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| Thread: New X-Com game coming out. By Firaxis! |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Elodin
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Free Thinker
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posted February 19, 2013 03:28 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 19:41, 20 Feb 2013.
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Some of the maps may be narrow but I've run across a lot of big ones too. I'm finding plenty of tactical and strategic decisions in the game.
I'm at 20 May. I started in Asia for the Future Soldier bonus. I've got complete satellite coverage over North America now, so I get the Air and Space bonus to reduce cost and maintenance of the interceptors and interceptor weapons. I only have one satellite over Asia and one over Europe. But before the end of the month I'll have three more satellites ready to launch and enough uplinks for them with another uplink and a couple more satellites already being built for the next month.
3 countries are at level 4 unrest.
My squad size is at six and everyone is outfitted with laser weapons, carapace armor, and the nonofiber vest. I'm running with one sniper, 2 assaults, 2 heavies, and one support.
I've got 2 interceptors covering Asia, 2 covering Europe, and 2 covering North America. One interceptor in each group has a laser cannon, the only upgrade I have so far for them. I think my research is close to unlocking the next generation interceptor, which is good because one of my interceptors with the starting Avalanche missiles was almost shot down while engaging a medium size UFO.
I have the "Assault Alien Base" mission unlocked but have not attempted it yet.
Edit: My XCOM team made a lot of progress last month. All XCOM nations are now covered by satellites. Panic is in check now, with only France, Russia, and Argentina at level 3 panic.
Only two advanced fighters so far, with research on some better craft weapons in progress. The team is still using laser weapons and carapace armor. All but one of the "A Team" is at max experience now (one of the assault troops.) Wow, that "heat" perk on the heavies makes them deadly against mechanical units!
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted February 21, 2013 10:42 PM |
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What difficulty is that?
I was playing on classic+ironman today, first game in it. Got totally trashed by the time I got to the alien assault base mission, which I failed partly due to a misclick.
When I got the mission I had not gotten nearly enough money to do that you have. Enough for 2 extra satellites, foundry, officer training, 6 squad members, two carapaces + some extra weapons and interceptor stuff.
So far impressions,:
- First thing to do is go change the faulty rate for shooting allies when panicked, it is at 50% when it should be 5%. To do this find the DefaultGameCore.ini in your install directory/config folder. Change the value of SHOOT_WHEN_PANICKED= from 5 to 1. This will drop it to 10% which leads to lot less frustration when one thin man poisons your sergeant causing everyone to panick and shoot each other.
- controls SUCK
- free aim is messed up around the end of the range due to what feels like sloppy console adaptation
- sometimes you cannot see what you want due to the game refusing to zoom to right level
- if a building has two floor close to each other you cannot use the lower one
- which also leads to misclicks
- which will cost you the life of one of your elites sooner or later in ironman when he's not in cover on the platform you wanted but rather defenseless right next to it
- The dropping enemies are really annoying, at least in rescue missions you get warnings if enemies are around, in later missions that doesn't happen and they get to shoot one of your guys with a critical hit to the face, not fun
Tips to the game:
- Heavies rule, when they get the perk for 2 more area range in rockets and suppression they can demolish armies. Best shot took out 6 thin men at once.
- Assaults are really, really usefull since they get the perks for extra defense and ignore overwatch so you can use them to make way for attacks. Run & gun is usefull for taking over an enemy position since shotgun is a quaranteed critical from point blank distance.
- Snipers are a mixed unit, they suck, REALLY bad before you get laser and pump their levels up. They're also really, really weak before higher armour and levels. It takes effort to level them up, unlike assaults and heavies. Maybe a little too much effort considering you can have 3 assaults or 2 heavies on the same exp for the same amount of effort.
- Support is a really good class. 3x medkit is amazing. Also smoke grenades + assaults' run&gun go really well together. Support has the same problem as sniper with leveling up, they don't get exp like the forward classes do. If you use a lot of rookies as buffer you don't need the supports medkits but they're a will factor and will break under pressure.
- The alloys required for the weapon deals seem to be way too high to make for proper tradeoffs, don't do them.
- Get carapace armour as soon as you can afford them, they make your troops capable of surviving critical hits. This is crucial since those lucky hits happen, A LOT.
And if you're wondering why it took this long for me to play the game that's because I only learned about the XP hack yesterday.
