X-Com Enemy Unknown: Firaxis remake

[Derek B]

I love squad sight, I think its a definite must. And the having to move, really once you get a laser or plasma pistol and the pistol perks and foundry upgrades, there is no reason not to get squad sight.

 

If you need to move the sniper, then move them and switch to the pistol for overwatch that turn.

 

This. Squad Sight has been incredible for Colonel Sean McFly, who has 14 missions and 39 kills to his name, at least half of which have been executed through a squad sight. Admittedly I'm only playing on Normal difficulty so I've got plenty of time to finish a small group of aliens, stay back, get sighted and snipe a lot... if my front line can't kill people then McFly can finish off people from whatever sniper spot I've got him in. It needs line of sight, but I can keep him safely behind my squad line (not right at the back of the map) and pick off the most dangerous threats. With a clear line of sight and his upcoming laser sniper rifle, he can deal up to about 13 points of damage.

 

One of the higher up sniper skills even allows for two shots (the Double Tap) if you don't move, meaning you can fire two 90% shots with 55% chance of critical hits at things. Cyberdiscs... you can suck it!

 

He even reacts in Oversight to things using Squad Sight... his shot rarely goes first as the person at the front who I've probably got on oversight is more likely, bt McFly's shots can take down almost anyone. I've also got Jack Bruce training up as a sniper, he's doing some good work with a similar setup while McFly gets some Psi testing done. When I get a third sniper, I'll try not using Squad Sight... but it's an awesome thing to have. Colonel McFly is lethal, and having your top guy hiding at the back (or n the roof soon) ready to pick off everything should help ensure he doesn't die... barring Floaters redeploying next to him and causing trouble again after I had some bad troubles with Mutons. Still no idea how he survived that fight!

[Harmor]

I just had an awkward mission with three key guys (two support, one assault) dead - a landed UFO, the size of which could not be determined (I basically thought 'wtf @ satelites' at that point...) turned out to be a killing ground. At the very entrance of it, two sectoid commanders went and mind controlled one of my supports - he ate a panic shot from my by-standing assault trooper and ended up with 5 HP left.

 

Then, a pack of heavy floaters showed up to add to the fun but I ignored them for the time being (they hung back anyways) because I wanted control of that guy back. So it was time for my assault Col. to shine - Ghost armor, run and gun and a point blank shot at the sectoid commander in question indeed returned the guy to my ranks. The heavy floaters were dispatched of but I was now a medipack short. Damn it!

 

We go on into this HUGE UFO and - mutons galore, including two elite muton warriors (first ever encounter). A critically injured guy needs to be revived and another helped from bleeding out and at this point I'm out of medpacks - in the meantime my assault Col. sends a psychic blast to kill a muton, she ghosts again and my snipers (one with plasma rifle) off five mutons in total (in the zone ftw).

 

That leaves the two muton elites - who account for the guys I JUST helped back to life. Oh lovely I think to myself and concentrate fire for a few turns to get rid of elites. That was nasty ... and there's more muton growls from the off.

 

Scouting for them takes a few turns when I finally find a berserker and a regular muton on the rooftop of the UFO - the berserkers panics my sniper who hunkers down and the other reduces the berserker to half HP. Cue Mrs. Colonel assault - run and gun/ghost combo ftw - point blank kill of the muton berserker! The remaining muton is killed by my other sniper and the mission ends...

 

This was the first time I lost three guys on a mission and it was insanely intense - having lost three high ranking soldiers is going to suck down the line. Damn the cramped confines of the UFO - but it was a blast.

 

Not to spoil myself silly here but are there more of these kinda UFOs? It gave me a CRAPLOAD of loot as a bit of a trade-off for the three dead after all...

[Dragonmack]

just had a brutal stretch where I lost 13 guys in 3 missions and failed 2 of them. Plus my two seargents are also in the infirmary for over a week. This is in my classic ironman non diary game. Near end of third month and I will basically have a truckload of rookies and about to lose 3 nations.

[crownsy]

It's amazingly frustratingly awesome how this game can flip the script on you.

 

So last night, I get home from school and decide to do month two of my game. 1st month, as posted, went great. lost 2 guys on the first mission, other than that absolutly smoking every mission. I'm feeling like a hot shit at this point, sure we dont *quite* have carapace armor yet, but I have 2 sats up and for the most part, outside of africa, panic levels are pretty manageable.

