X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion

Happened to me on my last run. They were floaters. Just appeared within one-two squares of people, and then spread out. I was like... the fuck. And there was nowhere to hide whatsoever so I ended up losing a soldier.

Anyway. For some reason I just thought the game would pause before the end of the month, letting me send out my satellites. Well, it didn't. And I lost. Couldn't reload, Ironman and all. I'm still having problems keeping countries onboard in Impossible.

 

There are like 4-5 kinds of teleport bug. From least to most serious:

1) If you can see enemies that aren't "alerted" to your presence (e.g. by battle scanner) you can see them teleport to the next step of their patrol instead of walking. Low level jank bug

2) Enemies that are patrolling are supposed to check if you can see them before they teleport to the next step of the path instead of walk. Sometimes they don't do it and just appear randomly in your field of view, then do the alert cutscene and get their free move.

3) More serious version of 2: enemies teleport in the midst of your squad. This is still usually harmless because it's not too bad to have some enemies at very short range when you have your whole turn to work with.

4) Extremely serious version: an out-of-sight previously alerted enemy teleports directly into the midst of your squad at the start of his turn; this will 9/10 times get someone killed by a flank crit. Happened to me with a muton killing a colonel sniper in skeleton armor and teeth were gnashed - and there was no question about it, he teleported from the back of one of those cargo bays on an abductor to the sniper a good 40 tiles away. If a whole squad teleported instead of a single it could easily kill a game with a panic cascade.

Also having a ton of groups teleport right on top of you at the start of a mission is usually a spawning bug with the "grand graveyard" map, which happened to be the first map I ever got trying impossible lol. Also happens less egregiously with one version of the alien base sometimes.

I confess I never actually beat Impossible Ironman before not playing the game anymore. I'd fuck around with impossible learning how to beat more maps with 4 rookies but by the time I had a reasonable chance of getting through an I/I first month without running into a shit map like grand graveyard or just a map I hadn't hammered a plan out on the luck factor seemed too irritating. I was getting the phenomena where you start sucking at a roguelike after playing it too much because you try to rush the boring stuff.

 

I really don't understand the world ranking thing. What is it? What does it represent? It was filled out (with goddamn weird stats) on my pirated version, so it's not like it's even collecting from home or anything.

 

This thread is full of disgusting race traitors.

 

I think the story is good because it teaches you how to play the game. As an "extended tutorial" it is actually very effective because it gives you new concepts and suggests research paths to you in a well-paced manner, without completely holding your hand.

The problem is it doesn't go anywhere. That is the entire game. You can do it again, but harder, or you can do shitty multiplayer. That's it. Second wave or a free play mode really would have helped a lot if they had got it ready for release. Now my guess is they will put it out as DLC, lawl.

I think I decided what kinda bugs me about XCOM more than anything else. It's that it's too gamey. And the thing is, as a game, it's actually incredibly solidly designed. The dynamics of combat, the two-moves-per-turn system, the "you must choose one" missions, all that works really well in the sense that you have a very clearly defined set of rules to operate within. It's like moving pieces on a chess board - you learn and master the rules presented to you and you do better or worse based on how effectively you can use them.

The problem is that the original X-COM games were not really "gamey" in the same way. Rather I would liken them more to a simulation, with rules that weren't really structured around playing the game "right", but instead around offering options. The crazy/hilarious/weird/fun stuff that could happen as a result of those "open" rules is what made the original X-COM fun for me. It was less balanced and fine-tuned for sure, but it wasn't so much about doing what you're "supposed" to to win, and more to do with playing with the system the game took place in. That's also what made it far more replayable while the new game gets routine after you've done a game or two. It's a bit awkward a distinction to describe precisely, I'll have to think on it some more.

 

Got a Sectopod teleport right on my support once, those sneaky mechs. God bless ghost armor.

Here the hard data about HP bloat:
(Casual difficulty is called "Hard" in this file, Impossible is called "Casual")

 

Nah, I understand exactly where you're coming from and I agree entirely. The original game allowed you full control over everything you wanted to do. You didn't have to choose which missions to do and which to drop, because if you had enough strike teams you could simply send a strike team to every mission area you wanted to, etc. The new Xcom isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it's way too restricted compared to the previous games.

Luckily the modding scene should eventually get around to fixing all this.

