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

[Average Manatee]

I've never seen an alien base assault before you've assaulted one of their bases. Sounds like you just need more satellites and interceptors to shoot more shit down in general. Granted I've only played 3 games.

Frankly I'd consider Outsiders more dangerous than any of those enemies and 6 outsiders more dangerous than anything else, unless you are exploiting their AI by remaining on rooftops. Full cover is worthless against them and hunkering down in full cover still has a high chance of being OHKOed by an outsider. Though base assaults with their retarded selection of who to start you with is nearly as horrifying.

 

[Gozma]

Being surprised by the base invasion is really devastating - in B14 they made it so fatigued characters are completely excluded from defense so you pretty much need to keep your best team out of use at all times or you're gonna have some corporal medics and three lance corporal whatevers and then the rest PFC base security (and it goes by rank order so generally no SHIV). I had no idea it could come so early (nowhere near invading an alien base) so it was really bad. The supply ship outsiders pod is indeed super dangerous if you trigger it poorly but they're vulnerable to flashbangs and there are a lot of situations where they're no big deal (like where they all pile onto breakable cover).

 

[Average Manatee]

How do you flashbang Outsiders that immediately split up upon activating? And even when they all pile together under cover their pure HP is hard to gun down unless you have a really good rocket.

Didn't know about the fatigue taking soldiers out of base defense. Must have barely skirted that issue in my last game.

 

[Akratus]

It's fun to look back on threads. .

Heh, forget about this remake. Its sure to blow, as did CiV.

But on the other hand Paradox does a Syndicate remake. That is something worth looking to.

 

[sser]

Anyone else find the EXALT missions super easy? On one I didn't even fire a shot (well, I fired one-parting shot to kill a guy before leaving on the dropship). I just had the agent hopscotch to two of the disablers, and then we all just ran for the skyranger no prob. Other missions with firefights I just leave a guy or two in the 'hacking zone' and peace out anyone who gets close. Their weapons don't do much damage and they don't have much in the way of HP like aliens do.

 

[Average Manatee]

In vanilla? Yeah they are absurdly easy to the point where I didn't even know about the disabling enemy weapons thing, I just mowed them all down.

 

[Gozma]

Even in LW a lot of the time the extraction missions (the ones where you can only bring 4 units) can be basically skipped by having the agent just run for it, if you're lucky with spawn and pylon placement. But sometimes they pile 16 dudes all onto one spot, the randomly selected pylons can't be daisy chained, or a couple elites throw mayhem grenades at the agent and they cark it (and a couple of maps are just outright unfair about it and have drop in opportunist overwatchers that kill agents for free). You can usually do them the "real way" by bringing a bunch of battle scanners and using the 4 guys to kill isolated spawns and scout out wherever the death zones are to either avoid them if the layout makes it possible or run in and kill everyone after the agent pops the pylon if not.

 

[sser]

Question is, is it actually better to keep the EXALT around for the massive money bonuses you get for doing those missions, or should I try to quickly find their base/destroy them?

 

[Gozma]

99% better to keep them around. The recovery missions are pretty easy, easy enough that you don't ever need to do them with all MSGTs anyway, give ~300 spacebucks and eventually every exalt "drops" a meld when they die (elites are worth a meld, and eventually every exalt is an elite). So like 300 bucks and maybe 25 meld 1-2 times a month, plus a bunch of XP, at the cost of intel scans and a good bit more fatigue. If you intel scan assiduously every 10~15 days they'll probably never get another chance to do sabotage or whatever after the first one.

Taking out the HQ gives you a one-time loot load about as good as an alien base assault IIRC, plus some unique pocket items (a super-scope that gives you the executioner skill and stacks with a regular scope, and two other items that boost xp and psi xp for the unit holding them respectively). Pretty much only a good idea to do it at the point that money and meld are useless and definitely after you have tactical rigging to give you a third pocket slot on everyone. It's also dangerous as hell because the exalts get crazy skill combos that let them to stuff like shoot a mec for a 30 damage crit.

