XCOM: Enemy Unknown |OT| Neo GAF is Under Alien Control

zkylon said:
Smoke grenades are useless
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Nuh-uh. Lots of additional defense. Great for when you're getting caught with your pants down and have to protect critical squaddies (or the entire damn team). You still pray, but every bit of possible protection helps.
 
Done with Classic Ironman. What a ride. Really thought I would lose a trooper during the last mission.

8s28U.jpg
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My game of the year, hands down. On to Impossible!
 
Rentahamster said:
On normal, if you miss an overwatch, no biggie. On Classic/Impossible, if you miss an overwatch, you are already dead.
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Right - watching some videos helped me understand that. I saw Beagle use it somewhat often and he explained why. I have been using Overwatch as a default defensive position without really thinking about the chances of hitting and risk involved.
 
Sotha Sil said:
Hah! I've been following Beaglerush's playthrough so I pretty much know what to expect... Still pretty terrified.
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When I started Ironman Impossible for the first time, I was on game number 9.

I am now on game number 120- something.

Just so you know what to expect, lol.
 
Rentahamster said:
When I started Ironman Impossible for the first time, I was on game number 9.

I am now on game number 120- something.

Just so you know what to expect, lol.
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... Damn.

Now that I think about it, the perspective of playing the last mission on Impossible... And the first thin-men-heavy mission on Impossible....

Yeah.
 
Tried starting an Ironman Impossible last night. 6 games started, all of them losing at least one squaddie on the first map within the first encounter or two. I have so much more to learn :-)
 
Going to start on an impossible game now. Classic got a little tough at times, but overall not too bad, if you planned things out and had a backup plan for when things go wrong. I still havent finished the final mission on any difficulty yet, I want to do the last mission on impossible so I can go into it fresh against the toughest aliens possible.

Outside of the bugs/glitches, they did a great job tuning the different difficulty levels. Each time you go up in difficulty, you need to use new tactics and play differently than you did on previous games. I barely used Alien/Smoke/Normal grenades on normal, but they were very useful on classic in the right situation. You will get lectured constantly for using grenades/rockets, but if the choice is lose a leveled soldier or an alien corpse, the choice is easy to make.

This is definitely my GotY. I have the new dlc for Dark Souls waiting for me, but I cant pull myself away from this game. This game isnt without its flaws, but they did a great job with the game and Im looking forward to the future of the franchise.
 
Can anyone help me with strategies? I am only seeming to last 2 months as eventually the aliens just start overpowering me, or I run out of finances or research hits a brick wall. Clearly I don't seem to know how to play properly or something lol.
 
lilsting10 said:
Can anyone help me with strategies? I am only seeming to last 2 months as eventually the aliens just start overpowering me, or I run out of finances or research hits a brick wall. Clearly I don't seem to know how to play properly or something lol.
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Are you playing on normal or classic?

Satellite management is important. The more satellites you have, the more income you have, and the less panic spreads across the earth. One of the best starts is to deploy 3-4 satellites in the first month.

Take the engineer reward as the first abduction mission. This brings down the cost of each satellite to 77 credits instead of 100.

Build a workshop 24 days or more before the council meeting.

Build 3-4 satellites 20 days or more before the council meeting. You may need to sell corpses and fragments to afford this.

Build a satellite uplink 14 days or more before the council meeting. You may need to sell corpses and fragments to afford this. Try not to sell any alien alloys. Those are important in the early game.

Deploy all your satellites a day or so before the council meeting on all the countries that are in red. Or, you can just dump them all in Africa for the money bonus, or South America for the research bonus.

​

The officer training school is one of the best ways to increase your success in the tactical layer. Squad size I and II are essential.

Have at least one sniper and one heavy. Squad sight with the sniper is essential. Rockets are good for an emergency one-hit-kill or to blow up cover so that your other troops have an easy shot.

Assaults with run and gun are really good to flank aliens and kill them.

If the aliens are overpowering you, then you are teching too slowly. If you can start beam weapon research early, you can have laser rifles by the start of the second month. If you take the scientist reward for your second abduction mission, your research times will be reduced by a lot.

Going from 5 scientists to 9 scientists in the first month makes a much larger impact than going from 20 scientists to 24 scientists later in the game.

If you opt to start in South America or if you cover all of SA in satellites using the 4 satellite strategy, you will have instant interrogations, which you can use to speed up your research by a lot.

Interrogating a live sectoid will reduce your laser gun research by half. Interrogating a live floater will reduce your armor research by half. If you can handle it, capturing aliens earlier pays off in the long run.
 
When I first heard about this game I wasn't interested at all. I tried an XCOM game long ago, had no idea what I was doing, and wrote the series off as "not for me". But after trying the demo and hearing the loads of praise through my podcast rotation, I decided to give this game a shot.

