X-COM: Enemy Unknown

[Danimal]

I don't think the tutorial hurts you at all, but I do think you'll almost inevitably lose a country or two because you allocate resources to something other than building a couple of satellites early, which can really help keep a country from defecting due to panic.

The tutorial cuts out some of your starting base placements unless they patched it. I forget which bases comes with the OCS but that wasn't available in the tutorial when I went through it.

[Brando70]

Decided to attempt an Impossible Ironman run. They are not kidding about the Impossible part. Classic level is forgiving compared to this. Gotta use full cover and flanking or the body bags really pile up. I got wiped out on my first four tries on the opening mission.

[tmdba37]

Just a quick question, how many squad members do people generally lose in the first couple of months. . .I think my KIA roll call is about 8-10 deep at the moment (playing on classic).

I do have to say this was easily the best $25 spent on gaming all year (thanks to Walmart and their crazy Black Friday (Thursday Night) Pricing)

[Brando70]

Just a quick question, how many squad members do people generally lose in the first couple of months. . .I think my KIA roll call is about 8-10 deep at the moment (playing on classic).

I do have to say this was easily the best $25 spent on gaming all year (thanks to Walmart and their crazy Black Friday (Thursday Night) Pricing)

I lost a lot. Double-digits I think. A lot of rookies, squaddies, and lieutenants. Only a handful of high ranked soldiers--couple of colonels, majors, and captains, and I think half of those were on one mission.

I love this game. One of my favorites of this generation. I am even having fun just trying to get started with an Impossible Ironman run -- I keep getting waxed in the opening mission.

[webdanzer]

Beaglerush's "Ironman Impossible" video series is quite entertaining and instructive if you're masochistic enough to go the I-I route.

Good stuff.

Here is #1:

[Brando70]

Yeah, he knows his stuff. I'm bad at falling back to avoid being flanked.

I managed to finally get through the first mission in I/I, but lost one guy who had two kills, have another who was promoted but gravely wounded for 9 days, and a third who didn't get a kill so didn't get promoted. I did get one sniper so I will be doing a lot of overwatch trapping in my next mission.

[Brando70]

I thought I was finally going to break through on Impossible Ironman when I had an escort mission with an assault, sniper, and two rookies. My assault was down to 2 HPs, but otherwise things were going well. A Thin Man dropped out of the sky on my squad. A rookie hit with an assault shot, taking the TM to 3 HPs. Easy peasy for the assault to get point blank with 100% shotgun blast. Except right after I moved next to the TM, I realized I was in the poison cloud radius if I killed him. I didn't have any choice at that point, so I blow him into a noxious cloud. However, the assault panics after getting poisoned and gives the rookie a face full of shot, then dies from poisoning two turns later.

My other rook and the sniper managed to get within sight of the rescue zone. The rook got killed on an overwatch shot, but the sniper was mopping up aliens left and right. I got the civilian to the zone, but then was told to mop up the last two Thin Men. I was in a close quarters situation and after missing a high % shot, got flanked and killed.

[webdanzer]

Here's a post to jinx myself if ever I made one:

Through a full game on Normal and an approximately 75% done one on classic, I have NEVER had a guy panic and shoot a squadmate.

Never.

I've had to deal with a few that were mind controlled, and sure, certainly a lot of guys did panic, but mostly they just run away and cower when it happens to me, though there have also been some sweet panic enemy kills as well.

[TCrouch]

That sucks, Brando. I'll continue to play on my easy-peasy normal mode where I can win

[Brando70]

I'm actually digging the challenge even though I have started over a dozen times. This is one of those games where I just love the individual missions.

I really want to give Ironman a go, but I'm also greedy for the Impossible achievement as well. I think the hard part is just getting through the first month with a few squaddies so you can start building your guys. Getting a Heavy with a rocket and a Sniper makes a huge difference in difficulty. I think if I could get to a heavy with Bullet Swarm, a Squad Sight sniper, and a support with the Field Medic ability, I could get a foothold on the game.

