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XCOM: Enemy Unknown |OT| Neo GAF is Under Alien Control
- Thread starter Jintor
- Start date
Yeah... end of may... two squad wipes... asia has backed out from the x-com project after a failed terror mission.
Two squad wipes.
Feelt bad.
Then there was an abduction mission which gave a Sergent as reward... did it and got him.
He has on his own saved this X-Com project... still there are alot of things to fix.
Another "Awesome" story was, my first wipe with my best soliders... when I had an escort mission of an combat engineer, who had deep intelligence in combating these creatures... was when I was 20 meter from the pickup zone a thin man dropped ON TOP OF MY BUILDING I WAS ON... I had 1 (ONE) X-Com operativ left...
Then communications died and skyranger went home... alone.
Two squad wipes.
Feelt bad.
Then there was an abduction mission which gave a Sergent as reward... did it and got him.
He has on his own saved this X-Com project... still there are alot of things to fix.
Another "Awesome" story was, my first wipe with my best soliders... when I had an escort mission of an combat engineer, who had deep intelligence in combating these creatures... was when I was 20 meter from the pickup zone a thin man dropped ON TOP OF MY BUILDING I WAS ON... I had 1 (ONE) X-Com operativ left...
Then communications died and skyranger went home... alone.
The key to Classic Ironman is take a perspective similar to that of playing a roguelike or something like the Souls series, the latter of which doesn't have the game ending completely but where you also shouldn't see death as a loss in progress, but rather playtime as a gain in experience and skill.
You shouldn't concern yourself with necessarily beating the game but instead trying to have a rewarding playthrough based on challenge, and learning from your mistakes.
You shouldn't concern yourself with necessarily beating the game but instead trying to have a rewarding playthrough based on challenge, and learning from your mistakes.
I had to restart my classic ironman run. I just couldn't take the losses anymore especially after getting my favorites killed to ridiculous critical hits and stupid mistakes on my part. Thinmen don't play around. 
The second playthrough seems a lot more promising. Even though I, again, lost some favorites: Balls McGee and Willem Dafoe... you will be missed. 9hp crit holy moly.
Only real stupid mistake I made this play was running Roland McDonald up next to a dead civilian that was killed by a cryssalid only the turn before :| So I'm learning at least.
Anyway base management wise it still remains to be seen whether or not I screwed up. I'm less than two months in and I've already built a second satellite uplink (and 2 satellites up and running already), an officer training school and engineering bay. I've got a steam vent easily accessible so that's nice too. I'm in a good space engineering wise as well, I have 20 guys running around making stuff.
Geoscape wise, 3 countries are at max panic though but I believe (or at least hope) I left my play session doing a UFO landing site mission in one of them. Hopefully Argentina will stabilize after that.
My funds are constantly depleted though, I seriously need to get funds for another satellite and maybe a containment facility. This month's council report should give me plenty of cash if all goes well though, since 1 satellite went online over America (+160/month).
I hope completing the UFO landing site mission yields plenty of alloys because I'm in desperate need of better armor and more laser weaponry!
I have to say the base management is a lot more satisfying than I initially thought it would be. There is resource management going on in various ways. Very cool.
All in all classic ironman is a roller coaster of emotions and very satisfying, I find myself doing the fist pump thing every time I complete a mission without casualties.
The second playthrough seems a lot more promising. Even though I, again, lost some favorites: Balls McGee and Willem Dafoe... you will be missed. 9hp crit holy moly.
Only real stupid mistake I made this play was running Roland McDonald up next to a dead civilian that was killed by a cryssalid only the turn before :| So I'm learning at least.
Anyway base management wise it still remains to be seen whether or not I screwed up. I'm less than two months in and I've already built a second satellite uplink (and 2 satellites up and running already), an officer training school and engineering bay. I've got a steam vent easily accessible so that's nice too. I'm in a good space engineering wise as well, I have 20 guys running around making stuff.
Geoscape wise, 3 countries are at max panic though but I believe (or at least hope) I left my play session doing a UFO landing site mission in one of them. Hopefully Argentina will stabilize after that.
My funds are constantly depleted though, I seriously need to get funds for another satellite and maybe a containment facility. This month's council report should give me plenty of cash if all goes well though, since 1 satellite went online over America (+160/month).
I hope completing the UFO landing site mission yields plenty of alloys because I'm in desperate need of better armor and more laser weaponry!
