Spock… I don’t know… whattotellyou. I love this… game.
Seriously though, I think my 1000 or so hours of play make me unsuited to give new player tips. I seriously have it in muscle memory. I wish I could help though. I feel that if you can break through the first three or so missions, you can get the rhythm. Good luck.
What difficulty are you on? There is no shame in starting in easy mode while learning the mechanics and restarting later after you get a hang of it.
If you only got one shot with overwatch then you didn’t set it up right. You should at least be getting the soldier that fires the directed shot + two other soldiers on overwatch getting their shots. Don’t reveal yourself unless every single soldier can take an offensive action. There’s some luck but you should kill at least one of the enemies. I usually have the last guy act afterwards in case something unexpected happens. Ideally that’s my melee guy who I don’t want using overwatch anyway.
You generally shouldn’t take shots at enemies in cover. If you can’t flank them, use a grenade. You may also want to use a grenade as the reveal action if you can hit multiple enemies, but it’s better to save it if you can.
Some of it is also about enemy knowledge. For example, the Sectoid is going to try to mind control one of your soldiers on its first turn. It will do that 100% of the time. Since mind control is harmless if you kill the Sectoid immediately afterwards, you should save it for last.
Thanks for the replies.
I’m on Veteran, so not on the easiest level. I beat the first Firaxis X-Com playing Ironman, so I figured I didn’t have to start on Easy. Maybe I was wrong!
I had 4 on overwatch just outside the radius of red-eye visible locations, but they were spread far enough apart that I guess only one was in range when a bad guy triggered the opportunity fire. So should I be clumping my soldiers more? I assumed grenades would be a danger there. Actually, I think my one overwatcher did kill his target, but the other aliens sprang into action, and we traded casualties. With 4 or 5 of them, if we trade casualties, I lose at least two, every time.
Also, once I set a guy to overwatch, but he faced the wrong way, and he did nothing as an alien waltzed up to him in open ground and blasted him. I see nothing in the manual about a facing command. Why didn’t my guy turn around?
In the same vein, my ranger supposedly can do a melee attack. But I tried it, clicking in the 3x3 square the UI indicated. Well, she just walked up to the alien and stood there, allowing her to get slaughtered the next turn. What the hell? Frustrating beyond belief. Maybe she can only do this on her first action?
I might give it another try. I just hate everything about this first mission: it’s timed; I feel I’m outnumbered; the UI confuses me (I see red icons at certain points, and I don’t understand why); blech. Would it have killed them to give us an easy tutorial mission? (The opening mission doesn’t count, because it required zero decisionmaking by me.)
DO NOT USE OVERWATCH. If you think the enemy will be able to attack your guys and gals, get them to hunker down or even retreat behind high cover rather than put them on overwatch. Until you get a perk for your sniper, then all overwatch shots have an accuracy penalty. That is why, combined with earlier game inaccuracy, more often than not your overwatch shot misses.
The rule of thumb with Xcom is: kill every pod that you activate ON THE SAME TURN. Otherwise you will lost people. Sometimes you can get away with it, or you are on a timer and you must push, but that is the rule of thumb that will keep people alive.
Which is why you need to enlarge your squad ASAP early game. More squad member = more firepower = less death.
Ahh, okay. The game hints said something about using overwatch in conjunction with concealment, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do. But okay, I’ll try your suggestion.
If you activate one “pod” (bad guy?), does that activate them all? It seems to in this first mission.
In Xcom parlance, a “pod” is a set of enemies you activate once one of your people get into line of sight of enemies. Usually a “pod” consists of 3 enemies, but sometimes they can be just one very very tough enemy. You know you have activated a pod when the game plays a cutscene and the enemies scatter into defensive position.
Unless it’s late in the game, 4 or 5 enemies at once means you triggered two groups at once, which is really bad. If you’re still concealed and the groups are separated then you should reposition so that only one group is visible; if they’re clumped up then either you got really unlucky or you took too long (enemies eventually congregate in most mission types if you spend too many turns trying to get a perfect setup, even in concealment) and in that case you just have to throw a grenade in there and hope you can get the rest. Or evac out, which - despite the depressing music and giant MISSION FAILED markers - is not necessarily a big deal, depending on the mission type.
You should absolutely use overwatch for concealment ambushes. Ambush attacks do not have the overwatch aim penalty. However, the advice is generally correct once normal combat begins, at least until you have better soldiers.
Oh OK, overwatch for ambushes, not thereafter, at least until I have better soldiers. Doing it this way, I managed to clear the first two pods without any casualties, though one injury. But then the sectoid arrived, mind control happened, and things are going downhill.
Also: do units have facing? Will my guy on overwatch shoot in a full 360 degrees, assuming he has line of sight? At least once, he stood there while an alien waltzed up and whacked him.
I normally play these games on Ironman, but I’m save-scumming like crazy to get through this first mission without taking losses. I get that losses are part of the game, but it seems wrong to lose half my squad on a first mission marked “easy.”
