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

[Tommers]

It is very good. It does loads of stuff that I absolutely hate but it's still X-Com and it still makes me want to stay up all night playing it.

They've done a good job.

 

[Gozma]

Brotip: Bring tanks on post-base UFO missions to kill sectoid commanders with 0 risk - they only have plasma pistols and tanks are immune to psi-shits. It took my keen tactical mind more than one mission to think of this

Game feels like it is dragging on too long (I have been given retarded units like sniper colonels that shoot twice per turn and assault colonels that have 25 HP and are immune to criticals, which is silly shit that should only happen on like the final mission for RPG mans purposes) but it's kinda my fault because I totally ignored scientists to get all the infrastructure going and used the free interrogations and autopsies special to get the speed research bonuses too, and now that I have to do honest research to advance the plot I see I have like 11 guys

 

[Monk]

Is it possible to have an "auto" option for micro-management?

 

[sser]

Any ideas on the Impossible first map?

Yeah, look for fat-square maps with big buildings in the middle and parking lots outside. These are the best maps to beat on Impossible, as they typically afford a lot of full-cover areas as well as long stretches of cover where aliens can't see you at all (like behind a building, for example).

I gotta warn you, though, Impossible is hard as fuck. I started off on the difficulty and got pretty far into it before burning out and trying out Classic. Now that I've experienced Classic, I realize Impossible isn't even on the same planet. Not only do your soldiers have less HP, but the enemies have more, gradually getting more bloated as the game progresses (floaters/thinmen have 6-HP, and it gets fatter later on; zombies, for example, have 19-HP). There are also more of them, with every mission being "Difficult/Very Difficult" with waves of aliens coming at you. Thinmen will have the ability to one-shot anybody who is 9-HP or lower for a very long time. And they will do it, too, without any remorse whatsoever. And you can completely forget about any situation room mission. They are all impossible given the extreme set-ups they throw at you. And you no longer get to play pattycake on the strategy map. You will jump after shit rewards just so whole sectors don't go red and bail at the end of the month. And when your squad wipes out hard on a mission it's good game, because your 7-HP rookies aren't going to be able to do shit against the sort of nasties that come out later.

That's your squad. And the aliens are driving lawnmowers and eventually combines. Good luck.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

A month from now no cunt will be playing this games. its only redeeming (lol?) quality is the "one more turn" mentality that firaxis have honed to a fine art. It's an FOTM title, no depth, no finesse to it.

2 gigs of mediocrity with 10 gigs of unnescessary FMV and voice over.

 

[Gozma]

I wish they had streamlined this plot mission where you are supposed to shoot down this fucking UFO

Don't build the hyperwave decoder if you don't have firestorms at all your hangars (which take like 20 days, 2 ufo navigation, and 1 ufo power each to build), Jesus H Christ I had to grind through 2 months of garbage time waiting to research the firestorms, then gather UFO junk that I had been selling thinking I was one step from finishing the game, then build them, and I still only have three and the fucking plot UFO keeps spawning over the wrong continents that still have old interceptors

I am 100% sick of the endgame phase where you have all the RPG power ups and I want to get it over with, this shit is padded

 

[Volrath]

Once again the Codex is the only place on the interwebs who sees this as the shallow piece of shit that it really is. Never change bros

 

[Gozma]

Is there a TB squad tactics game that you Boring Shit Banal guys think is good but isn't reliant on sniper-spotting or sight range manipulation? I was sick of UFOD/TFTD and JA2 for that, and by the late phase of XCOM EU guess what you are mostly sniper spotting. I liked the earlier parts where doing run and guns with shotgun assaults was more dominant.

 

[GreyViper]

A month from now no cunt will be playing this games. its only redeeming (lol?) quality is the "one more turn" mentality that firaxis have honed to a fine art. It's an FOTM title, no depth, no finesse to it.

2 gigs of mediocrity with 10 gigs of unnescessary FMV and voice over.

I dont know about that, I have gone through the UFO After series and to be honest, this one plays better then the last two games of that series.

The thing with this new game is that it lacks the buildup at start, like you had in 1st UFO, TFD, Apocalypse, Aftermath or JA2 . Where you have wepaons that do squat damage and limited resources and your better off with scavanged researched weapons. In the new XCOM the starting weapons are decent and honestly you dont have much choice at start compared to to other games.
What I do find lacking is the soldier loadout customization, way to simple to my taste. Aftershock for its fault featured a better system where you could add mods to wepaons and armors.
I do miss drones/tanks sure, they were not needed, but sometimes it was handy to have them.

