XCOM: Enemy Unknown PC gameplay demo and Multiplayer footage

Here's a trick for Iron Man:
Leave task manager open in the background.
The autosave triggers AFTER the aliens are done moving.
Tabbing out of the game pauses everything.

So, move your guys. Then the aliens go... If during the aliens turn something really bad happens, tab out and kill the game. Your autosave will be for your turn and you'll know where the enemy is/what they're planning and can prepare/counter accordingly. It only gives you a one turn 'look into the future' but that's better than nothing.

In that case... why not not play Iron Man? Doesn't that just defeat the point?
 
One turn doesn't guarantee anything. It just gives you a slight edge.

No, of course not. But isn't the point of Ironman "One save. One try to get things right, and if you don't, well, that's XCOM baby."? Even if you're just rewinding one turn, that kinda defeats the point - you're still rewinding. You might as well play non-Ironman if you're going to do that. Less work to do the same thing anyways.
 
How are iron man saves files managed? It seems like you can just copy the save in an out and "manage" your saves that way. Of course that defeats the thrill of iron man unless you're just an achievement whore.
 
No, of course not. But isn't the point of Ironman "One save. One try to get things right, and if you don't, well, that's XCOM baby."? Even if you're just rewinding one turn, that kinda defeats the point - you're still rewinding. You might as well play non-Ironman if you're going to do that. Less work to do the same thing anyways.

The point is it isn't easy to do... So you don't do it every turn... Just when things go really sideways. I've only done it once or twice... Honestly I usually don't think to do it. The other thing to remember is that hit/misses are generated based on the mission seed. So a hit will always be a hit, and a miss will always be a miss. So if your soldier is at point A, and alien is at point B. Alien kills your soldier... If you can't move your soldier away from point A... No matter how many times you reload, your soldier is always dead.

How are iron man saves files managed? It seems like you can just copy the save in an out and "manage" your saves that way. Of course that defeats the thrill of iron man unless you're just an achievement whore.

Yeah you can do this too. But it's even more work than the method I outlined.
 
How are iron man saves files managed? It seems like you can just copy the save in an out and "manage" your saves that way. Of course that defeats the thrill of iron man unless you're just an achievement whore.

Yeah, you can do that. I think they're saved in your My Documents.

But yeah... again, why play Ironman if you're gonna do that? Achievements I suppose, but... you lose the experience of Ironman.

The point is it isn't easy to do... So you don't do it every turn... Just when things go really sideways. I've only done it once or twice... Honestly I usually don't think to do it. The other thing to remember is that hit/misses are generated based on the mission seed. So a hit will always be a hit, and a miss will always be a miss. So if your soldier is at point A, and alien is at point B. Alien kills your soldier... If you can't move your soldier away from point A... No matter how many times you reload, your soldier is always dead.

If things really go sideways... that's XCOM baby! That's the point of Ironman... If, through doing this, you do things differently and the outcome is different (which will happen if you do things differently) then there wasn't a point of playing Ironman to begin with. You would be playing Ironman when, really, you weren't actually playing Ironman.

The only way I can see reloading from a previous save as counting as Ironman is if a game-breaking bug breaks your savefile such that it is technically impossible to continue.
 
Yeah, you can do that. I think they're saved in your My Documents.

But yeah... again, why play Ironman if you're gonna do that? Achievements I suppose, but... you lose the experience of Ironman.

If things really go sideways... that's XCOM baby! That's the point of Ironman... If, through doing this, you do things differently and the outcome is different (which will happen if you do things differently) then there wasn't a point of playing Ironman to begin with. You would be playing Ironman when, really, you weren't actually playing Ironman.

The only way I can see reloading from a previous save as counting as Ironman is if a game-breaking bug breaks your savefile such that it is technically impossible to continue.

All of this assumes that Ironman 'is xcom'. There was no such thing in the original, and the original required you to have many more soldiers, so losing one or two a mission was the norm, wasn't a deal breaker, and usually wasn't someone from your cracksquad. You no longer have the 10 or so extra soldiers that you can use as cannon fodder to scout for you.

So, That isn't XCOM, baby.
 
All of this assumes that Ironman 'is xcom'. There was no such thing in the original, and the original required you to have many more soldiers, so losing one or two a mission was the norm, wasn't a deal breaker, and usually wasn't someone from your cracksquad. You no longer have the 10 or so extra soldiers that you can use as cannon fodder to scout for you.

So, That isn't XCOM, baby.

Not only that, the original didn't do ironman. You could save as often as you liked, in or out of combat. Ironman is a new creation. Now, I don't begrudge them for it, I think more difficulty options are great, let people play the game how they want to play it. But I do think it is silly how people are trying to act all "hardcore" that Ironman is the only REAL way to play X-com. No, actually old style X-Com had no Ironman.
 
First dlc announced. Something like 3 side China missions which gives you a special heavy soldier. At this rate they'll probably have at least 4 side dlc, one special for each class. Looks pretty meh.
 
