Iluvcheezcake
Prophet
Imo let them shoot the alien craft down themselves, assholes
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KickStarter Xenonauts 2 - now available on Early Access
- Thread starter Tzaero
- Start date
Iluvcheezcake
Prophet
AGreed
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2020
- Messages
- 2,670
Dunno man, the most annoying aspect of the original X-COM games for me was that I was compeled to do all the shit personally, instead being able to delegate the missions that I really didnt need nor want to do on someone else without losing points in the monthly review. Fuck doing "random crash site #984," I would even pay money not to have to do that shit a year or two into the game.
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2009
- Messages
- 10,208
Yeah, but it was a bad choice. The airstrike was worth like half the cash of doing the mission, so if you used it often you fell behind in the money game (not to mention lost xp and materials, but you do also risk losing some units).
thesecret1
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2019
- Messages
- 6,824
I guess they want to push you into doing more difficult missions rather than grinding the easier ones, since the optimal way to play had always been to do every single mission possible (as the cash reward is usually insignificant) and thus get bogged down in highly repetitive battles. This would solve it, but will the rest of the design be adjusted to match these changes? Two crafts is really little, will there be other kinds of missions to do while waiting for a new ufo to appear, or is the player expected to just sit at the base for weeks at a time?
It seems there are much fewer missions overall. The Cleaner segment has been cut in half. Maybe the endgame will last for a while.
Yes, that was the punishment for being lazy. Now you get punished for playing the game well. Or so it seems at least.
You don't have to do those missions already, as you could always delegate away missions. You get punished by not getting as much loot (money), but now you get punished if you go on the missions. I'm really curious about the penalty. 5 "panic" is not so much, but it does not remove the fact that it's retarded immersion-wise.
Yes, I'm in a spamming mood. Anyway, here are my impressions from my site. You can read it here, or down below, if curious.
After much suffering and hardship, patch 5.0 is finally out on the experimental branch for Xenonauts 2. Now, this is an early version of the patch, which the devs state is in a fairly buggy condition. And that I can confirm, as the progression for solving the Cleaner conspiracy is not working correctly, nor is the status for nationwide panic. Despite these issues, it’s fully playable (so far), and I have given it a few hours for testing. Since it’s this buggy, I won’t play for too long to ruin the experience. But here are my impressions of the new mechanics, and other changes I have discovered.
Doomsday
The first noticeable new thing is the doomsday counter, that for each day counts towards nuclear war between West & East. When it reaches 100, the world ends in a glorious blaze of destruction. It’s an interesting addition, but unfortunately a bit undercooked. It adds some relevance to the setting, considering Xenonauts 2 takes place during the Cold War. Furthermore, it also works as a tutorial for the new region specific upgrades and modules you can upgrade – to give bonuses or remove enemy influences. So far, so good.
Damn aliens, we can nuke each other without your help!
What makes it kinda pointless, is that it only lasts the first 50 days or so, until the alien invasion starts for real. Then West & East join hands and sing kumbaya. The threat of nuclear destruction is removed, and the only thing you have to do is spam “better relations” with the points you get on a daily basis. Just like Khrushchev did during the Cuban crisis! It’s good that it adds context to the background, but other than that, it felt entirely meaningless from a gameplay perspective, and it seems almost impossible to fail to boot.
Let’s talk further about the new world-map agent mechanic, which comes with some major changes for the economy. After staving off nuclear war, you are free to spend the points you get daily on whatever you want on the regions. Some actions give bonuses to research, or money and similar stuff, and some remove enemy agents that sabotage your progress. It’s rather basic stuff, yet, it gives you something to do on the geoscape while waiting for UFOs to blast out of the sky.
However, what these new mechanics change is how much money you earn from the basic funding. Before I could afford to build up a base with the initial funding, but that’s impossible now. The cash you get is now locked behind these actions on the world-map. This means that the economy will be a lot tougher in the beginning, so get used to patrolling the skies with only one plane for a while. I liked this change, as I find the increased economical challenge fun – making it much more important to capture loot and alien corpses for money. After a few economical upgrades, it quickly stabilizes itself. I’m at a point now where it feels I have more money than I should, comparable to older builds of the game. Regardless, it’s a cool change for the beginning of the campaign. It makes it feel like Xenonauts is somewhat of a scrappy organization, like the narration implies.
