Pissed about an X-Com FPS? Firaxis hears ya...

[Quinton]

The first base assault stomped on my nuts. I tried to ironman past it, but the game quickly went to shit. Losing a whole squad to that base put me so far behind.
So I reloaded and moved one. square. at. a. time. to make sure my squad could support each other, and be on overwatch. Only lost one trooper to the Sectoid leader's mind control, and had to put him down.

Yeah, that base assault mission was one place where everything went sideways and I backed up and handled some ufos and abductions and let the squad rest up before going after it.

[apocrypha]

Just lost my best Support character by stupidly over-extending in an attempt to capture a Chrysalid.

Turns out they can't be captured and I should have just killed the fucking thing. Ah well, she gave her life to further our collective knowledge.

[lamaros]

I have to say, the 'strategy' part of the strategy layer is pretty underwhelming. There are very few real choices to make, especially on impossible. Even if you play the tactical level flawlessly you very quickly stuff up your game by doing the wrong thing.

[Shannow]

Trucking along on Normal. My memorial has like 15 people on it, lost two countries, but things are under control now. 

I'm finding normal difficult enough. My memorial has 20 on it or so with a couple of Captain's and LTs on it (godamnit). Oh and screw you game for giving me a terror mission 3 days after I just had to take down a landed scout with 9 mutons on it. 50% casualties are completely acceptable....:P

Their any tech or OTS where I can have a 6 squad PLUS a tank? I miss my tanks. (Rocket Launcher tank was a weak squads saving grace in the original)

[Zetor]

I started on normal too - so far so good. Lost two countries (screw you canada/uk, I never needed you anyway  ) in the first few months due to not knowing htf satellites are supposed to work. After doing the alien base mission, everyone's panic fell down to 1 or 2, which was pretty nice.

My only peeve is that there's no way to auto-unequip people not in the current mission on the launch screen - since I try to rotate in a rookie for every 'normal' mission, having to take the skeleton armor and plasma gun off the dude being replaced is a hassle.


e: also, I run with two heavies (2 rockets + grenade each), which is just   against clumps of mutons and other annoying high-hp things that like to take cover, especially since the rocket will likely not kill them by itself, so I can still get their corpses / fragments. Heck, even on the last terror mission I could go crazy with rockets since the crysalids turned the library into a zombie movie anyway (dash or no dash)

[Sparky]

Once you've played through once with vanilla I highly recommend trying with one of the mods that enable terror and abduction UFOs on the map, such as:

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/5

It completely changes the strategic layer.  You've now got a desperate fight to survive on the ground and in the air which feels less arbitrary.  If you can keep shooting down the UFOs you're rewarded with much less panic and loads of sweet items but you'll really struggle early on.  Crap planes and weapons aren't really up for the job so you get a double whammy of panic with unmolested UFOs and abductions.

[lamaros]

Yeah, heavies are   sometimes. Most memorable mission for me so far was on the graveyard/crypt map, with the big open spaces. I had a few guys out injured, so I had to roll with three heavies in my six man team. It turned out to be a godsend as the map opened up with 4 bunches of units on the first turn. Floaters, then Then Men, then a group of Mutons, and then either more Thin Men or Sectiods (can't recall exactly). It was impossible difficulty, so I thought I was boned for sure - half my screen was red with the alien heads.

Then I let fly with the rockets, which cleared out half the units and nearly all the cover, and my sniper and assault took out a couple more. Even a few could have ruined things still, so I laid down and my support smoke (with the extra defense perk), and made it through to my second turn. The second turn was a full sweep, bullet storm & holo-targeting rounding out the overall contribution from the Heavies. Turned one of the biggest "oh shit!" moments into my most satisfying win.

There have been moments when each class has saved the day for me, from the sniper clutch criticals from half the map away, to heavy's rockets, support smoke (seriously considering going double smoke on my next one), and of course the assault run and gun charge.

It is a real same that the variety of ways you can build a unit is so heavily curtailed by NOT KNOWING WHAT MAP YOU'RE ON BEFORE YOU SELECT YOUR TEAM, though. It makes picking a team a "best all rounders" affair far too often. Hopefully someone can mod that in.

