New Version of Xcom

[haphazard1]

Suppression is a useful tool, definitely. But don't count on it too much -- I have had suppressed aliens critical someone in full cover. Suppression helps a lot, but it only reduces the enemy's chance to hit it does not eliminate it.

All of the soldier classes have awesome abilities if you can get your soliders leveled up. Snipers with Squad Sight and Double Tap are fantastic -- I have to resist the urge to kill everything with my Colonel so the other troops can gain experience. Heavies with Suppression and Danger Zone, or Bullet Swarm and HEAT ammo for certain types of enemies, have saved my squad many times. Assaults are great for forcing the enemy to waste overwatch and closing for the kill. Supports of course can save your soldiers medically and can also have Suppression, plus Smoke Grenades and other fun stuff. And don't forget the Suppression Shivs once you get some upgrades online.

My second game at Classic has gotten much farther, and I just ran into my first

muton berserker

That was a nasty surprise. Seems like the game loves to throw one of these curveballs my way every time I start feeling confident. :D

[Jkaen]

See, I never find those a problem at all

I love the fact they step forward after each shot, it means you can drag them around into firing arcs of other soldiers and drop them without risk. That said did have hit me once which really hurt!

At that point in the game I much more fear cyberdisks

[Serdoa]

I do find that spoiler makes a huge difference in the game, and along with increased squad sizes is one of the must does

I think increased squad size is really, really important. More so than most other stuff (except for getting satellites of course). It feels completely different going in with 6 instead of 4 soldiers. And it reduces the risk if one of your soldiers get shot considerably. I had it happen too often that one soldier got shot, another panicked, ran into another bunch of enemies and everything went downhill from there.

Thats also one of the few issues I have with the game. It is too easy at the start to lose a mission, simply because of a few bad dice rolls. Even when you doing everything "right" (everyone behind high cover, not moving too fast forward so you can always overwatch, etc.) you still can easily lose a whole group at the start, simply because they all miss their shots two turns in a row.

Another issue I have is that there is no way to reduce panic except for satellites. Or at least I haven't found one yet. Thats a little bit annoying as it doesn't feel like I lose countries due to my inability to defend them, but because I can't get enough money quickly enough. I finally started now to take mostly the $-missions for abductions, at least at the beginning, because I can build workshops with that as well if I need more engineers.

And that leads to my last issue: You can't build workshops or laboratories without first getting once either additional scientists or engineers. Not certain why that is, it doesn't make much "logical" sense for me (as opposed to the Alien Containment Facility for example, which makes perfect sense to first take research imo). Added to that the requisites mostly everything has on your engineer count it gets really annoying. In my first game, not knowing that, I mostly gone for scientists. Which led to really early research of some stuff - which I then couldn't build at all. Same goes for trying to get several satellites out early - isn't possible without a certain amount of engineers. That railroads certain "decisions", at least at classic.

Though, despite sounding negative, I REALLY have much fun with this game. I've been playing it since Thursday (when I found out how to unlock it early on Steam, despite being in Europe) and I still want to play it - thats pretty rare these days for me, most games I play for some hours and then never look at them again.

[antisocialmunky]

Suppression is a useful tool, definitely. But don't count on it too much -- I have had suppressed aliens critical someone in full cover. Suppression helps a lot, but it only reduces the enemy's chance to hit it does not eliminate it.

It can be the difference between dying to a cyberdisk and not because for some reason it seems like accuracy reduction has more of an effect than doubling defense. My guess is that the to-hit formula does some sort of scaling on accuracy vs distance, this varies for weapons so a -30 could be multiplied internally and be larger than the +40 from full cover hunker. This becomes a huge issue late on

because muton elites seem to be able to reliably hit you behind full cover.

It also seems like every

assault rifle is inferior to the light plasma until you get sufficient levels because hitting stuff is almost infinitely more useful than higher base damage.

My personal favorite combo so far is

light plasma + scope + rapid fire because assaults have really high accuracy.

Another funny thing is that

at maxed promotion levels the alloy cannon becomes a really powerful mid-range rifle that you can replace a plasma rifle with if you have long range support.

[uberfish]

I'm glad they weren't afraid to make a tough resource management game on classic - I had to restart too

It's not like the original Xcom where money is in unlimited supply after the first month from alien weapon sales

[haphazard1]

See, I never find those a problem at all

Well, maybe if I had not also been fighting 5 mutons at the same time it would have been less of an issue.

