XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Cravez

I don't think that Laser weapons are a dead end, the only thing you miss out on is a few weapon fragments and some time in research (depending on your scientist staff amount). Generally I find if I don't have plasma by end of month 2 I need the Laser weapons because Chrysalids and Cyberdiscs are gonna fcuk sh!t up if you don't. I would go with the normal laser weapons (Rifle & Pistol) at least but would be fine to ignore Precision and Heavy Lasers. The normal sniper rifle can do enough damage in it's own right until you get the plasma sniper rifle.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i can barely afford satellites, +1 squad size and a sat uplink by the end of month 2
in fact i havent been able to research laser or plasma in any of my classic ironman games, just trying to focus on uplinks and satellites

--edit

actually does anybody else have amazing difficulty using the mouse to aim grenades? the screen jumps all over the place

Cravez

The biggest issue I have with the game is that it feels like it's rushing you because of the panic levels and satellites. I'm trying to tinker around with the games .ini files for a perfect balance of what I want. I like taking my time in strategy games and that's exactly how I enjoyed XCOM Apocalypse.

I'v managed to be able to reduce the panic caused by abductions (from 2 to 1) etc but I want to balance it out by having more frequent UFO's, Alien abductions etc. This would mean you would be required to do more missions: hence using more soldiers, more equipment, using your money more but also more chances for panic to increase but still increase the longevity of the game if you are successful. I'm not sure if Increased Alien/UFO frequency is working though

DeVore

Welcome to classic. I get a giggle from people who have "strategies" because clearly they are playing Normal. On Classic the strategy is "hold this sh*t together and try not to lose horribly".

If you have sats up, a full squad and an uplink by the end of month 2, you are doing pretty ok!! I didn't and lost 5 (yes FIVE) countries. Still finished but it was a bit of squeaky-bum time when the 6th (and final) left before I did the base.

Everything is secondary to panic in Classic. Just reduce panic as much as possible, all the time. if you can research or build, good for you... but sats and panic are your main objectives.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I had 3 satellites
I had 3 uplink slots

I had light plasma rifles just about to finish researching and enough money for my next round of workshop, uplink, satellites and some carapace armour



then I accidentally clicked "scan for activity", the council report came and germany, france, india and australia all withdrew from the project

my god

blatantrereg

DeVore wrote: »

Welcome to classic. I get a giggle from people who have "strategies" because clearly they are playing Normal. On Classic the strategy is "hold this sh*t together and try not to lose horribly".

If you have sats up, a full squad and an uplink by the end of month 2, you are doing pretty ok!! I didn't and lost 5 (yes FIVE) countries. Still finished but it was a bit of squeaky-bum time when the 6th (and final) left before I did the base.

Everything is secondary to panic in Classic. Just reduce panic as much as possible, all the time. if you can research or build, good for you... but sats and panic are your main objectives.

That's not right at all.

Tenger wrote: »

Well the weapons tech is so linear I think Dead End is the wrong term. The are an intermediate step up from 'normal' weapons. I had planned to skip Laser but in the end didn't think it took too much time/resources to do so. Perhaps earlier capture of thin man Light Plasma's would allow you to skip Laser easier?



Original X-Com actually had a tech tree, certain weapon types were better against certain aliens. Some odd research items led to your actual goal. In this game each weapon type merely increases the damage and hit ratio of the previous. So no point carrying anything other than plasma as you progress.

Yeah I capture thin men for the light plasma asap and as many as possible. Also stun the first muton I can (for plasma research credit - which halves the research time for all plasma weapons), and the first berserker too etc.

The idea of skipping lasers is to get the base assault completed by the end of month 2, which reduces panic by 2 in every country - and I think reduces the rate it increases too. I'm pretty sure I had only the default weapons with the base assault on classic ironman (and finished it fine).

Patser

33% off in the Steam sale:(

Seems a bit soon for such a reduction. At least I got Civ 5 for free (so 2 great games that redefine the space-time continium so that 5 hours is suddenly transformed into 5 seconds and vice cersa, until you forget what sleep is)

MagicSean

Just started Classic mode. Not doing it on Ironman. Will do that on the next run through. What I've discovered for my next go is that I should do the first mission that gives me engineers and build a lab straight away. Makes the building of uplinks, satellites and thermal station so much cheaper.