[Sparky]

Also snipers with squad sight really come into their own with Classic.  First play through on normal I didn't really understand what the fuss was about, just preferred to run & gun everywhere with assaults.  But having a squad sight sniper to cover my advance has saved my ass numerous times on Classic.  Can't wait to get

[Amaron]

Have any of you figured a good way to get snipers past squadie?  They really seem to suck without squad sight or snap shot.

[lamaros]

Have any of you figured a good way to get snipers past squadie?  They really seem to suck without squad sight or snap shot.

Never get snap shot. I don't know why you ever would.

Levelling them depends on your difficulty. You can feed them kills pretty easy on every difficulty up to classic. Set up some snipes by waiting for the enemy to come to you. Blow up cover if they're not getting high percentage shots.

On impossible you can't feed kills as easily, though you will be getting a few grenade kills early and here snipers are as good as anyone. Plus snipers can finish off enemies with a pistol after they have been grenaded. Dont try too hard to set up ranged kills, you will hamstring yourself.

[Arthur_Parker]

So fairly new to Steam, does it automatically update this game or what?  How do I tell if I have the new patch installed?

[Sparky]

So fairly new to Steam, does it automatically update this game or what?  How do I tell if I have the new patch installed?

Steam automatically updates to the latest patch assuming you haven't fiddled with the game's settings in your Steam library and are online.

[Amaron]

Never get snap shot. I don't know why you ever would.

Snap Shot + Movement Armor + In The Zone = Flanking god?   I haven't tried it, but it sounds pretty good.  If you want to bring two snipers, it's probably optimal in fact.

[Arthur_Parker]

So fairly new to Steam, does it automatically update this game or what?  How do I tell if I have the new patch installed?

Steam automatically updates to the latest patch assuming you haven't fiddled with the game's settings in your Steam library and are online.

Ok, it's just odd to me that it's so difficult to confirm it's applied.

[Goumindong]

Never get snap shot. I don't know why you ever would.

Snap Shot + Movement Armor + In The Zone = Flanking god?   I haven't tried it, but it sounds pretty good.  If you want to bring two snipers, it's probably optimal in fact.

No need. In the Zone works against any uncovered aliens, not just flanked aliens [In the Zone Sniper > Chyssalids/flying enemies since they cannot take cover] so you can just ghost into enemy units with your +movement ghost support and nuke them with your flying squad sight sniper from half the map away.

Have any of you figured a good way to get snipers past squadie?  They really seem to suck without squad sight or snap shot.

Grenades and laser/plasma pistols, preferably alien grenades.

Later game, once you get the pistol upgrades, a plasma/laser pistol will be nearly as good as a light plasma rifle especially since your snipers tend to have better aim than other units.

The general solution to terror missions is to "fuck everything up with explosives" so that you have a clean field of fire for incoming zombies/chyssalids. Once you start getting cyberdisks you absolutely need a heavy with heat ammo. I do not believe that losing civilians has any effect on the terror reduction so don't worry about them.

Beyond that, flying units entirely counter Zombies/Chyssalids so that once you get archangel armor and flying SHIV's all you have to worry about is cyberdisks, you can fly above the map and nuke everything else from orbit.

In case you're wondering about my "Chops" I am currently 1 day away from having my hyperwave relay build, 2 days from my first psionics testing being done. I have full satellite coverage and minimum terror except for 2 points on Mexico and Canada and no countries have left. I am 6 days away from getting my first firestorm produced and my interceptors are currently equipped with plasma cannons. I am 6 days from Titan armor [but don't have skeleton or archangel yet] and after i finish i will be getting those or getting plasma rifles (currently using light plasma on pretty much everyone).

This is on classic difficulty. My only mistakes were that it took me too long to get my OTS and Foundry up and running so I do not have SHIV's yet(will be skipping right to flying), nor did i have expanded squad bonuses for the majority of the game which would have been very helpful.

It is July 24th, 2015. I feel like i could probably finish the game before September, or under 120 days.

I have saved/reloaded two times, both on basically bullshit terror missions though i am saving a lot since non-ironman doesn't auto save for you.

My current save file
http://www.mediafire.com/?b20z42ci7i3d9a2

[Miasma]

Sounds like a frustrating game.  Does the fun out weigh it?  I hate being frustrated and I am the type of guy who will reload until I save everyone on a map...  I do not like the idea of not rescuing abductees.

