KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[CthuluIsSpy]

Does TFTV impact achievements? Does it affect the endings or research tree in any way? I still have Phoenix Project, Polyphonic and Terraformers endings left.

Edit : Hm, seems it ramps up the difficulty too.
I think I will play one more hero game before moving to TFTV. I had a bit of trouble playing hero for my first playthrough, so I'll try hero again to see after I played veteran and have more of an idea of how the game works and what to expect from the DLC.

 

[ArchAngel]

Does TFTV impact achievements? Does it affect the endings or research tree in any way? I still have Phoenix Project, Polyphonic and Terraformers endings left.

Edit : Hm, seems it ramps up the difficulty too.
I think I will play one more hero game before moving to TFTV. I had a bit of trouble playing hero for my first playthrough, so I'll try hero again to see after I played veteran and have more of an idea of how the game works and what to expect from the DLC.

Yes and no. It changes how some systems work but it also has new options to get faster access to gear and tech. Until you figure out the changes it might seem harder.
Only way it does make the game "harder" is that some of the most broken combat builds were killed so if you were depending on those to make the game super easy then yea, it is harder.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Fair enough. Does it break achievements? Can I still get master researcher and the endings achievements?

 

[ArchAngel]

Fair enough. Does it break achievements? Can I still get master researcher and the endings achievements?

I don't have any clue. I never check those for any games I own on Steam.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Got the NJ Achievement. It did not end how I thought it would end.
I thought West would just wipe the other two factions out like the Anu did to NJ, but he was actually fairly restrained.

Spoiler

- Syn ends up reluctantly working with NJ in the face of a PP / NJ alliance
- Anu's nation falls apart after it was evident that their cult is a sham. There is some resistance but only from hard core fanatics
- West goes on to make a planet wide world government promising freedom and liberty for all human civilians. So basically the government from Starship troopers.
- The infected are rounded up and put into quarantine camps. Those who cannot be cured are executed.

 

[ArchAngel]

Got the NJ Achievement. It did not end how I thought it would end.
I thought West would just wipe the other two factions out like the Anu did to NJ, but he was actually fairly restrained.

Spoiler

- Syn ends up reluctantly working with NJ in the face of a PP / NJ alliance
- Anu's nation falls apart after it was evident that their cult is a sham. There is some resistance but only from hard core fanatics
- West goes on to make a planet wide world government promising freedom and liberty for all human civilians. So basically the government from Starship troopers.
- The infected are rounded up and put into quarantine camps. Those who cannot be cured are executed.

You do understand this basically means he wipes out all Anu that had any kind of mutations or infection which is almost all of them. Even Anu soldiers with no combat mutation are probably on kill list and on Anu art you can often see many mutated civilians and such as part of their factions.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Got the NJ Achievement. It did not end how I thought it would end.
I thought West would just wipe the other two factions out like the Anu did to NJ, but he was actually fairly restrained.

Spoiler

- Syn ends up reluctantly working with NJ in the face of a PP / NJ alliance
- Anu's nation falls apart after it was evident that their cult is a sham. There is some resistance but only from hard core fanatics
- West goes on to make a planet wide world government promising freedom and liberty for all human civilians. So basically the government from Starship troopers.
- The infected are rounded up and put into quarantine camps. Those who cannot be cured are executed.

You do understand this basically means he wipes out all Anu that had any kind of mutations or infection which is almost all of them. Even Anu soldiers with no combat mutation are probably on kill list and on Anu art you can often see many mutated civilians and such as part of their factions.

True, but its still not quite the same as the Anu ending where the exarch seeks out to destroy NJ.
The way the cutscene describes the fall of Anu is kind of weird, imo. I was expecting NJ to just destroy their cities, but apparently Anu society just fell apart and NJ just had to quarantine and execute the stragglers as they were infected.
It's not like the Anu ending where the Exarch explicitly destroyed NJ.

 

[ArchAngel]

Got the NJ Achievement. It did not end how I thought it would end.
I thought West would just wipe the other two factions out like the Anu did to NJ, but he was actually fairly restrained.

Spoiler

- Syn ends up reluctantly working with NJ in the face of a PP / NJ alliance
- Anu's nation falls apart after it was evident that their cult is a sham. There is some resistance but only from hard core fanatics
- West goes on to make a planet wide world government promising freedom and liberty for all human civilians. So basically the government from Starship troopers.
- The infected are rounded up and put into quarantine camps. Those who cannot be cured are executed.