 

I have about 9 experienced guys and 3 rooks/squadies im mixing in at this point.

 

Then comes the second mission of the month. Sat in south america picks up a UFO which, I'm told by central is "slightly larger" than the ones we hit last month. we take it down.

 

Here's where it allllll starts to go wrong. "a downed UFO, perfect time to work the rooks in!" says I. "I'll go my experienced sniper (Steve) my support with 3 med packs, and a newish assault trooper and two of the rookies for my squad of 5.

 

We land in Brazil, the UFO is at the end of a long corridor with a ridge off to the left. What little cover thier is is to the right and center. We set Steve-o up in a full cover position on a little bluff, and the three less experienced guys start advancing with the support bringing up the rear. (who is my digital self)

 

Our slow leap frog advance is moving along, no alien contact yet, when off the ridge drop 3 thin men. We get one with a squad sight shot, but in the ensuing fire fight, my assualt trooper who was on that flank gets critical wounded.

 

No problem, says I. with the thin men gone, we'll just pause and regroup. And here comes the fatal mistake. Rather than let one of the two rookies dash across to see if it,s a trap, my little digital self and only 3 med pack support trooper goes to revive and gets clocked with an overwatch shot. On the alien turn, the two hidden floaters move to flank, and murder me. The rest of the team regroups, and we eventualy win out, but we lose a Rookie near the ship and steve, who had to come forward to help the assualt, and the other rookie sustain wounds.

 

Now, that wouldn't have been so bad, but now, 2 days later OF COURSE the first terror mission triggers. with 2 experienced guys laid up from previous missions, the near wipe of the UFO assualt team (three of whom are injured) and 3 replacement hires in transport, all that's left is a hodge podge group of a really experianced heavy, a decent assualt and 2 green supports, plus a squaddie sniper.

 

 

We got eaten alive. Chrystilids humping face everywhere, zombies eating all our ammo, and eventually I say "F this, sorry cairo!" and at least save the heavy and the squaddie sniper.

 

 

End of second month, I get a C and lose another African country. I've gone from dominating the pace of the invasion to playing defense and praying I can recover fast enough. Thank god I didn't get assualted two bad in the first 10-12 days of month 3 and got carapace armor done and laser rifles. We just had a great abduction mission where we survived a floater and first contact muton with zero casualties and 12 aliens bagged and tagged, and a good UFO intercept where we went 8-0.

 

Now if i can get the 2-3 sats im looking for this month up we should be able to stabilize this thing.....

 

 

I haven't had this much fun or been this invested in a game in forever

[Derek B]

I was up against a large UFO last night... took me hours to beat, was 3am when I finally got back to base after a successful mission. I didn't mean to stay up that late.

 

Anywho, had no idea it was going to be so big but had some real problems with getting into the back of the UFO as some Mutons picked off a squaddie (everyone is a Squaddie at least not because of the Officer's Training) before I even made it in thanks to a critical hit. There just wasn't much cover so I had to try to get close enough and position my super sniper Colonel Sean McFly somewhere he could find a shot. Eventually made it in and ran into some more trouble when some thin men disappeared on me... I had a lot of overwatch going on and picked off a lt of aliens with it, but seemed to have lost the Thin Men... lost a Sergeant to a pair of Sectoid Commanders in the front of the ship when said sergrant missed a 90% run and gun on one of them, then got critically wounded as a result. I thought the commanders were the last (I had no medikits left) until I heard a noise coming from behind me somewhere. Took me about 10 turns to find out that the Thin Men had somehow jumped through the ship's ceiling and onto the roof, which I hadn't realised ws climbable, so my sergeant died. Seeing no way up to the roof I sent up McFly in his skeleton suit, only to realise there were ladders. But not before he got shot at by a Thin Man, poisoning him. Some tactical errors ensued as I tried to move McFly forward, only for a hunkered down Thin Man to take him down to 5 health with a reaction shot, with McFly then trying to hide on a spot right next to the Thin Man...

 

.... I thought he was a goner, but the Thin Man hit him for 3 damage, taking McFly to within a point or two of death only for McFly to debut the his psy attack, killing the Thin Man with the power of his mind at point blank range!