Sweet bonus, I think!
Cleaners
From what I noticed, not much has been changed with the Cleaners, except that they now come with much fewer missions. The autopsies and interrogations for the Cleaners (humans), comes automatically, no more research required. Your engineers can’t use them for target practice anymore either, so you can’t upgrade the damage to them. This segment of research has seen a major change in general, as of now, you just have to do this engineering test once for each alien species. Not sure how I feel about this, since I don’t want a simplification of the game with fewer strategic options.
One thing I’m pretty clear that I dislike, is the new “delegation system”. Now, after you have shot down two UFOs of the same kind, the local forces take over the ground action for them (the greedy governments want loot). Meaning, that you can still go on these missions, but you will get penalized for it by having the “panic” level increase. It’s like a forced “anti-grind” system on the player. For some reason, Chris (the main dev) has a strong aversion to some light grinding… in an X-com genre game. Has he seen the mods for OpenXcom? Also, it makes no sense lore-wise either:
“Damn, those Xenonaut assholes took our mission right from under our noses. Let’s join the aliens, guys! (after some nationwide panic)”
Why would a funding nation that has given Xenonauts full mandate on everything Xeno – to destroy them, now suddenly act like children because of some random tech? You get money, sure, but it should be the lazy gamer option (like it was), instead of the optimal choice. I don’t understand this change at all. I have not seen the panic penalty yet, since I’m still waiting for a third destroyer. If it’s something like a 5 point penalty, it will probably not matter too much, but in context of the setting, it feels a little retarded.
Hey you, local government, you know we are on the same side, right?
Ground combat
The meat-grinder, aka the ground combat, got some interesting changes. The Sebillian got a weapon upgrade. They now use machine-guns instead of rifles, which means if they get a chance to fire, they will shred your agents to small chunks of flesh. Perfect size for a yummy snack for a giant lizard! Very dangerous, but from what I noticed, if you suppress them, they don’t have enough time-units to fire back even once. This change makes them simultaneously more dangerous, and less so, depending on how you handle them. Bring lots of flash-bangs!
That’s not all, they also got some kind of new terrifying grenade that does explosive damage, and spews toxic gas. Getting caught in the deadly smoke of this thing will melt your poor agent’s lungs. I ran through with one guy, curious to see what it was, and each smoke tile he ran through, it took a 20 point damage chunk out of his health. I guess we have found a new use for the gasmask now, so that’s cool.
Another change is for the Mantids. Some of them come with a new weapon that sends aggressive bugs your way, instead of deadly plasma fire. These critters will bite and tear in melee with surprising strength. While a cool weapon that reminds me of X-com: Apocalypse. I find the Mantids equipped with this new weapon a lot easier to deal with, as they used to be pretty deadly snipers. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty cool addition that switches up the ground combat. Make sure to keep pistols or melee weapons around for these angry ankle biters.
Come on now, line up for the weekly UFO photo
Saving civilians
A nice addition is that you can order around civilians now, instead of having them run in circles on the battlefield like headless chickens. When you are next to one, you can tell him or her to run for the exit, which spawns next to your craft. Pretty nifty, not just from a gameplay perspective, but also from an immersion viewpoint. We are here to save people, after all, and now you can tell them to haul ass to escape the brutal warzone.
A few more changes that I noticed from last time is that the grenade launcher got an arc now, finally! It has become a useful weapon after so many patches. Maybe I can stop dreaming of the rocket launcher from the first Xenonauts. Mechanical doors are back to staying open, so no more door abuse/hiding. If you open them now, you have to be prepared, since there is no turning back. The doors will close after a turn, though. And for the final change I observed: new sounds for some weapons, like the accelerated guns. They sound a lot cooler now, and does no longer share audio effect with the normal ballistic weapons.
Thoughts
As mentioned, I have not finished a playthrough yet, and I probably will not do so. There are a lot of new things I have not experienced, which means I can not report on them. However, from what I have tested out, there are some interesting changes here, and in general the game feels more polished. Most things work in its favor, but I really question the decision of the newly introduced “delegation system”. The X-com games are grindy by nature, so I don’t understand the need of making the experience less epic. It’s supposed to be a struggle, since we are ultimately fighting high-tech invading aliens. I don’t want a 20-hour experience conveying this, I want a massive game that lasts for a good while! And I doubt the ones playing this genre lack the attention span for it.