You do understand this basically means he wipes out all Anu that had any kind of mutations or infection which is almost all of them. Even Anu soldiers with no combat mutation are probably on kill list and on Anu art you can often see many mutated civilians and such as part of their factions.

True, but its still not quite the same as the Anu ending where the exarch seeks out to destroy NJ.
The way the cutscene describes the fall of Anu is kind of weird, imo. I was expecting NJ to just destroy their cities, but apparently Anu society just fell apart and NJ just had to quarantine and execute the stragglers as they were infected.
It's not like the Anu ending where the Exarch explicitly destroyed NJ.

Yes but Exarch does not go around and hunt down all pure humans. He just destroys the movement of NJ.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Never said he did, just pointing out that it's odd how in the NJ ending they did not personally destroy the Anu as a society (as opposed to what the Exalted did to NJ in the Anu ending), rather it fell apart due to the failure of their prophesies and its implied that NJ quarantined them like the rest of the infected.

I was expecting West to just flat out exterminate both Synedrion and Anu. As in, personally deploy armies to raze their havens to the ground and nuke them. Instead Syn just ended up working with West and Anu fell more to internal reasons than external ones.

 

[ArchAngel]

Never said he did, just pointing out that it's odd how in the NJ ending they did not personally destroy the Anu as a society (as opposed to what the Exalted did to NJ in the Anu ending), rather it fell apart due to the failure of their prophesies and its implied that NJ quarantined them like the rest of the infected.

I was expecting West to just flat out exterminate both Synedrion and Anu. As in, personally deploy armies to raze their havens to the ground and nuke them. Instead Syn just ended up working with West and Anu fell more to internal reasons than external ones.

Sure NJ didn't cause direct downfall of Anu but they eradicated the remains which is worse than what Exarch did.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Never said he did, just pointing out that it's odd how in the NJ ending they did not personally destroy the Anu as a society (as opposed to what the Exalted did to NJ in the Anu ending), rather it fell apart due to the failure of their prophesies and its implied that NJ quarantined them like the rest of the infected.

I was expecting West to just flat out exterminate both Synedrion and Anu. As in, personally deploy armies to raze their havens to the ground and nuke them. Instead Syn just ended up working with West and Anu fell more to internal reasons than external ones.

Sure NJ didn't cause direct downfall of Anu but they eradicated the remains which is worse than what Exarch did.

...yes, because there was no remains of NJ for her left to destroy.

"New Jericho fought until the end. She respected that.
Tobias West and his people believed in their principles, and died for them.
With them died the last fragment of the old world"

Besides, it would have been counter-intuitive for her to destroy normal humans; you can't mutate humans when they are dead, and she wants as many humans to accept the "gift" as possible. NJ were a direct threat to her new world order that had to be destroyed, due to their outright hostility towards the pandoravirus and Anu mutations. That was what happened in the Anu ending; ALL humans eventually end up mutated.

That is consistent with her motive, just as it was consistent for NJ to quarantine infected in accordance with their policy of the pandoravirus being a threat to humanity, regardless if the infected was a member of the Disciples or not.

After rereading the NJ ending, it seems they did fight a war with Anu, but it wasn't quite as a thorough path of destruction as what the Exalted did to NJ in her ending, and the fall of the Anu was more due to internal politics.

"The Anu cult resisted us at first, but as the prophecies of their misguided religion failed, they lost hope.
They remain an insurgent threat, but one we are determined to eliminate"

Funnily enough, this actually provides a bit of a contrast between the two; in the Anu ending NJ fought to the last man and were exterminated, but in the NJ ending its implied that only the hardcore Anu fanatics continued fighting and the rest left the cult to hide in the woods.

 

[Jaedar]

Edit : Hm, seems it ramps up the difficulty too.

fwiw, the authors do recommend to play it on one difficulty lower than the base game until you get used to the changes.

Fair enough. Does it break achievements? Can I still get master researcher and the endings achievements?

It does not block achievements. I've only beaten pp with tftv, and I got lots of achievements during that run. Might break some cheevos though, it's not like I checked all of them.

 

[ArchAngel]

New bigger update:

Spoiler

Update #22

Hopefully the wait for this release will have been worth it, because it's BIG. In addition to the usual bugfixes (some of them Vanilla), we have the BetterClasses long awaited Infiltrator class rework, and the new Base Defense mission and Geoscape mechanics.

