5084

I did the base defense mission last night, and that was kind of nuts; saw my first Ethereal towards the end. I am beginning to think that Sectopods were buffed way too much; they are really hard to kill now, and they can fire like three times a round, so if it takes you 2-3 rounds to kill it, you are probably going to have someone get badly hurt, if not killed. I thought if they were lining up their rocket attack they couldn’t use their disgusting laser weapon too, but that doesn’t seem to be the case either. :/

I raided the Exalt base last night too and was a little disappointed; it seemed to be the stereotypical “evil office”, but I was expecting secret labs and other stuff, a mission at least as long as the alien base or cathedral ship, and it really wasn’t any different from the other Exalt missions with a unique map.

5085

Wow, really? Did you leave the alien base assault extremely late?

5086

Yeah, that surprises me as well. I’m not even sure how that would work. Normally, to unlock Ethereals requires that you finish the Hyperwave relay, and you can’t build the Hyperwave relay until you do the alien base assault, and you don’t get the base defense mission until you complete the alien base assault.

In my own game, I’m puttering along, grinding missions until I get a squad I’m confident will take the Temple ship. That’s one problem with Ironman, I’m too reluctant to just try it, because if I lose it’s game over. So I’m over-building my squad when I’m pretty sure the troops I’ve got could probably do it.

5087

I’m playing a Normal game, it’s October, I finished the alien base attack in September I think. My general playing style is going for the long game; while it cost me three countries (all in Asia, where I was based, so it didn’t impact me that much), I also pretty much fully tech up before moving on to the next story stage. I suspect when I try a Classic game next I’ll have to move the schedule up for the base attack (to get the global panic reduction).

I also got the hyperwave beacon pretty fast after the alien base, simply because there was nothing else really to research.

5088

When you get that far the game is already over and it’s just a grind to the end. Skip the Temple ship or just go for it and who cares if you lose.

The last 1/3 of XCOM, after you have full sat coverage and survived base assault, is just on rails. Losing your entire squad just means more grinding time because the aliens have stopped escalating, and with satellites the only way to get any panic is by failing terror missions which are not often enough to be a problem. You can just shoot down UFOs and skip mission but those if you want.

I really wish they had fixed this in the expansion. I never play that part of the game anymore. It’s a real bummer after the incredible tension of every decision in the first half of the game! The early game of XCOM is so resource tight it feels like the epic climax of a conflict.

A kludgy patch would be to have the base attack repeat every so often, with increasing difficulty, up to infinity. So you can’t just take as long as you want and loses still have some meaning.

5089

That isn’t actually the case. Even on iron man, if you fail the Temple Ship you’re given the option to retry the mission.

5090

This is true. Once I had 16/16 coverage the difficulty dropped significantly. That alien base assault where I lost 5 out of 6 soldiers was the last time I came remotely close to a wipe.

Ah, OK, I haven’t run into that. Probably because I’m really cautious about sending in that final squad.

5091

For killing Sectopods, I’ve started relying heavily on snipers with Disabling Shot.

5092

Yes, they work quite well. And you can combine them with assaults with that quick reaction perk (I think that’s what its called: the one where the first overwatch shot is guaranteed to miss) and mech’s with Electropulse. Especially the assaults are valuable, IMO…

5093

First run with Classic Ironman (EU), and it’s exceptionally compelling - it’s odd how liberating it is not having the burden of worrying about saving, how much it wonderfully concentrates the mind and how much psychic momentum it gives one’s game. Never really played any games in this mode before (apart from MMOs, now I think about it, duh - weird how separate the “single player game” and “MMO” compartments are in my mind). With my Normal run, relying on key saves plus quicksaves (with the occasional handy autosave) I was more concerned to get a “perfect”, shapely outcome. Now on CI, there’s less meta sense and more sense of immersion - and desperation :) - but also speed and urgency (paradoxically, since one has to take the tactical side very slowly).

