Xcom is 33% off for the next two days on Steam as part of the autumn sale if anyone's interested. 
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw
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New Version of Xcom
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New free DLC to unlock all those hidden options:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vie...-Free-Time
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." “I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
I've checked it out, and pretty cool.
Rookies having random stats is good, as is random stats on levelup. Liked this from the OG, gave them individuality. (Of course, in the OG you would determine the soldiers' role by varying the loadout, and skill increases would come as a result of what you used them for, but I digress). IMO having mirror image colonels is pretty ...unrealistic, for one. Unfun too. One could argue that the rookies having random stats simply means you fire the weak ones and just hire a few extra to 'scum' for good stats, but then again, cash is limited. Combine with one of the less-money options and it should work out even better. Extra-cost satellites or less funding due to panic, or war weariness (less funding as game progresses). Teleport bug minimized is good, lost a sniper to a magical sectopod last playthrough so yeah. However one BUG is still annoying me. A lot. I played a game on Classical ironman, had some bad luck/tactical placement mid-game so was down to -7 countries...but managed to survive up to the final mission. And I died, yay, first time and all. "Do you want to replay?" -NO, I'm playing ironman and used to roguelikes. I can take it. Hit me. "Are you sure, all unsaved progress will be lost?" -Damn right I'm sure ... No defeat screen. And in my save game list I have a save midway through the last mission (took a break midway). So I can reload this and win (I'm 99%sure) but why would I want to do that? So no defeat-message, I have to delete the save to end the game. Very unsatisfying.
Interesting, actually. Those changes seem quite similar to allowing Unrestricted Leaders for Civ4. Definitely nice additions. Maybe I'll pick up the game on the next sale...
Civilization IV: 21 (Bismarck of Mali), 29 (Mao Zedong of Babylon), 38 (Isabella of China), 45 (Victoria of Sumeria), PB12 (Darius of Sumeria), 56 (Hammurabi of Sumeria), PB16 (Bismarck of Mali), 78 (Augustus of Byzantium), PB56 (Willem of China)
Hearthstone: ArenaDrafts Profile No longer playing Hearthstone. 
Meh. DLC so far for this game has been atrocious.
 The first pack with the special mission for the blaster launcher was pathetic. This is a little better, although still not very inspiring. None of these options are enough to interest me in starting another campaign. The problems with replayability remain unaddressed. I guess I'll check into some of the forums for more details, as a lot depends on how some of these are implemented. "Wider range of weapon damage" == less damage overall, or actually wider range? "Random stat increases for soliders" == less increases overall, or actually random? "Random council nation funding" == less funding overall, or actually random? And so forth. I am guessing most of these really just mean less of everything, as that seems to be the theme of the whole Second Wave package: make the game harder by reducing the player's resources/soldiers/options. Nothing about making the game harder by making the enemies tougher or more numerous, and of course not smarter. What this game really needs is proper support for modding and community-generated maps. But everything has gone the opposite direction, toward making modding as difficult as possible and locking down as much content as possible. Very disappointing.Oh well. At least Firaxis has realized the actual value of this "DLC" and priced it appropriately -- zero.
I think the last 2 DLCs are just things they didn't get done on time so they should be considered part of the game.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." “I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.” (January 9th, 2013, 21:03)haphazard1 Wrote: I am guessing most of these really just mean less of everything, as that seems to be the theme of the whole Second Wave package: make the game harder by reducing the player's resources/soldiers/options. Nothing about making the game harder by making the enemies tougher or more numerous, and of course not smarter. I hope this isn't too off-topic, but I think it's worth pointing out that Firaxis approached game balance in the Civ5 patches in exactly the same way: relentlessly attack player strategies that proved to be effective as a way of making the game "harder". I can't say that I'm surprised to hear this. It's too bad that the new XCOM does so many things right, and then lacks the random maps and deeper strategic (not tactical) side to the game that would give it the replayability that it needs.