 

Are there even decent mod tools? I'm pretty sure just about everything everyone's done has been INI tweaks for the most part. I don't know if you can make drastic, fundamental changes to the game's rules.

 

I dunno, I simply assumed there is. DarkOne generally doesn't start up sites for games that don't have adequate modding tools, and I saw there's an XcomNexus yesterday.

 

Yes, strange that it turned up so quickly. Maybe he just likes the game and hopes for modding tools.
The devs have not confirmed anything, afaik. All statements concerning modding support have been ambiguous at best.

 

They won't give mod tools when they can sell armor recolor DLC for 5 jewgolds.

About mods, it's pretty easy to tweak the ini and that's that. Some people just started to uncompress and modify the upk files, meaning that something more elaborate may be in the future, but I really don't know about that. It doesn't really seem "user friendly".
Example: Remove Permanent Loss of Will

 

Sigh you're probably right in thinking that Firaxis will follow the Creative Assembly model. Glad to see DLC continue to squash proper expansions and mod tools; oh well, will not buy this pos until it hits twelve bucks.

 

For some reason, I got a sudden urge to play X-COM Apocalypse. With the roadwar mod, of course. (I think I can't make K_Mod and Roadwar work together, or is that Apoc'd?)

It is interesting how the smaller-scale aproach works admirably compared to XCOM: Enemy Unknown forced small-scale approach. You can put as many troopers as your transport can handle (APC handles 12/14 without extra passager module), but it seems clear the game incentivates you to use less trooper to conserve your force so you can always have unhurt soldiers in reserve in case of base invasions/more alien attacks.

I'm playing in super-human. My game is on the second day of Week 2. I was doing well, last invasion before weekend was shot up on the skies and despite some mishaps, somehow they dropped NO aliens whatsoever in the city. Then week 2 arrives and Type 3 and 4 UFOs, combined with some deployment mistakes and a portal that dislocated far away meant that I had my ass handed to me. Didn't down one ship, aliens took down my Valkyrie and a Stormdog. Then it was two/three failed missions in a row. One where I lost because I set the stun grenade wrong and stunned my flying trooper along with the hyperworms (I thought gas didn't go up, but I was wrong), then had my other trooper slaughtered by Multiworms (how I hate those bloated things!). The other one was lost when, for some reason, Osiron went unfriendly to me, bungled a search and they went hostile, then I found the aliens and had my ass handed to me by 15 or so 'Hood Bruthas with heavy weaponry + aliens attacking me from everywhere at once at the same time, at least one trooper escaped from the massacre.

So my current situation: I got six or eight troopers left, low ammounts of craft, no more GLM missiles for my Stormdogs, no Valkyrie Interceptor, and not much money (22k or so). Also, Transtellar and Orion hate my gut. Also, a lot of other companies don't like me either. There are five or six factions being infiltrated by aliens, and one of them is 30% infiltrated. I'm afraid of going Cult Raiding because the extra points will make the aliens EVEN STRONGER next week. Did I mention the aliens LOOOVE going into adjacent buildings to infiltrate them, I'm getting 1-2 recruits per day and I'm researching Disrupters yet?

Did I also mention that this game doesn't cockblock the player from using ridiculous ammounts of explosives, but rather punishes him for it in intelligent ways (Collateral Damage makes factions angry at you)? I would't last a minute in this if I could't grenade or explode my way out of massive crowds of enemies.

Playing this game puts XCOM in proper perspective, let me tell you.

 

Right.

 

Reinstalled to play imp ironman. Roguelike pride

first mission grand graveyard fuck yooooooo

Any mission with a roof you can get on without unleashing a million sectoid packs makes those first month impossible missions easy. The sectoids love to crowd up against the base of the building and overwatch while revealing their position with mind merges. Trigger sectoids, let them crowd around the building (have four guys point blank overwatch the closest ladder; sectoids do not have the AI to storm the roof en masse but they will often path over the roof to hop between cover spots just like your retarded soldiers do, so even if you miss they usually just jump down again) then throw grenades/drop down directly next to mind mergers to get 100% accuracy double kills. You can also overwatch shoot up patrols or mass fire at mind mergers that insist on turtling with +20 height aim bonus

Did the alien base at the end of april with carapace armor and only one laser rifle (no laser sniper/laser minigun) but with an alloy shiv, which is retardedly tougher than any soldier can be until titan armor. Got it damaged down to like 8 hp from 18 total in the april terror mission and it repaired in about 4 days in time for the base mission. Early shivs are incredibly powerful and they let you completely ignore weak human meat supports and assaults in favor of putting all xp onto heavies and snipers. Just having a character that you can allow a shot to be taken on (so you can do shit like use overwatch against alerted enemies) and know it won't die to a 9 point light plasma crit, won't panic, and won't cause anyone else to panic is huge

 

I'm wondering, do you go the capture aliens-route or the laser-weapons research route?