Please be aware that as the first testers of this content you will likely encounter bugs and balance issues. Your bug reports and feedback are very, very important. In addition, please note that the Base Defense content is not yet 100% finished: major things pending completion are rework of the infestation mission (which is now available to recover a base lost to the act) and adjusting the base defense mission and Geoscape mechanics to attacks from factions.

In other news, I have created a Buy Me a Coffee page, so that you can buy me coffee if you feel like it https://www.buymeacoffee.com/voland

-Bugfixes
+ Myrmidons not fleeing the battlefield after torso disabled (Vanilla bug)
+ Missions can be done more than once if using more than one aircraft (Vanilla bug)
+Firequenchers error message spam
+Error on completing some missions, preventing obtaining resource rewards.
+VO effects persisting across different games
+Impossible Weapons adjustments not applying correctly if loading a tactical save
+ Mutoids triggering Project Osiris
+Penalties from diplomacy missions not applying if loading Autosave
+Incorrect Vampiric damage shown in UI for Mutoids/Mutated operatives

-Changes
+New portraits for Alistair, Olena and Helena (still using our friend Abbinco's portraits as a base, now with more AI magic)

-Other
+A lot of corrections to text (big shoutout to @Louis11 for editing!). Full stops are now mandatory. Everywhere. Always.
[11:32 AM]
-New features
+Completely reworked Base defense, on Geoscape and on tactical. Big thanks to Dimitar "Codemite" Evtimov from Snapshot Games for all the help, especially re uncovering the mysteries of objective tile placement on the map!

-Better Classes

There is so much stuff that I'm just posting what Madskunky has given me:

These should be the changes from the last package, but maybe not complete or even some of them were already in the last version, not sure:

- Ignore Pain: Removed "mind control immunity"

- Synedrion Faction Perks: Replaced lvl2 Skill (Pain Chameleon) with OW Focus

- Phoenix Point Faction Perks: Replaced lvl 2 Skill (OW Focus) with the new Skill "Die Hard": When you take lethal damage there is 50% to survive with 1HP and have all negative effects cleared and broken limbs restored. Can only trigger once per combat.

- Advanced Laser Weapons: Changed Synedrion requirement from "Laser Weapons Research" to "Multi-sensor Threat detection Research",
Reverted New Jericho requirement to "Technician Research" instead of "Advanced Technician Weapons Research"

- Advanced Melee Weapon: New requirements are Advanced Melee Weapons (DoA) and Advanced Paralysing Weapons (Syn)

- Advanced Acid Technology: Requires Heavy Cannon Deployment (PX) research in addition to Acid Weapons Technology (DoA)

- Armor Break change: Grants 15 Shred to the next direct-fire or melee attack. The shred damage is additive, but is split between pellets. WP 2 -> 3

- Infiltrator Skills rework:
Lvl. 5: Neural Feedback - Passive - Gain 2 AP the first time you daze an enemy during the turn
Lvl. 6: Jamming Field - Passive - Enemies within 10 tiles have 50% fumble chance with firearms
Lvl. 6 Vanish moved to Class perk 1 (lvl. 3 on the 3rd row)
Lvl. 7: Parasychosis - 1AP/6WP - Target human-sized enemy within 12 tiles becomes Wild
[11:32 AM]
Keep in mind that reworked skills are only applied to newly created characters. While the whole update should be save game stable it means that all your existing characters and all recruits that were spawned before the new version will have the old skill sets. Only recruits on havens and the PX roster that get refreshed after a while will have the reworked set.

Other:
- Jet Jump is now limited to one use per turn
- Jetpack Control range increased to 14, limited to one use per turn
- Rocket Leap WP cost increased to 3 from 2, limited to 2 uses per turn

 

[vmar]

Is Terror From the Void worth buying about $15 of dlc to play? I'd like to give it a try but not sure if I wanna spend more money on a game I haven't put much time into just for a mod.

On the other hand, does anyone know if pirated dlc works with a legit steam purchase for this game?

 

[ArchAngel]

Is Terror From the Void worth buying about $15 of dlc to play? I'd like to give it a try but not sure if I wanna spend more money on a game I haven't put much time into just for a mod.

On the other hand, does anyone know if pirated dlc works with a legit steam purchase for this game?

You can pirate the whole game and then apply this mod on top of it, the process is just not as simple as subscribing to it on Steam. You need to go into their discord and ask how to mod it for non Steam version.

 

[Jaedar]

New bigger update:

Spoiler

Update #22

Hopefully the wait for this release will have been worth it, because it's BIG. In addition to the usual bugfixes (some of them Vanilla), we have the BetterClasses long awaited Infiltrator class rework, and the new Base Defense mission and Geoscape mechanics.