Just finished my first playthrough tonight (Normal Ironman), and it's hands down my game of the year. Not much I can say that hasn't already been said, but the combination of difficult decision making, turn-based squad gameplay, constant character progression and customization, and the game throwing new things at you all the way up until the end all blend together to make one hell of a game.

Loved every minute (except that one time where my Assault missed an important 95% chance shot, costing me two high ranking soldiers on the aliens' next turn)
 
My biggest problem with starting an ironman run is that the game's sometimes too inconsistent with stuff like line of sight, flanking and bugs like teleporting sectopods just scare me away.

The only thing I might try is just ironman impossible because like in most roguelikes I know I'm gonna lose already.
 
zkylon said:
My biggest problem with starting an ironman run is that the game's sometimes too inconsistent with stuff like line of sight, flanking and bugs like teleporting sectopods just scare me away.

The only thing I might try is just ironman impossible because like in most roguelikes I know I'm gonna lose already.
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LOS has been pretty darn consistent since the patch. And before the patch, the LOS problem was largely in my favor with my sniper on overwatch.

And I've never noticed any inconsistensies with flanking. It's always been the same mechanic in my 7 playthroughs.

I agree that teleporting patrols can be a pain, but it's rare, and they don't attack on the turn they appear, so it's not that horrible.
 
Grimsen said:
LOS has been pretty darn consistent since the patch. And before the patch, the LOS problem was largely in my favor with my sniper on overwatch.

And I've never noticed any inconsistensies with flanking. It's always been the same mechanic in my 7 playthroughs.

I agree that teleporting patrols can be a pain, but it's rare, and they don't attack on the turn they appear, so it's not that horrible.
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My main problem is that I've had many cases in which I'd say "I'm flanking" and my eye would see a clear shot with nothing in the way but the game would not agree with me and still give the x-rays hard cover bonus. It happened all too frequently to the point I imagine most people just get accustomed to it, but I find it to be really annoying because sometimes you go out on a limb to get people on a flank and it puts them at great risk in exchange of the easy shot, and having a 51% shot instead of 81% makes the world 'a difference.

I've also had some very weird situations with line of sight like a sectopod standing on a slope that was completely invisible unless I was standing below him. Again, your eye sees something that the game doesn't recognize, and it's just very frustrating for me because something like an invisible sectopod sitting a few squares from you can murder your half your squad in just a few turns.
 
zkylon said:
My main problem is that I've had many cases in which I'd say "I'm flanking" and my eye would see a clear shot with nothing in the way but the game would not agree with me and still give the x-rays hard cover bonus. It happened all too frequently to the point I imagine most people just get accustomed to it, but I find it to be really annoying because sometimes you go out on a limb to get people on a flank and it puts them at great risk in exchange of the easy shot, and having a 51% shot instead of 81% makes the world 'a difference.

I've also had some very weird situations with line of sight like a sectopod standing on a slope that was completely invisible unless I was standing below him. Again, your eye sees something that the game doesn't recognize, and it's just very frustrating for me because something like an invisible sectopod sitting a few squares from you can murder your half your squad in just a few turns.
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You're right about the slope thing, though I don't know if they did anything about that in the patch.

I fail to see your flanking gripe as a bug. It's how it's meant to work. It can be visually jarring at first, but it's consistent.
 
Grimsen said:
You're right about the slope thing, though I don't know if they did anything about that in the patch.

I fail to see your flanking gripe as a bug. It's how it's meant to work. It can be visually jarring at first, but it's consistent.
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I wish I had taken a screenshot, but basically this happened:
Code: 
                  |
                  |
             enemy|
                  |
                  |
_______           |
       |me        |
       |          |________
       |          
       |

The game registered that as me being flankable while the enemy being in hard cover.

Sometimes I wouldn't be able to see over clearly-see-throughable low-cover boxes, etc.

My problem with the game is just that, that it's inconsistent and I can't trust it with an Ironman save.

Other than that I loved my time with it.
 
Miletius said:
Shows you how deadly that map is on impossible. I always groan when I get it early on, practically a death sentence, although I approach it a little differently than he does usually.
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Yeah I actually posted about that map a page or two before.

I got it on the first abduction mission of an ironman impossible game just like he did. What I did differently, though, was I moved my heavy a few tiles up, next to the high cover stone gate and hunkered down. Then, on the next turn, I was in range to rocket 3 sectoids who were merging. Killed over half the aliens in one turn, lol.

If you are able to pull it off, it turns into one of the easiest maps instead of one of the hardest.

I still hate it when I get that map on the very first mission, though :P
 
Watching Beaglerush makes me feel less bad about losing a squaddie in the first mission on Impossible Ironman. I mean, I still feel bad, just less bad. Not "oh gods, I have to start all over again??"
 
