Alan_Au
5104
On harder difficulties, I go one step further and try to find high cover that’s out of sight of enemies. Basically, I treat the whole thing as a math exercise where, taking the hit percentages into account, I want to take as many shots as possible while denying the aliens that opportunity.
The more I think about it, the more I’m kind of annoyed by the slow pace of EU; you probably only do 3-4 missions per month, which means that it limits your opportunities to demonstrate your commitment to defense against the aliens to the various members of the council. It’s frustrating to see your terror creeping up in the early game without there being anything you can do about it, while in the late game, it’s frustrating sitting there just spinning the globe while you do research because abduction missions are generally over when you get full satellite coverage. If the game kept you busy, especially in the late game when you’re not constantly dealing with base duties, I think the game would be less frustrating in the endgame. I sort of liked the fact that in the original UFO you could essentially wage an endless war against the alien menace until you finally decided to do Cydonia.
Yeah, you nailed it, exactly that.
My experience was exactly the same and thought people won’t believe me if I say it.
I suspect the teleport bug happens to people who ran forward too much and didn’t have anybody on overwatch. It’s just weird that the teleport bug that was reported was never encountered in all my playthroughs.
And people complain about a free turn the aliens get when you encounter them. It’s NOT a free turn because they only went into cover and never shoot back. If you had not dashed forward using up your precious shooting opportunity, you could have gotten all your troops to fire at them! It’s you who have that “free” turn.
This game fills me with such rage sometimes.
I started another Classic Ironman game, because it took me 18 games (!) to win one. I wanted to prove to myself that I’d learned something. And I did OK up until early month 2 (April), when I took the first Progeny mission (Portent), and wiped. Man did that make me angry. In theory I could probably continue that game, since losing Portent just cost me a couple of skilled soldiers, and no Panic loss, but I’m just unwilling to accept that.
I think I could have won Portent, if I had memorized it better. I think it’s possible to activate at most 1-2 Thin Men at a time, but my reasonable tactics did what they often do in Enemy Unknown - activate additional groups when you try and flank. I had a Sniper, a Support, and 2 rookies, and the problem is that this group simply did not have the firepower to kill 3 thin men in one turn, which meant I inevitably took losses, and of course that snowballed.
If I’d gotten it later, it wouldn’t have been such a problem. I didn’t get it until month 3 in game 18, and by that time I had squad size 6 and lasers. Bomb missions are even rougher than Portent or Slingshot #1, but I think they’re doable if you’ve got some sort of edge - squad size 6, a MEC, or a squad where everyone can reliably do at least 4 points of damage, which means shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, and lasers. LMGs don’t quite qualify, they do enough damage, but heavies don’t have the skill to hit reliably unless the target is in the open.
SlyFrog
5109
I’ve just disabled the scripted missions like Progency, etc. Unlike others, I find them stupid and out of place in an Xcom type of game. I want randomness, not “oh hey I have to have this guy here because this shark explodes and then those things come out and if I’m not positioned right to solve the puzzle I die” type stuff.
OK, I’ve given up on CI for now, after about 20 goes, furthest was well into April; life is too short and I’m obviously too old and too crap. It starts to become a mechanical exercise. I like to customize my little guys, and I’ve gotten sick of having to re-do the customization on each re-start.
Classic with Autosave is just fine - Woodenman :)
Interesting experience trying though, it teaches one a lot about how to play the game well.
I can’t really do woodenman, even if the game isn’t enforcing it. Reloading from a saved game feels like I’m cheating. Only because it’s a strategy game, I have no scruples about save-and-reload in shooters.
I managed to beat Portent very easily in game #20, despite the fact that it came very early in month 2, just as it did in game #19. I had a MEC, squad size 5, two heavies and two assaults. I was right, you can limit your activation of Thin Men to 1-2 at a time if you know where they are on that map, so it’s probably doable with less.
I decided in this game to deliberately abandon China in month 1 in favor of the extra money from putting a satellite over the US. Part of me feels like I should fight for every country no matter what, but I have to keep reminding myself that full coverage is a late game advantage, when the game is already easy. Sacrificing late game income or continent bonuses for an early game advantage is the correct move, I believe.
Interesting bug in my first classic mission: the aliens where already on overwatch before I had even found them, causing two of my men to get shot while moving to their positions… Talk about an alien ambush! Shortly afterwards the game crashed, and loading the savegame has the same result (crash), so I guess the game recognizes it’s own cheating… ;-)
I have seen aliens go on overwatch the first turn I see them. Not before, but as part of that first move.
