greydan

XCOM Enemy Unknown

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Have any of you given impossible a shot yet? coming to the end of classic i find myself wondering if its worth giving a shot.

I feel i know the system pretty well, and have a have a good idea of the danger points on most types of maps so it doesn't seem inconceivable i could make my way through.

 

But does it really add much to the game? Can you beat it through good play and careful management or is it something which is only beatable through a set playbook built to deal with a deck that is stacked against you?

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I've tried a few times and repeatedly got my arse handed to me. I can see it would be "manageable" with plasma weaponry and a high level squad, but I had too many one shot death scenarios right at the start (usually when I was behind full cover) for my rage to start bubbling slightly too vigorously to carry on. Bit harsh to go from a highly defended position to 3 dead and 1 panicking without being able to do anything about it. It felt a bit too random and not enough down to tactical skill, if you know what I mean.

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I only tried once, and out of the first 3 missions, I had 2 total squad wipes and one mission where a single soldier survived.  I'm sure with some practice and familiarity it's doable, but I wasn't interested in sinking that much more time into it.

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I keep seeing XCOM listed on my favorites, and contemplating going back to the game, but I also remember that the last time I played the game I did a rage quit during my classic ironman game when I got to the first alien base mission, and was close to completion when one turn later I was swarmed by 9 chrysalids. :-( 

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I keep seeing XCOM listed on my favorites, and contemplating going back to the game, but I also remember that the last time I played the game I did a rage quit during my classic ironman game when I got to the first alien base mission, and was close to completion when one turn later I was swarmed by 9 chrysalids. :-(

 

haha that reminds me of my favourite ever X-Com squad wipe.

 

On a terror mission during my original classic ironman run I  took aim at 2 chrysalids with my heavy's rocket launcher, unfortunately he missed. The errant rocket blowing a hole in the building behind them and revealing 3 more bugs, a cyberdisk and a couple of floaters. Who promptly took opportunity of their free move to rush my squad, but oh well at least their end was quick.

 

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I completed the game on impossible. Call me an achievement whore. With a reload here and there it was actually less of a slog than classic ironman.

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After a long time of owning the PC version of Enemy Within (I orginally played XCOM on the XBOX) I've finally gotten started. I chickened out at the last second and decided to do normal ironman instead of hard ironman, as I want to be sure to experience the new content all the way through. So far, it's been pretty easy, which I guess I shouldn't be surprised by as the first time I played I made it all the way to the final mission without a mission failure. I decided to go with Mech Suits, is there any different storyline to experience if I play through again using the biological augments?

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After a long time of owning the PC version of Enemy Within (I orginally played XCOM on the XBOX) I've finally gotten started. I chickened out at the last second and decided to do normal ironman instead of hard ironman, as I want to be sure to experience the new content all the way through. So far, it's been pretty easy, which I guess I shouldn't be surprised by as the first time I played I made it all the way to the final mission without a mission failure. I decided to go with Mech Suits, is there any different storyline to experience if I play through again using the biological augments?

 

No, just the unique cutscene for making the augmentation facility and the tech reports on each of the augments, but nothing really story related.  You should have plenty of material by mid-game to do some experimentation with both though.  They really compliment each other more than picking one over the other.  Just make sure you're collecting Meld on all missions, which on Normal shouldn't be too hard. 

 

And I think going with a Normal playthrough first is actually a good idea.  All the new stuff takes a bit to figure out what you like and don't like, and trying to do that with fewer resources in Classic would probably be detrimental, to me.

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Yeah, I think normal difficulty is a good idea. The expansion makes the game slightly more challenging I think!

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Oh, I thought you were locked into doing one or the other. I have more than enough Meld to do both right now, really time has been the limiting factor thus far.

Edit: I'm also starting to crave going back to my original XCOM game that I have 1/4 complete.

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Edit: I'm also starting to crave going back to my original XCOM game that I have 1/4 complete.

 

Me too, I put in 30 hours in offline mode, only for steam to overwrite my saves when I finally connected to the internet a couple of weeks later. Put me right off playing it again, but I really want to finish it.

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After owning XCOM: Enemy Unknown for more than a year, I finally had a proper game of it last week. I had never gotten into it properly, but I had a week off and with all the hype around Enemy Within (and given my enjoyment of some videos by perfectly silly English gentleman Matt Lees) I decided to give it another go.

 

WOW, what an excellent game. I played it all through (on normal) and it was easily one of my best gaming experiences of the year so far. I'm very tempted to give it another go on classic once I have some free time again.

 

It turns out the main difference between this and my previous attempts was that I finally set it to ironman. When I played before without ironman enabled, I found myself lapsing straight into a perfectionist mindset, trying to optimize every single move and save-scumming the most straightforward missions. When, at a terror mission, I was suddenly unable to save all the civilians, that mindset didn't work anymore and I just gave up on the game. Ironman has me playing a completely different style and I love the game for it.

 

I should perhaps mention that I never finished the last mission. It feels completely incongruous to an ironman playthrough and has me right back in my old mindset - not a place I want to go. Did anyone else have this issue?

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I should perhaps mention that I never finished the last mission. It feels completely incongruous to an ironman playthrough and has me right back in my old mindset - not a place I want to go. Did anyone else have this issue?

 

I had this exact same issue, it seemed like an odd choice. And I don't remember was there even a reason that you only had 'one shot' to do it? Did you carry a special item on board that you'd lose if everyone died? I remember thinking at the time it would make sense to just have the team wiped out, and then you return to base, and you have to scramble your resources to try again, having lost your best soldiers. It'd be devastating send wave after wave of soldiers at it as your choice became more and more limited and your resources waned. What an ending that would be.

 

Though I did finish the mission because I wanted to bear out the story of my team. I'm not sure if you named all your squad members, but I did and it was the first time naming characters in a game made me give a crap about them. So I wanted to see how they fared in the end.

 

 

Mild spoilers about the 'story' of XCOM

I was mostly playing along naming my soldiers after characters from things I liked that they mildly resembled. Chel, Shephard, