X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Yeh the best solution should have been only being able to save on the antfarm/campaign map.. tactical maps are tiny in comparision to the original so dont take long at all to redo if u didnt have time to finish etc

 

the only reason I suggest gren spam is to level the solider's quick this is going iron man mode so lets just throw saves out the window it does ruin the game

yeh you lost weapon fragments, and it maybe the cost of recruiting another soldier but I prefer to develop an alpha team, quick, a sniper with double tap is really an invaluable resource

I suppose one would never notice the accuracy system without loading/saving , but it just feels off having my shots predetermined rather than based on a soldiers actual skills

 

Chris' Guide to the XCOM Cover System
Empty Shield = No cover
Half Full Shield = No cover
Full Shield = Enemy is forced to take 2-3 steps to their side, before shooting you like you had no cover.

 

This is an issue with computers in general. There are no true random numbers, just really long numbers where numbers hopefully don't repeat too predictably.

If you have a particular "seed" for the random number generator, you'll always get the same sequence of numbers, so in fact it's actually completely predictable, and you'll experience what you are here when each call to the generator asks for a new number. When you save a game, the current seed is probably saved also (I think they must do this on purpose). If the RNG returns a 95 "for the next shot" only a soldier with 95% hit or above will make a shot connect.

Firaxis fix (or break?) this in their CIV games by letting you select an option to "generate a new random seed on reload". I don't believe this option exists in XCOM, so if you really need to take that shot, you're better off using some weaker soldiers to take the shot first and hope for a better number to beat next time.

EDIT: oops I realized this was mostly answered already. Cake. The game is good fun, and I can't wait to ironman next.

 

Dogthinker's Guide to Chris' play style
Don't cover the flanks = She'll be right mate.
Rely on cover that's perpendicular to the line of battle = Bound to work.



Seriously though, it's all a question of choosing the *right* cover. Will that cover protect you from all directions the enemy might be waiting? No? Then you don't have control of that part of the map yet. Find a way to narrow the angles (i.e. look to the flanks.)

I usually invest a couple of turns getting soldiers around the edges of the maps before I start pushing forwards. As a result I very rarely get flanked (and do a lot more flanking of my own.)

Mmm cake...

That's a good point about helping to level soliders. If I had a squaddie Sniper then it would be a smart move to have him grenade enemy for a guaranteed kill. Levelling a sniper to get Squad Sight is absolutely worth the opportunity cost of the lost salvage. Not so sure about the others, I'd only grenade then if I thought it the risk was high (i.e. multiple aliens in range of soldiers in low cover or worse.)

Your soldiers' performance is based on their skills. Think of the Random Number Generator (RNG) as an endless list of %, like dice rolls. You don't know which entry from that list you're getting before you choose to shoot. Suppose your sniper has an 80% chance to hit. The chance of the next number in the RNG being <= 80% is... Drumroll please... 80%. It's fine. the world only gets screwy if you load from a save, at which point you know about 'destiny' and have all sorts of philosophical issues it's really better not to think too hard about.

 

For anyone that doesn't want to watch the 45 minutes worth of advertising material that pops up when you load the game, move these files out of this directory:

steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XComGame\Movies\

The files:

UE3TechLogo.bik
Logo_2KFiraxis.bik
1080_UE3TechLogo.bik
1080_Logo_2KFiraxis.bik

After that, the game goes straight to the main menu when you load it.

 

If you are playing Iron Man you may run into the (terminal) game bugs on the last mission.

 

This is a habit I had a really hard time breaking in the original. When I started playing this version I felt no inclination to do it at all. I admit I'm not very far through the game yet though!