At that point in the game I much more fear cyberdisks

Cyberdisks are certainly dangerous. But two heavies with Bullet Swarm and HEAT ammo tends to turn them into confetti very quickly. :D

I do find that spoiler makes a huge difference in the game, and along with increased squad sizes is one of the must does

I think increased squad size is really, really important. More so than most other stuff (except for getting satellites of course). It feels completely different going in with 6 instead of 4 soldiers. And it reduces the risk if one of your soldiers get shot considerably. I had it happen too often that one soldier got shot, another panicked, ran into another bunch of enemies and everything went downhill from there.

I think the two squad size upgrades are definitely the two most important upgrades in the game. You need the extra people to handle tougher missions, or you will face too many enemies at once and get overwhelmed. The spoilered upgrade is very very nice to have, but you can live without it for a long time. In fact you sort of have to given the requirements for it.

Thats also one of the few issues I have with the game. It is too easy at the start to lose a mission, simply because of a few bad dice rolls. Even when you doing everything "right" (everyone behind high cover, not moving too fast forward so you can always overwatch, etc.) you still can easily lose a whole group at the start, simply because they all miss their shots two turns in a row.

Contagious panic does seem a bit overdone, along with the very high likelihood of a panicked solider shooting a comrade. In the original game there were more random actions that could occur with panic, so even though the intra-squad massacres did happen they were less common. And of course there is the much dreaded "panicked or mind-controlled soldier suddenly gains 50 points of accuracy" effect. :D

Another issue I have is that there is no way to reduce panic except for satellites. Or at least I haven't found one yet. Thats a little bit annoying as it doesn't feel like I lose countries due to my inability to defend them, but because I can't get enough money quickly enough. I finally started now to take mostly the $-missions for abductions, at least at the beginning, because I can build workshops with that as well if I need more engineers.

If they are offered, Engineers >> Money >> Scientists. Unless you have the European bonus (and maybe even then), just getting Engineers directly is better since it saves the time, space, and power requirements for a workshop. Soldier rewards are also pretty much junk, unless you have suffered major losses and need to rebuild a solid squad. But if that has happened you are probably doomed anyway due to the panic hit involved.

Global panic levels is THE killer mechanic of the game, and I don't much care for how it is implemented. Too much depends on random rolls: where do the abduction missions hit, where do the very few missions that can reduce panic levels hit (useful vs. non-useful placement of a terror mission can save multiple countries). Do you rush through the storyline to get a big global panic reduction effect?

And that leads to my last issue: You can't build workshops or laboratories without first getting once either additional scientists or engineers. Not certain why that is, it doesn't make much "logical" sense for me (as opposed to the Alien Containment Facility for example, which makes perfect sense to first take research imo). Added to that the requisites mostly everything has on your engineer count it gets really annoying. In my first game, not knowing that, I mostly gone for scientists. Which led to really early research of some stuff - which I then couldn't build at all. Same goes for trying to get several satellites out early - isn't possible without a certain amount of engineers. That railroads certain "decisions", at least at classic.

Yes, scientists or laboratories early are a complete waste of time/money. Nothing matters early but engineers and cash, so you can pump satellites ASAP. The game does not make this clear at all, or even hint at it in the tutorial. And in the original game getting scientists early was crucial and engineers did not matter until later, so a lot of people have gotten hammered on this point. I have actually not yet built a single lab, they are that useless. I plan to eventually just to unlock the achievement. :D

On the engineer prereqs, the idea seems to be that you need a certain minimum engineering staff to build things. Anything that can be done more than once (sat uplinks, workshops, etc.) requires progressively more engineers for each additional instance. This gating mechanism requires planning ahead to make sure you will have enough engineers, which may mean workshops. But workshops just make your money, power, and lead time issues worse -- better to get engineers as mission rewards and from monthly satellite bonuses if you can.

Power can be a real issue as well. Steam vents can help but the RNG is again a huge factor here. My first game I had one steam vent on the bottom level, farthest left, all solid rock on that level. I never did get it hooked up. In my current game I got a steam vent on level 2 right next to the lift. Random, and a huge difference on the game -- I don't like this kind of random. Apparently you can even get multiple steam vents sometimes, if the RNG smiles on you.

Suppression is a useful tool, definitely. But don't count on it too much -- I have had suppressed aliens critical someone in full cover. Suppression helps a lot, but it only reduces the enemy's chance to hit it does not eliminate it.

It can be the difference between dying to a cyberdisk and not because for some reason it seems like accuracy reduction has more of an effect than doubling defense. My guess is that the to-hit formula does some sort of scaling on accuracy vs distance, this varies for weapons so a -30 could be multiplied internally and be larger than the +40 from full cover hunker. This becomes a huge issue late on

because muton elites seem to be able to reliably hit you behind full cover.