 

Of the 6 I went with, I lost 2, had two more injured and got two promotions. I think McFly killed 8 on that mission, taking his tally to something like 17 missions and 54 kills so far. And he's the only person I've got so far with any psionic ability. My research has been flying along really quickly (I'm based in Europe) so I've been going through all the alien autopsies at 2 days each... turns out that alien corpses can be used for various potentially useful items. Had I known that I might not have sold so many of them to fund things for me.

[crownsy]

just went over to the 2k forums, amazed at how many posts are up saying: "this game sucks, I won 80-90% of the missions on classic and lost!!!"

 

Then you read the posts, and they just played a horrid strategic game. One guy defended himself by saying "it's bull, I responded to the top panic level, everytime, and still lost"

 

no kidding, thats the worst thing to do. I don't know about you guys, but I quickly ID three continents, and those are getting ALL my help early game. With abduction missions affecting the whole continent, you can't just react to the top panic one.

 

My picks for are usually 1) what ever one is smart enough to offer me engineers the first abduction. congrats on that continant, you just earned rapid response for life.

 

2) russia & europe

 

3) eaither NA or SA

 

sorry africa and the other odd continent out, your boned.

[Dragonmack]

Africa actually has a good continent bonus for the early game 30% more funding, but yeah, engineers and cash are the two most important things in the early game. You need to have 10 engineers to build that second satellite link, and you need 20 to add that third one, which you want to have before the end of the third month of the game, preferably before the end of the second, but its doubtful you'd have the money to build the facilities, excavate the base to house them, and build the satellites as well, unless you got a couple cash reward missions ( in which case you aren't getting engineers) or just sell every piece of alien stuff you find ( which will damage you in the long run, as you need almost everything for something, except the damaged ufo components and some flavor stuff you find from their base and larger ships.)

 

My basic goals after playing a few games is, 1st month, begin building satellites, excavate areas ( especially any near steam vents as having a thermo generator is huge for power) and unlocking the workstation so that I can get the extra 5 engineers that comes with building it. That way if I don't get any engineers from the missions, I will have 10 I need to build the second satellite uplink for month two. then before the end of the month, launch my second satellite over either the nation closest to max panic, or whoever offers the most cash and extras in scientist or engineers if panic isn't a concern.

 

2nd month - get teh second satellite uplink built, right next to the first, so you get the extra satellite, build two more satellites ( having built two in the first month) so you have a total of 5 by the end of the month and work on getting someone promoted to seargent. ( Sometimes you can get a seargent specialist as a mission reward, but that usually means giving up something else like engineers or cash, which are more important than a lone soldier, even if it does unlock the Officer Training School. But you need cash to build it and get the extra squad member anyways). Then before the end of the month, after you have dealt with the alien missions and the terror mission, and panic is probably raised in several countries, launch the three satellites over the nations to strategically reduce panic and\or get a continent bonus.

 

3rd month- and this is even more important in Classic get 20 engineers before the middle of the month so you can build a third satellite uplink. also get at least a couple satellites built. Money should be less of an issue, although still tight, as you had increased funding from the month before, and probably have some damaged alien equipment to sell ( or a crapload of dead sectoids you can sell off a few of ) You will need those satellites before the end of the month as panic levels will be high on several countries, if not closed to maxxed out, especially if you begin failing any missions as the tougher foes come out. Along with that you really want to have researched and begin building the laser weapons, at least the rifles, and carapace armor as your troops will need the greater protection and damage to deal with the mutons and chrysallids, as well as being able to more easily deal with the numerous floaters and thin men with one hit rather than two to kill them.

 

If you can get to the end of the third month with 8 satellites up, probably at least one extra continent bonus, and laser equipment and carapace armor, you should be in a good position both financially and team wise to advance the story along.

[D-Lyrium]

My basic strategy is usually:

 

- Build base in EU (it's the largest continent in terms of # of countries (well, tied with Asia but their bonus is shite) so you'll need to build less to get the other bonuses. If you start in NA, you have to build one extra satellite to get the EU bonus (4) than vice versa (3)).

 

- Build first satellite in US (most money and arguably best bonus).