I have to say the base management is a lot more satisfying than I initially thought it would be. There is resource management going on in various ways. Very cool.
All in all classic ironman is a roller coaster of emotions and very satisfying, I find myself doing the fist pump thing every time I complete a mission without casualties.
Unlocked the game via VPN last night, ended up playing all night and having just a few hours of sleep before work.
Started the game on Classic difficulty (forgot to select Iron Man) but surprisingly only lost a few rookies and 2 Sgt.'s so far.
Just finished the
VIP mission. Which was the hardest mission so far because 5 thin man dropped behind me once I reached the VIP.
I lost another Rookie before I managed to take out 3 of the 5 thin man with a well placed rocket (all of my soldiers were poisoned at that moment) and my second most experienced soldier (Sniper, Luca "God" Toni, Captain, yes that's a reference to the Navy Seals movie ;-) got critically hit but I was able to stabilize him with my support (praise the old gods for that triple medi-kit skill).
Kinda funny how much more damage these Thin Man did than any groups I had encountered until thus far!
Have about 8 experienced soldiers in my squad and just hired some new rookies.
So far I've been very careful while carrying out the missions (a lot of usage of overwatch) and it looks like it's worked out well so far...
Managed to capture a sectoid and a floater so far and just finished researching laser weapons (pistol, rifle, sniper and shotty). But don't have enough engineers to build the sniper and shotty yet.
Also focussed on getting to a thermal vent in my base to build a Thermal Power plant.
After that focussed on getting a new satelite uplink and building a workshop + Officer training school.
Only lost Egypt so far so think I've been doing very well... (Now everyone is going to die in the most horrible way imaginable because I jinxed it ;-)
Started the game on Classic difficulty (forgot to select Iron Man) but surprisingly only lost a few rookies and 2 Sgt.'s so far.
Just finished the
rescue General Donovan
I lost another Rookie before I managed to take out 3 of the 5 thin man with a well placed rocket (all of my soldiers were poisoned at that moment) and my second most experienced soldier (Sniper, Luca "God" Toni, Captain, yes that's a reference to the Navy Seals movie ;-) got critically hit but I was able to stabilize him with my support (praise the old gods for that triple medi-kit skill).
Kinda funny how much more damage these Thin Man did than any groups I had encountered until thus far!
Have about 8 experienced soldiers in my squad and just hired some new rookies.
So far I've been very careful while carrying out the missions (a lot of usage of overwatch) and it looks like it's worked out well so far...
Managed to capture a sectoid and a floater so far and just finished researching laser weapons (pistol, rifle, sniper and shotty). But don't have enough engineers to build the sniper and shotty yet.
Also focussed on getting to a thermal vent in my base to build a Thermal Power plant.
After that focussed on getting a new satelite uplink and building a workshop + Officer training school.
Only lost Egypt so far so think I've been doing very well... (Now everyone is going to die in the most horrible way imaginable because I jinxed it ;-)
Where are the different units anyway? Can you be adjacent to the original buildings or does it only apply when you build two or more yourself? I think research is to the right of the lifts, but engineering is huge
Can't say I agree with that. For my first playthrough I'm doing Classic non-Ironman because I wanted to at least finish the game once without losing 10 hours of my time. This way I get to see all the tech and the facilities you will get and have a better understanding of what I should focus on. So when I start my Classic Ironman game, I'll have a solid game plan: order of research that I should follow, a good base layout and I'll already be familiar with combat tactics and which units I should definitely try to stun. At times, some really bad stuff happens, even if you use proper tactics, so I'd rather not lose my first game due to bad luck and having to start all over again. I remember during the base attack mission I was slowly moving forwards when all of a sudden I triggered a group of 3 Chrysallids. They killed two of my best guys so I wanted to reload and see if there was a better way to handle the fight. Turned out that the only way to win it was to have every single team member grouped together and all on overwatch. Then I'd move a single guy to the trigger point and even then, knowing in advance where they'd appear, the only way they couldn't kill one of my guys was when reaction fire killed 2 of them and the only shot I had left killed the last Chryssalid. I thought that was pretty damn cheap since you'd never group all your squad members together like that when playing properly.
Great OT btw, Jintor!
