Thanks for the answers guys, I’ll go back in and look, and I’m going to see about this mod you mentioned, because for me at least, the idea of poking around all over the place to find information that is so critical to what I’m doing on a mission strikes me as plain silly. Just make it a function key to bring up the same screen I can access back at base (if some don’t want to use it, fine).
This is the draw of the game for me as well. I get a similar attachment to my generals and agents in Total War for much the same reason. Sort of a band of brothers effect I guess.
RichVR
1884
I found that hovering over the name brings up general info. Move the pointer a bit to the left. There you’ll see the red or green marking. Hover right over that and it shows buffs or debuffs. For instance, presently my rangers have a debuff there, Advent has an increased detection range.
New creature for me
I was genuinely surprised when I encountered my first Gatekeeper. Cool.
SlyFrog
1885
They don’t show under the weapon, at least on mine.
ROFLMAO, here’s Beaglerush’s summary for his Legendary Ironman playthrough. Truly legendary :) I mean, it’s almost inconceivable that he can have so many turns left over on average on the turn-based missions - and on Legendary, too. Should probably watch some of it, he’s always entertaining.
robc04
1887
I was only on veteran, but I had 3.12 turns left on missions. No doubt that 2.34 on legendary ironman is much more on an achievement. Still, that’s why I never complained about the turn limits. It made me not take my time but never forced me into abandoning caution. I had to pick moments I thought were safe to travel farther to cover some ground.
JeffL
1888
OK, YUGE fan of the original Xcom, I don’t know if I ever won it completely, but it was a lot like Nethack to me - just playing the game was reward enough, and the random nature of each new game made it worth playing over. And over. And… you get the idea.
So, I see this won’t be on the iPad or consoles - how well will it run on my old Alienware laptop? 16G Ram, i7-3630QM 2.4GHz, nVidia GTX 680M?
Should run fine, unless you’re the kind of player that wants everything maxed out. I would start it up with low settings and tweak until it hits your visual happy place between fluid movement and crisp details (the 680M is a good card, for its era for what it’s worth). I’m always worried about suggesting final levels that someone might be happy with, because acceptable frame rate is a pretty personalized thing. That said, I personally wouldn’t hesitate to run it on that laptop at medium levels.
JeffL
1890
Thanks. FWIW I ran a heavily modded Skyrim at 1920x1080 on this machine with no problem at all. And I enjoyed XCOM:UFO (original) for years after it was outdated so I don’t have to have 4K graphics to enjoy a good game. :)
I’m running it on a 3.1GHz i7 w/ 16GB of RAM and the Intel Iris Graphics card (6100)… aka the 13" Macbook Pro. While it gives me a warning every time I launch it, it runs just fine at the lowest settings. And I can set the draw distance to medium, actually.
Kildar
1892
Seriously salivating to play XCOM 2, but waiting for a sale before taking the plunge. I got me a load of backlog to wade through.
I love watching his videos. I really wish he had completed his vanilla XCOM 2 series. There is this one, though, that was made with the developers (and doesn’t show on his channel), which I find very informative.
It’s on sale at CDKeys atm, that’s where I got mine.
Really getting in the saddle now. I’ve stopped making that most basic XCOM blunder of revealing fresh Fog of War after any but my first (or at most second) troop, especially when already engaged in a firefight. I’m also getting back into the deep swing of positioning that I had when I was playing LW for a while, it’s definitely a knack, positioning, and probably the second most important thing after remembering that first rule of XCOM. It’s also gotten through my thick skull that I have to actually go through ALL my options with ALL my troops before committing to a move.
I seem to be all kitted out now, there’s nothing more to research, all there is in the way of new toys is gradually accumulating all the Proving Grounds stuff and continuing to rain righteous wroth down on Advent and the aliens. But this is on Veteran, I’m sure the super-tough phase will last for longer with Commander and Legendary difficulty settings.
Started over last night on Ironman and Veteran. Did a lot better this time. Trying to put the video on YouTube but Twitch is being a dick today. For now, however, I thought I’d show you guys my highest ranking troop (Sarah got injured)
I hope fancy don’t let me down
wilykat
1896
If I haven’t played either Enemy Unknown or XCOM 2, is there any reason to skip the first one?
I think the second one is the better game mechanically, but the first one with expansion is worth experiencing yet at this point, I believe. It entirely depends on your time budget more than anything else, and your ability to sink into and enjoy dozens and dozens of hours of a turn based strategy game … and then do it all over again with the sequel. Maybe one question worth asking is - WHY you didn’t yet play the first game, but they are now something you are interested in?
There isn’t much of a “story” or anything you’ll miss out on if you just dive into the newer game, either, fwiw.
wilykat
1898
I liked the original XCOM many years ago, then mostly forgot about it. I missed the original release of Enemy Unknown when it happened, but played a lot of Massive Chalice last year and liked it, and recently Yahtzee has posted a couple videos of playing XCOM (I think the first one) and it looked fun in a similar way to MC.
It looks like I can get XCOM 1 + expansions for about $7, XCOM 2 for $32. I’m not particularly price sensitive, but as you said I’m pretty unlikely to play through both one after the other.
RichVR
1899
My present game is going a heck of a lot better than the last one. War armor with various neat launchers is amazing. Just started training a psi op. Meanwhile I have the Avatar counter down to 4 or five squares. I’m allowing myself to think that I could win this. Getting a lot of Flawless missions now. My team is a well oiled machine. Two rangers, one heavy, one specialist and two snipers. All colonels. Their backups are getting fat and complacent. Really loving this game.
Beat my Bronzeman Veteran game. Very cool. After that initial bout of not really focussing much, I got back into the XCOM swing of it. The right movement patterns (looking for good cover positions), positioning, copious overwatch trapping, and most importantly of all, the golden rule, never (unless you’re absolutely sure, or it’s a calculated risk) reveal fresh fog of war after your first soldier in a move, or at most your second, especially if already engaged in combat with a pod. Lot of Excellents, 6 Perfects. Ready to tackle Commander.
Only problem at this difficulty was that there was a stretch at the end where nothing much happened in the global scenario other than me accumulating loot while waiting for the final shadow chamber stuff to cook. The story was engaging enough and enjoyable. The pilotable Commander was a nice touch. Ending was nice, with a possible hint at the end as to a successor? :)
They really have refined the game, it’s all very smooth with no jarring bits. The classes are great, all really powerful and with at least 3 possible builds each (one down each tree, one hybrid), and tremendous fun to use. Enemies all distinct, and some of them fun to Dominate (Mind controlling a Sectopod was fun! :), haven’t looked at Multiplayer yet, I’m hoping we can play Advent. Liked the heavy weapons, all “big” and distinctly drawn.
The terrain changing due to 'splosions is a nice touch, forces everyone to keep on the move, but also forces you to be aware of what your AoEs like Grenadier are doing, in terms of destroying potentially useful cover or cover that would reveal your guys if destroyed. Generally the feeling is much more kinetic. You’re not only aware of all the options of your moves (and that with the Plan A/Plan B scenario I’ve mentioned in another post), but you’re also constantly aware of the need to keep moving, so for example you might as well shift a “free” blue move closer to the objective point, if you’re pretty sure of having the same or better effect with your final half-move. The timed missions are testing, but on balance you do get enough of the “old fashioned” XCOM type missions with no timer, that you don’t feel like you’re being pressured too much by the game. Top kek!
Played some more ironman last night and had a good time. I made a video of the misfortune of one of my rookies. Bridget Murphy and the Bad Day.
It amuses me greatly that you can add star wipes to your video using the youtube editor