[CrimsonGhost]

DeVore wrote: »

Welcome to classic. I get a giggle from people who have "strategies" because clearly they are playing Normal. On Classic the strategy is "hold this sh*t together and try not to lose horribly".

My strategy could be likened to the monty python killer bunny scene. I get over confident charge in, and then quickly retreat, in ribbons.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

ive started using 3 snipers with squad sight and one rookie to clear very difficult missions

it's hilariously efficient. move rookie just far enough that he sees the enemy, shoot with snipers, hunker down with rookie or retreat

i even lost the rookie in one mission and just kept my snipers where they were, going overwatch every turn for about 15 minutes until every alien on the map walked into my line of fire

MagicSean

No idea how people are using iron man mode. The amount of bugs I've encountered in my current classic playthrough would make iron man impossible.

DeVore

Yeah, thats what put me off Ironman Classic. I have enough stress in my life

I'm gonna try a Normal Ironman soon enough though... (currently besotted with Natural Selection 2!)

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i have no choice but to play iron man

if i just played classic "normal", i'd re-load every time I lost one of my high ranking units.. wouldn't be able to stop myself, it'd ruin the game.. as it did for my first normal non-iron man playthrough

DeVore

Yep.... exactly the same here. Even on Classic Non-Ironman, I was tense moving forward... (and reloaded a lot!). I'm looking forward to that aspect but Classic is just too harsh to play ironman so hence "Normal"

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i dont really know if I'll ever finish the game on classic iron man
I'm in no rush, i can happily see myself still playing this game in a few years time.. breaking it out every few months for a weekend and see how I get on. it's got that sort of longevity to it.

blatantrereg

MagicSean wrote: »

No idea how people are using iron man mode. The amount of bugs I've encountered in my current classic playthrough would make iron man impossible.

I didn't encounter any bugs that would have prevented it in three play-throughs.
The camera jumps a bit in one place on one map which lead to me moving a unit into danger once. Occasionally it was tricky to select the specific location I wanted. The biggest hindrance in that regard wasn't exactly a bug - but rather the pathfinding algorithm having a difference of opinion to myself: A couple of times units ran through or into a room, when I was intending to position them at the doors in preparation for storming it. But the route is clearly marked on the map before you click so you can avoid that if you're careful about it. Other than that I only had the odd crash - where ironman mode was beneficial since I didn't have to go back to an old save.

Patser

blatantrereg wrote: »

I didn't encounter any bugs that would have prevented it in three play-throughs.

So you haven't encountered the common bug where suddenly 3 enemies suddenly 'spawn' or appear magically right beside your carefully hidden sniper. Fair enough they don't kill him immediately but it's all panic stations to get units back to save him?

Or you haven't missed 4 '90% Hit' shots on a sectopod who in turn wipes out half your squad?

Just kills Ironman for me

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah i had that enemies suddenly spawn around my sniper bug twice in the past 2 weeks, was very very..very...very irritating

missing 4 90% shots is just part of probability though... **** happens, sometimes.

blatantrereg

Patser wrote: »

So you haven't encountered the common bug where suddenly 3 enemies suddenly 'spawn' or appear magically right beside your carefully hidden sniper. Fair enough they don't kill him immediately but it's all panic stations to get units back to save him?

Or you haven't missed 4 '90% Hit' shots on a sectopod who in turn wipes out half your squad?

Just kills Ironman for me

I had three enemies seem to appear out of nowhere before, but I thought they just hadn't been visible or something, rather than a bug. The squads of enemies do move around the map a bit (on impossible they move around a lot, so you can set up killzones pretty effectively). Of course I missed some high percentage shots, since I played the game loads. Being ready to overkill enemies can mitigate that, as can being prepared to back away instead of advance. Obviously frustrating, but I didn't think it was a bug.

Lost 16 units in total on classic ironman run (after finishing it), and almost all of them were rookies/squaddies, often sacrificed to protect a developed unit. Didn't have any one unit wipe out half my squad. Lost one mission in total - where my strong characters were mainly injured and unavailable, and I wasn't expecting as strong opposition in a landed UFO as I met.

Almost always took down high damage enemies like sectopods, bererkers, cyberdisks before they had a chance to attack.