Also, unlike the original XCOM, in this game you need to stun enemies in order to retrieve their weapons. Saw someone asking this earlier, but yeah, you should try to capture all of the non-mechanical units that you can. You can get research credits that way to significantly speed up research times. I don't recall exactly what the earlier units gave me, but the Mutons give you research credit for plasma weaponry and the
Muton Elite
You've never built a new facility before?
Their location is right there on the base overview when you build a new facility. The bonus applies to all buildings, the original and the new facilities that you build yourself.That's fine, but I'm talking about the people intent on sticking with Classic Ironman. It's always an option simply to do a non-IM game or just play on Normal the first time through to get a feel for things, but some don't want or need any of those crutches and would rather jump into the fire immediately, taking the viewpoint that progress through the game isn't as meaningful as progress in skill and experience with a game that doesn't hand you anything.
The mission (very difficult) I lost Balls mcGee and Willem Dafoe to was a lesson learned for sure. For one I moved Bill Murray up way too far and next turn discovered there were 3 floaters up ahead, I tried for an all or nothing shot with his bazooka hoping the blast radius would reach up there and take them all out... I got two sectoids who were apparently creeping around the same area instead and took out none of the floaters.
Sensing that Bill Murray was in trouble Balls mcGee run and gunned it up there, took out one of the floaters and sat in half cover, guess he was feeling lucky. Renka Kensei (character from the manga: History's strongest disciple Kenichi ) Took aim with her sniper rifle but hit nothing but air. Willem Dafoe didn't see a way to safely move closer to attempt a shot so sat in over watch. Same for the remaining guy (Ludwig von Beethoven) who was covering another flank anyway.
So alien turn... a thinman comes from the right and blasts Balls mcGee in the head for a 9hp hit crit Instant death. One of the floaters takes a shot at Renka and takes her down to 2 hp. She panics. Willem Dafoe seeing his best friend die panics and finishes off Renka.
I manage to retreat Bill Murray to where Ludwig von Beethoven was. The panicking Willem Dafoe gets taken out by the thinman. 2 guys left after that... after turtling like mad (5 straight turns of moving just one square at most) Bill Murray and Ludwig von Beethoven managed to pick off the aliens one by one and complete the mission.
I seriously need to retreat and turtle up more often when the odds are clearly not in my favor.
Sensing that Bill Murray was in trouble Balls mcGee run and gunned it up there, took out one of the floaters and sat in half cover, guess he was feeling lucky. Renka Kensei (character from the manga: History's strongest disciple Kenichi ) Took aim with her sniper rifle but hit nothing but air. Willem Dafoe didn't see a way to safely move closer to attempt a shot so sat in over watch. Same for the remaining guy (Ludwig von Beethoven) who was covering another flank anyway.
So alien turn... a thinman comes from the right and blasts Balls mcGee in the head for a 9hp hit crit
Instant death. One of the floaters takes a shot at Renka and takes her down to 2 hp. She panics. Willem Dafoe seeing his best friend die panics and finishes off Renka.I manage to retreat Bill Murray to where Ludwig von Beethoven was. The panicking Willem Dafoe gets taken out by the thinman. 2 guys left after that... after turtling like mad (5 straight turns of moving just one square at most) Bill Murray and Ludwig von Beethoven managed to pick off the aliens one by one and complete the mission.
I seriously need to retreat and turtle up more often when the odds are clearly not in my favor.
Also having your assault guy running up and unload his shotgun into an Aliens' face is just so damn satisfying
Walkers? You're not talking about Sectopods, are you?
Really? I feel it's the other way around, at least on classic. Moving too aggressively is sure to get your squad destroyed by a couple of thinmen.
Does anyone miss snap shot, aimed shot etc? Just having a 'pew pew' button feels a bit simple. Maybe it's psychological and when I miss easy shots I'd have like to have aimed to improve my chances. Don't know whether this one feels like snapshots or aiming or something in between.
On Civ5 you can active "random seed", that way if you reload and do the same shot 10 times, you get 10 different results. However on default it is off, BUT:
Attacking with a Soldier
Moving a Worker
Attacking with Soldier2
won't get you the same result as
Attacking with Soldier2
Attacking with Soldier
Moving a Worker
You've never built a new facility before?
No, never played xcom. Original is sitting untouched in my steam library.
On the facility building screen I only have one access lift a containment facility and officer schools (did tutorial). I can't see where the labs or engineering are - don't I have to refer to the large 'live' view then?