 

- Take whichever abduction mission has engineers as a reward, *unless* it happens to be in Asia (sorry Asian dudes). Asia is the dead last place I ever bother with, because there are four countries there and the bonus isn't worth the hassle. I'll still put a satellite there if it's near the end of the month and more than one of them is about to quit the council, but I'll be pissed about it.

 

- Try and get satellites in both remaining North American countries, unless other countries need it desperately. If another country desperately needs the second (in total) satellite and it's not in Asia, go there with sats 3 and 4 too. That way, your fourth satellite is guaranteed to give you a continent bonus, and it may even be your third (if you're successful with SA).

 

- Do not, under any circumstances, let an African nation leave the council. I want their money.

 

That's all I've got worked out so far. I generally try to concentrate on North America and Africa early on. If a continent as a whole is orange (four bars of panic), I'll take an abduction mission there if one comes along - even if it's Asia. Otherwise I'll stick to NA/Africa until they're both completely covered satellite wise.

 

Oh, and after my first experience with the base assault, I don't research the Outsider Shard until I've got Carapace Armour and the Light Plasma Rifle, and one Assault, Sniper and Support at Lieutenant or higher. Some missions, I don't even bother with a Heavy at all. They seem a bit limited - relative to other classes - at the higher ranks. Once you've got Rapid Reaction at Lieutenant, the rest is kinda 'meh'.

 

Of all the classes, I usually try to level up Support first. Because Close Combat Specialist is niiiice, especially when you're facing Crysallids and Berzerkers.

[Derek B]

Son of a mother...!!!

 

My save has somehow become corrupted so my game is now deaded. I have no idea what could possibly have gone wrong. I was midmission against my second fairly large UFO abduction mission and was about to maul some Mutons and a Berserker at the entrance to it... I saved and exited normally and now the game is being mean to me.

 

Now to make a tough decision... do I step up the difficulty to classic or do I start over again on Normal? I'll keep playing Iron Man either way as I'm terrible at remembering to save and it's probably best that I do Iron Man for that reason, but I'm not sure I'm ready to step up the difficulty yet. But since everyone else is, perhaps I should too?

[crownsy]

Son of a mother...!!!

 

My save has somehow become corrupted so my game is now deaded. I have no idea what could possibly have gone wrong. I was midmission against my second fairly large UFO abduction mission and was about to maul some Mutons and a Berserker at the entrance to it... I saved and exited normally and now the game is being mean to me.

 

Now to make a tough decision... do I step up the difficulty to classic or do I start over again on Normal? I'll keep playing Iron Man either way as I'm terrible at remembering to save and it's probably best that I do Iron Man for that reason, but I'm not sure I'm ready to step up the difficulty yet. But since everyone else is, perhaps I should too?

 

 

one thing some people have done to according to the 2k forums to kinda give them selves "classic light" for a first playthrough is start the game on normal, thus avoiding the World panic bump up and health penilties to your inital squad, then swap the difficully to classic as soon as the game starts.

 

Gives you a little more leeway on panic in those early months, which can be absolutly brutal on classic since the aliens are just so much better stat and tech wise than your guys.

[GruntMark]

I dont know if its been mentioned, but Voice 2 for females is almost certainly Kimberly Brooks (Ashley Williams of Mass Effect fame).

 

Ive switched most of my females to it. Gives me alittle extra confidence knowing Ash is help ing me save the world from aliens. Again. -

[GruntMark]

So, on my second real Classic Ironman game.

 

Had to take a very difficult abduction mission in Australia, otherwise it and India would hit PANIC levels.

 

Grab most of the A team (subbing out my best soldier, an assualt for a squadie assualt to carry the arc thrower.) Two heavies, two assualts, a sniper and support for medic.

 

Get landed. Its the convenience store. Small map for a very difficult mission. We sneak up close enough to the windows on the south end to see that half of the store and spot two floaters. We ice the first one with overwatch. Use suppression to get my lowbie assualt close enough to zap the other. Captured!

 

I scoot that assualt around. Mutons.

 

9 mutons.

 

MutonFest 2015 has apparently been scheduled for the back of this store. Or maybe they are picking up Dorito's and Red Bull on their way to MutonFest 2015.

 

I have both heavies rain missiles in. Smoke goes out. Gun fire is exchanged. My sniper and one heavy limp out back where the support has set up a triage area. Inside my better assualt guy bounces a grenade off a box of Cheerios and blows up muton #4. (Three others having succumbed to rocket based death.)