I will be waitng for that XP patch yarrrrr.

 

[kris]

Another point against this popamole turd: so long as you haven't spotted the enemies you can gleefully rush ahead as much as you like. There are no patrols at all. The sound waves you see indicating alien movement just point at the nearest untriggered spawn. You'll never walk into a sudden overwatch out of nowhere. Even the terror missions have X civilians die to unspawned aliens every Y turns.

Not only that. Test reloading a bigger map and you will discover that they will only spawn were you are going. Basically, they will be on the left side if you go on the left side and they will be on the right side if you go there. It is impossible to circumvent them.

Another point against this popamole turd: so long as you haven't spotted the enemies you can gleefully rush ahead as much as you like. There are no patrols at all. The sound waves you see indicating alien movement just point at the nearest untriggered spawn. You'll never walk into a sudden overwatch out of nowhere. Even the terror missions have X civilians die to unspawned aliens every Y turns.

But this isn't true at all. Hell, my post a page (Or two?) back about stacking up on the UFO and having aliens burst out of it proves it, and I've had multiple times where aliens would wander out of the fog of war and into my line of sight.

WHY DO YOU LIE FFS R00FLES

I am sure you are incorrect. The thing you talk about is also spawning. They spawn and burst out as you reach a certain point. None will even come there if you wait just before that point that they come. I am sure of this.

 

[Gord]

Hmm, now I'm confused. Some say it does have patrolling aliens, some say it doesn't.
Need more data!

 

[good little toastboy]

I wish they had streamlined this plot mission where you are supposed to shoot down this fucking UFO

Don't build the hyperwave decoder if you don't have firestorms at all your hangars (which take like 20 days, 2 ufo navigation, and 1 ufo power each to build), Jesus H Christ I had to grind through 2 months of garbage time waiting to research the firestorms, then gather UFO junk that I had been selling thinking I was one step from finishing the game, then build them, and I still only have three and the fucking plot UFO keeps spawning over the wrong continents that still have old interceptors

Streamlining the interception process to only allow interceptors from the continent where the UFO was spotted was the problem for me in that one. Had a Firestorm in Europe, UFO is detected over Africa, escapes my interceptor and then heads over to Europe but for some retarded reason I even then can't intercept it with my Firestorm.

 

[UncleJimb0]

100% positive on patrolling aliens, at least in Classic mode.

 

[Gord]

But will they be patrolling on their own before you spot them the first time?
Can it, e.g. happen that I'm just sitting on the starting position with my dudes/dudettes and get ambushed after a couple of turns because a patrolling alien spotted me?

Sorry if I'm bringing this up repeatedly, but there's just too much conflicting info around.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[xilo3z]

As far as critics go, he's one of the few that has any journalistic integrity. Its one of the perks for being your own boss.

<rant mode> Except he doesn't. He has none. He admits his boss on numerous occasions - page views/cash. Hell even his followers know this. If you read a negative comment on his video and you'll see it is usually met with supporters screaming "LOL you watched giving him hits which give him dat cash money lol you paid him!". There is a reason his supports think this -> Because he says it.

He makes it abundantly clear he only releases videos that he knows will give him a lot of hits and a lot money. In his mailbox videos of past he's admitted he has deleted videos and not uploaded them simply because it wouldn't have generated any money for him. Yes journalistic integrity... Cover some news, throw coverage away because it wouldn't pay him as his opinion in the videos wasn't Xtreme enough to generate cash. Throw in his past of entering low level popularity contests for poor aspiring artist and destroying the competition by sending his minions in just to generate publicity so more people watch his videos, his constant flip flopping, his known past of black listing sources/mentions on his videos since he "doesn't want to generate his competition any money", etc. etc. and you have someone who is so wrapped up in money to the point it boggles my mind and I work in finance. If you want to see inside the total biscuit mind, watch his mailbox videos where someone asks about other reviewers/video personalities or how he conducts business. The dude truly thinks of himself as some corporate machine with the brand power of Nike who must eradicate all competition.

Granted that's entirely different from Firaxis paying him off, haha. But still, his opinions and views should be questioned constantly since his business model (which to his credit, yes, he is totally open about. +1 to him for that. Rarity in this day and age.) is that of a Hollywood gossip blog. Page views page view page views and more page views.

