October 16th, 2012, 09:49
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I do hope Firaxis adds some options for custom difficulty levels, especially splitting the strategy and tactical difficulties. Allowing some other combinations like being able to select/de-select the various tactical edges the aliens get on higher difficulties would also be very welcome.
While waiting/hoping for that, you can mod the options with some resource hacking of the main exe file. I have done so for my local version, reducing the rate at which panic climbs in various ways. (Satellites have the chance to reduce panic per month that they do on Normal, for example.) This allows more freedom in the strategy layer as you are not funneled into the powergaming path as the only approach that will avoid a loss due to the doom tracker filling up by the fourth month (if not sooner). But I left all the Classic tactical settings unchanged as I enjoy the tactical challenges on Classic. I am enjoying the game a lot this way, with tough battles but some freedom to explore the different Foundry options, research choices, etc. rather than beelining only satellites and infrastructure for satellites at all costs.
Uberfish, I have not found early scientists to be at all useful. More engineers, always more engineers, works much better. And occasionally money to help build more sats and infra. I usually find myself researching quickly enough anyway, at least for the first couple months. More scientists are useful starting about month three, although if you can pick up the South America bonus that helps a great deal in saving research time and getting the ongoing research bonuses from interrogations.
October 16th, 2012, 10:01
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Has anyone found information about the exact changes between the difficulty levels? If I understood haphazard correctly, satellites do have a chance to reduce panic each month, but only on normal or below. Thats something I didn't know. I wonder how much more there is that I am not aware of, because it isn't explained and the manual on Steam is.. a joke. A bad one.
October 16th, 2012, 10:31
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(October 16th, 2012, 09:49)haphazard1 Wrote: Uberfish, I have not found early scientists to be at all useful. More engineers, always more engineers, works much better. And occasionally money to help build more sats and infra. I usually find myself researching quickly enough anyway, at least for the first couple months. More scientists are useful starting about month three, although if you can pick up the South America bonus that helps a great deal in saving research time and getting the ongoing research bonuses from interrogations.
You don't need lots of scientists but 1 set at the beginning helps, I find the early research is just too slow with just the starting 5.
October 16th, 2012, 10:59
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(October 16th, 2012, 10:31)uberfish Wrote: (October 16th, 2012, 09:49)haphazard1 Wrote: Uberfish, I have not found early scientists to be at all useful. More engineers, always more engineers, works much better. And occasionally money to help build more sats and infra. I usually find myself researching quickly enough anyway, at least for the first couple months. More scientists are useful starting about month three, although if you can pick up the South America bonus that helps a great deal in saving research time and getting the ongoing research bonuses from interrogations.
You don't need lots of scientists but 1 set at the beginning helps, I find the early research is just too slow with just the starting 5.
A great strategy for research speeding up that I've discovered on a second play through:
-Put your base in US/Europe/Africa as they have the best starting bonuses for early game.
-Funnel all your early resources into satellites (a must for Classic or Impossible anyways)
-Put your first two satelites over S. America.
-Save researching any corpses and interrogations until you have S America covered
-Added Benefit: avoid research paths until you've unlocked the Research bonus with the corresponding Interrogation (e.g. Plasma after catching a Muton, Armor after a floater, etc. etc.)
Yes, the autopsies and interrogations are the fastest research, but when you add them all up, you can save 2 weeks of time with Instant completion. Plus, if you only follow tech paths after capturing live aliens, you get HUGE bursts in research time that, to be honest, far outweigh the benefit of getting more scientists. I have completed avoided any scientist missions (unless the nation is about to go completely panicked) and in two months I've got plasma rifles, armor, UFO parts researched, and average tech time (all with Research bonuses applied) is 6 days or less.
Essentially, capturing live aliens EARLY is the one right thing to do because it speeds everything else up dramatically. Researching plasma weapons BEFORE you capture a live muton is just wasting time. Researching armor with a floater is wasting a lot of time.
My path has been to get Arc Thrower tech first. Then the most basic armor but nothing more. Then the Laser line but only until you've got a live muton and can switch to plasma with the research bonus applied.
Also, getting the new fighter craft asap is important because missing UFOs is a HUGE cause of panic and Interceptors aren't capable of shooting down anything bigger than Medium and not even the Medium Overseer UFO.
I'm up for some MP! It's basically just a single match with a turn timer. I've only done Ranked and un-Ranked matches where there is no communication during setup. Not sure if the custom MP game allows chatting during set up or now. We can always use separate chat if necessary. My username on Steam is Dazedroyalty.
October 16th, 2012, 11:24
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This game is absolutely screaming for more content 
I wouldn't mind some DLC for more weapons/classes/map themes.
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October 16th, 2012, 11:28
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(October 16th, 2012, 11:24)antisocialmunky Wrote: This game is absolutely screaming for more content
I wouldn't mind some DLC for more weapons/classes/map themes.
I agree. There really isn't much innovation on some levels in the game. My guess is that they stayed "close" to the original for the release so that fans of the original wouldn't throw a fit, but plan to add more. At least, I can hope so. As much as I love the OG, I'd really like to see more aliens. Thinmen (which are reimagined snakemen) are really the only "new" alien in the whole game.
DLC Maps is a must!
October 16th, 2012, 12:13
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(October 16th, 2012, 10:59)dazedroyalty Wrote: My path has been to get Arc Thrower tech first. Then the most basic armor but nothing more. Then the Laser line but only until you've got a live muton and can switch to plasma with the research bonus applied.
I find I can't survive month 2 without lasers on classic ironman, too many situations come up where a bad round of ballistic weapons fire rolls fails to kill 1 alien leading to disaster
October 16th, 2012, 13:19
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(October 16th, 2012, 12:13)uberfish Wrote: I find I can't survive month 2 without lasers on classic ironman, too many situations come up where a bad round of ballistic weapons fire rolls fails to kill 1 alien leading to disaster
That can happen for sure. I don't avoid laser weapon, I just don't sink a ton of time into them if I have other options.
Today I just ran into the bug that leaves you stuck on the geoscape if you send multiple interceptors after 1 UFO. So frustrating!!! I sent three to take down a large and used up a couple of boosts. Got it down on the second one thanks to some lucky rolls and then sent my skyranger. Cleared the UFO but when I got back to the Geoscape, the third interceptor kept flying until it got to the north pole, and then the geoscape sticks but all the interface options disappear. ARGH!!!! It's pretty gamebreaking when that happens. If you're on ironman, your whole game is screwed. If not, hopefully you have a recent save from BEFORE the UFO contact!
October 16th, 2012, 14:15
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October 16th, 2012, 15:06
Posts: 2,569
Threads: 53
Joined: Jan 2006
I just finished (successfully) my first game. Played the tutorial and then onwards with Normal (Ironman style).
Really enjoyed myself for a long time. I actually had a couple of moments when I thought the game was about to end ... ... and even then I thought "ah well, it was pretty good up to now". But no, no, the game goes on until an really epic ending. Had a comparatively tough time at the end. I have not lost a single soldier in months and then had to kill my mind-controlled sniper colonel, the guy who led the platoon almost from the beginning. That was actually a very sad moment.
As I said, I really liked the end and also the detailed stats there as well.
Not sure whether I want to try Easy now, to get a better grasp on what can be done on the strategic layer (hardly touched the foundry in my normal game) or go for Classic and get my butt kicked.
Certainly 50€ well spent.
Good job Firaxis!
mh
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