Please be aware that as the first testers of this content you will likely encounter bugs and balance issues. Your bug reports and feedback are very, very important. In addition, please note that the Base Defense content is not yet 100% finished: major things pending completion are rework of the infestation mission (which is now available to recover a base lost to the act) and adjusting the base defense mission and Geoscape mechanics to attacks from factions.

In other news, I have created a Buy Me a Coffee page, so that you can buy me coffee if you feel like it https://www.buymeacoffee.com/voland

-Bugfixes
+ Myrmidons not fleeing the battlefield after torso disabled (Vanilla bug)
+ Missions can be done more than once if using more than one aircraft (Vanilla bug)
+Firequenchers error message spam
+Error on completing some missions, preventing obtaining resource rewards.
+VO effects persisting across different games
+Impossible Weapons adjustments not applying correctly if loading a tactical save
+ Mutoids triggering Project Osiris
+Penalties from diplomacy missions not applying if loading Autosave
+Incorrect Vampiric damage shown in UI for Mutoids/Mutated operatives

-Changes
+New portraits for Alistair, Olena and Helena (still using our friend Abbinco's portraits as a base, now with more AI magic)

-Other
+A lot of corrections to text (big shoutout to @Louis11 for editing!). Full stops are now mandatory. Everywhere. Always.
[11:32 AM]
-New features
+Completely reworked Base defense, on Geoscape and on tactical. Big thanks to Dimitar "Codemite" Evtimov from Snapshot Games for all the help, especially re uncovering the mysteries of objective tile placement on the map!

-Better Classes

There is so much stuff that I'm just posting what Madskunky has given me:

These should be the changes from the last package, but maybe not complete or even some of them were already in the last version, not sure:

- Ignore Pain: Removed "mind control immunity"

- Synedrion Faction Perks: Replaced lvl2 Skill (Pain Chameleon) with OW Focus

- Phoenix Point Faction Perks: Replaced lvl 2 Skill (OW Focus) with the new Skill "Die Hard": When you take lethal damage there is 50% to survive with 1HP and have all negative effects cleared and broken limbs restored. Can only trigger once per combat.

- Advanced Laser Weapons: Changed Synedrion requirement from "Laser Weapons Research" to "Multi-sensor Threat detection Research",
Reverted New Jericho requirement to "Technician Research" instead of "Advanced Technician Weapons Research"

- Advanced Melee Weapon: New requirements are Advanced Melee Weapons (DoA) and Advanced Paralysing Weapons (Syn)

- Advanced Acid Technology: Requires Heavy Cannon Deployment (PX) research in addition to Acid Weapons Technology (DoA)

- Armor Break change: Grants 15 Shred to the next direct-fire or melee attack. The shred damage is additive, but is split between pellets. WP 2 -> 3

- Infiltrator Skills rework:
Lvl. 5: Neural Feedback - Passive - Gain 2 AP the first time you daze an enemy during the turn
Lvl. 6: Jamming Field - Passive - Enemies within 10 tiles have 50% fumble chance with firearms
Lvl. 6 Vanish moved to Class perk 1 (lvl. 3 on the 3rd row)
Lvl. 7: Parasychosis - 1AP/6WP - Target human-sized enemy within 12 tiles becomes Wild
[11:32 AM]
Keep in mind that reworked skills are only applied to newly created characters. While the whole update should be save game stable it means that all your existing characters and all recruits that were spawned before the new version will have the old skill sets. Only recruits on havens and the PX roster that get refreshed after a while will have the reworked set.

Other:
- Jet Jump is now limited to one use per turn
- Jetpack Control range increased to 14, limited to one use per turn
- Rocket Leap WP cost increased to 3 from 2, limited to 2 uses per turn

I never really got infiltrators as a class.
New base defense sounds interesting, but there are no details.

 

[ArchAngel]

New bigger update:

Spoiler

Update #22

Hopefully the wait for this release will have been worth it, because it's BIG. In addition to the usual bugfixes (some of them Vanilla), we have the BetterClasses long awaited Infiltrator class rework, and the new Base Defense mission and Geoscape mechanics.

Please be aware that as the first testers of this content you will likely encounter bugs and balance issues. Your bug reports and feedback are very, very important. In addition, please note that the Base Defense content is not yet 100% finished: major things pending completion are rework of the infestation mission (which is now available to recover a base lost to the act) and adjusting the base defense mission and Geoscape mechanics to attacks from factions.