The biggest bummer is that line of sight is very wonky. I have had games that were going great get undone by a sectoid shooting a soldier who was behind full cover and looked to be completely out of sight.

[Brando70]

Had to share this tidbit. Still trying Impossible/Ironman, and still have yet to last more than three missions before starting over. However, had an interesting beginning to one game. Survived the first mission and got a sniper and heavy, but both were wounded for a few days. The first abduction triggered in just a couple days, meaning I had to tackle a 4-on-12 with all rookies. However, I figured if just two could survive, I'd have a full squad afterward. I gave it a go.

We landed in the trainyard, one of the easiest maps because of all the cover and trapping opportunities. Mopped up six sectoids with no problem, but then had a soldier crit-hitted behind a pod while flanking and lost another after I triggered an overwatch where I thought I was in the clear. That left six Sectoids against two rookies, one of whom had 1HP.

Thanks to some smart cover choices, patience, and movement, I managed to lure one Sectoid for an easy kill, and won a gun battle with another after I connected on my fourth 50% shot to kill him. The last four were a mind-meld tandem. I moved my squad into a 65% shot on the melder and quickly returned it to even odds. Even better, I could see the other pair because of the purple trail. The controller was behind a pod, the controlled Sectoid appeared behind a train car.

I moved my two soldiers to non-visible cover on the other side of the train car where the controlled Sectoid was. The plan was to move to the full cover spot adjacent to the open door with my 4HP soldier. I could scope out the exact position, hopefully hunker down, and let the controlled Sectoid on the other side of the car take a shot that, even if it hit, probably wouldn't kill. This would get him out of overwatch and set up the winning flank on the melder.

The surprise of the day was when I saw the controlled Sectoid was IN the railroad car, not on the other side. The good news is that I had a 98% shot. The bad news is that he had 5HP due to the meld, so I couldn't kill him in one go. I had used one movement point to get next to the opening, too. So, my options were:

a) Stick with the hunker plan. With the Sectoid only two tiles away, though, I felt less certain. Would he just take two steps and flank? Would the point-blank increase the chance of a 4HP hit? And if the Sectoid advanced and killed the 4HP soldier, the 1HP wouldn't be able to kill him in one shot.
b) Pull the 4HP soldier back to cover and overwatch with the 1HP soldier. Again, though, I would be screwed if the 5HP advanced on us because I wouldn't be able to kill him before he got an easy shot. Also, with the train layout, I wouldn't be able to get the 4HP soldier back to full cover without the possibility of flanking.
c) Move the 1HP soldier into position for a 25% shot on the melder and a double kill. Risky because, if I missed, there was no question the 4HP would bite it and I'd have two aliens on one 1HP soldier.
d) Shoot with the 4HP soldier, put the 1HP on overwatch, and hope that the Sectoid didn't kill the 4HP or, even better, advanced out of the car for a flank and into an easy overwatch. This seemed unlikely, and the critical hit % at that range for the Sectoid had to be sky high.
e) Shoot with the 4HP soldier, and move the 1HP soldier for the follow-up. The trouble here was the overwatch and the 1HP issue. There was no way to move him where he could shoot and not trigger the overwatch.

I settled on e -- didn't want to give up my shot and if the alien missed, I would win. Of course, the alien killed the 1HP guy with the overwatch, and then moved one tile to deliver a point-blank dose of plasma bukkake to my other soldier.

Frustrating as hell, but again, what also makes this game great. In retrospect, the move I should have done was put the 1HP guy in place to verify that the controlled Sectoid was not in the train car. The things you learn after you have a smoking hole in your head....

[pk500]

Can't wait to open this game on Christmas and play it.

Crazy thing is, both X-COM and Dishonored are sitting on my wife's desk in our room. She agreed to let me buy them for myself as Christmas presents on Black Friday at $25 each at Wal-Mart, with one condition: She could wrap them and give them to me Christmas morning. Deal!