Loving this game the more I play it, it is bringing back a lot of memories playing as a kid. It has the ability to humble you very quickly, one moment you are feeling strong and confident to the next mission you end up with a dead veteran squad with no decent backups. Ive relearned how important resources are early on. A few tips for people new to the series.
There is no need to make 5 of something like is defaulted at times. Only make what you need at that time and make more later if you need it. Not only do you lose the credits, but also the harvested alien artifacts/resources you recover from missions.
Dont get attached to soldiers much because they are going to die often early on. If you get an easy mission, send out some rookies to backup your veterans. There is a slight risk they will panic, but at least when a veteran dies you will not have to rely on complete rookies. Later on when you have developed your base more and have funds, you can train/bring in more experienced guys but until then, you should keep a decent size group of trained soldiers. It is nice having one squad of highly trained veterans, but one bad mission can wipe them all out before you have time to think.
Lastly dont be afraid to start a new game. You lose a little time from that game, but you will be able to use everything you have learned from the start and get a better foundation for later in the game. No matter how skilled of a player you are, if you get off to a bad start, it is very difficult to make up for it later on.
There is no need to make 5 of something like is defaulted at times. Only make what you need at that time and make more later if you need it. Not only do you lose the credits, but also the harvested alien artifacts/resources you recover from missions.
Dont get attached to soldiers much because they are going to die often early on. If you get an easy mission, send out some rookies to backup your veterans. There is a slight risk they will panic, but at least when a veteran dies you will not have to rely on complete rookies. Later on when you have developed your base more and have funds, you can train/bring in more experienced guys but until then, you should keep a decent size group of trained soldiers. It is nice having one squad of highly trained veterans, but one bad mission can wipe them all out before you have time to think.
Lastly dont be afraid to start a new game. You lose a little time from that game, but you will be able to use everything you have learned from the start and get a better foundation for later in the game. No matter how skilled of a player you are, if you get off to a bad start, it is very difficult to make up for it later on.
Open Source
Banned
Argh.
I lost 3 nations from the council before I even had satellite number three out. 3-4 months and 6 nations were gone. Doing abduction etc. missions reduced panic in one country and increased it in 2 whole continents, wtf. Large UFOs that I couldn't deal with because I couldn't afford to upgrade my aircraft - because I was trying to get the satellite going.
Terror mission, fighting swarms of chrysallids and cyberdiscs, with 5-6 civilians butchered and turned into zombies before I can sprint to them. Cyberdiscs tossing grenades that I can do nothing about, and one-shotting guys with full cover with lasers, while taking many many shot attempts to bring down (And the little drones have to be killed first or they heal it).
And this is with me succeeding on every mission while losing 0 guys. Balance just seems way out of whack.
Everything just ramps up so fast - council member loss, alien difficulty, etc. and I don't feel like I have the resources to keep up. My research was way faster than I needed, and I had engineers to spare - just not enough money to build stuff. It felt like the ratio of missions to alien ramp up was way too low.
I lost 3 nations from the council before I even had satellite number three out. 3-4 months and 6 nations were gone. Doing abduction etc. missions reduced panic in one country and increased it in 2 whole continents, wtf. Large UFOs that I couldn't deal with because I couldn't afford to upgrade my aircraft - because I was trying to get the satellite going.
Terror mission, fighting swarms of chrysallids and cyberdiscs, with 5-6 civilians butchered and turned into zombies before I can sprint to them. Cyberdiscs tossing grenades that I can do nothing about, and one-shotting guys with full cover with lasers, while taking many many shot attempts to bring down (And the little drones have to be killed first or they heal it).
And this is with me succeeding on every mission while losing 0 guys. Balance just seems way out of whack.
Everything just ramps up so fast - council member loss, alien difficulty, etc. and I don't feel like I have the resources to keep up. My research was way faster than I needed, and I had engineers to spare - just not enough money to build stuff. It felt like the ratio of missions to alien ramp up was way too low.
No no, I was talking about the new game.
Ah, so you just started out then? There's no workshop and laboratory at the start, even though you see them in the cut-scenes. Now I get what you meant by not seeing them, yeah. I forgot about that, thought it started you off with one of each.
Basileus777
Member
So recruited soldiers start with 2 more HP than the ones you start with?
GrandHarrier
Member
Not really. And class specific skills tend to fill these niches. Love, love, LOVE me some suppression.
