you get around 100 it starts. If you go to your saved game directory and delete a bunch of your older games it will fix the problem and your current saves will show.
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i been running in to this to, il have to save 4 or 5 times before it would show up in the load save screen.

btw i had fun whit this game but there are a lot of bugs and the ending was very weak, over all i do not see my self replaying this as once you get a good build order down for your base( get satellites over ever city asap) the base building needs a lot of work, the way it is set up now you need to build a shit load of workshops to get more engineers for you sat uplinks and dig down to your first steam vent so you can put a thermal power plant to power every thing.
 
tunatime said:
i been running in to this to, il have to save 4 or 5 times before it would show up in the load save screen.

btw i had fun whit this game but there are a lot of bugs and the ending was very weak, over all i do not see my self replaying this as once you get a good build order down for your base( get satellites over ever city asap) the base building needs a lot of work, the way it is set up now you need to build a shit load of workshops to get more engineers for you sat uplinks and dig down to your first steam vent so you can put a thermal power plant to power every thing.
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You don't need to play it like that, it's actually nicely open to whichever path you want to take. For example I personally built only one workshop and did missions that gave engineers as rewards, and I ended up only having 4 satellites active. I did lose Argentina but that was mostly just me being stupid and waiting too long to build the third satellite. This also frees up money for spending on armor or weapons.

Also, the build order probably has an optimal path as there are always people that play the ever loving shit out of a game to the point where they've figured out the best mathematical formulas to win etc etc, but for the most part you can go different routes for different gameplay styles without having to fail miserably. For example on my first playthrough that I just finished I never built a single SHIV, and I focused on armor way before I focused on weapons.

Anyway, tl;dr, just saying that it's very possible to have new ways of playing :)
 
I am actually going to admit defeat and try playing the game on Normal. I have been trying again and again on classic but I keep failing miserably. I always seem to reach a point where the game goes from beatable to meltdown.
 
infect0 said:
I am actually going to admit defeat and try playing the game on Normal. I have been trying again and again on classic but I keep failing miserably. I always seem to reach a point where the game goes from beatable to meltdown.
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I'm working on beating the game on Normal, then I'll move up to a more difficult level. I'm a stickler for not losing my guys, so I restart missions a lot. But that's how I played the original as well.
 
the trick i have found is to all ways build a sat uplink and 3 sats a month save them till 1 day before the end of the month then launch all 3 to places your about to lose. if you can make it to month 3 you should be getting about $600 a month so you can start making labs to catch up to the alien tech all the while still making more sat and uplinks. this is the only thing that worked for me at all. if i tried to rush my tech and not try to build a lot of sats then i was always broke and could never afford to buy the new gear and whit more sats i think you shoot down more ufos so you get more mats and stuff you can sell
 
I'm feeling pretty safe with my impossible run (non-iron man) so far.

Satelites up in all countries.
No country more than 2 panic (all blue)
No man lost
1 Day from getting 1 firestorm and 1 inteceptor in every continent (4 that are ready have emp equipped)
3 snipers (2 max level) all with plasma rifles
Most of my research (thats available at where I am in the game) is complete


Assulted the alien base, but havent built the relay yet.

I'm planning on maxing out my characters before I take down the relay ship, so I wont be progressing in story soon, but afterwards I'll be a hop skip and a jump away from the final mission.

I need to equip my heavy/assault/support with plasma soon too, 10hp mutons and 20(or 25 i think) berserkers are a force to be reckoned with. There was one abduction mission where they kept coming in waves, I hardly had time to kill a pack before the next one patrolled in. There was definitely a lot of loading, but it felt bad-ass once I survived 2 packs wandering in at the same time. I considered doing ironman classic after completing impossible, but I rely on saves too much to go ironman.
 
tunatime said:
the trick i have found is to all ways build a sat uplink and 3 sats a month save them till 1 day before the end of the month then launch all 3 to places your about to lose. if you can make it to month 3 you should be getting about $600 a month so you can start making labs to catch up to the alien tech all the while still making more sat and uplinks. this is the only thing that worked for me at all. if i tried to rush my tech and not try to build a lot of sats then i was always broke and could never afford to buy the new gear and whit more sats i think you shoot down more ufos so you get more mats and stuff you can sell
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same here...also its important to resist the temptation of sending out satellites to complete a continent or get some quick additional funding if a country isnt in a panic. satellites are the only salve for panic the player has direct control over and you only get to apply them once

I'd like to see a rare and extremely difficult council mission to get you the opportunity to win back a country that has left the project...my first play through I lost Mexico early on because I squandered a satellite and they went full panic 2 days before the end of month, but after that I started kicking all kinds of ass and wished I could have got them back somehow..."Cmon, Mexico baby, I'll give you two satellites some thin man corpses a heavy plasma cannon and two firestorms...just come back, baby"
 
maademperor said:
same here...also its important to resist the temptation of sending out satellites to complete a continent or get some quick additional funding if a country isnt in a panic. satellites are the only salve for panic the player has direct control over and you only get to apply them once
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Well not necessarily. Covering a continent can be the way to go because then panic isn't a problem there anymore. Abduction missions only happen in countries with no satellite coverage. They also increase panic in the continents where you don't do the mission. So if a continent is covered, no more abduction missions on that continent and thus no more panic increase (unless there is another kind of mission you don't do there).