 

Newly healed heavy runs around the side. Next turn he catches two full health mutons hiding behind a truck. Fire my last rocket and the whole thing explodes in firey awesome.

 

Back indoors two mutons have disappeared. The final one is exchanging fire with a heavy and the two assualts. My support is flanking around the back of the building and my sniper has found the furthest corner he can and is picking away with squad site. Finally an assualt scores the killing blow and we advance.

 

Run a guy up with lightening reflexes. Both Mutons are huddled in the last aisle, in a tender embrace. Reflexes get him through the first overwatch and luck the second. He backpeddles and takes up flanking position. The first shot wounds the muton pretty badly, but everyone else misses.

 

The first muton tries to kill him and misses, blasting out the back wall. Exactly where my medic was standing. The second muton lights up the medic, so he retreats behind a dumpster to heal up.

 

Next turn everyone gets back in the action ,including the medic. We kill one muton, but no one can land enough shots to kill the last one. On his turn he chunks a grenade onto my assualt and medic. Poor, poor medic is barely standing again.

 

Then...the lowbie assualt...he's finally made his way into range. He charges the last few feet and ZAP. Capture #2!

 

We used about every consumable and trick we had. Five injured, including my only decent support. Only guy who came out unhurt was the squaddie assualt. And because he failed to actually kill anyone, he wasn't even promoted for his effort.

 

Because thats XCom!

[D-Lyrium]

I think you still get XP for zapping aliens. I'm pretty sure one of my squaddie assaults (because let's face it, rookies and squaddie assaults are the only real candidates for Arc Throwers) did once.

 

Oh, and Squad Sight, huh? Pretty badass isn't it. ¬_¬¬_¬¬_¬

 

It turns out that when you use it right, it's actually awesome.

 

Oh, and another fun fact; if you get lucky enough to kill a Thin Man while he's still standing next to other Thin Men, the poison cloud will poison the others. ¬_¬ You'd think they'd be immune to their own poison, but nope...

 

Edit: Hooooly crap, talk about tense.

lo

So, it's an alien abduction mission, but a Very Difficult one. Turns out to be first contact with Cyberdiscs. My best sniper (the guy who taught me the value of squadsight) gets taken out early, I lose the rookie and two squaddies too but they take at least one alien each with them. This leaves Lieutenant 'HeavyWeaponsGuy' Igor Morozov (re-nicknamed by me because he's Ukrainian and looks like the HWG from TF2). He proceeds to shit himself (a Muton panicked him), but then go on a murderous rampage and take out ELEVEN guys (including the cyberdisc) by himself from on top of a building.

 

I had hoped I could just overwatch on top of the stairs and kill them all (all mutons at this point) as they came up, but they never bothered, so I had to go to the edge of the building, fire, hope not to get killed, then run back inside and reload next turn. Bullet Swarm + Quick Reaction (or whatever... the one where you can have another reaction shot if your first one hits) FTW.

 

Even though, in one mission, I lost the same number of guys I've lost all game so far, I didn't lose all that much considering their respective ranks. All my top guys (except Igor) stayed at home.

[GruntMark]

It must be a lower amount then. I thought I was going to come home to a line of tasty promotions.

 

Instead the only guy who got promoted was the heavy who fired the second rocket that killed the first 3 mutons.

[VBigB]

Yep, squadsight is awesome. My first sniper always gets it, but I usually have multiple builds of each class.

 

My current classic Ironman game is going fairly well. I actually started my base in Africa to get the 30% cash bonus and it actually really helped. Unfortunately I did mess up and forgot to put an interceptor in North America. My US satallite got shot down and the country is in panic. They haven't left the council yet and I will have a replacement satellite by the end of the month so I'll see how that all pans out. I have 4 other satellites still up (1 in africa, 3 in asia) and no countries have left the council so I'm hoping I will recover.

 

Most missions have gone fairly well. Lots of injuries but only 3 deaths. I quit right at the start of a very difficult abduction mission last night so I have something to look forward to. The first terror mission on this playthrough was extremely easy for once.