[Goumindong]

Sounds like a frustrating game.  Does the fun out weigh it?  I hate being frustrated and I am the type of guy who will reload until I save everyone on a map...  I do not like the idea of not rescuing abductees.

If you learn to fight the urge to reload you will have more fun.

Also something I forgot to mention. Once you get "iron will" the recruits that you get from missions end up a lot stronger than your regular recruits. So once you have enough engineers or money its probably best to take them.

For instance i just picked up an assault who is a captain... 84 will. My Colonel(two levels above captain) Assault has 69 will.

[Zetor]

My Colonel (max rank) assault that I had from day 1 turned from MVP to liability once I started encountering muton berzerkers / sectoid commanders and his low will caused him to panic whenever they looked at him funny. Thankfully he only shot the aforementioned berzerkers while panicked, but that won't save him from retirement!

The Iron Will bonus not being retroactive is interesting - it rewards building new squads over having veterans do everything. I imagine this is less of a problem in classic+, as soldier life expectancy isn't that great 

[Amaron]

No need. In the Zone works against any uncovered aliens, not just flanked aliens [In the Zone Sniper > Chyssalids/flying enemies since they cannot take cover] so you can just ghost into enemy units with your +movement ghost support and nuke them with your flying squad sight sniper from half the map away.

But that won't work vs aliens in cover will it?  Or is flanking determined by the person giving squad sight?  That would seem OP.

[Goumindong]

But that won't work vs aliens in cover will it?  Or is flanking determined by the person giving squad sight?  That would seem OP.

No, but squads of aliens don't have cover until they've spotted you [and flying aliens and chyssalids cannot take cover], so if you ghost in with an ally you can squad sight in the zone kill all of them (provided you have the oomph)

At my point in the campaign [only really seeing Mutons, Sectoid Commanders, Berzerkers, Heavy Floaters, Cyberdisks, haven't build plasma sniper rifles yet] in the zone is only really effective at shooting Chyssalids [I had to face 5 at once in my base assault and well, they can't take cover and my sniper was one shotting them... went a lot easier than i thought it would] which they're really effective at, clearing the drones off of cyberdisks which means that even if they cyberdisks survive a turn they don't get healed for 8+ life, and getting free shots after killing a low health enemy. I still think its definitely better than double tap since those situations where you need to down a lot of things at once are the most important.

I also just lost a unit I was going to make into an uber killing machine of Doom. Heavy Squaddie with 51 starting will (I.E. after one level up) and psionic. Took three direct hits from heavy floaters to bring down in combination with a Sectoid Commander landing a panic attack successfully :(

Just fucked up my second impossible playthrough.

Three missions in, no one has died, only one critically injured... but I forgot to build my satellite in time as I forgot about the 5 day launch period. Bleh. Going to have to restart.

The launch period does not effect funding, only whether or not you can intercept UFO's over the country

The Iron Will bonus not being retroactive is interesting - it rewards building new squads over having veterans do everything. I imagine this is less of a problem in classic+, as soldier life expectancy isn't that great  

It can actually be more of a problem since you rely so heavily on your more experienced solders in order to clear missions and their higher total will and aim and hit points and abilities give you a lot of extra punching power.

This is negated somewhat with SHIV's (Flying SHIV's in particular are amazingly good) but is still problematic.

For instance if your sniper dies... Well good luck getting another one to corporal without the long range death dealing of the first one to cover your ass

[lamaros]

Sounds like a frustrating game.  Does the fun out weigh it?  I hate being frustrated and I am the type of guy who will reload until I save everyone on a map...  I do not like the idea of not rescuing abductees.

Much of this will depend on what difficulty you pick and how good you are at it. I have found classic to be lots of fun without being frustrating, while impossible is much more 'argh', though I don't mind a bit of argh sometimes.

[Ingmar]

I think it is only randomly possible to save everyone on Terror maps, Miasma. Most of the time civilians I can't even see yet get nailed on the first AI turn.

[Murgos]

I have to say, the 'strategy' part of the strategy layer is pretty underwhelming. There are very few real choices to make, especially on impossible. Even if you play the tactical level flawlessly you very quickly stuff up your game by doing the wrong thing.