Even so, I’m confident that Xenonauts 2 will be a great game when it reaches 1.0. It feels good that we are finally getting closer to the end, as it has been in Early Access for quite a while now. With that, I want to say goodbye for now, as this will probably be my final report on it – until the 1.0 review, that is. So, happy alien slaying! See you next time.
Doomsday
The first noticeable new thing is the doomsday counter, that for each day counts towards nuclear war between West & East. When it reaches 100, the world ends in a glorious blaze of destruction. It’s an interesting addition, but unfortunately a bit undercooked. It adds some relevance to the setting, considering Xenonauts 2 takes place during the Cold War. Furthermore, it also works as a tutorial for the new region specific upgrades and modules you can upgrade – to give bonuses or remove enemy influences. So far, so good.
Damn aliens, we can nuke each other without your help!
What makes it kinda pointless, is that it only lasts the first 50 days or so, until the alien invasion starts for real. Then West & East join hands and sing kumbaya. The threat of nuclear destruction is removed, and the only thing you have to do is spam “better relations” with the points you get on a daily basis. Just like Khrushchev did during the Cuban crisis! It’s good that it adds context to the background, but other than that, it felt entirely meaningless from a gameplay perspective, and it seems almost impossible to fail to boot.
Let’s talk further about the new world-map agent mechanic, which comes with some major changes for the economy. After staving off nuclear war, you are free to spend the points you get daily on whatever you want on the regions. Some actions give bonuses to research, or money and similar stuff, and some remove enemy agents that sabotage your progress. It’s rather basic stuff, yet, it gives you something to do on the geoscape while waiting for UFOs to blast out of the sky.
However, what these new mechanics change is how much money you earn from the basic funding. Before I could afford to build up a base with the initial funding, but that’s impossible now. The cash you get is now locked behind these actions on the world-map. This means that the economy will be a lot tougher in the beginning, so get used to patrolling the skies with only one plane for a while. I liked this change, as I find the increased economical challenge fun – making it much more important to capture loot and alien corpses for money. After a few economical upgrades, it quickly stabilizes itself. I’m at a point now where it feels I have more money than I should, comparable to older builds of the game. Regardless, it’s a cool change for the beginning of the campaign. It makes it feel like Xenonauts is somewhat of a scrappy organization, like the narration implies.
Sweet bonus, I think!
Cleaners
From what I noticed, not much has been changed with the Cleaners, except that they now come with much fewer missions. The autopsies and interrogations for the Cleaners (humans), comes automatically, no more research required. Your engineers can’t use them for target practice anymore either, so you can’t upgrade the damage to them. This segment of research has seen a major change in general, as of now, you just have to do this engineering test once for each alien species. Not sure how I feel about this, since I don’t want a simplification of the game with fewer strategic options.
One thing I’m pretty clear that I dislike, is the new “delegation system”. Now, after you have shot down two UFOs of the same kind, the local forces take over the ground action for them (the greedy governments want loot). Meaning, that you can still go on these missions, but you will get penalized for it by having the “panic” level increase. It’s like a forced “anti-grind” system on the player. For some reason, Chris (the main dev) has a strong aversion to some light grinding… in an X-com genre game. Has he seen the mods for OpenXcom? Also, it makes no sense lore-wise either:
“Damn, those Xenonaut assholes took our mission right from under our noses. Let’s join the aliens, guys! (after some nationwide panic)”
Why would a funding nation that has given Xenonauts full mandate on everything Xeno – to destroy them, now suddenly act like children because of some random tech? You get money, sure, but it should be the lazy gamer option (like it was), instead of the optimal choice. I don’t understand this change at all. I have not seen the panic penalty yet, since I’m still waiting for a third destroyer. If it’s something like a 5 point penalty, it will probably not matter too much, but in context of the setting, it feels a little retarded.
Hey you, local government, you know we are on the same side, right?
Ground combat
The meat-grinder, aka the ground combat, got some interesting changes. The Sebillian got a weapon upgrade. They now use machine-guns instead of rifles, which means if they get a chance to fire, they will shred your agents to small chunks of flesh. Perfect size for a yummy snack for a giant lizard! Very dangerous, but from what I noticed, if you suppress them, they don’t have enough time-units to fire back even once. This change makes them simultaneously more dangerous, and less so, depending on how you handle them. Bring lots of flash-bangs!
