XCOM (PCMR Edition)

Shiminay

Yea, I'm tempted by Long War too. So very tempted...

Kirby

Yeah I played the hell out of this when it was simply enemy unknown. I bought Within when it came out but have never gotten around to trying it.

The improvements seem massive. Much more variety.

iggyigauna89

Go for it lads! They even have a not so long war if ye don't have the patience for the full whack. I finished EU ages ago and downloaded LW with EW after reading this thread!! It's sooo addictive!

degrassinoel

well worth another play through, am really enjoying this one I just cant do LW, it's too cruel for me lol

Dacelonid

degrassinoel wrote: »

well worth another play through, am really enjoying this one I just cant do LW, it's too cruel for me lol

Totally agree. Every since I discovered that the work laptop can run it, have really be enjoying it again.

degrassinoel

Shiminay wrote: »

The Android version of the Twitch App has a "chat only" mode too (I'm sure the iOS flavour behaves the same) which is most convenient for such things.

Alternatively, stop thinking like a Console Peasant and get 2 more screens

have it on the phone now :P ..still a peasant though

degrassinoel

fired it up again if you wanna have a gander

Dave_The_Sheep

God-damnit, Ironman is frustrating. Trying to save a scientist. Have him within dash range of the exit point. Go for it. No one within intercept range, no problem.

Actually, no, **** you Dave, turns out we spawned a Thin Man ... right on top of one of your soldiers. In the same square. Without telling you. Takes the scientist out from range, one shot. No problemo.

Lick my balls, X-Com.

PS. I love you.

Nody

Kiith wrote: »

God damn, now i want to play this again. Gonna start a Long War game later, after reading about all the changes. 8 different types of MEC trooper? Hells yeah

Not only that you also got 8 classes and a complete change in the skill system layout (i.e. Lightning reflexes are no longer combinable with double tap etc.) but as noted by Deg. it is a really cruel cruel mod.

I had to quit at the first (yes you'll get invaded multiple times) base invasion simply because I only had laser rifles and even with my best squad the second room had 3 Sectopod Commanders (with shields up). Oh and did I mention the new Sectopod commander shield absorbs 5(!) damage per shot (standard laser rifle is 5 to 6 damage) and only goes down for damage exceeding the shield amount (i.e. HEAT ammo/rockets is mandatory)? Nothing like running up and double tap a laser shotty in their face for 3 damage total

Kiith

How can you possibly win against that? I'm guessing you need to get advanced weapons as soon as possible? I never rushed for Laser or Plasma in EW, and didn't have any massive issues.

I started last night, and did a couple of missions. So far so good, and had one KIA (1st mission, caused by me being stupid), but there is already a lot more options. Different grenades, skills and i've got about 3 new classes compared to the original. Granted, it's on normal (2nd difficulty), but looking forward to getting stuck in this weekend.

Nody

Kiith wrote: »

How can you possibly win against that? I'm guessing you need to get advanced weapons as soon as possible? I never rushed for Laser or Plasma in EW, and didn't have any massive issues.

You can't win is the answer . I was researching the next tier up weapons at the time (Gauss I think it was) but they had not finished yet and as invasions take your top 5 guys who're in base and not injured I had a poor selection (Assault, Sniper, Medic, Rocketeer and gunner) which also mean my guys did not have HEAT ammo (well Rocketeer had HEAT rockets but as the first room was 2x Cyberdiscs, 3x Stranglers etc. I only had 1 left). I'd strongly recommend getting the shredder bullets for that reason but I never created any as I was expecting to always have a heavy machine guy or two ready

Invasions are also driven by how quickly the aliens can build up resources combined with your win rate. I had focused heavily on NA only (and branched out to SA only the previous month) meant I had let them get to much resources to quickly in Asia etc. So to counter it you need to stall the enemy as much as possible (require investment into air tech; don't ignore it or you will suffer greatly!) and ground tech (both armor and weapons).