Pretty much my summation of TB: Someone called him out on his review of Hell Yeah so his response on twitter had a nice call to his thousands of his subscribers and how he makes money from all of them: "Yeah you're just one guy. Who cares" .... Ah... so poetic.

 

[Fart Master]

But will they be patrolling on their own before you spot them the first time?
Can it, e.g. happen that I'm just sitting on the starting position with my dudes/dudettes and get ambushed after a couple of turns because a patrolling alien spotted me?

Sorry if I'm bringing this up repeatedly, but there's just too much conflicting info around.

I've never ever had this happen in about 30 missions. I'd be glad if I was proven wrong but it really seems like the aliens are just static groups that appear when you move into their LOS.
playing on Impossible.

 

[Surf Solar]

Been playing this for the last couple of hours and I find it pretty good. So much stuff to buy/unlock/produce in the base, if I do some stupid things in the missions I get my ass handed too. Pussied out and disabled the Ironman for now, will for sure make a new playthrough with the highest difficulty (playing on classic atm) and ironman when I finished this one. Especially the early missions can fuck you over big time when the RNG decides to give you constantly misses and the aliens hit you. As a result, I have a few soldiers that got promotions, but they all are wounded and I can't take them with me, forcing me to send newbies in again.

On a sidenote - I shouldn't name my soldiers after me or my RL friends - it makes me mourn even more when they get hit or deaded.

What I dislike is the overly lengthy tutorial (forced myself through it since you get a bonus satelite for it) and that I can't decide on myself which class a rookie gets promoted to. That's really shitty.

Other than that - it's exactly the game I wanted - it's not like the old xcom, it's something different and I'm fine with it.

 

[Sayan]

But will they be patrolling on their own before you spot them the first time?
Can it, e.g. happen that I'm just sitting on the starting position with my dudes/dudettes and get ambushed after a couple of turns because a patrolling alien spotted me?

Sorry if I'm bringing this up repeatedly, but there's just too much conflicting info around.

I've never ever had this happen in about 30 missions. I'd be glad if I was proven wrong but it really seems like the aliens are just static groups that appear when you move into their LOS.
playing on Impossible.

They group is indeed just a simple marker until spotted. You will never get fired at or ambushed before spotting the enemy, you can loose sight of it momentarily though, since they get free move.

Is there a TB squad tactics game that you Boring Shit Banal guys think is good but isn't reliant on sniper-spotting or sight range manipulation? I was sick of UFOD/TFTD and JA2 for that, and by the late phase of XCOM EU guess what you are mostly sniper spotting. I liked the earlier parts where doing run and guns with shotgun assaults was more dominant.

Something like Alien Assault or Incubation?

 

[Raghar]

Well, how do you like it? Maybe a mini-review, or a link to one you wrote in one of these 68 pages?

There is 2GB patch. So it would be probably finished in about half year. Play UFO:ET, then this and say: Wow it's wonderful graphics, I had enough micromanagement for a while, thus lack of micromanagement isn't that important for me.

 

[Jasede]

A 2GB patch?

 

[Raghar]

Well they forgot to activate these 1920x1080 videos, standard videos were console size, even when nearly all these videos were on HD already. Rest of it are gameplay changes like:

Various visibility/hiding optimizations
Multiplayer text chat support (press J to activate)
Mouse button 4/5 will switch soldiers in the Barracks
ESC hides the movement grid, if you do not want to commit to a move while it is activated
Squad Sight ability optimization
Fixed issue when equipping two grenades with Deep Pockets.
Fixed Rapid Fire sometimes consuming too much ammo.
SHIVs that are damaged will no longer become unusable.
Fixed some hangs/soft crashes in tactical combat.
Replaced software cursor with the operating system cursor to reduce lag and framerate dependence.
Fixed rendering bug which causes some soldier�s hair to appear as if it is rendering on top of environment fog.
1080p movies are now used at all times on the PC.