 

[Humppaleka]

I've played through EW on Normal quite far I guess, I've now spotted the Overseer UFO. I am completely and utterly bored by the game now, but I think I'll struggle through. Currently manufacturing Firestorms to take that shit down and just sitting on my ass doing boring missions every once in a while.

I'm thinking that I would have way more fun by installing Long War and repeatedly bashing my head against a wall with Impossible Ironman than this.

 

[LusciousPear]

I put a week into Long War and realized that I had put in ... an entire week into Long War. But damn, what an accomplishment.

 

[Gozma]

I've played through EW on Normal quite far I guess, I've now spotted the Overseer UFO. I am completely and utterly bored by the game now, but I think I'll struggle through. Currently manufacturing Firestorms to take that shit down and just sitting on my ass doing boring missions every once in a while.

I'm thinking that I would have way more fun by installing Long War and repeatedly bashing my head against a wall with Impossible Ironman than this.

I installed EW and, based on internet advice, before installing LW tried to play through it vanilla and was crushed by the end-of-game-life boredom I'd gotten playing EU almost immediately. I half-heartedly installed LW assuming I was gonna delete local content in 10 minutes and got enthralled

 

[Jaedar]

LW is kinda bullshit though. I just got 2 terror missions in the same month, followed by 2 base defenses within 3 weeks.

Oh and Exalt extraction missions.

 

[EG]

LW is kinda bullshit though. I just got 2 terror missions in the same month, followed by 2 base defenses within 3 weeks.

Oh and Exalt extraction missions.

Sounds like hardest difficulty in the original from the 90s.

Now I am tempted.

 

[pippin]

Yeah, Exalt alone is not interesting enough to play vanilla EW, so I'm inclined to play Long War instead.

 

[Jaedar]

Yeah, Exalt alone is not interesting enough to play vanilla EW, so I'm inclined to play Long War instead.

It is certainly a better game. I would call it actually good if not for the stupid fucking pod activation system and the endless swarm of bugs that keeps killing people and ruining plans through no fault of my own. The only solution is basically to memorize the sight lines from every piece of cover on every map, which is sperglord territory.

 

[Eyestabber]

Long War is really good, but if you fundamentally HATE the new Xcom, LW isn't going to magically "salvage" it for you. IMO, if this game was called "Alien Shooter 2012" I'm pretty sure there would be a lot less edgyness against it. Ufo: Enemy Unknown was one of the best (if not THE best) strategy games of all times. The bar was set awfully high, so it was only natural that the new Xcom would receive criticism for not being as good as the original was. I think the dust settled by now and people can finally see this game for what it always was: a slightly-above-average strategy game. My opinion:

Vanilla:


Long War:


Also, having EW on my tablet really makes my flights seem shorter.

 

[Riso]

LW shouldn't have touched the squad size and just worked on the other areas. Would have solved a lot of the balancing problems regarding the number of aliens in a mission.

 

[34scell]

Long War Beta 15 preview on twitch

Changes include more starting choices and new voice packs.

 

[Black]

Bagelrush is a cool guy, unfortunately he was born with the defect of being Australian.

 

[Beowulf]

So, at what should I install Long War?
I'm new to this new X-Com, and last X-Com I played was Apocalypse, I believe; so I wanted to get the "feel" of the vanilla, before modding it (plaed for a few hours, captured first specimen alive in last mission).

 

[lightbane]

Try vanilla X-Com first, then the expansion and then LW. The expansion is worth a play-through IMO.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

Try vanilla X-Com first, then the expansion and then LW. The expansion is worth a play-through IMO.

Pretty much what this guy said.
Treat Long War as a Russian fan mod if you know what I meant.

 

[Jaedar]

Don't bother with vanilla, just go straight for enemy within. And you don't even need to finish that before long war, although seeing every enemy type helps.

 

[Beowulf]

My bad, by vanilla I meant unmoded EW. I'm in the first rescue hostage mission with Thin Man enemy type spawning from thin air when I escort the hostage, and my god, it's annoying mechanic.