Kiith

Ah man, i'm gonna rage quit so many times

Nody

Kiith wrote: »

Ah man, i'm gonna rage quit so many times

You will; and the annoying thing you're unlikely to lose because of "that moment" but it will be a slippery slide down the slope as you get further and further behind and simply ends up to pull the plug and try again because you know you can't make it anymore even though you did not play poorly.

I'd recommend saving every month into a separate save (any invasions are decided at the start of a month so if you save the 1st every month you basically have a month to plan for it) which I did not .

Oh and I love this part in their F.A.Q:

Q: I'm fairly new to XCom. What difficulty should I start with?
A: Normal.

Q: I'm an XCOM veteran. What difficulty should I start with?
A: Normal.

Q: But I'm really awesome at --
A: Sorry to interrupt, but just start with Normal. We don't have easy difficulties in this mod that hold your hand while you learn the ropes and we've removed every bit of code we can find that cheats for the player on the lower difficulties. It's going to be hard. The other difficulties are just harder versions of Normal; feel free to move up when you get a handle on all the new mechanics.

ancapailldorcha

For some reason I started a new CI game in EW with both marathon and diminishing returns enabled. It's $800 for my third satellite!!

Rebel Rebel

Watched a few videos on the long war, here are the main things i have taken away from them

"How did you miss that he is right there"
"Please don't miss, please don't miss"
"Well that another one dead"
"O God, O God"
"Are Fing Kidding me"
"This is such bull"
"Please don't pop another pod"
It goes on


Basically starts out full of optimism and by the end of month 2 or 3 near total despair

Think ill wait to xMas to start it as it looks really really long to do

Nody

Rebel Rebel wrote: »

Watched a few videos on the long war, here are the main things i have taken away from them

"How did you miss that he is right there"
"Please don't miss, please don't miss"
"Well that another one dead"
"O God, O God"
"Are Fing Kidding me"
"This is such bull"
"Please don't pop another pod"
It goes on


Basically starts out full of optimism and by the end of month 2 or 3 near total despair

Think ill wait to xMas to start it as it looks really really long to do

That's a very good summary :P

iggyigauna89

For any of ye that are fans of the Long War mod ye can get your voices in the game, just comment on this thread and the Mod creator will get back to you! He is looking for Voice overs for every nation in the game.

Really cool feature to add to an already excellent mod!

Shiminay

Just signed up myself, am gonna start my LW game tonight!

McSasquatch II

So yeah, how often is considered "normal" when ragequitting from this? :pac:

degrassinoel

on classic, i generally last around 20 minutes before i restart - or when i lose my first and only Irish soldier

McSasquatch II

Ah fair enough, although I'm only playing normal difficulty (on iron man). Still finding my feet with it I guess.

McSasquatch II

Anyone ever encounter a bug with one of their troops whereby firing at an enemy causes the game to CTD?

It happened every time with a particular save - I'd try to get Zhang (the free heavy you get for completing the first part of Slingshot) to fire on a particular sectoid, and every time it would crash the game. So then I just put him in overwatch and played another few turns without a hitch. However, next time I tried to get Zhang to fire (at a different sectoid, in a different part of the map) it crashed again. Annoying.

degrassinoel

never had that one, but i got one where the second Zhang mission, the one on the train bugged the exit point and wouldn't allow me to finish the mission in time, i'd hit all the nodes and killed all the aliens with 3 turns left before it failed too.. dreadful as it was Ironman too

McSasquatch II

Ugh, that would suck.

Mine seems to have righted itself - cleared it without using his primary weapon (rocket and grenade were fine) and since then it's been back to normal, touch wood. Quite buggy in general though, I'm finding? Nothing game-breaking for me (yet) but a few little niggles.

Azza

Looking at the steam achievements, this is one tough game.

27.8% have beaten the game on normal.
4.9% have beaten the game on classic.
1.7% have beaten the game on classic or impossible with iron man mode enabled.
1.1% have beaten the game on impossible.

(I would assume less thann 1% have beaten it on impossible ironman.)

Move over Dark Souls.