Before we all bash Firaxis for their response to player strategies, this second wave functionallity was shipped with the game at the start.
Initially you had to set a toggle in the ini file to unlock it (and 2 of the options were bugged, which I guess they now fixed). Now you can access it easily. Hence the options they have allowed have not been influenced by post shipping feedback at all.
I'm not sure that this is equal to civ 5, at least yet.
Might look a bit like it, because 'satelite spam' became a predominantly strong strategy - and there is now a counter to this (increased cost of each satelite). But most others (must capture live alien to enable psionics) do not fit. Most of them are realistic - "Red fog" - (damaged units suck), "total loss" - (equipment lost on soldier death) are not counter to the best strategy - which is "DO NOT GET HIT - either retreat out of LOS/hunker down or kill/demolish all aliens before they can shoot at you" However these were planned for the game, and were actually installed (embedded?) in the game upon release but not activated. Modders managed to find out how to switch most of these on several months ago. Don't know why it is called DLC, I'd call it a patch. Perhaps it is good there was a bugfix included, or they would indeed have charged extra for this. Even though this is how game was meant to be. I read through 2k forums on xcom, and while most agree that there should be more freedom and more strategic depth, there are those who complain that there are so many things to build in the base, which is the best building/item to take along/promotions to use - how dare they make such a complex game when all I wanna do is waste some aliens. So guess the handholding and linearity is how they compromise. I'd pay for a real DLC, a 'RB-mod' with all those little things we have been griping about added, and I think a lot of people would, it would probably not be too much work (not compared to all those $12.99 they would earn). say, *Overwatch all (remaining) button - or at least make overwatch have same keystroke on all troops so I can spam it *Customizable difficulty level - impossible is now a package, suppose you could keep monster spawn 'impossible', enemy HP/stats 'classic' and cash availability 'easy' but add war weariness and all that Jazz. *Customizable almost anything one could think to customize at startup, in fact. *More everything, items, weapons, abilities, balanced so not so many obvious best choices. *Outposts with skyranger/barrack - because you need a certain proximity to stop abduction/landed UFOs *More to do, optional missions. *Random maps + More maps. *(at least limited) Inventory (fond memories of "grab that deep one/deep one corpse/blaster launcher/sonic cannon" and GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE near-wipe-missions from TFTD). Just ONE inventory space you can use to grab something/someone and haul back to the skyranger. *Better panic (I could do this. You hunker down useless, you run away, fired weapon semi-randomly in enemy direction. You do NOT take careful aim at you buddy and headshot him, nor nail the 35% shot on that alien (that you missed on your own turn which lead to the panic in the first place) I mean, why not? I know little about coding/modding but how many man-hours will this really take? Making a random map generator mabye a bit, but it doesn't have to do city maps either...and mabye just move around some cars/huts/trees/rocks. More optional missions - pickup item and bring back should fit with a limited inventory
I won't argue with the suggestions for how to make this game better. It could use more for sure. For replayability, what it really needs is significantly more maps or--even better--a random map generator AND more strategic level options and less linear/"one right path" progression. That said, I think in context we need to remember that the original game wasn't exactly an example of perfection in these regards either. It was amazing fun and revolutionary at its time. It did have a more open strategic level and less linear progression but it did NOT have strategic depth.
Again, this game can and should be improved. I'd love to see an expansion focused on the strategic level. I'd love to have more control over set up options. However, I think those things HAVE to be added in expansions/sequels because this is a remake ("reimagining" as Jake Solomon likes to call it). If they had made drastic changes, they would have alienated (haha) all the nostalgic fan boys. I think what they did was streamline some choices in an effort to reach new audiences (which seems to have been effective) while maintaining the game's feel for the old school gamers (which also seems to have been effective despite naysayers. No matter what choices they made, they would have pissed some people off). Now that this has been effective, my hope is that they will focus on improving the part of the game that need it even though they might require more drastic changes from the source material. |