 

I've played for all of an hour so far, and as an experienced player of UFO: Enemy Unknown and XCOM TFTD, my impressions are:

• One base. ONE BASE? Where are interceptions? What's this "Press scan and pick one mission and one mission only" crap?
• Why does the camera keep going through walls when shooting? And why does it keep tearing me from the overview to first person to watch my soldiers run and hide behind a crate?
• Why do the aliens randomly seem to get an extra turn, typically when I discover their location?
• The mouse camera control is horrible. Subtle movements of the mouse result in it bounding around far past where you wanted to move the camera.
• I shot some aliens in the first one, looked for the missing team in the second, and now in the third I'm looking for a woman who's escaped. Has XCOm been reduced to a series of canned missions? A campaign?
• I researched alien weapons and it said I could build something called a "S.C.O.P.E.". I made 5 things, and then suddenly 5 of them appeared equippable for my soldiers. Have they gutted manufacturing and research too?
• Why are some of the other continents unavailble for base building?
• The animations in the cutscenes are awfully wooden and not even lipsynced

Someone tell me that it's going to get better. Based on what I've seen so far... this is abhorrent. It makes me want to fire up the original and put this in the virtual bin.

 

Your observations are correct; perhaps it's time to start thinking of this as the spiritual successor to Incubation: Time is Running Out, rather than an X-COM sequel, if that's what's blocking your enjoyment of the game.

 

Your still playing the tutorial. Turn off the tutorial option in advanced settings.

Interceptions come later but they aren't as common as the last game.

Best way to think of it is it not the old game with new graphics it is a different game. so play the game for what it is.

Play on classic ironman and it is alot of fun.

Tutorial only lets you pick the USA or Europe.

If you go to options and turn off third person view and action cam it stop those things you don't like in the tatical gam.

Manufacturing some items are instant, engineers are used differently than the last game. It is simpler than the last game, but that's because they stopped the exploit of just making laser rifles and selling them in huge quantities.

I would give the game a go it is alot of fun

 

You deploy interceptors to each continent later. It's still grossly simplified though, yeah. On the other hand, the 'attend one area only' mechanic does force you into making compromises, and compromises are good.

You can disable the camera changes in the options.

It's exactly when you discover their location. It's not a whole turn, it's just a half-movement into cover. It's slightly strange, and is a bit of a problem when you encounter melee units. Arguably it's more playable than randomly getting shot and killed from fog every time you step a unit more than 3 spaces forward, which was a major hazard on high difficulty in the original games

Agreed. It gets particularly messed up when you try to do things on different height levels.

You're in the tutorial. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the original Xcom was also a series of canned missions...

It's the same deal here. Shoot down a ufo? Randomly selected crashed ufo map mission. Find a landed ufo? Randomly selected landed ufo mission. Invade a base? Base mission, etc.

I'd say there's actually a small improvement here, since every now and then a random special mission pops up (escort the vip, disarm the bomb etc.) which inserts a little more variety into the Xcom grind.

It's simplified, yeah... Most small projects are instant. Larger projects take time, run concurrently and aren't limited by your workshop/engineer count. Facility and engineer count are still relevant though, as they effect the overall cost.

I don't like the removal of this limit... On the other hand I do like that the game is no longer reduced to a capitalism simulator, spamming thousands of objects for sale

You're playing with the tutorial enabled. Restart without it and you can build anywhere. You still only get one base though. The location is mainly a question of which continent bonus you want to start with (you get others if you get a satellite up in every country there.)

Old school I can't say I'd even noticed, I was too busy trying to figure out if I liked or hated the gameplay changes.

Finish the tutorial, then restart without it.

It's definitely *not* the same as the original. I will be replaying the original (again) some time soon... But I'm having a lot of fun with this one too. It certainly plays a LOT faster, which is not a bad thing. I wish they'd stuck a little bit closer to the original, but I can at least see the reasoning behind the changes.

This is probably why I'm enjoying the game despite the squad size nerf. I loved Incubation too (enough to grab it off gog and replay it recently )

 

Yeah the camera is bugging me. I've had a couple of inside-UFO missions where I have to fuck around with the camera position just to be able to (maybe) set my guy to go to the right spot on the right level, instead of jumping over that balcony into the middle of the aliens.

Noticed this as well - aliens discover me and get a free shot, I discover aliens and they get a free shot :/

Getting a rocket to go to the right spot sure can be a chore.