That, uh, sounds pretty strategic to me.

[Zetleft]

Gonna have to restart for the second time, I got way behind on research, my base layout is crap (steam on lowest level too).  I've only lost 2 countrys and I"m in August, even being limited by only lasers I haven't lost anyone but civis on a terror mission, even being rushed by 6 chrys and a zombie... thank god for 2 heavies and a god mode sniper.  I gotta prepare my base layout better on my next try and not start so slow on satellites and research, also need to keep from being crack head broke selling all my shit for cash.   

[koro]

Until this game gets more patches, I think I'm done with Classic Ironman. Too many game-ruining bugs for my taste. Both of my Heavies are bugged and cannot go into cover. Others are starting to run into an increasingly more common bug that prevents sectopods from taking explosive damage. Both undiscovered enemies and my own soldiers can sometimes randomly teleport around the map or, in the case of what happened to one of my soldiers, teleport off the map thanks to buggy Havok collisions, dying instantly. Replicable CTDs when shooting mutons in cover under certain circumstances on certain tilesets

It's a great game and I love it to pieces, but there's just too much shit that can go wrong that is completely out of your hands for me to keep going with a single save.

[Amaron]

Ok I'm lost:

[lamaros]

I have to say, the 'strategy' part of the strategy layer is pretty underwhelming. There are very few real choices to make, especially on impossible. Even if you play the tactical level flawlessly you very quickly stuff up your game by doing the wrong thing.

That, uh, sounds pretty strategic to me.

Not really. There are no choices, there is one right thing any everything else is wrong. It's not a case of "if you go research early you fuck yourself by getting engineers", it is "if you don't go engineers first, then you're fucked. do x, then y, then z. any deviation from this path results in failure." You don't plan and execute a strategy, you just follow one that the game requires.

At least that is what the game feels like at this stage for me.

[Quinton]

I think it is only randomly possible to save everyone on Terror maps, Miasma. Most of the time civilians I can't even see yet get nailed on the first AI turn.

I had some good luck the first time I hit a Terror map and saved 17/18, but since then have generally managed about 50%.  In some of them, if the civilians hadn't distracted the aliens a bit, I would have had a much harder time of it (thank you, panicing civilians, you gave your lives for the greater good).

[Quinton]

Ok I'm lost:

I actually think the trigger here is

[Goumindong]

Ok I'm lost:

[apocrypha]

Had a nasty mission out the back of a pub (memories of nights out in Glasgow), started in the car park so the only cover was cars, and the first move I make reveals 2 muton/beserker groups who promptly bend my guys over the cars and roger them senseless. Restarted that one a couple of times until I managed to avoid the raping a little bit.

Anyway, noticed this inside the pub, between bouts of painful alien bumsex:

[Ratman_tf]

Ok I'm lost:

[Yoru]

Ok I'm lost:

[Goumindong]

Had a nasty mission out the back of a pub (memories of nights out in Glasgow), started in the car park so the only cover was cars, and the first move I make reveals 2 muton/beserker groups who promptly bend my guys over the cars and roger them senseless. Restarted that one a couple of times until I managed to avoid the raping a little bit.

I find that, like the first game, most problems can be solved with liberal amounts of explosives. Enemies of all sorts like to hide behind and beside cars and cars explode when exposed to explosives. And they do a lot of damage.

Really though the way to deal with zerks is to lead them through your field of fire. They always run at the person who shot them, so you can use this to ensure that they never have cover from the next person who is going to shoot at them.

Two at once is a real problem though.

Best Solutions are either Hover SHIV's(which are solutions to a lot of things really) and suppression.

[Samprimary]

Finished classic, moving onto Impossible.

I am punished every time I convert to 2 squadsight over 1 squadsight 1 run-and-gun, but I will try it anyway. It appears better overall for high level play.

I have ceased caring about any assault soldier. I just use them to protect new meat at the cost of their own lives, so I can get more heavies/snipers/supports up in rank.

Best shit in game: two opportunist doubletap snipers, one holotargeting/shredder heavy, one bulletstorm/shredder heavy, two field medic/savior/suppression supports, all with titan armor, all iron-willed from day one.