Get the whole globe covered, no more abductions period.
 
Sycraft said:
Well not necessarily. Covering a continent can be the way to go because then panic isn't a problem there anymore. Abduction missions only happen in countries with no satellite coverage. They also increase panic in the continents where you don't do the mission. So if a continent is covered, no more abduction missions on that continent and thus no more panic increase (unless there is another kind of mission you don't do there).

Get the whole globe covered, no more abductions period.
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true, I suppose I was thinking in terms of early game while still building uplinks/nexus and you cant field 16 sats anyway. I stands corrected (still wish I could buy back countries if I manage to lose them though).
 
I have been enjoying this game way too much. Already dumped about 70+ hours ofcourse I had to start again a couple of times.

I play in Classic and Im on the 4th month have scored A in all months except for 1 which i had to let 2 ufos get away since I could not shot them down. I have interceptors and Firestorm on all bases now.

I built the psi lab and I have 4 soldiers with Psi powers.
I have 4 Col.
3 Maj
2 Capt
4 Sgt
I have 2 great snipers and Im almost done building the arch angel armor.

Last nite I went to load the game and now Im about 10 days behind which
isnt a big deal but I hate doing the same mission twice.

My saved game disapeared and Im going to have to go into the directory and just delete
all of them and keep only my latest file. Which SUCKS!!!!
 
maademperor said:
I'd like to see a rare and extremely difficult council mission to get you the opportunity to win back a country that has left the project...my first play through I lost Mexico early on because I squandered a satellite and they went full panic 2 days before the end of month, but after that I started kicking all kinds of ass and wished I could have got them back somehow..."Cmon, Mexico baby, I'll give you two satellites some thin man corpses a heavy plasma cannon and two firestorms...just come back, baby"
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Would love to have seen something like that as well. I was thinking you would have to assault multiple bases in order to recover a country. Something difficult along the lines of the OG bases with multiple stages and levels/designs. Not the base mission in this game. That would be too easy.
 
Seelenlos said:
FYI

Something I've run into the last few days, my saved games have been going missing. At first I thought I was just forgetting to save before exiting the game but today I made sure I did before I went to lunch and when I got back sure enough my game wasn't in the list to load. The saves are not gone the game just has some issues displaying them once get too many. 2k forums someone said once you get around 100 it starts. If you go to your saved game directory and delete a bunch of your older games it will fix the problem and your current saves will show.
Click to expand...

I think you've discovered another feature! Had the same issue. By deleting my oldest games the newest ones showed up again.
 
I started my second playthrough on classic, everything was going fine for first 3 months, I was putting up satellites, levellling up my soldiers, doing light research, managing base building, then I hit a brick wall. My first terror mission I got mowed down by Chryssalids and CyberDiscs. Its that level where you start next to one building and a van, so as soon as you move one guy out of start area you spot 3 different groups. FML, on the first move its already a firefight. So I went in with carapace armor and stock weapons, guess how that went :rolleyes: I screwed that up I think you need laser weapons, upgraded armor doesnt cut it when you do shit for damage. I dunno, maybe if I had higher ranked soldiers on that mission, most of my levelled guys were in med bay.
 
really enjoying the game - fighting the urge not to reload a save after a mission I totally screw up and lose a favorite soldier.

I love how there are a thousand ways to totally screw everything up and you have to actually read and think about your choices and moves because the aliens are totally ruthless and will take a giant shit on you when they can.
 
polydiol said:
really enjoying the game - fighting the urge not to reload a save after a mission I totally screw up and lose a favorite soldier.

I love how there are a thousand ways to totally screw everything up and you have to actually read and think about your choices and moves because the aliens are totally ruthless and will take a giant shit on you when they can.
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I know the feeling, Ive Rage Quit 5 different games now:

1)Didnt get enough sats out early enough within first 3-4 months, lost too many countries
2)Didnt focus on research as much as I should have
3)Did not like the rookies I was given I had 4 snipers, wtf
4)Did not like my base layout - 1 steam vent very bottm left, wtf
5)Out of 13 soldiers only 3 had psi abilities, 1 was high rank, 2 were rooks, 2 got killed I was left with one, fml
 
chaikovski2002 said:
I started my second playthrough on classic, everything was going fine for first 3 months, I was putting up satellites, levellling up my soldiers, doing light research, managing base building, then I hit a brick wall. My first terror mission I got mowed down by Chryssalids and CyberDiscs. Its that level where you start next to one building and a van, so as soon as you move one guy out of start area you spot 3 different groups. FML, on the first move its already a firefight. So I went in with carapace armor and stock weapons, guess how that went :rolleyes: I screwed that up I think you need laser weapons, upgraded armor doesnt cut it when you do shit for damage. I dunno, maybe if I had higher ranked soldiers on that mission, most of my levelled guys were in med bay.
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skipping laser for the most part is doable on classic, but I wouldn't suggest that for impossible cause of the hp increase. you just have to get containment and arc projector tech done asap to salvage your plasma weaps. do your beam research whenever you get the time as well, at least up to precision lasers. since sniper weapons can't be salvaged, and it's a long time before you can research your way up to plasma sniper and afford them, since they're so expensive to build.

but no matter what, even if you do plan on using beam weaps that wall in progression is always there, you just have to play smart and camp alot to get past it. there are some terrible maps that spawn mobs right on top of you at the start, that one tiny ass construction site is the worst. you just have to hug the walls and do as much damage as possible per turn.
 
I'm playing my second playthrough on classic difficulty now (with mods) and I'm only now really noticing the repetition in maps...for some reason I had the same one in 3 out 4 missions with slightly different starting lcoations and there doesnt seem to be more than 7 or 8 council missions total? I hope the community can add something in that regard...
 
maademperor said:
I'm playing my second playthrough on classic difficulty now (with mods) and I'm only now really noticing the repetition in maps...for some reason I had the same one in 3 out 4 missions with slightly different starting lcoations and there doesnt seem to be more than 7 or 8 council missions total? I hope the community can add something in that regard...
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some of them just completely suck, but the game prevents you from running into any dupes within the same playthrough. there's actually alot of them, like over 40 unique maps so you could still be running into ones you've never played in like your 2nd or 3rd run, depending on how long you took with each game.
 
mas said:
some of them just completely suck, but the game prevents you from running into any dupes within the same playthrough. there's actually alot of them, like over 40 unique maps so you could still be running into ones you've never played in like your 2nd or 3rd run, depending on how long you took with each game.
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It definitely does not prevent you from repetition, it's purely random.

On the new game of Normal Ironman I just started, the second mission was the exact same one as the first. Really stupid and yes, Firaxis really need to expand the map base more... unfortunately that's something that will probably have to wait for the full fledged sequel. :/
 
Colonel Sanders said:
It definitely does not prevent you from repetition, it's purely random.

On the new game of Normal Ironman I just started, the second mission was the exact same one as the first. Really stupid and yes, Firaxis really need to expand the map base more... unfortunately that's something that will probably have to wait for the full fledged sequel. :/
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it's a bug, they've quoted this as a specific feature they tried to implement, whether or not it's working though is of course a different matter.

but in my opinion, anyone who would say the game has a lack of maps would be way off. the quality is very questionable, but variety, no.
 
You know what sucks? I played damn awesome..... Iron Man Classic, and I had almost every country perfect and 3 sats to cover the rest of the world with only Germany lost. My base was turning out pretty damn awesome, but my army count was low, and I went on a mission. I've lost maybe 6 guys, and it was in the 3rd or 4th month. Then that mission they went on, went about as bad as it could. I got destroyed and almost all of my high rankers died, because I only bring one newb with me to raise them up.

Game sort of tanked after that. It was pretty gay, cuz fighting the first group in that battle got me tangled with another, then that got me tangled with another, then a Muton, literally appeared behind all my guys on the right side, with none of them hunkered down, and all in overwatch and shot me point blanked flanked and killed my sniper.

It was just a wtf, that made zero sense. After that, I got into a escort mission with millions of thinmen that somehow moved into sight without triggering overwatch and slowly ate away at my team.
 
Serpent said:
You know what sucks? I played damn awesome..... Iron Man Classic, and I had almost every country perfect and 3 sats to cover the rest of the world with only Germany lost. My base was turning out pretty damn awesome, but my army count was low, and I went on a mission. I've lost maybe 6 guys, and it was in the 3rd or 4th month. Then that mission they went on, went about as bad as it could. I got destroyed and almost all of my high rankers died, because I only bring one newb with me to raise them up.

Game sort of tanked after that. It was pretty gay, cuz fighting the first group in that battle got me tangled with another, then that got me tangled with another, then a Muton, literally appeared behind all my guys on the right side, with none of them hunkered down, and all in overwatch and shot me point blanked flanked and killed my sniper.

It was just a wtf, that made zero sense. After that, I got into a escort mission with millions of thinmen that somehow moved into sight without triggering overwatch and slowly ate away at my team.
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That happened to me too actually in Classic Ironman. It wasn't a muton that appeared though. It was an ethereal and elite muton that teleported out of the UFO and appeared next to my sniper. That sucked. Lost 3 vets and a rookie that mission, escaped with just a sniper and heavy. Things were dicey for a month or two there before I could rebuild.
 
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