Not only that, the original didn't do ironman. You could save as often as you liked, in or out of combat. Ironman is a new creation. Now, I don't begrudge them for it, I think more difficulty options are great, let people play the game how they want to play it. But I do think it is silly how people are trying to act all "hardcore" that Ironman is the only REAL way to play X-com. No, actually old style X-Com had no Ironman.

I have no problem per se with reloading or saving or anything like that. Honestly, I did it all the time in the original and I did it not a few times with the new XCOM (non-Ironman).

I just don't understand why someone would play Ironman, and then go around and circumvent the very reason for Ironman. What's the point? You tell the game "don't let me reload saves", then you go and subvert the game engine that's trying to do precisely what you're telling it to do. Why not just tell the game "let me reload saves" to begin with?

All of this assumes that Ironman 'is xcom'. There was no such thing in the original, and the original required you to have many more soldiers, so losing one or two a mission was the norm, wasn't a deal breaker, and usually wasn't someone from your cracksquad. You no longer have the 10 or so extra soldiers that you can use as cannon fodder to scout for you.

So, That isn't XCOM, baby.

I stand corrected.

That's Ironman baby! You may lose someone from your crack squad. Heck, you may lose your entire crack squad. But that's simply part of playing Ironman. You play with the hand you're dealt, good or bad.

I use the "That's XCOM baby!" as it is/was a common phrase when people got squad wiped. It describes the brutality of how easily XCOM (old and new) often wipes you out, not as a way of saying that Ironman is only "true" XCOM. If it clears up any confusion, I won't use it anymore as it matters little to my point.
 
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I have no problem per se with reloading or saving or anything like that. Honestly, I did it all the time in the original and I did it not a few times with the new XCOM (non-Ironman).

I just don't understand why someone would play Ironman, and then go around and circumvent the very reason for Ironman. What's the point? You tell the game "don't let me reload saves", then you go and subvert the game engine that's trying to do precisely what you're telling it to do. Why not just tell the game "let me reload saves" to begin with?



I stand corrected.

That's Ironman baby! You may lose someone from your crack squad. Heck, you may lose your entire crack squad. But that's simply part of playing Ironman. You play with the hand you're dealt, good or bad.

I use the "That's XCOM baby!" as it is/was a common phrase when people got squad wiped. It describes the brutality of how easily XCOM (old and new) often wipes you out, not as a way of saying that Ironman is only "true" XCOM. If it clears up any confusion, I won't use it anymore as it matters little to my point.
I can give you the precise reason why I figured it out, actually. And it's in line with what you said earlier.

I'm sure you've noticed that moving soldiers to elevated positions is tough, especially when inside another structure, or on the edge of a structure. I have on more than one occasion accidentally sent a guy to a tile I did not intend on sending him to, and it was the last move on my turn. The only way out of this situation is to circumvent the ironman save feature.

And in old XCOM... I can't think of a single time that my crack squad got wiped out. I was very deliberate about protecting them with new guys.

Honestly, I think ironman should retain two saves. One for the last time you were at the geofront, and one for the current mission... That way if shit really does go sideways you have the option of restarting the entire mission over(with a different map/seed).
 
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I can give you the precise reason why I figured it out, actually. And it's in line with what you said earlier.

I'm sure you've noticed that moving soldiers to elevated positions is tough, especially when inside another structure, or on the edge of a structure. I have on more than one occasion accidentally sent a guy to a tile I did not intend on sending him to, and it was the last move on my turn. The only way out of this situation is to circumvent the ironman save feature.

And in old XCOM... I can't think of a single time that my crack squad got wiped out. I was very deliberate about protecting them with new guys.

Honestly, I think ironman should retain two saves. One for the last time you were at the geofront, and one for the current mission... That way if shit really does go sideways you have the option of restarting the entire mission over(with a different map/seed).

That is understandable. Personally, I deal with the occasionally faulty UI but at least that's still in the spirit of Ironman.

I would still say that squad wipes are very much a part of the game, and if you're playing Ironman, you just have to deal with it.

Squad wipes in the original game mostly consisted of one badly timed alien grenade... or panic chains with a rookie panicking from psionics and then going berserk on you with rockets. Or just a blaster bomb. Either fired by the aliens or you. Sure, they were rare, especially after you got psionics, but with sky ranger tech it happened often enough. At the end though, you were always one blaster bomb away from losing a whole bunch of your squad, high ranking vets included.
 
That is understandable. Personally, I deal with the occasionally faulty UI but at least that's still in the spirit of Ironman.

I would still say that squad wipes are very much a part of the game, and if you're playing Ironman, you just have to deal with it.

Squad wipes in the original game mostly consisted of one badly timed alien grenade... or panic chains with a rookie panicking from psionics and then going berserk on you with rockets. Or just a blaster bomb. Either fired by the aliens or you. Sure, they were rare, especially after you got psionics, but with sky ranger tech it happened often enough. At the end though, you were always one blaster bomb away from losing a whole bunch of your squad, high ranking vets included.

Hrm, I never had issues with aliens getting the jump on me and unloading a rocket/grenade in the perfect spot... As I mentioned earlier in my notes for playing the new XCOM... Every encounter should start on your own terms. If the aliens are getting the jump on you... You're not playing optimally.