That’s not all, they also got some kind of new terrifying grenade that does explosive damage, and spews toxic gas. Getting caught in the deadly smoke of this thing will melt your poor agent’s lungs. I ran through with one guy, curious to see what it was, and each smoke tile he ran through, it took a 20 point damage chunk out of his health. I guess we have found a new use for the gasmask now, so that’s cool.
Another change is for the Mantids. Some of them come with a new weapon that sends aggressive bugs your way, instead of deadly plasma fire. These critters will bite and tear in melee with surprising strength. While a cool weapon that reminds me of X-com: Apocalypse. I find the Mantids equipped with this new weapon a lot easier to deal with, as they used to be pretty deadly snipers. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty cool addition that switches up the ground combat. Make sure to keep pistols or melee weapons around for these angry ankle biters.
Come on now, line up for the weekly UFO photo
Saving civilians
A nice addition is that you can order around civilians now, instead of having them run in circles on the battlefield like headless chickens. When you are next to one, you can tell him or her to run for the exit, which spawns next to your craft. Pretty nifty, not just from a gameplay perspective, but also from an immersion viewpoint. We are here to save people, after all, and now you can tell them to haul ass to escape the brutal warzone.
A few more changes that I noticed from last time is that the grenade launcher got an arc now, finally! It has become a useful weapon after so many patches. Maybe I can stop dreaming of the rocket launcher from the first Xenonauts. Mechanical doors are back to staying open, so no more door abuse/hiding. If you open them now, you have to be prepared, since there is no turning back. The doors will close after a turn, though. And for the final change I observed: new sounds for some weapons, like the accelerated guns. They sound a lot cooler now, and does no longer share audio effect with the normal ballistic weapons.
Thoughts
As mentioned, I have not finished a playthrough yet, and I probably will not do so. There are a lot of new things I have not experienced, which means I can not report on them. However, from what I have tested out, there are some interesting changes here, and in general the game feels more polished. Most things work in its favor, but I really question the decision of the newly introduced “delegation system”. The X-com games are grindy by nature, so I don’t understand the need of making the experience less epic. It’s supposed to be a struggle, since we are ultimately fighting high-tech invading aliens. I don’t want a 20-hour experience conveying this, I want a massive game that lasts for a good while! And I doubt the ones playing this genre lack the attention span for it.
Even so, I’m confident that Xenonauts 2 will be a great game when it reaches 1.0. It feels good that we are finally getting closer to the end, as it has been in Early Access for quite a while now. With that, I want to say goodbye for now, as this will probably be my final report on it – until the 1.0 review, that is. So, happy alien slaying! See you next time.
Last edited:
thesecret1
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2019
- Messages
- 6,824
Could be meant as an anti-inflation mechanic limiting the "resource input".
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2009
- Messages
- 10,208
Grinding is bad actually, xenonauts1 suffered from it quite a lot, more than vanilla x-com. I think the main problem is lack of perceived tech progression. Enemy hp and weapons scale as the months go on, so you can expect to need the same amount of shots to kill an enemy at the start as at the end. The flying armor is also kinda bad, and there's no blaster launcher or psi, so you never really hit a point where basic missions become trivial. This makes early game and lategame missions play pretty similarly, which increases the feeling of grind.
For all the problems the 100+ hour playthrough mods of openXcom have, in my experience they do a really good job of making the different factions and missions play very different, and also make the early and lategame play differently.
I don't know if xenonauts2 solves the grind issues from the first game, but I have to assume it doesn't if the dev implements semi-mandatory "two missions per ufo type" mechanics.
Guess it's up to the player, but these kinds of games, I don't mind the grind at all personally. And I wouldn't say there is any either way, as I find the progression of the campaign incredibly fast. I'm already on laser weapons, and I only managed to build a few accelerator weapons. The solution already exists, if you find it grindy, I mean. Just nuke the crash-site from orbit. The devs don't have to add this nonsense. The only difference now, is the added panic penalty it seems like.
My final preview (finished the game). You can read it down below, or here on my site, if interested.