I think it’s possible that groups occasionally are activated prematurely. I’ve certainly seen lots of cases where a group doesn’t activate when I run by or run barely into range, so I see them grouped, even without Ghost Armor or Mimetic Skin. I suppose the opposite might occur, which would explain some first turn actions that aren’t normally possible.
It’s worth noting that Enemy Unknown by design doesn’t ambush players the way UFO Defense did. In UFO Defense all aliens were active from turn 1, and sometimes jump your guys before you could see them. I.e. you’d move a rookie out, and the aliens (who had slightly better sight range) would blow them away with reaction fire, or move to attack during their turn. To get ambushed in Enemy Unknown, you have to alert a group first, and let them live at least 1 turn so they can move and set up overwatches.
Well, except for those spawns in Council missions where they start in overwatch, anyway.
Quaro
5114
If you want to preserve ironman I would say try getting the mod the unlocks all the second-wave options and turn on a few of the ones that makes the game harder, and then start on Classic and then turn it down to normal (so you don’t start with Officer School). That should provide a decent middle ground between normal and classic.
I too can’t handle non-ironman. I just have no fun at all and am constantly evaluating when I should save, fighting against the urge to reload, and on and on. Even if I never win I just enjoy ironman more.
Quaro
5115
After you know the overall game structure, you realize you can skip a decent amount satellites in favor of buffing your team/base and you don’t miss out on the income later. And you can just skip ‘Portent’ or whatever too if it comes up in month 2. I chose to lose 5 countries and then only one accidentally later.
I think being away of this overall game structure is the main reason I managed to win my first and only C/I attempt.
You’re wrong. :-)
I don’t know why some people see it and others don’t, but your suspicion is incorrect. I’ve seen the bug multiple times (and I once had a save right beforehand so I was even able to semi-reproduce it by replaying that section over and over and making slightly different moves). As I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, I also saw the bug occur in another situation where it ignored my overwatch. In that case I had barely run forward at all. I’d engaged a couple units near the skyranger, then pulled back towards the skyranger (and I had a broad formation so I could see well outside my center). A turn or two later I had two mutons appear smack dab in the middle of my squad, with full unbroken vision all around them and where they appeared. I think one of them (the second one) was hit with overwatch when it moved, but the first one didn’t take any overwatch fire even though it was in plain sight of my troops. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I think it just shot a trooper from the spot where it appeared.
[edit to clarify: I saw the first teleport bug instance (mentioned above) before I’d done any reloading. I’ve read that some people thought it was an artifact of ‘save scumming’ which, I guess, means reloading saved games? In this case I played the mission through, hit the bug, and then reloaded back a few turns. I can’t recall if I saw it again on the second play through, but around that time I googled it (since I’d initially interpreted the situation as my mistake and/or a muton special ability). I later went back and replayed that section several more times to look for patterns.]
I’m sold on an early MEC now, at least if it’s a Sniper MEC. They’re still awfully fragile, but if the have a high enough aim, they have enough firepower to kill most early stuff one-on-one before it can shoot back. Just a few ranks in Sniper plus the +10 Aim when you don’t move makes for good odds on most enemies that don’t have intrinsic defense. That, and you if you have someone in a bad position vs. a single enemy, sending the MEC out means that the MEC will take the hit instead. So they work well when it’s likely you’re going to get hit anyway because you’re stuck in low cover or the enemy has a height advantage. Obviously you want to avoid those situations at all costs, but they still happen.
MECs really want to stay out of sight whenever possible, only moving forward when you have a good idea where everything is, so you won’t face multiple attacks.
Heavy MECs just suck. The defensive bonus isn’t all that great, and they are unlikely to have a high enough aim to make them useful for anything but punching things and launching explosives. Punching things is awfully effective, but you have to be somewhat close, and that’s not always possible.
I managed to complete Slingshot. That second mission is a real bitch, I advanced every turn, never halting, and I barely managed to get the train moving on the last turn. You don’t have to dash, and in fact it’s suicidal to do so since there are Thin Men waiting to be activated all along the platform, but you can’t delay, either. The final mission wasn’t that hard, and the reward was ridiculous for month 3. It’s not so much capturing a fusion core, since researching the Blaster Launcher is a very time consuming process, it’s the metric buttload of materials, flight computers, and power sources you get. That’s a big infusion of cash when cash is still very tight.