I did experience panic chains, but was smart enough to NOT equip lower level guys with anything other than regular ballistic weapons, and they definitely didn't get grenades, they got electro-flares. Only my higher ranks with good psi strength would get heavy plasma's/rockets/etc.

Edit: another thing I do in the original XCOM is keep my crack squad together, but separate from the noobsquad. Like I said I usually sent the noobs out in waves first an expected to lose a bunch of them finding where the aliens were... then I would roll everything over with my team.
 
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First dlc announced. Something like 3 side China missions which gives you a special heavy soldier. At this rate they'll probably have at least 4 side dlc, one special for each class. Looks pretty meh.

Much rather have some patches before the dlc comes out.

Also have to agree doesn't look all that special, probably wait for a sale.
 
Why not just tell the game "let me reload saves" to begin with?

I completely agree. However I find a great number of people scattered around, particularly on the 2k forums, who seem to advocate Ironman as the True X-Com Experience(tm) or the One True Way to Play(tm). I take issue with that, as it is clearly not. Not only because they made it an option but because the original X-Com was not that way.

I'm a big advocate of play games in the way that makes it fun for you so I don't like people going all ITG on the right way to play anyhow. But if they do I demand accuracy. X-Com was never a one-save deal. A person could choose to not reload, of course, but the game never presented itself as being meant to be played that way.

So Ironman is an option for the new X-Com experience. A cool addition, I think, but not the way it was meant to be.

I also think part of the problem people have is the naming, since Ironman sounds like "tough guy mode". Maybe they should have called it "Moron Mode" :).
 
Here's a trick for Iron Man:
Leave task manager open in the background.
The autosave triggers AFTER the aliens are done moving.
Tabbing out of the game pauses everything.

So, move your guys. Then the aliens go... If during the aliens turn something really bad happens, tab out and kill the game. Your autosave will be for your turn and you'll know where the enemy is/what they're planning and can prepare/counter accordingly. It only gives you a one turn 'look into the future' but that's better than nothing.

or you could do it the sane way, and just back up your autosaves whenever you feel like it. so you don't have to waste time killing and running the game over and over again, and possibly corrupting the saves you actually want to keep. then just copy them back and forth to reload previous versions, without ever leaving the game.
 
So Ironman is an option for the new X-Com experience. A cool addition, I think, but not the way it was meant to be.

I also think part of the problem people have is the naming, since Ironman sounds like "tough guy mode". Maybe they should have called it "Moron Mode" :).

I must say that XCOM in Ironman is what I personally feel to be "the way it was meant to be". As in, you get the full XCOM experience (not referring to X-COM: UFO Defense) permanent deaths and all, frustration and elation at that 20% shot that had to be made in order to save your squad from a horrible death. There's a big difference when you know you only have one shot; and not having that niggling in the back of your mind "well, even if this doesn't work, I could try something different." It definitely changes the dynamic of the game.

Not that I would advocate everyone should only do this every time; but I think everyone should try it once, frustrations and all :) It actually changes the tactics you use. There's nothing quite compared to having half your squad blown to smithereens, including your best colonel sniper, and the other 2 members gibbering, panicking messes, staring down the barrel of a Sectopod, cover blown away - knowing that if you miss this shot, you will die. And there's nothing you can do about it.

or you could do it the sane way, and just back up your autosaves whenever you feel like it. so you don't have to waste time killing and running the game over and over again, and possibly corrupting the saves you actually want to keep. then just copy them back and forth to reload previous versions, without ever leaving the game.

Wouldn't it be easier just to not play Ironman? IMO, that's the most sane option if you want to be able to save and reload arbitrarily.

Hrm, I never had issues with aliens getting the jump on me and unloading a rocket/grenade in the perfect spot...

I found it was worst just before you got psionics, and before you got blaster bombs of your own.

As I mentioned earlier in my notes for playing the new XCOM... Every encounter should start on your own terms. If the aliens are getting the jump on you... You're not playing optimally.

Alas, that's not always the case. When strategic factors result in you fielding a suboptimal squad (due to injuries or deaths) and tactical factors result in you having a bad position (wake up a Sectopod and a Cyberdisc in the same scouting move), and alien patrols dropping in randomly... you can guarantee that XCOM will decide that at that precise moment that your 90% chance to hit rocket will miss and blow away one or more of your squad members, resulting in mass panic and destroying the cover of your squadmates who didn't panic.
 
Alas, that's not always the case. When strategic factors result in you fielding a suboptimal squad (due to injuries or deaths) and tactical factors result in you having a bad position (wake up a Sectopod and a Cyberdisc in the same scouting move), and alien patrols dropping in randomly... you can guarantee that XCOM will decide that at that precise moment that your 90% chance to hit rocket will miss and blow away one or more of your squad members, resulting in mass panic and destroying the cover of your squadmates who didn't panic.

Lets break this down:
Fielding a suboptimal squad - The result of not having enough ranked soldiers due to making poor moves in the field. By overextending yourself.