This game makes me miss Planetfall’s UI. In Planetfall, the UI will tell me my shooting % from each possible destination hex. Here, you just eyeball? Closer range and flanking and absence of cover are the main variables? I’m just finding the UI frustrating and annoying.
Yes the UI could be much better. Not just tactical screen, the base management part too. From what I can tell there is no facing mechanic in the game, just classic range and line of sight that can be blocked by objects.
OK, I finally did finish that first mission. The second mission was actually easier, I thought. It did help that my ambush-overwatch really worked well, as I made sure to have all overwatchers within range/LOS of the bad guys. I still ended up with 3 wounded soldiers, but no losses, and this time no save-scumming.
Edit: I see that I can choose between talents for promotions. If I choose one talent, am I committed to that side of the talent tree? Edit: Googling seems to say I can choose freely from either side. Good!
Also, in the mission I just ran, there was a big tower spinning in circles, shining red light on the ground. It seemed hackable. What does that thing do? Should I hack it, or avoid it?
You need a Specialist to hack it and it will tell you the rewards and risks before you commit to it. The rewards are most frequently some kind of buff to either yourself (on success) or the enemy (on failure) but sometimes you can get strategy-level rewards. Also, those pillars have concealment-breaking sight radius that will be removed if you hack them, although being placed somewhere you can’t easily circumvent is rare.
Thanks for the help.
So I just tried my third mission, to rescue a scientist, and I guess I moved too slowly, because I didn’t get two of my team – my two best soldiers – to the evac point in time. Gah. I really don’t feel like replaying the whole thing; an hour of my life I won’t get back. I made some early saves but I don’t know if they’ll help. Plus I find it stressful to play these timed missions. I know there are mods to get rid of timers, but that sounds like cheating.
Maybe this game isn’t for me.
You’ll get a chance to rescue them later. Timers are tough until you get the cards that lengthen them and then another that doesn’t start them until the squad is revealed (I’m assuming you are playing WoTC).
If you have WoTC, there should be an option when you start your play through to double the mission timers.
My standard tactic for starting any mission is take my first solider and move him furthest distance for his first move. If I don’t see aliens, I move him the max distance for his second move. As long as everything is clear, the whole squad sprints up to his position. Reapers are great for this also.
If the mission isn’t on a timer, a reaper with Remote Start is a great asset. See if there any aliens around (or if they patrol near one) a car or something the reaper can blow up. That doesn’t reveal the reaper or your squad and you can weaken the pod quite a bit. Sometimes you have to wait for a patrol to go by something you can explode, which is why it is not ideal for timed missions.
Also, your research order makes a big difference. I’ve found that once I get magnetic weapons, things become much easier. My standard starting research order is:
Actually, I’m just playing vanilla. I didn’t want to spend the $40 on WoTC until I assured myself that I enjoyed the base game. Still not sure of that. I love the base management and the cut-scenes; but the heart of the game, the missions, stresses me out. At least so far. Maybe I’ll swallow my pride and drop down to Easy, but after beating X-Com on one of the higher difficulty levels, that would be annoying.
Thanks for your suggestions. I found similar ideas in a Google search, so I’m more or less following your proposed order. But no, I’m not using WoTC, at least not yet. Maybe if it goes on sale.
I wouldn’t think twice about dropping down to easy to figure things out. And don’t let the avatar project ticker get to you, you have more time than the urgency of that messaging implies.
Actually, I’m just playing vanilla. I didn’t want to spend the $40 on WoTC until I assured myself that I enjoyed the base game.
Right, sorry, didn’t catch that. For what it’s worth, I did complete the original Firaxis XCOM on Classic/Ironman and my run thru XCOM2 Vanilla was Veteren/Normal (too many bugs back then for ironman).
I play pretty slow and methodical, so I wasn’t regularly successful on timed missions till mid-game. However, I was able to tip the game in my favor eventually, even with a couple squad wipes. I really needed to have the tolerance to take shots on the chin in this one.
I really felt like the WoTC expansion was a big improvement on the game. So many changes for the better, I completed it all the way thru instead of just playing till the tilt was so lopsided it was boring.
I’ve heard people say that I might as well skip vanilla, install WoTC, and enjoy all the new features – including, apparently, mitigation of some of the timers. If WoTC goes on sale, I’ll be tempted to do just that.
I prefer to play these games Ironman too, and if I get the hang of X-Com 2, I might try WoTC in that mode. (I always play Star Traders: Frontiers in Iron Man, for example.) In a weird way, Ironman can be easier to cope with: you win some, you lose some, you move on. By contrast, save-scumming always tempts one to reload to do better. But I think I need to learn this game better before trying it.
Is anyone aware of a mod that extends or slows down the strategic layer? I’ve been playing WOTC and really enjoying it - but I’ve grown frustrated with the constant bombardment of time sensitive missions. I can barely get any scans done because I’m running around so much - would love for there to be something that speeds up scans or adds a few days between events.
I did use the advanced options in WOTC to extend the avatar project, but it is still super overwhelming.
I recognize that this would make the game easier, but I like to spend a little more time executing the strategic options.