Merry Christmas to me, because I just finished Xenonauts 2 after countless restarts (thanks to the ending not being part of the game, yet). Well, now we are here. While the experience was not perfect, thanks to unfinished lore bits in the form of research, and having random crashes, I had a pretty good time. However, it’s not without problems; mainly, the campaign is still incredibly short, which has been my worry for a while. According to my end game stats, the campaign was completed in under 20 hours. Not exactly epic now, is it?
Remains the same
Everything from my article Round Seven still remains, the only things added since is stuff I have never seen before – like armors, weaponry and such. It’s basically just a new tier of equipment, so there isn’t too much to talk about. The terminator-esque armor is awesome, though, but let’s leave it at that. There is also a change in one of the robotic aliens, which thanks to this change made these dudes the most devastating unit when it comes to casualties inflicted. I’m talking about the Cyberdrone. They have gone from being a one-shot plasma attack, to a destructive artillery volley. It’s not very accurate, so in open spaces you might get lucky. The problem comes from them being in confined spaces, like alien bases. When one of these suckers comes around a corner with full time-units, you can wave farewell to your insertion team. Remember to spread out!
It’s almost religious, isn’t it?
Not entirely sure how I feel about these dudes, as I liked how they were, but in the end, an increased challenge is not a bad thing. And that is one of my issues with Xenonauts 2, as it is. It’s way too easy, and it’s especially noticeable with how short it is. The new money-earning structure, thanks to the operation mechanic, and how easy it is to increase funding, cash-flow will never be a problem beyond the start. I was very rich by the end, and with some planning, the game actually never gave me any issues on the strategic level on the difficulty setting I played on (veteran). As I said, it just does not feel epic. It all progresses too fast, I even manage to bypass laser weapons, in how quick stuff evolves.
It’s a game
The whole game seems to be carefully balanced around not to have any kind of “grind”, to its detriment. Two missions of each UFO, then you will be penalized for going on them. Nothing else is needed, since you will have everything you need. It just comes off as extremely gamey, instead of feeling like an earth-defense simulator, leaving the choices up to you. It kinda kills the immersion, and while efforts have been made in the narration to keep the player involved, it becomes too structured. Especially so, if you think about repeat playthroughs.
After 29 missions, and 34 dead agents, Earth is now saved from the alien menace. Forever?
Regardless, I had a good time, and in general I enjoy the gameplay. I just wish now, it was more in line with the first game, and its epic nature. With it being improved in every way, which to be fair, Xenonauts 2 is. Unfortunately, too much work has also gone in to make it easier and faster. On the end-game, I enjoyed the final missions, but thanks to me dominating the aliens, it was a bit lackluster. In the last part of the game, when the aliens start to nuke cities until you can take out their mega-canon in orbit, it never had its intended effect of terrifying me. Each city blown up increased the panic, but I did so well, that even when cities burn to the ground in super-heated plasma, the world never once turned on Xenonauts. I find that funny. A random strafing run killing four fishermen has a bigger effect nationwide, than obliterating a town into molecules.
Xenonauts 2 is not finished, but I don’t think too much stuff will be added when it comes to gameplay mechanics. I assume, it will be mostly bug-fixes and adding the missing art. Maybe in the future, someone will expand the campaign through mods. Could Xenonauts 2 be receiving its own Long War mod? Those that are not under alien control will see!
Thanks for reading.
Remains the same
Everything from my article Round Seven still remains, the only things added since is stuff I have never seen before – like armors, weaponry and such. It’s basically just a new tier of equipment, so there isn’t too much to talk about. The terminator-esque armor is awesome, though, but let’s leave it at that. There is also a change in one of the robotic aliens, which thanks to this change made these dudes the most devastating unit when it comes to casualties inflicted. I’m talking about the Cyberdrone. They have gone from being a one-shot plasma attack, to a destructive artillery volley. It’s not very accurate, so in open spaces you might get lucky. The problem comes from them being in confined spaces, like alien bases. When one of these suckers comes around a corner with full time-units, you can wave farewell to your insertion team. Remember to spread out!
It’s almost religious, isn’t it?
Not entirely sure how I feel about these dudes, as I liked how they were, but in the end, an increased challenge is not a bad thing. And that is one of my issues with Xenonauts 2, as it is. It’s way too easy, and it’s especially noticeable with how short it is. The new money-earning structure, thanks to the operation mechanic, and how easy it is to increase funding, cash-flow will never be a problem beyond the start. I was very rich by the end, and with some planning, the game actually never gave me any issues on the strategic level on the difficulty setting I played on (veteran). As I said, it just does not feel epic. It all progresses too fast, I even manage to bypass laser weapons, in how quick stuff evolves.