Waking up both a secotopod and a cyberdisc - Again... Overextending your scouting causing you to get owned. Also why, as I've emphasized, the ghost armor is so important. Once you have ghost armor you shouldn't ever be taken by surprise by a patrol, or any other unit sitting around for that matter. Also the cause of your first problem.

Alien patrols dropping in randomly - yeah this happens but if you're already fighting on your own terms... that means the guys you're currently fighting are already almost dead, which has been the case for me.

Shooting your own guys with a rocket - this is called getting caught in the crossfire and any actual tactician would NEVER place guys in a spot where this could even remotely happen. It's called maintaining the line/formation. This is absolutely silly and if it ever happened to me, EVER, I would never play XCOM again because it's obvious I have no idea how to play strategy games. Also the cause of your first problem.
 
First dlc announced. Something like 3 side China missions which gives you a special heavy soldier. At this rate they'll probably have at least 4 side dlc, one special for each class. Looks pretty meh.

I only noticed one DLC on Steam, new outfits for your soldiers $4.99 :rolleyes:
 
The quot you quoted doesn't dispute it. It was free when you preordered. They just made it into a regular DLC for those that didn't.
 
Lets break this down:
Fielding a suboptimal squad - The result of not having enough ranked soldiers due to making poor moves in the field. By overextending yourself.

*shrug* Stuff happens. Even when you're not overextending yourself. I've lost people to overextension, and then I've lost people to random chance. There's always the possibility that an elite muton hits a 10% shot and crits, dealing 18 dmg to your colonel in full cover, killing him. Or an overwatch shot misses, blows a wall down, and activates an Ethereal which you aren't prepared to face yet. Or a muton throws a grenade and blows up a soldier's cover and a second muton crits the now exposed soldier.

Waking up both a secotopod and a cyberdisc - Again... Overextending your scouting causing you to get owned. Also why, as I've emphasized, the ghost armor is so important. Once you have ghost armor you shouldn't ever be taken by surprise by a patrol, or any other unit sitting around for that matter. Also the cause of your first problem.

You can wake up both on a single move. From your landing zone. Not even scouting, just getting into cover! I'm guessing that's never happened to you? Must be nice to have good spawns. One terror mission start, I moved my first dude to cover, only to wake up a sectopod; then as I move my second guy (not sprinting!) to cover to get sight lines to take down the sectopod, I wake up a cyberdisc. XCOM, why dost thou hate me? (I did not get owned in that instance, but I did take some damage so hospital time)

Yes, ghost armour is the best armour. I use it every chance I get. Once you get it, the game gets so much easier it's not funny. I love it. +movement, grappling hook, +20 defense, invisibility, +100 crit for attacking out of cloak, oh and +6 health. But if you don't have it, (or don't have enough of it) you don't have it.

Alien patrols dropping in randomly - yeah this happens but if you're already fighting on your own terms... that means the guys you're currently fighting are already almost dead, which has been the case for me.

For my Classic/Ironman game, the aliens are not always well under control before reinforcements arrive for the aliens. That might be because right now I don't have a high level squad sniper though; my last one bit the dust (rather, 3 chrysalids bit her to death on the roof of a UFO) in what was definitely a tactical error. Struggling with getting another sniper to replace her.

Shooting your own guys with a rocket - this is called getting caught in the crossfire and any actual tactician would NEVER place guys in a spot where this could even remotely happen. It's called maintaining the line/formation. This is absolutely silly and if it ever happened to me, EVER, I would never play XCOM again because it's obvious I have no idea how to play strategy games. Also the cause of your first problem.

It was definitely the cause of my first problem. But it was not a tactical error of the fashion you imagine. (Would you like an analysis of what went into that decision to fire the rocket at that place and time?) I was hit by the 10% chance of failure, and when I rolled for failure, I rolled the 1% chance of a critical failure.

You espouse these strategies as the way to go, and I agree. It's just that even though you're doing everything right, you can get screwed anyways, sometimes in really bad ways. Not that I'm complaining. It's just part of playing Ironman.
 
*shrug* Stuff happens. Even when you're not overextending yourself. I've lost people to overextension, and then I've lost people to random chance. There's always the possibility that an elite muton hits a 10% shot and crits, dealing 18 dmg to your colonel in full cover, killing him. Or an overwatch shot misses, blows a wall down, and activates an Ethereal which you aren't prepared to face yet. Or a muton throws a grenade and blows up a soldier's cover and a second muton crits the now exposed soldier.
Problem = not enough overwatch.

You can wake up both on a single move. From your landing zone. Not even scouting, just getting into cover! I'm guessing that's never happened to you? Must be nice to have good spawns. One terror mission start, I moved my first dude to cover, only to wake up a sectopod; then as I move my second guy (not sprinting!) to cover to get sight lines to take down the sectopod, I wake up a cyberdisc. XCOM, why dost thou hate me? (I did not get owned in that instance, but I did take some damage so hospital time)
Problem = you didn't use your ghost armor as your first turn to scout! I always dash my sniper with ghost armor invisible on the first turn to the most likely and open area that he'll be able to reveal the most amount of territory possible. If it's a compromising spot, you can always go invisible again next turn and fall back, since the armor keeps you hidden until the start of your next turn, it's no skin off your back.