All the ins and outs of the accuracy system are not fully understood yet. At least not by me. But the tougher aliens, and all aliens on Classic and Impossible, get big base accuracy boosts. Light cover means nothing to them, and even full cover does not seem to mean much. My general rule is that trading shots with an alien in equal cover is a losing game. Use suppression (I generally run with two heavies and two supports, so I have lots of suppression), use smoke grenades, use hunker down if you are still too exposed.

Also, I focus heavily on armor. Push for carapace as rapidly as possible, the survivability is much more important than better weapons. Other than medkits for support field medics, nano fiber vests for everybody all the time -- the extra health saves lives when thin men critical you behind full cover, or when taking hits from mutons. (If a muton criticals you, well...maybe it was a vet with extra HP?) Once the later armor upgrades become available, push them hard too. And bring medkits and use them -- don't run around with wounded soldiers who can be easily finished off unless you have no choice. Every point of health helps. I have had so many soldiers get hit and survive with one or two health left, I would never trade out my nano vests for scopes or grenades. In fact I have not yet used a scope -- just built my first two to answer a council request.

One thing I have not had a chance to try yet is the SHIV. Anyone played with these? How did it turn out?

[haphazard1]

I'm glad they weren't afraid to make a tough resource management game on classic - I had to restart too

It's not like the original Xcom where money is in unlimited supply after the first month from alien weapon sales

I wonder if they have gone too far the other way, though. Classic currently is so tightly constrained for resources that you pretty much have One True Strategy for at least the first 3-4 months. If you can make it that far and get the majority of the globe covered by sats (and still in the council), then you can start to look at some of the options opened up with research, the Foundry, the OTS -- otherwise all of that stuff should be ignored other than the squad size upgrades. Labs too. I dislike when games appear to give you a lot of options but actually choosing/using most of them is an (likely fatal) error.

I am not sure how replayable the game is going to be longer term, since you get funneled so very tightly on Classic. I don't even want to think about Impossible, although from a glance through the config files there does not seem to be much difference at the strategy layer from Classic. A bit less money per month and a bit higher starting panic levels seems to be it -- the screws are already tightened down about as tightly as they can be on Classic.

[Sirian]

I am not sure how replayable the game is going to be longer term, since you get funneled so very tightly on Classic.

Normal is described as "tough, but fair". That implies that Classic is distinctly unfair. If the unfairness is stepping on the fun, why would you "have to" stick with it?

Playing on Normal and purposely -not- doing the most powerful moves in the strategic game seems viable to me. That, and the aliens not getting that accuracy boost to where you are funneled to certain moves in the tactical game as well. ...


I haven't tried Classic yet. I will, of course, at some point. But playing Normal on Ironman is no slouch. Perhaps I am just more patient than some.

I like the fact that the RNG throws in a few curves. This ensures that, as player, you have to adapt a bit. That was always part of the fun of the greatest games: you couldn't just apply the cookie cutter to them. I don't think the RNG is overdone in this design at all. But I'm also a backgammon player and have the mindset of knowing that the dice will decide the outcomes of the closest matches from time to time, but overall, there are so many dice rolls involved that the total trend becomes managing probability and statistics, not gambling on individual dice rolls.

I mean, even an 80% chance is going to miss one out of five. Even a 10% chance is going to hit one out of ten. If you find yourself getting frustrated over the dice rolls, you are gambling too much -- or playing at too high a difficulty level. "Tough but fair" is actually what I tend to want from games most of the time. Just because that level is flagged "Normal" doesn't mean it should be looked down upon for not being elite enough. The labels should be irrelevant. It's the playing experience that really counts. If the AI bonuses on Classic are squeezing your fun, give Normal Ironman a try to see if that works better.

I personally am having great fun in the tactical combats on Normal. I think they've got pretty long legs. The aliens still ramp up pretty fast. They still outnumber your forces in every engagement. I've been able to play around with more options, instead of having to powergame the whole way. It's a game. Have fun with it.


- Sirian

[antisocialmunky]

Suppression is a useful tool, definitely. But don't count on it too much -- I have had suppressed aliens critical someone in full cover. Suppression helps a lot, but it only reduces the enemy's chance to hit it does not eliminate it.

It can be the difference between dying to a cyberdisk and not because for some reason it seems like accuracy reduction has more of an effect than doubling defense. My guess is that the to-hit formula does some sort of scaling on accuracy vs distance, this varies for weapons so a -30 could be multiplied internally and be larger than the +40 from full cover hunker. This becomes a huge issue late on

because muton elites seem to be able to reliably hit you behind full cover.

