5484

I always have my spy by a hacking tower ready for emergencies - a well-timed hack can save your bacon, or help you craft a slaughterfest.

5485

Hey everybody, if you run XCom on a mac and you want to try out the Long War mod, I need alpha testers for an installer script I wrote to install it (on Macs specifically). It only works on the Steam version, and you’ve got to have Enemy Within, and it’s alpha software.

You can download the script and get information on how to run it here:

Send me a PM if you have issues etc. There are a bunch of known issues with running the mod on Macs already, including CTDs on startup and when buying sawed-off shotguns, but it’s mostly been pretty stable for me so far.

5486

Holy wiggity wack, did Enemy Within make the game a bazillion times harder? I’ve started playing Classic / Ironman with the expansion, and I’ve had to restart something like five times in a row. This is from someone who beat XCOM: Enemy Unknown C/I. Thin Men are absolute killers - they consistently hit me behind high cover and on overwatch, and even sectoids kill my guys behind high cover something like 50% of the time. I don’t remember them being quite this lethal in EU! I can’t do any of the council requests at the beginning, because they are packed with Thin Men, which means I’m on my back foot panic-wise. I don’t have enough cash to do anything with the new meld systems (adding new stuff to spend money on without new revenue sources in such a tightly balanced game is a weird choice).

So, yeah. Getting spanked pretty badly here.

5487

It felt harder at the start for me too, once you get past the first couple of missions and unlock some gene mods and mecs the game gets easier than the original in my experience.

Has there been any news about any new dlc or expansion for this?

5488

I was really experienced with vanilla C/I and I had a shock when I first started EW as well. You’ll adjust eventually.

5489

Thin Men and Sectoids are pretty much as they were. The difficulty starts ramping up when you get stuff like Mechtoids. The Seekers are the first new enemy, and they are either easy, if you encounter them alone, or hard if you get them while engaged with something else.

There are new Council missions, and some of them can be nasty (I’m looking at you Newfoundland).

5490

Guess I’ll keep at it. Maybe I should prioritize getting into the new meld stuff? Normally I beeline for satellites and carapace armor, but I might need to write off a few extra countries just so I can live long enough to save the rest.

5491

Early satellites are still important, but bee lining for carapace isn’t good. You need the firepower of lasers more than extra hp. Going for an early MEC, particularly a sniper MEC, can be a big help. Just remember they can’t take cover, which makes them fragile.

5492

MEC’s in full cover can’t be seen by enemies on the other side tho.

5493

Yeah, I like the mecs way more than the gene mods, which just exacerbate the value of individual soldiers (the game’s biggest weakness, IMHO. Which is also why I like carapace). Just got wiped out, I’ll try another run with mecs and lasers. Thanks for the tips, everyone. Not sure why the expansion feels so tough, but I’m determined to beat it.

5494

In his YouTube blind Let’s Play of EW, Zemalf remarks that his biggest regret about Newfoundland was that he’d never be able to play it blind again. He did beat it first time though.

5495

As someone from Newfoundland I find it absolutely hilarious that they chose it for one of the most brutal missions in the game.

5496

As did I, actually. Didn’t even lose anyone, but man, I can see how it can completely screw you over. It’s a very interesting mission the first time through, not so much the 2nd or 3rd times, since you know all the gotchas. What I resent is that you get almost nothing for completing a challenging mission, so after a while I just ignored it when it popped up.

5497

Yeah the risk/reward is not worth it.

5498

I was suspicious, so I looked into it: soldier level ups are slower in EW! I think that’s driving a lot of the trouble I’m having. Being stuck with a squaddie sniper for an extra mission or two is a major liability.

5499

All this talk got me into firing up EW, to make a go at C/I. I made it slightly more than 90 days.

Ultimately, way too many soldier deaths, and the ones I was left with were simply no good (I used the second wave option of varied starting stats).

I suppose I have to keep at it. For all my enjoyment of this game (the original and, to a lesser extent, EW), I never completed a game on Classic.

5500

It reminds me more of an RPG level than a TBS mission. A great Lovecraftian atmosphere, which the developers no doubt intended, but like a spooky level in an RPG, the second time around you know what to expect, so the atmosphere is less effective.

5501

I finally figured out yesterday that the secret to that confounded DLC train mission is that you have to just position your units by the transponders without ever activating one, then activate all four in a singe turn and run a guy to the front of the train.

5502

Holy shitsnacks to I have a love/hate relationship with this game.

My latest C/I game (like my 10th start) was going really well. I finally had some leveled up soldiers, I had a MEC, I even had the ability to field 5 guys. I get a hostage rescue mission from the council. No big deal. And everything goes well. One of my assaults dies due to an unlucky series of events, but fine – that’s XCOM, right? I have the hostage hiding behind a truck, one turn away from getting into the evac zone. As far as I know, I’ve got the last Thin Man in my sights. My MEC is close, but out of ammo – perfect opportunity to try the kinetic fist! The pair are inside a building. I go ahead and punch the thin man… who blasts straight through the brick wall of the building and lands on the car the hostage was hiding behind blowing up the car and instantly killing the hostage, failing the mission.

What the fuck!? I needed those fucking rewards! That was the cash that was going to upgrade my team to laser rifles! And build another satellite! GRARAGAHBAJKSJKADSKASDKJASGDASJGDAHSDLAHSDLAHSDGASDYIASLDIUASLDGALSDGASYDASGHDASHDJKASDUASD

5503

That does kinda suck. It doesn’t even make sense.