Running into either a sectopod or cyberdisc is a showstopper for me. I immediately fall back/move to positions I know are less likely to be patrolled/covered by aliens, and overwatch _everyone_ and let them fall into my trap, and if they don't... they're now in firing position for the next turn.

Yes, ghost armour is the best armour. I use it every chance I get. Once you get it, the game gets so much easier it's not funny. I love it. +movement, grappling hook, +20 defense, invisibility, +100 crit for attacking out of cloak, oh and +6 health. But if you don't have it, (or don't have enough of it) you don't have it.
Priorities!

For my Classic/Ironman game, the aliens are not always well under control before reinforcements arrive for the aliens. That might be because right now I don't have a high level squad sniper though; my last one bit the dust (rather, 3 chrysalids bit her to death on the roof of a UFO) in what was definitely a tactical error. Struggling with getting another sniper to replace her.
Like I said... On Classic I never ran into a single situation where I was going to lose a soldier except the one time I quite literally blew up my own guy (who was surrounded by three chrysalids), then ran my medic in and revived.

The exception of course was the last mission... Where I didn't see any possible way to beat the last room without sacrificing soldiers, and I came out with 1 death. I finished the mission with two soldiers critical on the floor, and one dead from getting shot by an elite muton after moving him into a compromising position just to get some grenade damage on the main ethereal.

It was definitely the cause of my first problem. But it was not a tactical error of the fashion you imagine. (Would you like an analysis of what went into that decision to fire the rocket at that place and time?) I was hit by the 10% chance of failure, and when I rolled for failure, I rolled the 1% chance of a critical failure.

You espouse these strategies as the way to go, and I agree. It's just that even though you're doing everything right, you can get screwed anyways, sometimes in really bad ways. Not that I'm complaining. It's just part of playing Ironman.
I've never had a rocket deviate so off course that it hits guys that are holding a line or formation. I have had them miss and not hit anything, but the fact remains that the rocket would have to go at a 90 degree angle at a minimum from where I was aiming to cause the kind of damage you're talking about.
 
Problem = not enough overwatch.

Even if the problem is not enough overwatch, stuff still happens. Stuff will happen regardless of overwatch. There will one day be that ethereal that your squad just can't seem to hit, that murders your sniper in one lucky hit and panics your one assault who proceeds crit your support into oblivion. There will one day be that sectopod that tele-moves beside your sniper, one-shotting her at point blank range. There will be that Berserker that somehow sees through your ghost and one-shots your ghosted support that's scouting. Stuff happens.

Problem = you didn't use your ghost armor as your first turn to scout! I always dash my sniper with ghost armor invisible on the first turn to the most likely and open area that he'll be able to reveal the most amount of territory possible. If it's a compromising spot, you can always go invisible again next turn and fall back, since the armor keeps you hidden until the start of your next turn, it's no skin off your back.

That's what I generally do. Except I didn't have ghost armour. I know ghost armour solves basically every problem. You don't always have it. Ghost armour for my entire squad would have helped that turn, but I didn't have that.

Running into either a sectopod or cyberdisc is a showstopper for me. I immediately fall back/move to positions I know are less likely to be patrolled/covered by aliens, and overwatch _everyone_ and let them fall into my trap, and if they don't... they're now in firing position for the next turn.

Yep. Except when they corner you into your deployment zone, where the only place with cover is within sight and range of them.

Priorities!

If you don't have the resources to get the research and the ghost suits, then you don't have ghost suits.

Like I said... On Classic I never ran into a single situation where I was going to lose a soldier except the one time I quite literally blew up my own guy (who was surrounded by three chrysalids), then ran my medic in and revived.

Really? Because it really sounded like you had run into some situations in the past where you had to reload your turn to get a more favourable outcome. "Just when things go really sideways. I've only done it once or twice..." If I had been able to reload the first time things went sideways (the rocket shot, no pun intended), thi campaign probably would have gone a lot differently. No need to rebuild my officer corps from scratch, less chance of a squad wipe later on, more success in later missions, more resources and faster research...

I've never had a rocket deviate so off course that it hits guys that are holding a line or formation. I have had them miss and not hit anything, but the fact remains that the rocket would have to go at a 90 degree angle at a minimum from where I was aiming to cause the kind of damage you're talking about.
It happened :-/. Not a 90 degree shot, but still one that screwed me. It's easy to play armchair general "you should have done this and that" but the situation was what it was, the rocket shot was a good idea, and the outcome was a critical failure. Again, if you want a detailed rundown of what happened so you have a better idea of what was going on, I can give you that.
 
Wouldn't it be easier just to not play Ironman? IMO, that's the most sane option if you want to be able to save and reload arbitrarily.

unless you only want custom checkpoints without access to turn by turn autosaves. and others just want to trick themselves into being able to tell everyone, I play on ironman so I'm better than you.
 
My corp heavy unit is maxed psi lvl and 101 willpower. The extra hp of impossible when mc'ing is now helpful against the computer!
 