Of course, in exchange for saving worries, one has the repetition of the first three missions until one gets a reasonably viable start (enough soldiers on the way to vet status, steam not in one of the designated satellite uplink boxes, etc.) - I had about 10 abortive early runs before I settled into something that looks like it might have some legs, and of course I’m prepared to restart a few more times if need be - but my God it teaches one how to play! The downside of it is that the more one plays intensively like this, the more board-gamey it feels and the more the sim illusion wears off, but on the other hand, it’s still fun and somehow well knit as that, and one still gets those immersive moments now and then, and one still falls in love with one’s brave little soldiers and it still hurts to lose them.

I’d really like to see the supposed original working version of this where they had a 1:1 translation of the more complex original game. I’m sure people would buy that as DLC or as a mod.

General game design thought: why are so many games so sensitive to initial conditions? I remember when I was into RTSs a lot, they’re like that too, only one viable path in the very first few moves. Ideally, doesn’t one want a game where it doesn’t matter much how you start, as you fumble along, but things get more and more on a hair trigger as you get more experienced?

It may be a particular flaw in this game that it seems to “break” and get really easy about 3/4 of the way through, but actually a lot of games are like that - difficulty front-loaded, hand-waving towards the end; whereas I would have though they ought be back-loaded. Or maybe it’s just the thing of time-pressure being so great that developers are usually only able to really “finish” the first half of their games (and let’s face it, that’s probably enough for many people).

On the other hand, if you look at peoples guides and comments on the interwebz, everyone swears by their own tried and tested method, but actually, apart from the satellite necessity, there are quite a few “winning strategies” that seem to work, and I think that’s a sign of a good game. It’s only really the satellite thing that’s make or break in the first couple of months; given that, other choices like whether to beeline research or harden squad, etc., etc., all seem to be equally viable.

(BTW, I’d never read Tom’s review of this, it’s a masterpiece with a rather poignant tone re. how we expected games nowadays would turn out versus how they did.)

5094

The worst part about satellites is that was the biggest complaint about the original and they basically… did nothing.

Ultimately it’s what tends to keep me from playing it, knowing I have to do satellites while praying my squad doesn’t get wiped out while I’m still building them up. I’d like my choice to be how to make my team better, not how to barely manage to sneak by while I try to get income to do anything else.

5095

Aaaaaaand just when I was feeling all warm and fuzzy about the game, I just fired it up this minute and had the teleport bug completely fuck my first well-going (partway through April) CI run :*(

I think I need to go out for a quick walk and take a breath of fresh air …

5096

I don’t think the original game was really that much complex.

Tactically, Enemy Unknown misses the ability to inch forward one square at a time, spending AP instead of full actions. It’s also missing inventory. I don’t miss the first all that much, and I like that EU is more restrictive in what it allows you to bring. You can’t, for example, bring a couple of different rifles. I’d like a limited inventory system, where you could for example pick up a medikit off a downed soldier if you emptied your own inventory slot first, but I don’t think the full Testris inventory would add to the game. In exchange, we have an interesting cover system.

Strategically, EU only lets us build one base. In the original game, though, most of those bases you built were just airstrips for interceptors. They’d end up pretty much where the interceptor zones are in EU - one for each major continent. Eventually you’d end up with 2 major bases, your original, and a second one that was probably focused on research. I do rather miss that it was a good idea to plan base layouts with an eye toward defense. If anything I’d like to see that improved, with more provision for fixed turret defenses and the like.

The biggest strategic change isn’t a simplification. In UFO Defense, you started with the support of all the countries, and you could not do anything to increase your income directly. Your income did increase as time went on, but it wasn’t something under your control. Rather, your investment was primarily in additional scientists, and to a lesser extent engineers. The more labs you had, the more scientists you could hire, the faster your research would go.

The unfortunate thing about Enemy Unknown is that you really can’t afford labs. At least, I’ve never built one on Classic difficulty, because it’s money and power that I need for more satellites. I think I’d like to see a variant where you started with all the countries, with reduced income from each. Satellite coverage then would be about preventing alien attacks, not income, and losing a country would hurt your current income rather than the end-game income. I expect you could probably take a more balanced approach to building that wasn’t so satellite focused.

Positive feedback loops. Games which allow for investment in income almost always have significant positive feedback loops. Absent any controls, it’s archetypical geometric growth issue. The income from your growth allows more reinvestment which creates more growth.

