XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[Telefrog]

I do think they were being disingenuous when they said you can play EW and ignore the Meld and other stuff if you wanted. There’s a new enemy that would put that lie to the test.

[Shellfishguy]

Before I started my new game last night I went and bought the DLC that lets you customize your armor etc. I hated not being able to that the first time around so I said screw it and picked it up. I hadn’t heard about the medals, so that was a nice surprise seeing that after my first mission. I ticked on most of the basic second wave options (didn’t pick random damage or one other which I don’t recall) and decided to do a normal run. After all the crash bugs the last time I played I’m too gunshy to try ironman

[WarrenD]

I just picked up the expansion today and it was great to play the first six missions and see all new maps for the lot of them, so far so good.

[SlyFrog]

Had a full squad wipe on Classic in the first “save the engineer and bring him back” type mission. I’m going to keep rolling with it and see whether the game can still be salvaged.

[flyinj]

I think my main problem with this game is map fatigue. I’ve lost about 7 games on Classic difficulty before the expansion, and now I’m playing the expansion on normal.

Even with the new maps in the mix, whenever I get a UFO crash on either of the forest maps I just cringe. I’ve played those maps in excess of 30 times each. I know every single piece of cover on them by heart. I hate them.

My god do I wish this game had random maps.

[Mark_L]

The best part of the expansion is punching Chrysallids in the face with super power piston fists. “Yeah? You like that? Who’s the boss of melee now?”

[Balasarius]

… and it just crashed. Getting BF4 flashbacks.

[SlyFrog]

I think my main problem with this game is map fatigue. I’ve lost about 7 games on Classic difficulty before the expansion, and now I’m playing the expansion on normal.

Even with the new maps in the mix, whenever I get a UFO crash on either of the forest maps I just cringe. I’ve played those maps in excess of 30 times each. I know every single piece of cover on them by heart. I hate them.

My god do I wish this game had random maps.

Nah, this way is better, they can tailor the maps so much more to be special, and besides, there are so many maps that you’ll never remember seeing the same one twice, and random maps are overrated, and . . . . :)

[LordGek]

Having never gotten that far in the original game I have no idea if this is new, but I love the little touches like the cheesy Italian music playing in the pizza restaurant. So twisted to hear as soldiers and aliens are being gruesomely blasted apart.

[Quikzen]

… and it just crashed. Getting BF4 flashbacks.

lol don’t bring that up xD

[jpinard]

Having never gotten that far in the original game I have no idea if this is new, but I love the little touches like the cheesy Italian music playing in the pizza restaurant. So twisted to hear as soldiers and aliens are being gruesomely blasted apart.

I hadn’t noticed that. Will have to pay attention better.

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I’ve tried doing some modding of ini files. The ones in the Steam directory have no effect as I guess those are packed into the executable. The ini’s in your MY Documents folder ARE editable. So if you hate rushing for meld containers you can change the value in XComGameData.ini
m_iMeldAwardedPerContainer=10 to whatever you want.

I’'m leaving the above value as is as I like the pressure. But I’m adjusting the minmaxmoney rewards just a tiny bit as I get frustrated with not having enough funds all the time.

[Mark_L]

All MECs should speak Portugese. I am deeply amused every time he speaks.

[Wolff]

Eu amo uma mulher com braços metálicos

[Mark_L]

Who doesn’t?

[MrPinguin]

I don’t think the game is harder in general. There seem to be a bit more enemies and the new ones are introduced early on too, but I think it’s balanced out by the improved benefits. That initial jump to your first mec soldiers can be huge in the early game – they immediately gained 6 HP, an attack that destroys enemy cover and does 1-2 damage with 100% hit at fantastic range, and a normal gun that is almost as good as laser, right away. That little AOE attack is crazy powerful if you aren’t in a rush and can afford to reload after it – anything with guaranteed damage is great. I didn’t have carapace or laser at the time so the introduction of the mecs was quite a jump in power, and without making the game a bit harder it would be have quite easy. Also you get the medals early on and they are nice little bonuses. The one that reduces panic seems almost too strong.

What IS different is longer soldier recovery times. This is a hugely positive change in my opinion as very little encouraged players to have more than a single super squad in the original – I currently have 12 soldiers and I use them all because I’m having to constantly rotate them in for injuries and covert ops (another way to take a soldier out of the action.) It could happen during an augmentation I suppose but those are fairly short. I hope when you research all the improved recovery time stuff this aspect doesn’t go away entirely!

Interesting, thanks. I didn’t realize that you’d be unlocking the MECs before you can get lasers (that strikes me as kind of weird, but anyway, it sounds like a nice change to the research race). I also hadn’t even heard about the medals, but those sound neat too. I’d love to see more changes to the Will system, mostly because I hate having soldiers irreversibly gimped by a traumatic injury. I do like the sound of increased recovery times though (I’d always thought that the soldier’s with damaged Willpower should be able to go through a longer recovery period or their damaged status should be randomized more so it’s possible for some soldiers to come out stronger than ever while others are permanently injured/traumatized and limited to desk duty).

This is starting to sound more promising. I’ll have to start watching for Steam sales during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

[Balasarius]

So I did the first “EW” council mission with a terrorist. I escorted him out, the mission ended saying we were going to interrogate him. But nothing happened. Am I missing something?

[SlyFrog]

How feasible is it to actually take defeats (particularly early) in this game and actually still win?

I just tried a game on Classic. I’m not completely getting how you can come back from an early squad wipe or two. Is it either get good enough at the game to not take material losses ever or savescumming, or is there hope if, say, you have a squad wipe in 2 of your first 5 missions?

[flyinj]

How feasible is it to actually take defeats (particularly early) in this game and actually still win?

I just tried a game on Classic. I’m not completely getting how you can come back from an early squad wipe or two. Is it either get good enough at the game to not take material losses ever or savescumming, or is there hope if, say, you have a squad wipe in 2 of your first 5 missions?

On Classic, you’ll never recover from 2 early squad wipes. You most likely won’t recover from 1 early squad wipe. You pretty much need to have high ranking soldiers to continue as the difficulty ramps quickly.

Also, don’t do anything but invest in satellites and a satellite uplink as the first things, or you will lose a continent before the first month is over… at which point, you’ll lose the game.

Classic is far too difficult and boring if you ask me. You get almost zero wiggle room as far as experimenting with different research builds… which you don’t realized until three months in where you lose.

[SlyFrog]

On Classic, you’ll never recover from 2 early squad wipes. You most likely won’t recover from 1 early squad wipe. You pretty much need to have high ranking soldiers to continue as the difficulty ramps quickly.

Also, don’t do anything but invest in satellites and a satellite uplink as the first things, or you will lose a continent before the first month is over… at which point, you’ll lose the game.

Classic is far too difficult and boring if you ask me. You get almost zero wiggle room as far as experimenting with different research builds… which you don’t realized until three months in where you lose.

Yeah. My problem is that when I played the original a step lower (Normal I think, I forget the name but definitely one step lower than Classic), it got way too easy shortly into the game. And it is a really long game to have be a pushover for most of it. I can’t seem to find a good middle ground I guess.

I’m forgetting if I save cheated though. Maybe I need to try Normal Ironman.

[olaf]

Is it me or does the price of this expansion seem high for what it delivers? $30 on steam. From what I have read it seems like it should be $15-20. I want to play it but I aint paying $30 for it.