It’s a game
The whole game seems to be carefully balanced around not to have any kind of “grind”, to its detriment. Two missions of each UFO, then you will be penalized for going on them. Nothing else is needed, since you will have everything you need. It just comes off as extremely gamey, instead of feeling like an earth-defense simulator, leaving the choices up to you. It kinda kills the immersion, and while efforts have been made in the narration to keep the player involved, it becomes too structured. Especially so, if you think about repeat playthroughs.
After 29 missions, and 34 dead agents, Earth is now saved from the alien menace. Forever?
Regardless, I had a good time, and in general I enjoy the gameplay. I just wish now, it was more in line with the first game, and its epic nature. With it being improved in every way, which to be fair, Xenonauts 2 is. Unfortunately, too much work has also gone in to make it easier and faster. On the end-game, I enjoyed the final missions, but thanks to me dominating the aliens, it was a bit lackluster. In the last part of the game, when the aliens start to nuke cities until you can take out their mega-canon in orbit, it never had its intended effect of terrifying me. Each city blown up increased the panic, but I did so well, that even when cities burn to the ground in super-heated plasma, the world never once turned on Xenonauts. I find that funny. A random strafing run killing four fishermen has a bigger effect nationwide, than obliterating a town into molecules.
Xenonauts 2 is not finished, but I don’t think too much stuff will be added when it comes to gameplay mechanics. I assume, it will be mostly bug-fixes and adding the missing art. Maybe in the future, someone will expand the campaign through mods. Could Xenonauts 2 be receiving its own Long War mod? Those that are not under alien control will see!
Thanks for reading.
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2015
- Messages
- 20,936
Is it ready?
GOG says it's still early access.
GOG says it's still early access.
Hydro
Educated
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2024
- Messages
- 591
The idea of some intelligent lifeform invading Earth and humans being able to resist is retarded. Any civilization capable of organizing massive interstellar logistics hence possessing a much more advanced tech would wipe us out in days if not hours
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- 20,936
In Harry Turttledove's World War series the aliens didn't have FTL and expected to face medieval society, instead they crash middle of WW2 with their own ground combat tech which was about 70's cold war-tier.
Yeah, humanity's survival requires ludicrous blind spot from alien invasion plans.
Kem0sabe
Arcane
The concept is retarded. Any species capable of interstellar travel, even if not FTL, would be exponentially more advanced than anything we have for the foreseeable centuries of human development.
I think this depends a bit. They could have radical advances in some areas and not in others, or simply have an alien way of conceiving things and not apply technological advances in certain areas the way we would, etc.
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- Aug 5, 2009
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- 10,208
And yet, afaik there are examples in human history of natives winning against european settlers and colonizers, despite the latter being 100s of years ahead in tech. It's not that easy to conquer if you're outnumbered 1000:1, and you can't leverage the 1000 to fight amongst themselves. Even if you scatter their armies, you still have to occupy the land and force the survivors to produce value for you.
This is ofc assuming the aliens don't just use an FTL kill projectile to break the planet, or a nanotech plague, so it does take some restriction on alien tech level or war goals.
thesecret1
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2019
- Messages
- 6,824
Eh, the fact they have spaceships, handheld weapons, etc. alone implies they develop very similarly as opposed to, say, arachnids from Starship Troopers. Realistically speaking, the aliens would need to be retarded to invade the way they do – either they'd just bombard the planet from outer space or just guide big enough asteroids towards it, so that no earth weaponry can even reach them in the first place, or they'd do what the Spaniards did in the new world and pit half the world against the other (possibly even openly by striking various deals) so that earthlings do the bulk of the fighting for them instead of putting their own assets at risk. Seeing as how they're a multi-species society with experience in subjugating other civilizations, this shouldn't be a tough thing for them to come up with. The invasion done the way it's presented in XCOM and its derivatives is possibly the stupidest, most blockheaded way to go about it. I suppose it's conceivable if the alien commander is spectacularly inept and stupid, but it seems strange that such an advanced society wouldn't instill at least elemetary strategic concepts in all its officers of such rank.
That said, this whole line of reasoning is just nitpicking and the premise itself is fun.
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