XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Sarky

I decided to see what normal was like today. A few hours later I had a squad full of Majors and 2 Colonels, everyone kitted out with armour and laser weapons and half the world under satellite surveillance. One dead rookie from an early mission.

Normal is not normal. It is easy. Back to Classic Ironman with me.

BizzyC

^^ and I'm finding it tough on easy, dont want to know what classic is like!!


Only real trouble I'm having is squad, I'll do one mission where a few guys get injured and then on the next mission I have to go out with a team of half rookies who end up getting killed cause they cant shoot straight...

Grimebox

I got my ass handed to me on my first attempt on normal

DeVore

Cant you change difficulty mid game? I thought I saw it in the Esc-Menu ?

Big Knox

DeVore wrote: »

Cant you change difficulty mid game? I thought I saw it in the Esc-Menu ?

Hmm good point. I remember seeing it too now that you mention it. Must check it out later!

Local-womanizer

DeVore wrote: »

Cant you change difficulty mid game? I thought I saw it in the Esc-Menu ?

Yup, you can change it mid mission.

I'm finding this very hard. Not the missions but keeping everyone happy in the council.

I put it down to being my first time playing an Xcom game and me rushing things.

I'm getting the hang of things now mind you!

Kiith

I'm going to start again later. I messed up a few things early on (research, buildings etc...) and my troops are getting slaughtered. Pretty much getting killed in 1 hit from anything.

DeVore

I think the early game you have to start with satellites and just understand that you are going to lose rookies. Get power and workshops next to build stuff. I went with two labs early on in my game and as a result I have 5 countries gone from the council and my teams are under equipped... I've researched everything and was never waiting on it, but I cant build half the things I need for lack of workshops and power.

Early game the focus should be on stabilising the council and getting the economy up and running enough to kit out a few of your fortunate-to-still-be-alive rookies. Dont just research any old bollocks, decide a strategy and research what fits that, (keeping an eye on the effect that air-ships and their weapons can have on panic). Personally, next time I'll be going straight for lazer weapons as they seemed to give me the needed edge to tilt things in my favour. Maybe throw a few rookies into a mission with arc guns to bring home some high end weapons early.

TwoShedsJackson

Anyone noticed a bug where it says your chance to hit is 1% if you hover the mouse over the alien heads that appear in the lower right corner, but when you go into the fire mode the actual chance (60% or whatever) comes up?

BizzyC

Yeah, saw that bug myself...

DeVore

I've had it say all sorts of numbers over their heads. I think the view is the correct one, but then as I said above 50%'s dont seem to come off 50% of the time for me anyway

(I'm playing classic and it seems to me that the computer does seem to cheat a little in favour of its aliens )

BizzyC

Actually, just thinking there, could that be their chance of hitting you?

NORTH1

I'm playing this on the xbox, and I am loving it! Gawd its addictive and frustrating in equal measures, one of my attempts on the base assault all its going well midway through when one of my guys gets killed straight out by a muton, one of my assault soldiers panics and shots and kills one of my senior members.

The preverbal hits the fan straight after that, and I'm left like :eek:

After that wipe out it was bad to worse, and ended up restarting.

I'm on my forth restart now, and it keeps pulling me back.....

degrassinoel

I found quite a nice niche for myself last night.

Still playing Ironman, and i've no psi-soldiers yet, so i went off and hired the limit (99) and managed to get 1 Irish soldier.. ffs, but anyway she turned out to be a sniper so that was fine. So i sent herself off out with 5 other Sq's - all British and oddly enough four of them were assault, another was a sniper.

Equipped the snipers with plasma rifles, and archangel armour & medikits
the Assaults with ghost armour, alloy cannons and medikits.

Assault soldiers with that layout are hilariously overpowered if you use them right. First mission i did was a terror mission with a crapload of mutons, berserkers and chrysilids, nobody took a scratch, and i managed to save 15/18 and everyone got promoted to Corporal!

Chuffed!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

in my latest game I've had about six irish soldiers so far and i've only done 4-5 missions, every time I hire a new soldier it's "oh, hello mary moore"

3 of them died though

Big Knox

Hoping to finish my normal ironman game tonight and move into Classic ironman. Normal is actually a joke in hindsight. I've only lost 2 soldiers so far. Both were low ranking support I was levelling up when I got a bit adventurous on a terror mission trying to get them kills.