 

Now to make a tough decision... do I step up the difficulty to classic or do I start over again on Normal? I'll keep playing Iron Man either way as I'm terrible at remembering to save and it's probably best that I do Iron Man for that reason, but I'm not sure I'm ready to step up the difficulty yet. But since everyone else is, perhaps I should too?

 

Personnally what I found is that playing on normal taught me some bad habits that I had to train myself out of when I hit Classic. On normal I could take certain risks which in classic mean almost certain death.

 

I see someone has started a faq on gamefaqs. According to it here is a breakdown of the difficulty levels. I can't confirm the accuracy of this information. Having read through this, I actually wish there was one more difficulty between Normal and Classic (where the AI was unshackled, number of enemies wasn't restricted but the bonuses (Aim,damage,crit) were removed).

 

---------------------------------

[2.1.0] Difficulty Levels [2.1.0]

---------------------------------

 

So you've seen the four levels, but want more than a simple blurb as to what is different? No problem! The difficulty levels actually vary quite a bit about

the game. For all the things I'll list them in the format of Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible.

 

Funding: Your monthly funding is 150%/100%/100%/100% of normal.

 

Soldier starting HP: 6/5/4/3 (plus one more from armor).

 

Enemy AI: On levels under classic, it is shackled and is not as smart as it can

be.

 

Max aliens active at once: 5/5/Unlimited/Unlimited.

 

Enemy damage bonus: It varies per critter and is as follows:

Thin man: -2/-2/0/0

Chryssalid: 0/0/2/2

Chryssalid Zombie: 0/0/2/4

Muton Berzerker: 0/0/1/3

 

Enemy aim bonus: 0/0/10/10 except for Outsiders who are 0/0/10/20 and melee units which don't get any (since it isn't relevant).

 

Enemy crit bonus: 0/0/10/10 except for Uber Etherials who are 0/0/10/20

 

Enemy HP bonus: Varies a lot per critter but is 0 for Easy and Normal, 2-4 for

Classic and about half the enemies have it, and 1-5 for Impossible and all the

enemies have it.

 

How many engineers and scientists regions give you per month per satellite. On Classic and Impossible they are half what you get on Easy and Normal.

 

So turning up difficulty increases quite a bit, but the real big divide is

Easy/Normal and Classic/Impossible. There is a BIG jump from Normal to Classic. Classic is fun, it is tense, but it can be very hard and frustrating. If you aren't sure, give Normal a try if you are a turn based strategy player, Easy if not. I'd save Classic for a second play through.

[D-Lyrium]

Yeah, they really really should put in a level between Normal and Classic. The RNG from Normal, with the unshackled AI and number of aliens from Classic. Just about everyone I've spoken to, including others in this thread, have said that. So hopefully Firaxis will listen and add it in a patch.

 

Also, free bit of advice, you can't stun Cyberdiscs. ¬_¬ RIP brave Rookie Baloyi.

 

I rushed up a squaddie to stun the 'disc (he dashed to cover near enough to it so that he could move and stun next turn), and in the enemy turn between him dashing and him having the opportunity to stun it, Baloyi was killed by it (it was on 1hp, and she had a 90% shot on it, but I opted to hunker down instead and the disc lobbed a grenade at her and a squaddie next to her. The squaddie survived because she was on full health, Baloyi wasn't. ).

[Ranson]

So...first terror mission.

 

That kinda sucked.

[GruntMark]

So...first terror mission.

 

That kinda sucked.

 

Ive done the first terror mission on classic 3 times now.

 

1st and 3rd with starter weapons and armor and five guys. Made it through fine with careful movement and overwatch.

 

Try 2? Lasers and five guys. Butchered by turn four.

 

Sometimes its you. Sometimes...its just the map and damn bad luck.

 

So maybe it wasnt you!

[VBigB]

I just had the worst string of bad luck. I just wiped 3 missions in a row. Pretty much game over. Everyone got hit with a critical hits. My heavy who had carapace and the vest had all her hp except one eaten up in a single shot....ouch.

 

Oh well time to start over and try again.

[D-Lyrium]

Ive done the first terror mission on classic 3 times now.

 

1st and 3rd with starter weapons and armor and five guys. Made it through fine with careful movement and overwatch.

 

Try 2? Lasers and five guys. Butchered by turn four.