In other news, I have created a Buy Me a Coffee page, so that you can buy me coffee if you feel like it https://www.buymeacoffee.com/voland

-Bugfixes
+ Myrmidons not fleeing the battlefield after torso disabled (Vanilla bug)
+ Missions can be done more than once if using more than one aircraft (Vanilla bug)
+Firequenchers error message spam
+Error on completing some missions, preventing obtaining resource rewards.
+VO effects persisting across different games
+Impossible Weapons adjustments not applying correctly if loading a tactical save
+ Mutoids triggering Project Osiris
+Penalties from diplomacy missions not applying if loading Autosave
+Incorrect Vampiric damage shown in UI for Mutoids/Mutated operatives

-Changes
+New portraits for Alistair, Olena and Helena (still using our friend Abbinco's portraits as a base, now with more AI magic)

-Other
+A lot of corrections to text (big shoutout to @Louis11 for editing!). Full stops are now mandatory. Everywhere. Always.
[11:32 AM]
-New features
+Completely reworked Base defense, on Geoscape and on tactical. Big thanks to Dimitar "Codemite" Evtimov from Snapshot Games for all the help, especially re uncovering the mysteries of objective tile placement on the map!

-Better Classes

There is so much stuff that I'm just posting what Madskunky has given me:

These should be the changes from the last package, but maybe not complete or even some of them were already in the last version, not sure:

- Ignore Pain: Removed "mind control immunity"

- Synedrion Faction Perks: Replaced lvl2 Skill (Pain Chameleon) with OW Focus

- Phoenix Point Faction Perks: Replaced lvl 2 Skill (OW Focus) with the new Skill "Die Hard": When you take lethal damage there is 50% to survive with 1HP and have all negative effects cleared and broken limbs restored. Can only trigger once per combat.

- Advanced Laser Weapons: Changed Synedrion requirement from "Laser Weapons Research" to "Multi-sensor Threat detection Research",
Reverted New Jericho requirement to "Technician Research" instead of "Advanced Technician Weapons Research"

- Advanced Melee Weapon: New requirements are Advanced Melee Weapons (DoA) and Advanced Paralysing Weapons (Syn)

- Advanced Acid Technology: Requires Heavy Cannon Deployment (PX) research in addition to Acid Weapons Technology (DoA)

- Armor Break change: Grants 15 Shred to the next direct-fire or melee attack. The shred damage is additive, but is split between pellets. WP 2 -> 3

- Infiltrator Skills rework:
Lvl. 5: Neural Feedback - Passive - Gain 2 AP the first time you daze an enemy during the turn
Lvl. 6: Jamming Field - Passive - Enemies within 10 tiles have 50% fumble chance with firearms
Lvl. 6 Vanish moved to Class perk 1 (lvl. 3 on the 3rd row)
Lvl. 7: Parasychosis - 1AP/6WP - Target human-sized enemy within 12 tiles becomes Wild
[11:32 AM]
Keep in mind that reworked skills are only applied to newly created characters. While the whole update should be save game stable it means that all your existing characters and all recruits that were spawned before the new version will have the old skill sets. Only recruits on havens and the PX roster that get refreshed after a while will have the reworked set.

Other:
- Jet Jump is now limited to one use per turn
- Jetpack Control range increased to 14, limited to one use per turn
- Rocket Leap WP cost increased to 3 from 2, limited to 2 uses per turn

I never really got infiltrators as a class.
New base defense sounds interesting, but there are no details.

There never are and I have not yet tried it due to playing Wartales and D2R atm.
But since base defense was one of the worst parts of vanilla, they could not make it worse.

Little I know is that there will be multiple types of Base Defense, you can lose it and it will become Infected that you can then go and recover in Infested base assault missions.
And there are some interactable elements during defense, not just hold one tiny corridor until all enemies kill themselves on fire.

Also human factions will be doing more raids/attacks on your bases if you decide to do missions against them.

 

[Jaedar]

But since base defense was one of the worst parts of vanilla, they could not make it worse.

Why hating base defence? They're not very exciting missions (camp the entrance and kill anything that moves inside), but they are at least sorta unique.

 

[ArchAngel]

But since base defense was one of the worst parts of vanilla, they could not make it worse.

Why hating base defence? They're not very exciting missions (camp the entrance and kill anything that moves inside), but they are at least sorta unique.

You answered it yourself.