I've beaten normal mode with ironman enabled, starting location was Africa.

I'm about 15+ hours into a classic ironman game. I'm pretty confident I can complete it.

Taking my time progressing the main story, have not assaulted the alien base yet but I have the key.

So things to note on my playthrough.

Second misson of Slingshot DLC bugged out and did not allow me to complete it, even though I got into the control room with all nodes activated with a turn to spare, pretty annoying. Zhang proved useful though before he he met an unfortunate end.

But!

I would of lost Germany early on. It was at max panic and it already had a satellite. But luck was on my side, the battleship from the Slingshot DLC showed up in Germany shot down the satellite, which allowed me to put up another satellite to restore calm! This battleship would not of showed up if I hadn't failed the DLC mission. Normally battleships don't appear till several months in.

2 countries despite being at max panic didn't leave at the end of one early month. Not sure why, but I think had they left it would of been fatal.

I've lost 5 countries total. But I have satellites in the remaining 11 and currently all are low panic. Got the bonuses for Europe (starting) and Asia.

Exalt are a bunch of p***. By time of first encounter I had them well out-teched. They have caught up somewhat but are still quite easy to deal with. Always target the rocket welding troops first. Almost have their base discovered too.

Have done alot of research already. Captured and interrogated all alien types that have shown up so far.
Have all officer training upgrades.

Thin Men by far the most dangerous enemy in the game relative to when they appear. At the start of the game they have better accuracy than you, can not be killed by single grenades, they have high mobility, have poison spit to deal with hunker down, their weapons can destroy cover (all alien weapons can) and can kill low level soldiers in one hit. You can't even rely on full cover to help you. Best bet is simply to fall back and try to set up mass overwatch traps. 80% of the time they will follow you.

Cyberdiscs with drones, Sectopods and Muton Bezerkers are starting to become common now. Only Cyberdiscs concern me though.

25+ missions in and I've lost about 6 men. None to Exalt.

Grenades and Rockets are key at the start. Do not listen to that idiot Vahlen, nade anything that moves. Keeping troops alive and getting them leveled is far more important that capturing weapon fragments.

Likewise meld is a nice bonus, but not worth risking the life of your troops for.

Have all Laser guns but I've starting to roll out plasma pistols.
Have Carapace armor as well nano fiber vests on all units
Tatical rigging is a big plus, allowing me to carry grenades, medkits and arc thrower yet still have a lot of amour. Combined with high health from being leveled up my units are very difficult to kill now.
Have about 5 high level characters including a lethal female Irish sniper that have about 70 kills. Squadsight is by far the best ability in the game. Aliens have no answer to long range weapons.
One MEC unit as well, they are pretty strong, not fully leveled up yet.
Have one or two gene mods but they haven't made any difference yet.
Have 2-3 mid level men as back up and another 2-3 rookies.

It takes a while but the game is actually quite fair on the battlefield side of things. Once you understand the strengths and weaknesses of both your men and the aliens, it makes sense. Sure you miss high probability shots every now and then, but so do the aliens, you just don't see their percentage ratings when they fire.

Couple of important things to note, if you haven't discovered any aliens when you end your turn you can not be attacked, so it doesn't matter if you end the turn out of cover. If the enemy discovers you, they will simple relocate to cover and won't fire at you. Knowing this can help speed up your movement.
Enemies have to be active to attack, most enemies remain static in pods of 2-3 until you get close to activate them. Upon activating them, they always try to relocate to cover before you can attack them. UFO landings and crashes do have moving patrols, but again they won't attack on the turn they discover you.

When you discover and activate a pod of enemies, try to kill them without activating another pod. Do this be as much as possible not revealing any more of the map. Don't be tempted to use run and gun to finish off that last enemy unless your very confident you won't reveal another pod, fall back to full cover, or move out of sight and set an overwatch trap. Full cover is good against everything except Thin Men.

Luck does play more a factor when it comes to panic ratings and where mission's occur and what mission rewards you get though.