Even if the problem is not enough overwatch, stuff still happens. Stuff will happen regardless of overwatch. There will one day be that ethereal that your squad just can't seem to hit, that murders your sniper in one lucky hit and panics your one assault who proceeds crit your support into oblivion. There will one day be that sectopod that tele-moves beside your sniper, one-shotting her at point blank range. There will be that Berserker that somehow sees through your ghost and one-shots your ghosted support that's scouting. Stuff happens.
1. I bring tons of grenades to deal with ethereals. screw trying to shoot them, that's for idiots.
2. secopod teleport = bug, i'd reload like any other sane person.
3. never had this happen, also a bug, so I'd again.. reload.

That said, I've only seen the teleporting bug, I've never seen anything detect my invisible guy.

That's what I generally do. Except I didn't have ghost armour. I know ghost armour solves basically every problem. You don't always have it. Ghost armour for my entire squad would have helped that turn, but I didn't have that.
Yeah but you don't run into ethereals, sectopods, or elite mutons until you should already have ghost armor. Which leaves only cyberdiscs and other less threatening things. This is a moot point.

Yep. Except when they corner you into your deployment zone, where the only place with cover is within sight and range of them.
I've never been cornered into my dropzone. It just literally hasn't happened in three classic games and one normal game. Maybe that's because i just destroy everything I see more effectively than you do... A cyberdisc never survives a single turn against me.

Also, if you look back at some of the thread comments, others have also noticed that they've never been pressed into the drop zone or been ambushed IN the dropzone, which is a big change from the original XCOM. I've literally never encountered an enemy INSIDE of dashing range of the drop point. You could trigger them by dashing to max distance, but a blue move has never revealed anyone straight out of the dropzone for me... ever.

If you don't have the resources to get the research and the ghost suits, then you don't have ghost suits.

Again, priorities. I only put two things squarely ahead of the tech tree to getting ghost armor: arc thrower(so I can stun a muton asap and get the plasma weaponry research bonus), and plasma rifle research(after getting a muton).

Really? Because it really sounded like you had run into some situations in the past where you had to reload your turn to get a more favourable outcome. "Just when things go really sideways. I've only done it once or twice..." If I had been able to reload the first time things went sideways (the rocket shot, no pun intended), thi campaign probably would have gone a lot differently. No need to rebuild my officer corps from scratch, less chance of a squad wipe later on, more success in later missions, more resources and faster research...
Go back and see all of what I said, because that's not complete. I said I reloaded when I accidentally moved my guy to a wrong tile because of the bugged out movement when you're trying to go to an elevated location. In particular on a supply ship, I was trying to move into the second room with the stasis pods, but since the hallway is elevated, I ended up accidentally sending the guy into one of those rooms next to the hallway, which had the cyberdisc in it... So instead of firing DOWN at the cyberdisc and being in an advantageous position, I was standing right in front of it... Game bug = reload. I consider the shoddy movement mechanisms when trying to go to elevated positions a bug. Just like the whole 'oh shit where the fuck did this guy come from that teleported right on top of me?' And the only time this happened was a pair of heavy floaters, which I was still able to just eradicate. I mean really, they were right in front of my guys... 100% shots, not to mention assaults with alloy cannons critting them in the face because of upgraded skills.

It happened :-/. Not a 90 degree shot, but still one that screwed me. It's easy to play armchair general "you should have done this and that" but the situation was what it was, the rocket shot was a good idea, and the outcome was a critical failure. Again, if you want a detailed rundown of what happened so you have a better idea of what was going on, I can give you that.
I've played classic three times now, twice without ironman and once with. I just completed the second non ironman last night. I managed to go the entire game without losing a single soldier, again, and without reloading a single save while in a mission, although I did make a big research mistake(not enough resources to research the firestorm) and had to reload a geofront several missions back and replay that section again.
 
1. I bring tons of grenades to deal with ethereals. screw trying to shoot them, that's for idiots.
2. secopod teleport = bug, i'd reload like any other sane person.
3. never had this happen, also a bug, so I'd again.. reload.

That said, I've only seen the teleporting bug, I've never seen anything detect my invisible guy.

At least you realise that your own experience doesn't describe the gamut of possible experiences in XCOM.

I'm surprised you bring enough grenades to kill an ethereal in one turn - that means 4/6 of your soldiers is wielding an alien grenade. Not a bad idea. Never brought enough grenades with me to do that. Not sure I want to, but it's worth trying.

Yeah but you don't run into ethereals, sectopods, or elite mutons until you should already have ghost armor. Which leaves only cyberdiscs and other less threatening things. This is a moot point.
Good in theory. In practise, if you don't have it, you don't have it. Telling someone that "you should have done this" is all well and good, but: 1. It makes assumptions that may not apply and 2. It doesn't help his current situation and 3. doesn't deal with my point this example illustrates... that stuff happens.

I've never been cornered into my dropzone. It just literally hasn't happened in three classic games and one normal game. Maybe that's because i just destroy everything I see more effectively than you do... A cyberdisc never survives a single turn against me.