 

[razvedchiki]

come on man, player bases dont even have a door for the mutants to break....
they also attack from just one direction which is a pitty because the whole of the base is rendered in game and its wasted.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, they're a far cry from xcom or even xenonauts base defenses where the aliens are everywhere and you don't know where they're coming from.
Once you get purification grenades base defenses become a non-issue because of the choke point. You don't even have gun turrets, which is a pity as even XCOM Apoc had those.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Also human factions will be doing more raids/attacks on your bases if you decide to do missions against them.

I really like that. In vanilla there is pratically no real repercussion for raiding the factions.

 

[Jaedar]

come on man, player bases dont even have a door for the mutants to break....
they also attack from just one direction which is a pitty because the whole of the base is rendered in game and its wasted.

It's not entirely wasted. If you activate a base after the fog has reached it, it can be filled with pandorans that you need to clean out (reverse base assault).

I just don't think base assaults are notably bad, the whole game kinda suffers from generic missions and base assaults are at least slightly novel, even if they are too easy.

 

[Shaki]

Do people on Codex also hate the DLCs as much as steam/reddit etc? I was hesitant to turn them on for my first playthrough, because everywhere people cried they are dogshit and make the game super difficult and unfair, but I decided to stick with them, and was pleasantly surprised. I'm pretty deep on this playthrough, 60 hours in, Hero difficulty, all DLCs enabled, going blind without any guides and shit, and I quite like it. I think the difficulty level so far feels close to perfect, challenging but fair, and game has a good atmosphere of really fighting an uphill battle against an overwhelming force, with mist appearing everywhere, me always being short of resources, enemies improving all the time and behemoth randomly appearing and rampaging around the globe. Tactical started feeling a little too easy now that I've got my A team all on lvl 7 with mostly maxed stats, but other weaker teams and geoscape layer still feels good.

I really can't understand the complaints about DLCs, new enemies added are fun and challenging, and mechanics like Behemoth and corruption make geoscape layer far more engaging, being a constant drain on resources and forcing you to make hard choices sometimes, while not actually being unfair. Aerial combat tbh is imho actually too easily cheesed by liberal use of disengagement, had to stop myself from abusing it to not trivialize the challenge. I feel like without these DLCs, game would be just far too easy, can't see myself playing without them.

 

[ArchAngel]

Do people on Codex also hate the DLCs as much as steam/reddit etc? I was hesitant to turn them on for my first playthrough, because everywhere people cried they are dogshit and make the game super difficult and unfair, but I decided to stick with them, and was pleasantly surprised. I'm pretty deep on this playthrough, 60 hours in, Hero difficulty, all DLCs enabled, going blind without any guides and shit, and I quite like it. I think the difficulty level so far feels close to perfect, challenging but fair, and game has a good atmosphere of really fighting an uphill battle against an overwhelming force, with mist appearing everywhere, me always being short of resources, enemies improving all the time and behemoth randomly appearing and rampaging around the globe. Tactical started feeling a little too easy now that I've got my A team all on lvl 7 with mostly maxed stats, but other weaker teams and geoscape layer still feels good.

I really can't understand the complaints about DLCs, new enemies added are fun and challenging, and mechanics like Behemoth and corruption make geoscape layer far more engaging, being a constant drain on resources and forcing you to make hard choices sometimes, while not actually being unfair. Aerial combat tbh is imho actually too easily cheesed by liberal use of disengagement, had to stop myself from abusing it to not trivialize the challenge. I feel like without these DLCs, game would be just far too easy, can't see myself playing without them.

Without DLC game seems kind of empty with no additional story missions but DLCs were not well made. DLC1 was small and OK, DLC2 introduced new resources, maps and enemies which were barely used and then let you have very OP weapons in unlimited numbers by the end game. DLC3 brought half baked air mechanics that do not really give any rewards beyond a bit of resources but bring in a lot of irritating mechanics (like when they take over distant Havens that proceed to spawn fliers that fly half the globe away to raid your bases..). DLC4 introduced Corruption that is barely an inconvenience if you got enough Mutagen while also bringing in one of the most irritating and needlessly battle prolonging enemy of any similar TB game I can remember. And you can make Mutoids that are somewhere between useless or OP depending on which of the skills you chose.
And DLC5 was given to outside company to do and they gave us the most half-assed DLC yet. Fixed none of the problem with vehicles while introducing more OPness for some of them. Also a couple of new missions to now a too big rooster of set piece missions where the game stops resembling Xcom and starts resembling some tactical RPG.

Since you got all DLC anyways, play with Terror from the VOID mod overhaul instead once you finish your current run. It uses all these DLC materials in a better way