Sarky

Oh, that Berzerker was a nice surprise, I have to say.

"OK, he's got lots of health but he can only move so far before all the guys on Overwatch kick in and... Wait, he gets a second move? OH SWEET ****IN' JESUS HE MOVES EVERY TIME HE'S HIT OHGODOHGODOHGODFUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

Gunmonkey

Sarky wrote: »

Oh, that Berzerker was a nice surprise, I have to say.

"OK, he's got lots of health but he can only move so far before all the guys on Overwatch kick in and... Wait, he gets a second move? OH SWEET ****IN' JESUS HE MOVES EVERY TIME HE'S HIT OHGODOHGODOHGODFUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

You know whats more fun....assaulting a large UFO and have one glitch spawn behind your squad while in the middle of a firefight with 2 Cyberdiscs and a squad of Mutons. :mad:

DeVore

Berzerkers are, for my money, the easiest to deal with! I think I'd rather 3 berzerkers than 3 Thin Men

They appear, hopefully everyone gets OW shots. Then you ping him with the nearest guy to bring him over, then the next and he moves over, then the next, then the next, easy kill. They dont seem to be able to move and hit so just make sure your last "ping" is from a someone far away that they cant run that far (if he isnt already dead)

But yeah, the first time I encountered them... scary.

degrassinoel

The name cheats are here if anyone is interested.

Spoilering in case you dont

Special Hero Units
By manually changing the names of your soldiers you can give them added bonuses and abilities:

Sid Meier (Support)
Otto Zander (Assault)
Joe Kelly (Heavy)
Ken Levine (Sniper)

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the game screwed me

had 6-7 heavies and 4 snipers because every god damn new soldier I hired turned into one of the two.
of my 2 suppots and 2 assaults 1 assault wasn't injured and she was a major. had to send her and a squad of heavies and snipers into battle.

currently I have a sniper left versus 3 mutons and an outsider
it's not looking good

Big Knox

A beserker has never managed to do a single point of damage to any of my squad. I don't even know what damage they do per hit. They just seem to run around aimlessly using intimidate.

VinLieger

Big Knox wrote: »

A beserker has never managed to do a single point of damage to any of my squad. I don't even know what damage they do per hit. They just seem to run around aimlessly using intimidate.

Yeah im the same, once it clicked how they worked ive managed to evade being hit by every one ive met

Quatermain

I cannot lie, I do love the Snipers. A well-levelled one with Snap Shot and In the Zone is a holy terror. Downed three floaters in one turn, one of my Colonels did. He earned his flat-top haircut.

DeVore

Berzerkers do an unholy amount of damage if they do hit (and I noticed one run up and smack a trooper in one turn tonight, so either I was hallucinating it before or they can definitely move and attack now)... they do something in the order of 15 points of damage a smack. Still, pretty dumb.


Those walker jobbies on the other hand... wtf?! lol. I was sure I left a team around here somewhere and all there is is a smoldering crater....

TwoShedsJackson

Finally beat the Alien Base mission (yes I am miles behind everyone) by just waiting until I had Carapace Armour, laser rifles and Heavy Lasers, then going really slowly and using Overwatch every turn.

Frag Grenades are pretty useless, have used that slot for Nano Vest or Medkit now, better to stay alive longer to get more shots off, than use the slot for a single use 3 damage seeing as the aliens tend not to bunch up much.

It also vaguely annoys me that they always land where you throw them, it used to amuse me in original Xcom when you accidentally threw one at the feet of another of your soliders

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i always go for scope over nano-vest.. maybe I oughta throw a few nano's in there for my assaults

TwoShedsJackson

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

i always go for scope over nano-vest.. maybe I oughta throw a few nano's in there for my assaults

Better to have extra hp to get off 2 shots at 70%, then one shot at 80% and dying, I think.

Big Knox

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

i always go for scope over nano-vest.. maybe I oughta throw a few nano's in there for my assaults

The scope is a much superior choice to the Nano vest. Yes 2 hp is nice early game but once you get any kind of decent amour the +10 aim bonus is just too good to turn down. It makes a huge difference and once you're dealing with multi armoured mutons and cyberdiscs, making those crucial shots is the difference between life and death, not 2 health points!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

ehrmagerd.. who to trust