 

[Surf Solar]

Fuck, I just got my first terror mission while all my main squaddies where wounded and I got terribly raped, now Australia is the second country that is out of the funding. A new mission got triggered but I don't even have any soldiers to send there - how the fuck askjrq890q32u5409wqrjmovrp983U)=(R

 

[Eyeball]

Is there a TB squad tactics game that you Boring Shit Banal guys think is good but isn't reliant on sniper-spotting or sight range manipulation? I was sick of UFOD/TFTD and JA2 for that, and by the late phase of XCOM EU guess what you are mostly sniper spotting. I liked the earlier parts where doing run and guns with shotgun assaults was more dominant.

Yes. Shadow Watch. A turn based and very board-gamey title from around the turn of the century with only 6 characters with each of their specialty battling it out with criminal or terrorist organisations in small isometric maps. Your accuracy or damage isn't affected by range, only by cover and shooter skills.

I should do a proper retro review for Shadow Watch, it's one of those games I keep coming back to. It's just so simple, atmospheric and fun.

 

[Monocause]

Actually guys, I just found out that you don't get a bonus satellite for the tutorial. If you start a normal game you have a free satellite ready for deployment, at least in the normal mode, tutorial or no tutorial. Haven't checked if it's the same in classic, though I believe it'd be too much of a gimp if they didn't provide you with it.

The tutorial does make things easier anyway as you get two easy weeks when you can do unhindered research of stuff until getting the arc thrower, and the tutorial scenarios make your first captures that much easier. You also get two heavily scripted missions in which you can level up your folks to squaddies and in which it's pretty much impossible to get a casualty.

Anyway, restarted again after fucking up with base management. I think I'm getting the hang of the economy game, at least on normal diff. I've recently done the first terror mission - got off lucky and busted a chryssalid with a rocket while damaging the other, which was promptly finished off by my assault guy. Now I'm sitting comfortably with full satellite coverage for both Americas (South America bonus is pretty nifty and saves you a lot of research time), building four new satellites; panic levels are rather low worldwide. Most of my guys are upgraded to laser weaponry and six units of carapace armor are waiting for anyone who'll undertake the next mission. I think this is going to be my successful playthrough, next one's going to be on classic diff.

The priorities for maintaining early game economy seem to be:

1) getting 10 engineers for the second satellite uplink
2) getting cash for building the uplink and three more satellites - prioritise building satellites over the uplink as they take longer to build.
3) digging to your steam deposits to build a thermal generator.

Also, digging the fact that - while at a first glance it appears to the contrary - ability trees are balanced indeed. For instance, at first I thought that a sniper without squadsight is useless, but then I tailored my 2nd sniper to another build and he's much more versatile and generally more useful than the traditional sniper in tight quarter missions. It's just more essential to outfit him with SCOPE to counteract the aiming penalty resulting from moving&shooting. My party consists now of the following:

1) Main sniper with squadsight and SCOPE - stays in the back, shoots at hilarious distances, 19 kills so far and probably will get promoted to Major soon. Also has battle scanner which often helps find great targets for the heavy's rocket, and he's got the opportunist upgrade.
2) Heavy guy with two grenades upgrade and the bullet storm upgrade. So far I'm mostly using him to suppress or demolish enemy cover with 'nades. Going to download the patch soon cause it irks me that suppresion pretty much empties the clip; I think I read in the patch notes that they fixed that.
3) Support girl with the medical upgrades.
4) Assault guy with lightning reflexes and the arc thrower
5) 2nd support with sprint, double smoke grenades and suppression, also with an arc thrower. Works GREAT when coupled with the assault guy, often helping out of a tight spot with his smoke, and sprint helps a lot to get within capture range.
6) 2nd sniper of the move&shoot type.

Depending on the mission I sometimes substitute my main sniper with another heavy to get more boomboom power. I only had three casualties so far, and all of them were rookies I used as cannon fodder anyway. In small UFO and alien abduction missions I also swap some of my vets for rookies to level them up.

 

[Gozma]

I've never ever had this happen in about 30 missions. I'd be glad if I was proven wrong but it really seems like the aliens are just static groups that appear when you move into their LOS.
playing on Impossible.

They group is indeed just a simple marker until spotted. You will never get fired at or ambushed before spotting the enemy, you can loose sight of it momentarily though, since they get free move.

They move, but they never spot you and shoot at you in the same turn. I've had many occasions where I end the turn having not seen any aliens. Some patrol marker paths into the range where it turns into aliens, they move into view. The patrol gets their "we see you" cutscene and another free move. What is happening if I end turn not having seen aliens, then aliens move into my range during their turn, if that isn't a patrol?