All the ins and outs of the accuracy system are not fully understood yet. At least not by me. But the tougher aliens, and all aliens on Classic and Impossible, get big base accuracy boosts. Light cover means nothing to them, and even full cover does not seem to mean much. My general rule is that trading shots with an alien in equal cover is a losing game. Use suppression (I generally run with two heavies and two supports, so I have lots of suppression), use smoke grenades, use hunker down if you are still too exposed.
[/QUOTE]

This is true but my experience is that

Sectopods and cyber disk miss rate goes way up for for full cover when the unit is suppressed while most other range units don't fire to even move

Also, I focus heavily on armor. Push for carapace as rapidly as possible, the survivability is much more important than better weapons. Other than medkits for support field medics, nano fiber vests for everybody all the time -- the extra health saves lives when thin men critical you behind full cover, or when taking hits from mutons. (If a muton criticals you, well...maybe it was a vet with extra HP?) Once the later armor upgrades become available, push them hard too. And bring medkits and use them -- don't run around with wounded soldiers who can be easily finished off unless you have no choice. Every point of health helps. I have had so many soldiers get hit and survive with one or two health left, I would never trade out my nano vests for scopes or grenades. In fact I have not yet used a scope -- just built my first two to answer a council request.

One thing I have not had a chance to try yet is the SHIV. Anyone played with these? How did it turn out?

SHIVs are basically like a mid level heavy trooper with innate dodge chance. I don't really like them, they need to carry heavy weapons to justify themselves. If they had a grenade launcher or something and upgraded to rockets or something that would be useful for clearing cover.

[haphazard1]

I am not sure how replayable the game is going to be longer term, since you get funneled so very tightly on Classic.

Normal is described as "tough, but fair". That implies that Classic is distinctly unfair. If the unfairness is stepping on the fun, why would you "have to" stick with it?

The dev team has also described Classic Ironman as "the way we meant for the game to be played". Take that however you wish.

My issues with Classic difficulty are entirely with the strategy layer, and not the tactical battles. I like the challenge of the combat on Classic, including the aliens getting some edges over the human. The Classic alien AI also is fully operative, rather than the restrictions it has on Normal on active alien units, etc. I have not had a full squad wipe yet, although I have come very close a couple times. And I have not yet reached the end game (or even the late game) so I am sure there are plenty of nasty surprises waiting to kill my troops.

My problems have been with the strategy layer and global panic levels, and how you can get screwed by the RNG even if following a good strategy and executing well. If the abduction mission choices are especially unlucky, but even more if the "net positive panic" missions happen too infrequently or in the wrong places, you will lose countries and possibly lose the game no matter what you do. There is also a pure random factor in how satellites can reduce panic each month that has no skill involved whatsoever -- pure dice roll and if you are unlucky oh well, too bad for you.

Some randomness is good -- as you said it keeps the game fresh and prevents cookie-cutter solutions from ruling the roost. But I think that the random factors in the strategy layer are currently bigger than the skill factors, and I much prefer my fate to be more under my own control. If I screw up and make poor choices I should lose -- it is my own fault. But losing because I got some poor dice rolls on my satellites and my only panic-reducing missions happened in countries/continents that were doing OK rather than where I could have used some help...that does not sit well with me.

This is true but my experience is that

Sectopods and cyber disk miss rate goes way up for for full cover when the unit is suppressed while most other range units don't fire to even move

Mostly my experience matches yours. But every now and then, it doesn't. So don't rely too heavily on that tactic. :D

SHIVs are basically like a mid level heavy trooper with innate dodge chance. I don't really like them, they need to carry heavy weapons to justify themselves. If they had a grenade launcher or something and upgraded to rockets or something that would be useful for clearing cover.

The devs have talked in interviews about specifically limiting the availability of explosives so that you can't just wipe out all cover like you could in the original game. Your rockets and grenades are very limited, intentionally, so that you are forced to choose your spots to use them. I like this factor, actually.

I haven't tried SHIVs yet because of the cost, and also because I prefer to keep rotating fresh troops into my squad to build up a good reserve of promoted soldiers. SHIVs can not gain XP, although you can get some upgrades. Having the Asia Future War bonus certainly makes them more attractive in terms of costs, but still....

One thing SHIVs could be very nice for is as moving cover. I understand that the upgraded SHIVs can be used for cover, although you might draw a grenade. I recently played one mission where I could have really used some mobile cover.

Landed abductor UFO, and that loading bay -- huge expanse of open ground with no cover, enemies waiting to blast you. Ick. Having a SHIV to send forward with someone covering (cowering? :D) behind it, plus squad sight sniping, would have made things so much easier.