Also, if you look back at some of the thread comments, others have also noticed that they've never been pressed into the drop zone or been ambushed IN the dropzone, which is a big change from the original XCOM. I've literally never encountered an enemy INSIDE of dashing range of the drop point. You could trigger them by dashing to max distance, but a blue move has never revealed anyone straight out of the dropzone for me... ever.
My experience was what it was. Sectopod within walking distance north; cyberdisc within walking distance west. No cover except in range, snipers didn't have clear sight lines. Like I said, I guess you've been blessed with good spawns. Because what I described happened.

Again, priorities. I only put two things squarely ahead of the tech tree to getting ghost armor: arc thrower(so I can stun a muton asap and get the plasma weaponry research bonus), and plasma rifle research(after getting a muton).
You think I wasn't trying? You keep saying "you should do this or that" but you can't always do this or that. "But you should!" Yes, I agree, you should. But I'm no fool to think that it is always the case that you can.

Go back and see all of what I said, because that's not complete. I said I reloaded when I accidentally moved my guy to a wrong tile because of the bugged out movement when you're trying to go to an elevated location. In particular on a supply ship, I was trying to move into the second room with the stasis pods, but since the hallway is elevated, I ended up accidentally sending the guy into one of those rooms next to the hallway, which had the cyberdisc in it... So instead of firing DOWN at the cyberdisc and being in an advantageous position, I was standing right in front of it... Game bug = reload. I consider the shoddy movement mechanisms when trying to go to elevated positions a bug. Just like the whole 'oh shit where the fuck did this guy come from that teleported right on top of me?' And the only time this happened was a pair of heavy floaters, which I was still able to just eradicate. I mean really, they were right in front of my guys... 100% shots, not to mention assaults with alloy cannons critting them in the face because of upgraded skills.
Your original quote was exactly that: "For when things go really sideways... I've only done that once or twice." What else am I to think? You said later about the movement bug using it as a justification for reloading in Ironman, but that in no way contradicts the above.

The shoddy movement mechanisms dropped an ethereal + elite muton (i've had sectopods do that twice, that in the same mission) behind my squad sight sniper as I was dealing with a pack of elite mutons. That resulted in 3/6 dying. Could I have reloaded by crashing it? Screw it, it's Ironman, if I wanted to reload, I'd play non-Ironman. Even if the computer cheats.
I've played classic three times now, twice without ironman and once with. I just completed the second non ironman last night. I managed to go the entire game without losing a single soldier, again, and without reloading a single save while in a mission, although I did make a big research mistake(not enough resources to research the firestorm) and had to reload a geofront several missions back and replay that section again.

Congrats on the perfect run. I'm impressed. If things are perfect, then it's easy for things to continue to go perfect. Things, however, will not always be perfect and when they don't, it's easy to lose a soldier. Or 5.

Honestly, what's your point with all this? That things can go perfectly (and have gone very well/perfectly for you)? I agree. Things can. You did a good job with the perfect run. I'm not saying that things can't go perfectly. What I'm saying is that at some point, something will go wrong (sometimes horrendously wrong) even though you did everything right, and well, that's part of the XCOM experience. And if you're doing Ironman, it seems silly to reload since you can just not play Ironman and reload a lot easier.
 
At least you realise that your own experience doesn't describe the gamut of possible experiences in XCOM.

I'm surprised you bring enough grenades to kill an ethereal in one turn - that means 4/6 of your soldiers is wielding an alien grenade. Not a bad idea. Never brought enough grenades with me to do that. Not sure I want to, but it's worth trying.
My squad is always, without exception, the following: 2 Assaults(each with an arc thrower), 2 supports(each with a medkit and alien grenade), 1 sniper(with an alien grenade), and one heavy(with dual alien grenade). So yeah, I always have 5 grenades on my group, plus rockets.

Again, by the time you reach the overseer ship and have to deal with an ethereal, you should have units promoted enough to fight this way, AND you already have your hyperwave scanner(to even detect the ship) so you know before you land if you're going to be fighting ethereals or not. If I'm not fighting ethereals, I'll sometimes swap the sniper grenade for a nano weave.

Good in theory. In practise, if you don't have it, you don't have it. Telling someone that "you should have done this" is all well and good, but: 1. It makes assumptions that may not apply and 2. It doesn't help his current situation and 3. doesn't deal with my point this example illustrates... that stuff happens.
If you don't have it... You played wrong. That's the whole idea behind research... You get what's actually useful... And if you waste research, you have problems... This again comes down to preparation and your choices in the game. Again, one could say that you were playing poorly because the decisions you made lead you to having a significantly harder time with everything than others have. The overseer ship is when you first encounter elite mutons and an ethereal... If you don't have ghost armor by then... You really did something flat out wrong... You're lacking the biggest advantage you can have in the game at the turnkey moment of the campaign.

My experience was what it was. Sectopod within walking distance north; cyberdisc within walking distance west. No cover except in range, snipers didn't have clear sight lines. Like I said, I guess you've been blessed with good spawns. Because what I described happened.