Nody

Azza wrote: »

Looking at the steam achievements, this is one tough game.

27.8% have beaten the game on normal.
4.9% have beaten the game on classic.
1.7% have beaten the game on classic or impossible with iron man mode enabled.
1.1% have beaten the game on impossible.

(I would assume less thann 1% have beaten it on impossible ironman.)

Move over Dark Souls.

Add Longwar Mod and you will make someone beating Dark Souls cry like a little baby on higher difficulties (Why hello Sectopod commanders in month 4) :P

Shiminay

Yea, Dark Souls can eat a dick, XCom is the real masochist's game I had Long War installed, loved the flexibility and changes it offered, don't think I finished it though, might need to resurrect that for great justice!

ancapailldorcha

Dark Souls is fair at least. Some of the stuff in XCOM is just unfair and I adore this game.

Cravez

I love both Dark Souls and XCOM immensely (XCOM is one of the first series of games I ever played) but Dark Souls punishes you for being stupid or cocky and you learn from it. The game initially has a steep learning curve but once you master it the game becomes alot easier.

However XCOM punishes you based on chance. For example: "I see you flanking some poor unsuspecting Alien with a 97% chance to hit with a 60% critical. Well tough sh!t it's not gonna happen LOL" :P

But that's the nature of turn based games really, without real time input from the player it's all down to how the calculations are done at any given time. You can be good at XCOM but it still won't matter if the game decides that your 97% chance to hit shot will miss and the repurcussions of said missed shot ends up with your squad being wiped out :pac:

Both very different games with very different mechanics, but I do enjoy the difficulty that comes with them both.

Cravez

I completed Classic Ironman a good long time ago and agree with Azza's statements. For me it was a case of always staying within your blue area in case you needed to retreat/overwatch/hunker down. Always keep doing this. If the mission starts getting drawn out because Aliens aren't moving, send your least valuble soldier or a highly mobile support soldier to scout the area (while staying in the blue). Once they spot an alien, send them back and the Alien usually then follows suit to await a volley of fire.

Azza wrote: »

2 countries despite being at max panic didn't leave at the end of one early month. Not sure why, but I think had they left it would of been fatal

There's a chance that even when a country is at Max panic that it won't leave and go into Chaos. It's very low though (I think between 10-20%).

I personally find Dark Souls to be far more frustrating than XCOM. I can deal with missing a 90%-shot one tenth of the time; your odds are literally laid out in front of you.

ancapailldorcha

Cravez wrote: »

I love both Dark Souls and XCOM immensely (XCOM is one of the first series of games I ever played) but Dark Souls punishes you for being stupid or cocky and you learn from it. The game initially has a steep learning curve but once you master it the game becomes alot easier.

However XCOM punishes you based on chance. For example: "I see you flanking some poor unsuspecting Alien with a 97% chance to hit with a 60% critical. Well tough sh!t it's not gonna happen LOL" :P

But that's the nature of turn based games really, without real time input from the player it's all down to how the calculations are done at any given time. You can be good at XCOM but it still won't matter if the game decides that your 97% chance to hit shot will miss and the repurcussions of said missed shot ends up with your squad being wiped out :pac:

Both very different games with very different mechanics, but I do enjoy the difficulty that comes with them both.

I haven't had much trouble with the game. The only issue I can remember is that occasionally activated aliens will run into my squad. There's a notorious Cyberdisc on the final Slingshot mission about halfway through. My latest time going through that involved it wiping out half my squad's cover with a grenade before the other aliens wiped me out. There was no indication that this thing was active and that it had seen my squad. Other people have had this problem as well.

I love the game but it's got some bugs and design flaws (such as not being able to attack mind controlled aliens) that should have been ironed out. The probability thing never bothered me nearly as much as some of the cover mechanics not working properly and the above issue.

Azza

Well as I said those Aliens can miss point blank flanking shots as well, I've seen it happen. It happens as often in your favor as it does the other way round.