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Zenofex
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Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted February 21, 2013 11:17 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 23:21, 21 Feb 2013.
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Quote:
- Snipers are a mixed unit, they suck, REALLY bad before you get laser and pump their levels up. They're also really, really weak before higher armour and levels. It takes effort to level them up, unlike assaults and heavies. Maybe a little too much effort considering you can have 3 assaults or 2 heavies on the same exp for the same amount of effort.
You serious? My main Sniper had about as many kills as the rest of my squad combined. The class is nearly imbalanced. The low HP are not an issue in 90% of the situations because this guy's way behind the front line, scoring frags from half a map away. Seriously, with the right perks, he can take out anything (no other class can kill a Sectopod in one round on its own). The only issue is the early levels until he actually learns to aim.
Quote:
- Heavies rule, when they get the perk for 2 more area range in rockets and suppression they can demolish armies. Best shot took out 6 thin men at once.
That's true in the early game but later the Heavy starts facing issues. His primary weapon has the lowest overall accuracy and if the aliens are not clustered, he doesn't do much. The bonus damage vs. mechanicals is nice indeed... if you can hit them.
The Assault is my favourite class. Apart from being the toughest badass in the group with the most personal killing approach  , he can increase the survivability of the the entire squad greatly if used correctly. Plus, he has the coolest ultimate weapon. 
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted February 21, 2013 11:19 PM |
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For my first complete play through I'm only playing on normal. I wanted to get used to the new enemies, classes, tech trees, ect. I chose the missions with engineers for rewards every time for the first two months then I started taking some rewards for cash.
Yeah, I hate enemies dropping from the skies. That just has no place in a turn based strategy game with tactical battles. That is one thing I hated about Dragon Age 2.
They did a good job with the classes, I like them all. I don't really like having to chose between one of three missions and having panic automatically rise in the nations you could not chose.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted February 22, 2013 01:34 AM |
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Ah, panic levels might increase slower on normal, that does explain a bit.
There's also max 6 active enemies on normal too but that's just for the combat so probably not much of an issue here.
Engineers is totally the way to go, cheaper satellites is crucial.
Indeed, I just hate the way snipers start out. They're inaccurate as hell when compared to heavies and do less damage than assaults which kinda makes them crystal balls you need to protect in the early game.
There's also hidden accuracy for assaults if the target is not in cover. They get the highest rating for hitting targets in the reach of their shotguns, which can be really usefull, especially for those automatic reaction shots they get later on.
Heavy gets the ability to shoot twice on level two so that compensates for the lower accuracy in later levels.
The choice between countries is probably there to mess things up so you couldn't always choose money and engineers but as it is you'll often have two continents which will spike to fifth level panic with it and that sucks. It would be alright if the abduct mission dropped the panic levels for the whole continent, not just that one country, but as it is now you're basically choosing if you want the money from europe or all the actually useful bonuses elsewhere. 
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JoonasTo
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Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted February 27, 2013 01:21 AM |
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Classic Ironman finished! 
After you get your funding sorted out and get laser/carapace you're set for good. The rest of the game is just cruising along until you've got all the tech you need.
Class evaluation:
Class, early, middle, late, comment
Assault, weak, good, godlike, immunity to crits and overwatch + rapid fire = carnage
Heavy, good, average, amazing, 24 damage rockets onehit cyberdiscs
Sniper, sucks, great, good, with advancements in weaponry sniper support's value drops but they still make good opportunists
Support, sucks, average, great, 10 hp medikits/double overwatch a tough choice but can't go wrong either way
random tips
Chitin armour is crucial, 50% melee protection + 4 hp is a must on assaults that one berserker crits them for 15 damage otherwise
Other items are rather useless in comparison, scopes for snipers for that crit chance in the lategame and alien grenades for rookies to stack some experience
Early game nanofibre instead of chitin armour
Armours should be updated after you gain soldiers worth protecting, captains and majors mostly,
archangel works well for support to enable maximum medipack coverage but that immunity to poison/fire and 2 hp of titan is perhaps a tad too good to give up
snipers get ghost to scale and stay hidden while doing so, good for starting out maps with a cloaked sniper to scout a vantage point
titans for others even though assaults would benefit from the added mobility they need all the hp they can get
Assaults can and should use assault rifles for small ufo forests and other maps where distances are long and enemies plenty
get laser weapons when you encounter mutons, it's a pain otherwise, you don't always get that rocket to kill them all
capturing enemies gives tech credit and weapons but is not really necessary, just make sure to have captured a muton or a thin man to get plasma rifles as soon as possible, sectoid gives pistols, which are rarely all that useful and berserkers give armour credit to higher level armours otherwise meh, useless
when you get south america you get to do all alien autopsies and interrogations instantly, this is worth it, that's months of research for free
start from the north america or africa. north america has the most useful bonus for building that satellite network and keeping it up while africa is good generally your initial income with USA is 180 compared to all other continents 100 it's HUGE
if you need to give up on a continent bonus give up on europe, sure cheaper workshops are nice but after you've placed 4 satellites there you propably won't need it anyway.