It’s worth looking at the Civilization series for this issue, since the evolution of Civ has been largely about different experiments in curbs on growth. Civ 1 didn’t have any, originally. Civ 3 had a horrible system based on distance from the capital, where each new city had a permanent income penalty, which climbed as high as 90% for distant cities. Civ 4 used a gold upkeep cost per city. Civ 5 uses global unhappiness, with each new city imposing extra unhappiness above the additional population.

UFO Defense didn’t have the problem because you couldn’t invest in income, only research. You could use engineers for income if they weren’t doing anything else, but the return was poor. I’m not sure how I’d change Enemy Unknown while keeping the satellite income mechanic.

I’ve never seen the teleport bug, and I have 350 hours into the game.

5097

I am really enjoying another playthrough on the iPad instead of the PC. It plays so easily with touch and I can sit on the couch and be part of what’s going on in the house and still be gaming.

I am already tired of the strategic portion now and I’m not that far in. It’s just a race to get satellites up. The strategic game is really more of a nuisance than anything else. I doubt I’ll finish the game since the last mission is also annoying. Still, the tactical battles are a lot of fun.

5098

Yep, I won that game, despite the near-wipe on the alien base assault. That was my last major setback. Really, once I had lasers + carapace + at least 9 satellites, it was just a matter of time.

I just did the Temple ship mission, and I still remembered where everything spawned despite a long hiatus between finishing Enemy Unknown and starting Enemy Within. It’s heavily scripted, but at this point I’d say it’s just a bit dull rather than annoying. With a decent group the only challenges are the two Sectopods and the boss, and the boss isn’t really that much of a challenge since a single sniper with double tap can often kill him the turn he appears, so you needn’t deal with his escorts.

The Sectopods are of course heavily beefed up, but Disabling Shot helped quite a lot. My biggest single screwup was running my Assault through a Psychic Rift - I’d forgotten that it does damage to friendlies and that continues to inflict damage for during the turn you put it up. 23 points, but she lived, and I was able to heal her back to full health with my Medic Volunteer.

5099

Funding in the original X-Com could go up; you started with all countries giving you funding, but they would adjust their funding levels based on how well you were protecting them. If you were leaving them to the aliens, they would reduce their funding, and if you were protecting them, funding would go up. If it went down three months in a row, you lost the funding. The biggest difference with this part is that you wouldn’t necessarily know if you were protecting them enough, because if you didn’t have radar stations nearby, aliens could be plundering them all month and you’d have no idea. There was the added strategic dimension where you had to put up radar stations and interceptors in different countries, or use Skyranger and interceptor CAPs to spot alien ships and bases without radar in order to protect them. You almost always lost one or two countries early on because you wouldn’t have enough radar coverage to protect everyone.

That’s what’s really missing from EU; the strategic level is really just “get satellites over as many places as possible” because it gives you both more money and prevents abduction missions. The pace of alien attacks/sightings is also much slower in EU, so you don’t really need multiple squads/transports, which means you can much more easily get away with just training up your A-team plus a handful of subs. In UFO, I almost always had 2-3 different squads at the least by late game, of varying quality. I’d send the C-team to take out small Sectoid ships, while the A-team was raiding Muton battleships or whatever. I kind of miss the single-alien (with their specified backup – Chrysalids with Snakemen, Cyberdiscs with Sectoids, etc) ships, because it allowed you to do that sort of thing, and kept all the aliens showing up. I think if I was in charge of EU I would have kept that aspect, maybe made each alien type have different kinds of missions too; maybe Thin Men infiltrate some kind of government facility and you need to send in your X-Com team to take out the Thin Men while protecting the civvies (a variation on a terror mission, I guess, but the Thin Men are trying to destroy a lab or find some specific scientist and kill him).

The removal of base defense also reduces the need to train up additional squads; in UFO, one of the reasons for having those B and C teams in remote bases was to protect them from aliens. The only thing I didn’t like about UFO’s base defenses was that you could get boned by the 80 items max per mission thing, so your squaddies have 40 electro-lights, 20 plasma pistols, 10 grenades, and 10 clips to fight off the aliens, which would end poorly. With EU’s items being bound to the soldier, that would be nicely solved.