That's how the engineering works - most normal stuff appears instantly when you make it, which is handy.

I think when you start a new game sans tutorial you get to pick the base location.

I'm rolling with the punches so far, but unfortunately there do seem to be some pretty big flaws that make the game less enjoyable to play.
Having to still equip arc throwers so I can capture enemy gear is annoying, especially considering what you need for the standard arc thrower to be effective.

It's an alright game, a couple of fixes here and there would go a long way.

 

So completed normal iron man, in the end the squad was so overpowered that things never really even got close.
Squad makeup was 2 snipers, one squad sight, other snapshot, 2 assault, 1 heavy, 1 support. Would consider putting in another support over assault.

2 casualties over the campaign and was due to me grappling to a new area and running into a sectopod. The other was the rookie who replaced him...

 

Just finished the game on normal, surprised it was still a bit of challenge . Few nagging issues like the camera inside ships.

I seemed to always be running short on money, especially having to compromise between taking that mission that would give you money or taking the mission so that a country wouldn't leave.

Spoiler

Final mission I made a bit cheesy, 2 sectopods: 2 heavies, support smoke, no problems! At the final ethereal 'bosses' I simply triggered them and waited at the chokepoint and waited for them to come to me.

 

I just finished on Classic. Not iron man, but I didn't reload unless I lost a man to UI mistakes. For example, I lost 3 colonels(!) in one mission... In retrospect exposing a my best solider to an ethereal, assuming he'd get the kill (I didn't know about

Spoiler

their reflect ability

, was a big mistake. He promptly got mind controlled... A max-level psionic assault colonel armed with a alloy cannon was tricky to cope with, especially since 3 mutons, 2 cyberdisks and a sectopod all showed up to join the party. I thought I had things under control when I disabled his weapon with a sniper round, but he slew one of the other colonels with mindflay instead.

Money was never really an issue, as I managed to get satellites up in every country within the first four months (I built 1-2 uplinks each month.) My gross income was 2k per month at the end.

I'm trying Insane now. The start is a heck of a lot harder - the sectoids get +1 health, which in practice means they take twice as much effort to kill ( grenades don't kill them, and it takes two rifle hits unless you crit.) I had to drastically change my tactics just to clear the initial mission (normally I spread out and slowly 'take over' the map. Instead I had to roam around as a tight knit group, to have enough firepower to kill stuff quickly enough. It makes shotguns a lot more interesting (since they are still guaranteed to kill in one hit.) Panic seems to climb faster too, I doubt I'll get control over every country this time.

 

Just got it last night.

So far it's very enjoyable. I don't miss anything from the original yet.

Is there a way to stop it poping the tooltip and asking you to press 'OK' everytime you want to put a soldier into overwatch?

 

There's a keyboard shortcut, Y, which doesn't ask for confirmation. I don't think there's a menu option to disable that.

Alternatively you can also double tap the key - ie if overwatch is 3, tap 3 twice, and that works for all abilities.

 

Thankyou!

Frustration level lowered...

 

Finished on normal last night after my original iron man classic run hit an unrecoverable bug on the world map.

All round was pretty good fun.

Finished it with a squad of 3 assault, 1 support, 1 heavy, 1 sniper. Normal difficulty is definitely on the easy side, once my squad leveled up they were never really in danger of dieing (perhaps in part because having 3 assault made chrysalid/berserker cheating double moves a non-issue).

I wish:

• There were more interceptions, my planes were largely collecting dust
• The camera didn't skid all over the place and make selecting different levels really hard
• The action hotkeys stayed consistent rather than changing all the time
• The camera would make up its mind whether or not to display rooftops
• The terror mission events were generated by UFOs, so you had a chance to prevent them
• Aliens would move around more, rather than mostly sitting still until you discovered them
• Cover was a bit more logical
• Mission starting locations were randomised (even if the maps couldn't be)

Definitely don't see it having the replay value of the original.