that said, don't lose USA or Russia
you really don't need to and shouldn't do priority missions too soon, they will just lead to harder normal assignments with the sectoid commanders replacing outriders and ethereals replacing them
the alien base assault mission drops your panic levels globally a huge amount though
you can check what kind of enemies/numbers you have at an ufo crash site upon launch, it's nifty for planning capture operations and keeping count of floaters on your snipers
if your assaults become bionic you are lucky, mindfreak is a good long distance 5 damage kill tool, much better than your pistol
supports get powers to go with their class
snipers suck
heavies are ok
run & gun + rapid fire in the face kills anything except for a sectopod and possibly an ethereal if it deflects
and remember 8 damage rockets are often not enough to kill your guys but they are enough to kill chrysalises
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Zenofex
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Kreegan-atheist
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posted February 27, 2013 08:02 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 11:28, 27 Feb 2013.
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Don't know how you are using your snipers but "sucks" or actually anything below "great" just does not apply to this class. Seriously, how can a Plasma Sniper + S.C.O.P.E + double shot can be considered... "good"? This guy's a killing machine.
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JoonasTo
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Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted February 27, 2013 12:36 PM |
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In the very early game snipers need to move forward. They can't shoot while moving. Damage output relies on grenades.
Even after reaching the stage to get squad vision they are useless on overwatch because the penalties to aim are still so high.
This combined with their lousy accuracy with the sniper rifle and the inability to kill most enemies in one shot makes them suck. They lose to rookies in damage output.
Not to mention they have lowest health so they get killed easily.
Middle game they rock, opportunist with damn good ground make them accurate and laser rifles give them the damage they need. Simply leave two chew bubblegum and move out to kick ass. Just too bad tight maps like larger UFOs and and fast maps where you need to move they are still more of a liability.
Late game they get the double shot to compensate, which isn't as good as it should be. It has one turn cooldown. It also means just shooting, no reloads, no movement, no battle scanner, and most importantly, no overwatch.
They are still a liabilty in tight and fast maps but at least now they can make up for that by taking two shots.
But the biggest thing is that all your other guys oneshot anything smaller than an elite muton now. You rarely need the snipers to cover for them as you did in the middle game where one muton with his grenades was deadly.
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Zenofex
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Kreegan-atheist
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posted February 27, 2013 01:12 PM |
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The late game Sniper can take out an Ethereal or even a Sectopod in one round which is nothing short of priceless - the other classes don't come even close to that. The low mobility is compensated by good positioning - in about one third of the maps I didn't need to move my Sniper more than a few times and he still scored more kills than anybody else in the squad. Overwatch is not necessary - the other classes can do this job, the Assault even has sort of an auto-overwatch without wasting action. When there's more than one tough damage-dealer around, Disabling Shot can save lives. And the low HPs are not a consideration in the vast majority of the situations - I finished the game with a Carapace Armour on my Sniper and he was in real danger no more than twice during the whole campaign, unlike the rest of the squad members.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted February 28, 2013 07:20 PM |
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Archangel armor is awesome for a sniper with squad sight except in UFOs. My favorite is still the assault class.
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted May 14, 2013 01:27 AM |
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So yeah, I have to say that this is the funnest game I have played in years. I am absolutely in love with it and it's a worthy successor of the original X-Com, which I honestly wasn't expecting. Although the game is somewhat simplified, it's really only simplified in a way that makes it more streamlined. You no longer dick around with huge crews of soldiers or with building structures in multiple bases, including rote stuff like living quarters. The tactical aspect of the game is still just as awesome as ever and the way you monitor your progress in the world is much more dynamic than in the original (dropping satellites, monitoring panic, choosing between special rewards; all great features).