Honestly, I think the only complaint I have about the game’s tactical portion is the tiny squad size and the alien “activation” behavior. The tiny squad size makes it really hard to train up your rookies; in UFO, if you brought 2 rookies in your squad of 12 on a mission, and they panicked or got killed, you weren’t completely hamstrung, but in EU, if you bring a rookie on your squad of 6, if they panic, they seriously reduce your effectiveness (and if they panic and kill another soldier, you’re really boned). It’s not like you can take them only against the “easy” enemies too, since later in the game you’re rarely going to find a ship without Mutons or something else at least moderately tough. The activation thing just promotes the “creep forward and don’t try to flank” behavior that has been discussed to death already. All my other complaints with the game are really restricted to the strategic portion of the game. I have the urge to go back and play UFO now too…except I remember all the annoying headaches of that game (the 80 item limit, the lack of a “save time for kneel,” etc). If Firaxis put out a “X-Com Classic” version of the strategic game for DLC, I’d pay 30 bucks for it in a heartbeat. I really miss that more simulationist bent.

5100

I’m OK with the size 6 squad, and I’ve taken rookies along without feeling hamstrung. Size 4, on the other hand, is too punishing, particularly in the early game, since a single death or panic is a crippling loss if there’s any serious resistance left. Which is why I tend to be very, very free with the explosives until I get size 6. I think the game would be a lot better if you started with a size-6 squad, and maybe boosted to size 8 with OTS upgrades.

5101

Yeah, 4 is really the worst; remember that in the original, 12 was the smallest your max squad size ever was, and the Avenger had 26, IIRC. Granted, my B and C squads usually used Lightnings, which were capped at 14, but like I said before, they were usually going after small ships or weak aliens. Starting at 6 with a max of 8 or 9 would probably be okay.

Edit: I think I might have Skyranger and Lightning caps reversed…but the upshot is the same. :)

5102

I only played it a bit back in the day, but I remember it being more fiddly than this, and I love fiddly - the more knobs I can twiddle, the more beard-stroking I can do, the better. Although I recognize that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I know that this is all a delicate alchemy, and it’s not always good to give gamers what they want! But I do lament the decline of AAA fiddliness, and I do religiously curse consoles nearly every day I play a game nowadays :)

I think I’d like to see a variant where you started with all the countries, with reduced income from each. Satellite coverage then would be about preventing alien attacks, not income, and losing a country would hurt your current income rather than the end-game income. I expect you could probably take a more balanced approach to building that wasn’t so satellite focused.

Yeah, I’d like to see that, I do think the game has lots of possible paths overall, but it would be nice if in a sequel (and I hope there’s a sequel!) they did something more like what you’re suggesting.

I’ve never seen the teleport bug, and I have 350 hours into the game.

I’d just played a Normal game and several abortive CIs and never seen it, and today it happened to me for the first time. In the middle of your turn, the mobs (Floaters in this instance) just suddenly appear right in amongst your soldiers and get shots off, there’s nothing you can do about it. The luck of the draw was that all the shots they got off were one-shot kills of 3 of my best guys, in a game in which Sqs were thin on the ground, otherwise it’s conceivable I might have recovered.

I gather it’s got something to do with some combination of Hunker Down, Overwatch and Floaters/Mutons, and happens more in Classic than Normal, and more in Impossible than Classic. I combine Hunker Down with Overwatch a lot.

Anyway, you’ll be glad to know I recovered from my nerdrage pretty quickly, I’m back on the wagon with another CI, about a third way through March again :)

BTW, IF ANYONE HAS THE TELEPORT BUG HAPPEN TO THEM, THE WORKAROUND IS TO ALT+TAB AND SHUT THE GAME DOWN IN TASK MANAGER AS SOON AS YOU SEE THE MOBS APPEARING SUDDENLY. Reload will then take you back to the beginning of your move.

5103

Btw, if there’s any one “key” to the Tactical game in Classic, I find, it’s this: forget about looking for the aliens, always look for full cover.