MagicSean

Patser wrote: »

So you haven't encountered the common bug where suddenly 3 enemies suddenly 'spawn' or appear magically right beside your carefully hidden sniper. Fair enough they don't kill him immediately but it's all panic stations to get units back to save him?

Or you haven't missed 4 '90% Hit' shots on a sectopod who in turn wipes out half your squad?

Just kills Ironman for me

This is exactly what happened. 3 Mutons where being lured into a careful planned ambush. Two suddenly teleported behind my snipers and the other managed to come in from the flank. 3 men down, 2 panicing. No more iron mode for me.

The other annoying things was constant game freezing in the base assault level. Had to ctrl alt del a lot and save before every end of turn.

degrassinoel

did anyone buy the slingshot DLC for this yesterday?

norrie rugger

Now that I have finished the game, time to ask a few thigs.

Does anyone else find the game repetitive? The same animations for all the aliens, over and over again. Home base is very bland and samey.
European/North and South American/African/Asian maps?? All pretty much idendical.

Also, why the F**K do the aliens get a free move, when you find them? If they stumble across my team, they shoot me immediately. If I find them they get to break for cover before I can do anything.

Zulu

I feaking love this game. Just bought it there at the weekend thanks to DeVore suggesting it didn't bastardise the concept of the origional, and I'm loving it.

Grimebox

norrie rugger wrote: »

Now that I have finished the game, time to ask a few thigs.

Does anyone else find the game repetitive? The same animations for all the aliens, over and over again. Home base is very bland and samey.
European/North and South American/African/Asian maps?? All pretty much idendical.

Also, why the F**K do the aliens get a free move, when you find them? If they stumble across my team, they shoot me immediately. If I find them they get to break for cover before I can do anything.

Yeah the fights became tiresome only on my second play through. I just wanted to continue building my base rather than fighting an samey fight

synesthesia

bought the slingshot DLC - my savegame doesn't load !!!

FRUSTRATED !

degrassinoel

What platform did you buy it for? thinking of getting it myself but not if it's bugged to bits like that

BizzyC

Game is losing replayability....

Classic mode is too hard/infuriating, Normal is too easy.
I've got 100% satelite cover, Titan armor and plasma weapons and I haven't even raided the base yet.

synesthesia

pc - and i am not the only one having the issue :

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?191236-Slingshot-DLC-ruins-my-savegames&p=2568061

http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/828923952212810381/#p2

dango

BizzyC wrote: »

Game is losing replayability....

I've got 100% satelite cover, Titan armor and plasma weapons and I haven't even raided the base yet.

I think that's your problem. Presumably all your men are surviving every battle, not needing any recovery time due to titan armor's defenses and killing everything in 1/2 shots with plasma weapons? I think any game which doesn't specifically restrict your ability to upgrade equipment would lose its replayablity if you grind to get the top tier equipment early on. I suppose with Xcom it's just that bit easier to do so.

I had given up on I/I due to some game breaking glitches combined with it being very very difficult. I had a rescue mission (Van Doorn) in the first month. Things were going great. Approached the target and couldn't activate him! Cue running back to the skyranger, aborting the mission and losing out on much needed engineers. I was raging. I couldn't build an uplink and subsequently lost 6 countries. Nightmare stuff.

I decided to try impossible non-ironman to get the hang of battles without having to restart constantly as the battles were really tough. Nearly finished it now. After the first 2 months it's fairly okay. Only reloaded when some crazy things occurred.
One that comes to mind was an abduction mission early on in the game, all 5 men were tucked in behind and to the side of a big van in full cover. 1 guy gets poisoned by a thin man. So I decided to launch a rocket into a group of them. 90% chance to hit. He hits the side of the van killing 3 of the soldiers including himself immediately, my poisoned guy panics killing my sniper and then succumbs to the poison. Game over.

Really enjoying it on my 3rd playthrough. I'll hopefully give I/I a go soon enough.

degrassinoel

The DLC is overpriced, but it's good imo.

Some new customisation options like Berets and Shades make it worth it.. seriously, my crew has never looked this good! There's a new armour deco style too, so if you got the preorder one you should have three options on each version of armour to change it up. The missions themselves are pretty decent, and not entirely easy either. 6.50.. hmm, feck it yeah, overpriced but worth it.