For me, the worst map by far is the one that's on a sort of skyscraper/construction site. The only full cover available is a tiny notch of a corner from a shipping container and that's a full sprint away; everything else is half-cover. Without smoke grenades, I lose guys on that map every time.

 

I actually worked out choreography for doing that map with 4 rookies, like on turn 1 move here and if this spawn shows up this guy moves here and throws a grenade etc. It just happened to be the one hard map I randomly started doing it with (just start an impossible non-ironman game and restart the mission over and over to see where the spawns/patrol timings are). There are other maps that I'd break down the same way if I cared enough but I don't. I was like, I'm not gonna do imp ironman if I can't beat every map and I don't want to do that shit again so forget it. But I eventually got the itch and this time I just started a couple of games and in my current game I happened to slip through a month 1 with good abusable maps, no instant death grand graveyard, and got two heavies and two promoted snipers which is all you need to turn it from an AI-abuse and map deconstruction game to an abuseable firepower game. Shivs seal it.

I did an early alien containment but I was already almost done with carapace armor when I got a floater (I pretty much never try to capture unless it's the last alien of the last pack of the map). I ended up only being able to afford two satellites so I just did the base mission to keep from losing more countries (lost four in march due to 1 satellite and a skipped bomb mission). But on the other hand I did get a sectoid researched to unlock the ability to research the outsider shard at all so it did pay off. I was also pretty lucky with extra engineers to get to 15 so I could build the skeleton key for the base, I got some like council request for scopes that gave 3-4 engineers right when I needed it.

 

I agree with the first (currently only) comment:

 

On the other hand, again using the most boring strategy possible is being declared the only way to play the game (typically "gamist").

Sure, you have to play it save and take some care not to move your team too far too fast.
But doing so could let you lose the mission pretty fast in the classics, too.
It's more about not dashing into all directions at once, not about moving only 3-4 fields at a time

Although there are "patroling" aliens, as well, only seemingly not many of them, compared to the stationary groups.

 

Great article Eric!

 

Also, it seems the game basically 'cheats' when you get closer to end-game content. At the start any aim percentage over 70% meant I was almost guaranteed a hit, whereas closer to the end unless it was over 90 there was a 50/50 chance I was going to miss. The aliens, on the other hand, rarely missed close to the end. Even when a shot seemed nearly impossible (all the way through two walls and while my unit was in full cover) to miss for the aliens. A really cheap way of increasing the difficulty, if you ask me; giving the aliens a better 'luck' rating while reducing the player's 'luck.'

 

Also, this game is absolutely teeming with lazy design decisions. You can see the laziness everywhere, such as the horrendously stupid overwatch, or the absolutely rubbish and nonsensical panic system.

 

...

Well played

Anyway, beat I/I. The +5 hitpoints on the berserkers (particularly since you can't set up guaranteed crits on them the way you can with regular mutons) and 16hp heavy floaters might count as "bloat". But it's not really like normal RPG bloat because it has tactical meaning; terror missions with a bunch of berserkers to chop down, plus their two muton bottoms, can get out of control in a hurry. There's more strategic pressure on you to get plasma snipers and full size plasma guns up and running and to keep your DPS characters healthy - I also transitioned away from squads with 2-3 heavies that plowed through floaters and thin men to use assaults just for the raw DPS you can get out of them. Plus I had several colonel heavies that had three rockets apiece so I didn't need spares. The bigger HP actually makes some enemies easier - for example muton elites can't kill a mind controlled muton elite in one crit due to the HP bonus on impossible, so one mind control can actually tie up both the other elites in the spawn for a turn.

I never had a single support on the squad the entire game. In the beginning I'd rotate them out for rookies, then it was heavies+snipers+shiv, then assaults+1 heavy+snipers after titan armor and combat drugs made the shiv obsolete.

 

To be fair, it's impossible to prove that is cheating. Random seeds gonna seed, gambler's fallacy, etc.