You think I wasn't trying? You keep saying "you should do this or that" but you can't always do this or that. "But you should!" Yes, I agree, you should. But I'm no fool to think that it is always the case that you can.
That's the point, you can if you research your tech tree correctly. Also, by the time I meet sectopods, my heavies all have heat ammo, which is also really, really important. Heat ammo makes secotopods and cyberdiscs one turn affairs(in fact usually just the heavy and one other to clean up).

Your original quote was exactly that: "For when things go really sideways... I've only done that once or twice." What else am I to think? You said later about the movement bug using it as a justification for reloading in Ironman, but that in no way contradicts the above.

The shoddy movement mechanisms dropped an ethereal + elite muton (i've had sectopods do that twice, that in the same mission) behind my squad sight sniper as I was dealing with a pack of elite mutons. That resulted in 3/6 dying. Could I have reloaded by crashing it? Screw it, it's Ironman, if I wanted to reload, I'd play non-Ironman. Even if the computer cheats.
Your comments were after both of my posts... I would expect you to take all of the context into consideration instead of selectively picking out something I said which seems to support your argument, but doesn't really. Not to mention iron man doesn't preclude reloading, it just gives you one save...

Congrats on the perfect run. I'm impressed. If things are perfect, then it's easy for things to continue to go perfect. Things, however, will not always be perfect and when they don't, it's easy to lose a soldier. Or 5.

Honestly, what's your point with all this? That things can go perfectly (and have gone very well/perfectly for you)? I agree. Things can. You did a good job with the perfect run. I'm not saying that things can't go perfectly. What I'm saying is that at some point, something will go wrong (sometimes horrendously wrong) even though you did everything right, and well, that's part of the XCOM experience. And if you're doing Ironman, it seems silly to reload since you can just not play Ironman and reload a lot easier.
There are several points, all of which have apparently been lost on you. I've continually pointed out how you've been playing poorly and how you should be playing to avoid said issues, but you seem to think that you can do whatever you want and win. That's not how it works. You have to know the tech tree, and execute flawlessly. THAT is what makes a good xcom player. Not someone who plays on iron man. I'm saying that if you actually played more thoughtfully and skillfully, the majority of things you're complaining about would not be an issue.

Iron man isn't about not reloading, it's about maintaining only one save. Here's just another example of how you played poorly. You said on your first turn you revealed a sectopod north of you, then there was a cyberdisc... You should have reloaded when that happened, which is still within the play boundaries of iron man without having to do any tricks. Then, organize your moves such that you only pull one at a time. No crashing, no maintaining multiple autosave files... Just oh shit, this was badness, and I'm still on my turn, so I can undo that.
 
Any word on another patch from Firaxis? Last thing I've read is that it's supposed to come out a day before the Slingshot DLC...
 
See PM.

Iron man isn't about not reloading, it's about maintaining only one save. Here's just another example of how you played poorly. You said on your first turn you revealed a sectopod north of you, then there was a cyberdisc... You should have reloaded when that happened, which is still within the play boundaries of iron man without having to do any tricks. Then, organize your moves such that you only pull one at a time. No crashing, no maintaining multiple autosave files... Just oh shit, this was badness, and I'm still on my turn, so I can undo that.

How do you reload an Ironman game without tricks? There's no exit button, just a "save and exit" button.
 
I've literally never encountered an enemy INSIDE of dashing range of the drop point. You could trigger them by dashing to max distance, but a blue move has never revealed anyone straight out of the dropzone for me... ever.

see you were doing ok up until this. so... now we know at least 53% of what you say is bullshit. I'm SURE anyone who has played through this once or twice on classic and above, can recall off the top of their heads at least 3 maps where this is possible, and repeatable every time.

especially later on when you get sprinters and armor that extend your range, you must be trolling if you claim you've never found a spawn on your first half turn. first move on every map is always to send that scout up to aggro anything close to spawn, and if you ever dash out of there... well you're just going to lose alot of scouts, and probably wipe alot.

but according to you this kind of things never happen on classic, a mode that you breeze through with ease and no deaths :rolleyes:
 
see you were doing ok up until this. so... now we know at least 53% of what you say is bullshit. I'm SURE anyone who has played through this once or twice on classic and above, can recall off the top of their heads at least 3 maps where this is possible, and repeatable every time.

especially later on when you get sprinters and armor that extend your range, you must be trolling if you claim you've never found a spawn on your first half turn. first move on every map is always to send that scout up to aggro anything close to spawn, and if you ever dash out of there... well you're just going to lose alot of scouts, and probably wipe alot.

but according to you this kind of things never happen on classic, a mode that you breeze through with ease and no deaths :rolleyes:

As I mentioned, in a blue move I've never seen anyone. In dashing for sure. I'm not the only person in this thread who has noted this as a glaring difference between original xcom and this one. If it can happen, great. I guess I am lucky.

Also, it's bad strategy to go rushing out unless you've got invisibility. Quick way to get yourself killed. And as I mentioned with invisibility I sent my sniper to scout invisible full dash range every time.
 
I'm completely lost now...

Zoson, are you saying you can load while playing Iron Man?
 
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