I started rolling off on classic mode and got my ass handed to me. Then I tried a few more times and continued to lose. I was swearing at the screen. It was wonderful. Then one game I researched carapace armor and suddenly my problems weren't so drastic
The 4 classes of the game seem fairly well-rounded, though currently I haven't finished the game yet (I'm just past the point where I invaded the alien base). I agree that Assault and Heavy seem to have the edge in the early game. Run & Gun is superb for quickly taking out an alien with the shotgun, and the rocket is a useful fallback to instantly kill 2 or more aliens. As time goes on the Support and Sniper start to shine more though. With the plasma sniper and improved scope you can find a nice perch and become a stationary killing machine. Dat euphoric feel when you one-hit a muton elite with your standard weapon. It's like Christmas and a July BBQ all wrapped up into one package of death. The Heavy class actually starts to get kind of weak since ideally you should be trying to engage squads of aliens a piece at a time instead of fighting huge swarms at once, except for the amazing redeeming element of being able to do double damage against those son of a ***** robots and their 8 billion hit points. Gotta love heavies for those.
The Support is my personal favorite cause I just love utility. Smoke grenade is a lifesaver if you're in a concentrated shoot-out, and triple uses with an improved medikit can just heal the **** out of everybody. I also enjoy the fast speed option once they hit corporal; lots of maneuverability to help you run for a cover position while still getting to shoot. And 2 item slots at major? Sweeeeet.
I started out in Africa in my game for the guru funding bonus. The game seems difficult at a certain point, then when you get into an established position you can progress smoothly . In my game I completely skipped laser weapons and just went straight from conventional to plasma, although I quickly researched carapace armor and some of the upgrades in the officer academy to compensate for the weaker weapons. There was a brief window where I was fighting mutons with conventional weapons, which suuuucked, but it only lasted 1 or 2 missions.
The other continental bonuses all seem good too. If you don't start in South America you'll probably want to take the two locations ASAP otherwise you're not getting as much out of their continental bonus. The poorest initial starting location is Europe, however it probably pays off huge in the long-term, and with 4 locations to cover it's hard to get the continental bonus later, especially since having some countries withdrawal is inevitable.
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted May 14, 2013 01:38 AM |
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Odd. I really enjoyed the game and played it extensively up until the last mission. I was about half-way through, saved it, and haven't touched it since.
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The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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Geny
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted May 14, 2013 12:53 PM |
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Blizz' experience is strikingly similar to my first playthrough. With the difference that I played on Normal so I didn't have to restart and just enjoyed the game. Tried playing an Ironman Classic lately and got destroyed several times. I thought my main trouble would be ****ing up the long term strategies, but I got ended in combat several times as well. That was a very rude wake up call and a reminder that this is a tactics game with few precious soldiers and caution is your best ally.
@Omega
I know, the last mission is a bit too long to be properly enjoyable. Then again, it's a story mission that explains it all more than anything else.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted May 14, 2013 03:05 PM |
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Quote:
since having some countries withdrawal is inevitable.
It's not, I have two classic ironman playthroughs with 0 withdrawn countries. 
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted May 16, 2013 04:59 AM |
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*spoilers*
Well I finished up my first round tonight. The finale was a disappointment but other than that it was a great game. Moving in on the final mission with 6 colonels kind of made it overkill. The alien yapped a bunch about all of their failed attempts to find a perfect host, then I showed up at the final section, moved in, sprayed the talkative douchebag on the podium all over the walls, and suddenly the game was over. Then the ship randomly turned into a black hole. The ending of the first X-Com game was more satisfying. The alien commander starts to go into a monologue about their ancient civilization and then you interrupt him by blasting him in the face with plasma and the game's over
I'm gonna play another round on ironman. I guess to not lose any countries you gotta just get another uplink right away and pursue the abduction missions that minimize panic as much as possible and forget about which reward you want. In my first game I ran through the research really quickly, so I feel like Expert Knowledge might be a ****ty bonus to start with, but I'm going to start on Europe this time anyway because I don't give a **** and I'm curious to see how much the cheap workshops and labs can catapult me ahead tech-wise.