 

Sometimes its you. Sometimes...its just the map and damn bad luck.

 

So maybe it wasnt you!

 

 

Yeah, there are definitely some maps that are better than others.

 

Also, the distribution of enemies. My last terror mission (the third of this save) had basically all the enemies spawn on me at once. At least 7 Crysalids, a Cyberdisc with 3 drones, and 3 Floaters. That was tense as hell (especially since a Crysalid stopped one square in front of my guy, and had run out of movement. That happened twice. TO THE SAME GUY. He must have a hotline to God or something). My only casualty turned out to be a rookie because I decided it was better for her to shoot at and kill the Cyberdisc than run away from the burning car. Turns out I was right. ¬_¬ [/HeartlessDick]

 

I was convinced that there were even more aliens hiding somewhere so every hitpoint of damage I suffered scared the hell out of me. Turned out that when I cleared up the few zombies, it was all over.

 

The other bonus to that was, since they all spawned so close to my squad, hardly any civvies were killed. Yay for panic reduction.

 

Also, I tend to be far more gung-ho when there are fewer enemies on screen at once, so I tend to take more damage than strictly necessary and thus make life harder for myself as the mission progresses. Whereas when there are 7 Crysalids, some zombies and a Cyberdisc in play simultaneously I tend to pay attention more and think about things.

[GruntMark]

That was tense as hell (especially since a Crysalid stopped one square in front of my guy, and had run out of movement. That happened twice. TO THE SAME GUY. He must have a hotline to God or something). .

 

Not to one up you, but I ran the second terror mission of this run tonight. And it happened twice. To the same guy. On the same turn. Hah! And there was another one about four squares away.

 

That was a VERY tense turn as we had to make every shot count.

 

The mission actually went well overall. Bagged an even dozen crysalids and two cyberdiscs. Suffered two injuries, when a couple of soldiers were caught by one of the disc grenades and each lost some health. Nothing big.

 

What was frustrating was my supposingly ace sniper flailing about wildly and only landing about one in four shots. Just...so disappointing. The medic was out killing him.

[GruntMark]

That one Squaddie who was the only uninjured guy in that blood bath?

 

The only fatality in June.

 

Thats XCOM!

[Derek B]

I've started a new gew game on Normal Ironman again... decided I want to play through on that before I up the ante properly. Have set up shop in Asia having skipped the tutorial, I'm looking to spend a lot of money as soon as possible on getting all the Officer's School upgrades, which in turn should make the missions so much easier which will make everything else fall into place... hopefully.

 

Still naming everyone after Cornellverse characters I'm colour coding people by class this time. Support is in white, Assault in red, Snipers in green and Heavy in orange... rookies don't get colours. Strangely almost every recruit I started with is female, so I accidentally earned the "Ride of the Valkyries" achievement for completeing a mission with only women. Didn't mean to, I only had two dudes on my starting roster (who are RK Hayes and Gianfranco Morelli based on their appearance/nationality) and one of them got injured in my first mission.

 

I also failed a mission for the first time, the first VIP mission. I was moving towards the end gate and a Thin Man appeared on top of a building, leaving about 3 people completely exposed. My sniper was heading up there and had hoped to distract him with a pistol shot to the back of the head, but Thin Man hit the VIP for 4 damage and killed him, leaving my squad to obliterate him the next turn. I was not pleased, I wanted the money for that mission to fund my expansion.

 

But things going well so far... have a satellite over Russia so I can work towards some fast research, hoping to clear all of Europe in no time and then stay ahead of the alien development curve. Hopefully without losing any nations in the process, but I'm already suffering in North America and wondering how long it'll be before I have to do a base mission when it pops up.

[Dragonmack]

Getting excellent across the board on the terror mission can help with panic too, although not as much as the base mission does. But really, as long as you can launch a satellite before months end over a nation with 5 panic, you can keep nations around. In my first game on Normal, I went 5 months in, and actually only had a handful of satellites up ( not really knowing that maximising those is the prime strategy at the time) and I hadn't lost a country yet.

 

Now on Classic, its a lot harder to do that as you will end up with more nations at max panic at the same time.

[Harmor]

Since I finished a campaign already my next one will be prolly 'less' serious because I plan to use the special characters (the known ones at this point at least) and see if I can let them survive til the end...