I've used it a few times, I've started to combine it with overwatch and reaction shots. If you have a guy on OW and you use Flush it activates the OW, this helps when you force the enemy out of cover and they run towards you
Wouldn't it be better to use flush first and then decide what to do? That way you can possibly shoot at the alien with your other guy without the aim penalty from OW? Or is it possible the flushed aliens can move to other cover?I've used it a few times, I've started to combine it with overwatch and reaction shots. If you have a guy on OW and you use Flush it activates the OW, this helps when you force the enemy out of cover and they run towards you
GrandHarrier
Member
So, this is a no shit scenario, but Ironman mode really does ratchet up the tension. Ran my best guy out and revealed 3 clustered Chryssalids who free moved almost on top of me. Messed them up but killed none of them and was freaking out. Last squaddie with actions is a heavy with a REALLY BAD ANGLE, but manages to lob a grenade that finishes off all 3. He damn well earned that in mission promotion!
Flushed aliens almost always retreat out of range. It's a pain in the ass.
Unhandled Exception
Member
Lost my first soldier after 9 hours. It was a fucking Colonel. Not pleased.
Ah I see. Clever to use it with overwatch then.Possibly
Edit:
What is the trigger for a country to leave the council? Does it happen immediately when they're at Max panic and then get another panic level added to that? Or does it happen only at the end of the month or what? I haven't had it happen yet but I'm curious about the time frame I have to try and fix the situation.
I'm really suprised(or well, looking at Civ not so much) at all that talk about ironman here and there. Don't you have the self discipline to play without reloading after you loose a fight? I really don't get it.
The game's locked up on me twice now. Starting to think it's a good thing I didn't notice the Ironman option when I started my game.
Is there a fallback or anything if that happens, or does that just mean it's time to start over?
Is there a fallback or anything if that happens, or does that just mean it's time to start over?
Well I was under the impression that Ironman autosaved all the time, meaning that if the game actually crashes or locks up on you the best thing would be if it happened to an ironman playthrough.
If you have the machine get it on PC because it's going to look better there. I think the console versions do look good though, not much of a difference between them.
FlutterPuffs
Member
no.
Talk about a tense morning - just barely completed the storyline
mission, for some reason I decided it would be a good time to train up some squaddies, so I just brought two well trained soldiers (an Assault Colonel, 30-odd missions under his belt and over 70 kills, the lad has the makings of a fucking psychopath) and a rank two (squadsight?) sniper.
What happened -
This was all on Classic Ironman by the way.
So Colonel Psychopath is still alive...perhaps he can hit 100 kills.
alien base
What happened -
ran my assault over a crest in the level at some point and BOOM, approximately 10 aliens activated in a small area (if I recall correctly it was Sectopod + 2 drones, 2 drones in an independant group, 3 Chryssalids that stopped right in front of my troops, 2 elite mutons and 2 heavy floaters in the back of the room) assault ran back over the crest, but got critically wounded. At this point I only had three people left, a Heavy Squaddie, the rank 2 sniper, and a Squaddie Support with 1 medkit. Support stabilised Colonel psychopath, then proceeded to get shot to bits by a sectopod, leaving the heavy and the sniper to annihilate everything on the map (lots) all by themselves. Somehow they pulled through (would have been killed by the Sectoid Commander had my Heavy not been lucky enough to get a flanking critical while he was mind controlling my sniper).
This was all on Classic Ironman by the way.
So Colonel Psychopath is still alive...perhaps he can hit 100 kills.
GrandHarrier
Member
It's a matter of can vs will. Ironman mode does two very critical things. One: Removes the temptation altogether. You dont need to test your resolve. You have no choice. Two: Increases the tension. It fundamentally changes how you play. You have to be cautious and treat the battles as dangerous.
Yea it's only a suggestion for the future but it comes off a bit confusing. You can only stun guys with specialized equipment as far as I know. You can't gas them with smoke grenades anymore either I think. Not sure if you can KO aliens with critical wounds, soldiers seem to be able to go KO from shots tho.
And try to use that Arc thrower on organic enemies that have 3hp or lower... (so injuring an alien might be a good idea before trying to "Arc throw" it ;-)
Ah, is that how it works? That's nice. I'm playing it Ironman-style anyway even though I missed the option, but it's good to know I can enable it without worrying about having XCOM eradicated by a buffer overflow.