Oh yeah, and a revised comment on the classes: Assault is the lamest and the best class. You can just rambo your way through the alien ranks with a run & gun / rapid fire alloy shotgun and nobody but the strongest units stands a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the barrage of concentrated bull****. I was annoyed with them by the end of the game.
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JoonasTo
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Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted May 16, 2013 11:47 AM |
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I played one game from Europe, didn't lose any countries and didn't even lose a single soldier!  Classic ironman naturally.
You should not build any labs, they're waste of resources. You will build so few workshops in the end, the bonus sucks. But as you will gain all of them, it doesn't really matter.
Yes, uplink should be what you aim for, then another uplink, then a third one. Perhaps officer training school somewhere in between. You should priorise the panic in abductions, yes. Specifically the the place where you don't want panic to grow, not where you want it to drop.
Only launch satellites at the end of the month, so that you can get the money for the next month and best choose the high panic countries to clear them off panic, full panic means they withdraw at the end of the month, not in the middle. So satelliting them in the middle of the month can cause an event to rise their panic level after satelliting and if you had satellited in the end instead, you'd have gained one less panic for that country.
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Zenofex
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Kreegan-atheist
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posted May 16, 2013 01:28 PM |
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Actually panic-rising events also reduce the panic if you successfully handle the respective mission so it makes sense to have a satellite above a high panic country even before the end of the month.
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted May 17, 2013 12:36 AM |
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Key to a successful start to a game: for the first mission, always pick the ****ing engineers. Wasn't thinking when I restarted the game and I got bullsnow bottlenecked in my development. Without 5 engineers the stupid game won't even let you build a workshop to get more engineers, so you can't build another uplink. Without engineers your base isn't worth pissing on in a fire.
I need to remember the bull**** shortfalls in the game mechanics too. Like, if you're shooting a rocket to include killing a floater that's jacking off 3 meters above ground and the enemy is clearly displayed within the sphere of effect, it will still miss. The floater was untouched and next turn it got to critical my one flanked soldier in the head (because it was suppose to be dead), which caused 2 other soldiers to panic and one of them shot his teammate. Apparently X-Com recruits its soldiers from Dickless Anonymous. Then again I suppose if I saw someone get engulfed in an incendiary explosion and they just kept floating there untouched, I'd probably start ****ing my pants also. I flipped the power switch off and walked away.
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blizzardboy
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posted May 17, 2013 07:00 AM |
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I wish you didn't tell me you didn't lose a soldier the whole game because now I want to do it.
The hardest part of the game is in the late-beginning when the infiltrator ****ers first show up, and then the alien base mission is pretty tough. Those are the two points where taking loses are the most likely. Other than that once I get a nice group of higher rankers going I feel like I'd have doable odds of rolling through the missions with zip casualties.
You never got crited in the face by one of those cocksucking aliens that wear sunglasses at night? It seems tough to avoid even when you do pave the way on constant overwatch.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted May 17, 2013 07:43 AM |
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Apparently not. I got the only thin men mission to rescue the representative very late in the game, aside from that, I only had the odd thin men in regular missions. I always priorised them over anything else because the poison panics all low level soldiers.
After you get through the initial low level missions, don't even try to rush and infiltrate the alien base until you got kickass armour and triple medpacks.
Capture an alien early to get plasma weapons.
And pray to god that you do not have the mission to rescue civilians from twenty chrysalis too early. That one is a snow.
I played second wave so I had New Economy, Not Created Equally, Hidden Potential, Red Fog, The Greater Good and High Stakes on. Get to pick only the actually good soldiers and ditch the bad.
I did not even realise that I did not lose anyone until the game over screen and statistics. That was like, WOAH, maybe I should play impossible next.
Tactics wise, never move forward if you don't know where the enemy is. One guy scouts, only half turn to be able to still run back and hide. Rest wait and if clear, then advance. OVERWATCH, OVERWATCH, OVERWATCH. One guy reloads, the rest on overwatch, next guy reloads, the rest on overwatch. Overuse it. Assaults can use assault rifles, they should in all open maps. Grenades guarantee a hit, shooting does not. Rockets rule. Snipers should try to grenade enemies to death to gain xp in the very start, leapfrog him some levels to make him actually useful after he can just sit in the back.
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