On one bomb disposal missons in this current play through, I did miss a 98% shot at a Thin Man that drop in right beside my most important unit. Now I think I had enough armor to survive but would of probably taking a critical hit. Luckily I pulled off a 60% shot with my last unit in range and no damage was done.

Game has a reverse difficult curve, if you can survive the opening months it gets easier. Aliens don't have an answer to squad sight snipers.

Dair76

Does the Long War mod require the expansion pack, or will it work with EU?

ancapailldorcha

Azza wrote: »

Game has a reverse difficult curve, if you can survive the opening months it gets easier. Aliens don't have an answer to squad sight snipers.

It gets a bit stale once you're rocking Titan armor and Plasma weapons. Sectopods are fun to fight when you unlock them but otherwise, end game is very dull.

Shiminay

Dair76 wrote: »

Does the Long War mod require the expansion pack, or will it work with EU?

There's a version that works without the EW expansion, but I cannot recommend EW enough as it's one of the most interesting pieces of DLC for any game I've played. The thing goes on special offer quite often, stick it on your Steam Wishlist and you'll get an alert for it when it goes on sale.

Dair76

Done!

ancapailldorcha

Long War is recommended then? How stable and buggy is it?

Shiminay

I never ran into any problems with it, but I did with some other mods (Toolboks in particular used to crash on the first Alien ship mission).

Azza

Think I have this classic ironman play through in the bag. Survived the Base Assault which was quite intense for a little while, but now that I have Titan armour and all weapons are plasma based the difficulty has disappeared completely.

degrassinoel

still got the base defense to do?

Azza

Nope, completed it, what I mean't in the last post.

degrassinoel

that was the hardest part of the game for me, the alien base assault wasnt too bad, but the xcom base defense if you're not geared or ready for it is a mess brilliant mission though

Azza

Well that's classic ironman complete. Does get stale towards the end, and boredom becomes your biggest adversary as you start doing stupid stuff just to end missions quicker.

Will try impossible ironman but I'll leave it a little while before I do.

Nody

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Long War is recommended then? How stable and buggy is it?

LW is very much recommended; the only two bugs I've had was the initial start up bug (it's known; you basically need to start up twice) and the first Chang escort mission (all aliens dead, all people in the pick up zone but it would not complete) which was resolved by saving and reloading and then running one person out and in again of the zone.

Also be warned EW does not have one base invasion; it has multiple (basically Aliens need to gather up a certain amount of resources and once they have it they can choose to invade).

degrassinoel

Hey folks, since it's the official XCOM day today, figured i'd set up another stream and get you lot to have your names glorified again in another (non-long war) ironman marathon

Who wants to be a MEC trooper? Who's gonna be ranked Colonel first? Who's wearing a red shirt?

Stream should be up for most of tonight, and again tomorrow

forum name = your troopers nickname

http://www.twitch.tv/degrassinoel

Sephiroth_dude

I love this game and the expansion but I never get very in it as all the countries eventually drop out

marko93

degrassinoel wrote: »

Hey folks, since it's the official XCOM day today, figured i'd set up another stream and get you lot to have your names glorified again in another (non-long war) ironman marathon

Who wants to be a MEC trooper? Who's gonna be ranked Colonel first? Who's wearing a red shirt?

Stream should be up for most of tonight, and again tomorrow

forum name = your troopers nickname

http://www.twitch.tv/degrassinoel

Sign me up!

Kiith

degrassinoel wrote: »

Hey folks, since it's the official XCOM day today, figured i'd set up another stream and get you lot to have your names glorified again in another (non-long war) ironman marathon

Who wants to be a MEC trooper? Who's gonna be ranked Colonel first? Who's wearing a red shirt?

Stream should be up for most of tonight, and again tomorrow

forum name = your troopers nickname

http://www.twitch.tv/degrassinoel

Me too...ideally not as a female Russian this time. Plus i'm still waiting on that glorious death :P

degrassinoel

lol i'll do what i can to get ye's english speaking soldiers i'll fire it up later this morning if you're about and let ye's know here who ye's are and if ye died