I think I might skip it in any future plays. Sure, I feel that there was a significant challenge, but that reward feels like it skews the game fairly seriously. In contrast the Progeny reward is some mid-rank troops that are guaranteed to be Psionic, but that’s not unbalancing at all.
Ahhhh. Ok I guess my speculations were wrong.
I dont play non-ironman (apart from the first playthrough.) So that may explain why I don’t get to see the “artifacts”. Or maybe it was an intentionally written “bug”. To punish the save scrumers.
It’s worth noting that the engine activates based on line of sight.
I have had groups approach very close to non-activated groups because of buildings and high ground in spaceships. Then I have another member further away getting to better ground and triggering groups when she runs past the 1 square that grants vision to that group. Needless to say, the results are ugly because if that group happens to be 3 chrysalis or sectopod with drones or berserkers, reaction fire can only kill 1. And they start the next turn on top of me.
I’ve tested the it with the sniper’s battle-scanners. The enemies do not go into overwatch unless I trigger them with LOS.
And I hate the reaction fire mechanism. When 3 foes charges your group, EVERYONE fires at 1 of them. And you only get to fire once. At least make the damn reaction fire improvements be unlimited times it can be triggered. You’re limited by ammo anyway. Yay! Reaction fire improvements! Wonderful! Now I can fire twice! But wait… the game throws at least 3 of them at me…
Again, a classic example.
I never save-scummed nor played non-ironman, and the teleport bug ruined my experience with EU – more effectively than the “strategic” layer, the cramped maps, the scripting, etc.
Before giving up, I only played Classic. I remember one of the patches claimed to have “minimized” the bug (whatever that meant!); in my case it seemed to make it worse, and I was experiencing the bug every few maps. I wonder how many of the folks who never saw the teleporting aliens were playing on Normal? They didn’t call it “shackled AI” for nothing, you know… :-D
Oops I meant I only played iron-man. Typo on my part.
Edit: I actually said I don’t play non-ironman. Which meant I only played ironman.
I do classic also in unknown, but am doing a normal ironman now because unfamiliar with enemy within. But still it kinda weird? Maybe I have experienced the teleport bug I attribute it to something else? Just damn weird I dint see it happen before. Even on ironman classic.
Another scenario is when I manage to miss triggering a group (triggers based on LOS) and triggers them when I seek cover or flank as mentioned by gus above. But I don’t attribute this to a teleport bug. It’s just how the LoS trigger works.
I’m very familiar with that situation, which is one reason I’m terribly conscious of possible sight lines. When I’ve been caught out, I’ve found the solution is “run.” Run, run, run. In my recent successful Classic Ironman game, I had a situation where I was assaulting a UFO, and about 3 groups activated all at once - a Berserker group, a Mechtoid group, and something else. I had all my guys dash away full speed, using terrain to break LOS. After that I did a fighting retreat, running away and entering overwatch, and managed to kill everything that chased me.
The St. John’s Fishing Village mission was valuable training for this. You have to run practically flat out away from the ship, shooting Chrysallids as they chase you. Since I’d already done it once I knew it was doable.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened to me. I always put everyone, apart from the guy that’s going to seek first cover, on Overwatch, straight out of the Skyranger. On this occasion, the guy who went forward into full cover discovered a bunch of mobs (can’t remember which ones, Sectoids I think) straight off the bat, who then did their scatter and position schtick. I hunkered him down, but then some Floaters suddenly appeared right in amongst my overwatch guys, who got a few shots off (which all missed, of course :) ) and then promptly got slaughtered.
After it happened I checked out some forum discussions, and I saw one discussion where someone said that it has something to do with some rare combination of map, Overwatch, Hunker Down and Floaters/Mutons in particular.
Anyway, I know what Gus means about it not being quite the same even with just Autosave, there’s something delicious and hyper-immersive about the freedom of not having to even think about saves at all. But I think I was just too ambitious to try CI straight after Normal, I don’t quite know the game well enough yet. After those CI runs I’m really starting to get the hang of the 180 degree cover + LOS thing, and also the right kind of sequence at the Strategic level. I think after this Classic run and a bit more understanding I’ll try Ironman again, maybe with the expansion.