I'm watching Beaglerush's first Ironman Impossible playthrough, and it reminded me of something super helpful that should be obvious but doesn't actually seem to be: when aiming rockets, aiming above or below your target can help you get around obstacles, even if you wouldn't expect it to.

You just have to be careful because the vertical radius can be a bit deceptive -- sometimes it looks like a unit is in the reticule when they really aren't.
 
KO Traveling Hobo said:
I'm watching Beaglerush's first Ironman Impossible playthrough, and it reminded me of something super helpful that should be obvious but doesn't actually seem to be: when aiming rockets, aiming above or below your target can help you get around obstacles, even if you wouldn't expect it to.

You just have to be careful because the vertical radius can be a bit deceptive -- sometimes it looks like a unit is in the reticule when they really aren't.
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Yep, but sometimes it bites me in the ass when I place the reticule in what looks like it should be the right position, only to have the rocket not even touch the enemies I was trying to target.

Explosives need to work like the Cyberdisk death blossom move: It should tell you how many targets are in the currently highlighted AOE.


r1chard said:
Awesome, made it to mission three before getting fully squad-wiped! I think I'm getting better at this Impossible difficulty :-)
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Baby steps!
 
Rentahamster said:
Yep, but sometimes it bites me in the ass when I place the reticule in what looks like it should be the right position, only to have the rocket not even touch the enemies I was trying to target.

Explosives need to work like the Cyberdisk death blossom move: It should tell you how many targets are in the currently highlighted AOE.
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Exactly. So many disappointing "I'm saved! ... Welp." moments.

Starting my I/I run(s) today, wish me lots and lots of luck.
 
Rentahamster said:
Yeah I actually posted about that map a page or two before.

I got it on the first abduction mission of an ironman impossible game just like he did. What I did differently, though, was I moved my heavy a few tiles up, next to the high cover stone gate and hunkered down. Then, on the next turn, I was in range to rocket 3 sectoids who were merging. Killed over half the aliens in one turn, lol.

If you are able to pull it off, it turns into one of the easiest maps instead of one of the hardest.

I still hate it when I get that map on the very first mission, though :P
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I just hate the map because the high cover is mostly destructible, which makes it very dangerous in larger firefights. Combine that with small map size it's very deadly map. I usually veer to the right and set up shop near the alley and the large crypt. The crypt in particular isn't able to be destroyed, giving you a good base of operations to work from.

Sometimes there is a patrol in the alley though, which will need to be taken care of if you plan to hang out there.

There's also the gravedigger's shack in the upper left corner of the map that provides similar security, but it's much harder to get there without getting caught by patrols. Overall a very tense map.
 
Any news on mod support for the PC? I'm pretty disappointed it didn't come out with it already in place as, I believe, they were talking about it earlier on.
 
Rentahamster said:
Requoted for all the newbies.
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Are there any other essential mods/fixes? I just picked this up last week and I'm thoroughly addicted. I even bought the stupid color customization DLC, which is the kind of thing I never buy. :P

As an XCOM newbie, normal has been pretty perfect for me, difficulty-wise. I'm on my third game (after restarting once due to my terrible opening strategy, and the second time to switch to Ironman mode) and was breezing through the first few months, but now the game is throwing mutons and cyberdisks at me and I've sadly lost a few of my higher-level dudes. I just had a near-bloodbath where my three best units got mind-controlled, killed two of their teammates, and had the last guy down to four health, and he would have been dead for sure if he wasn't a sniper sitting a mile away from the action. Fortunately the mind control wore off just in time and I was able to pull off a win with no additional losses. So good.
 
rohlfinator said:
Are there any other essential mods/fixes?
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I wouldn't say there are any "essential" ones. I don't use any mods. You can check the official forums or the xcom reddit page for links to mods.

http://forums.2kgames.com/forumdisplay.php?76-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-General-Discussion

http://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/

There are a lot of mods at nexusmods. This is one of them that lets you tweak just about everything.

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/76/

Overall, I'm of the opinion that the game is pretty fine on its own at the moment without mods.
 
Ah man this game, this game so good! About to finish month 3 up on a bang. 11 sats up, ball deep in money, attacking the enemy base with fresh new plasma rifles.
 
Rentahamster said:
I wouldn't say there are any "essential" ones. I don't use any mods. You can check the official forums or the xcom reddit page for links to mods.

http://forums.2kgames.com/forumdisplay.php?76-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-General-Discussion

http://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/

There are a lot of mods at nexusmods. This is one of them that lets you tweak just about everything.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/

Overall, I'm of the opinion that the game is pretty fine on its own at the moment without mods.
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Don't forget about the Nexus: http://xcom.nexusmods.com/
 
Loving Impossible so far. Classic was great, but the game was pretty much over as soon as I developed plasma weapons. The aliens just can't handle squadsight+archangel+plasma.

Being forced to flank and hunker down pretty much all the time is a nice change of pace.
 
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