Yeah, we're weird like that.

[MizzouRah]

Can't wait to open this game on Christmas and play it.

Crazy thing is, both X-COM and Dishonored are sitting on my wife's desk in our room. She agreed to let me buy them for myself as Christmas presents on Black Friday at $25 each at Wal-Mart, with one condition: She could wrap them and give them to me Christmas morning. Deal!

Yeah, we're weird like that.

Not weird at all. I have Far Cry 3 sitting here wrapped up.

[pk500]

Can't wait to open this game on Christmas and play it.

Crazy thing is, both X-COM and Dishonored are sitting on my wife's desk in our room. She agreed to let me buy them for myself as Christmas presents on Black Friday at $25 each at Wal-Mart, with one condition: She could wrap them and give them to me Christmas morning. Deal!

Yeah, we're weird like that.

Not weird at all. I have Far Cry 3 sitting here wrapped up.

My two games are unwrapped. Just sitting there. Tempting me. Taunting me.

[Jimmydeicide]

yeh thats cool and its even better when you forget about them and then its like a suprise anyway xmas morn.

[Diablo25]

I didn't play this game but you guys seemed to love it...Looks like it is coming to iOS devices this summer.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/23/413700 ... ad-firaxis

[LAking]

I didn't play this game but you guys seemed to love it...Looks like it is coming to iOS devices this summer.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/23/413700 ... ad-firaxis

I think this games should lend itself very well to a portable touch device. I like the idea of playing it when i have time to kill on the go opposed to just playing it during my valuable free time at home.

[dbdynsty25]

I've got a free copy of X-COM for the PC via Steam for pre-ordering Bioshock...if anyone wants it, hit me up on PM. First to PM gets it.

[Brando70]

I started playing this again in a masochistic attempt to beat it on Ironman Impossible. The results have been predictably brutal, but I find the challenge kind of addicting. Anyway, had to share a classic XCOM beat down.

After a great first mission in which all my squad survived and got promoted, I drew my first abduction mission at the high rise construction map. It was a Very Difficult mission, meaning 12 baddies, a rough draw for one of the smallest maps in the game. I had a sniper, assault, and support, with one rookie in for my injured heavy.

I knew I was screwed when my second move drew contact with three aliens before we could get to full cover. The first alien move killed the rookie (and cost us a grenade) while my hunkered down sniper lost two points. Still, I used some aggressive flanking and grenade work to get out of the jam.

The support would get killed on one of those ridiculous cross-map shots where the alien didn't seem to have a line of sight, but I still managed to get it down to five aliens left vs. a full assault and my wounded sniper. The sniper got in perfect position for a kill on one--only in his sight, 70% chance with the shotgun. He missed. The alien amazingly missed him, but blew up his wall cover. That revealed the last three aliens we didn't trigger, and because it was the end of my move, they got both their free move and the first shot.

I really, really love/hate this game.

[MizzouRah]

I've got a free copy of X-COM for the PC via Steam for pre-ordering Bioshock...if anyone wants it, hit me up on PM. First to PM gets it.

I'm assuming this is gone?

[LAking]

I've got a free copy of X-COM for the PC via Steam for pre-ordering Bioshock...if anyone wants it, hit me up on PM. First to PM gets it.

I'm assuming this is gone?

I still have mine if you want it.

[MizzouRah]

I've got a free copy of X-COM for the PC via Steam for pre-ordering Bioshock...if anyone wants it, hit me up on PM. First to PM gets it.

I'm assuming this is gone?

I still have mine if you want it.

Yes please.. I'll IM you.

Thanks!

[MizzouRah]

I still have mine if you want it.

Thank you very much, this game is awesome!

[LAking]

I still have mine if you want it.

Thank you very much, this game is awesome!

Glad I could give the game to someone who will enjoy it.

[Naples39]

This is now on iOS for $20. Supposedly a well done, full port.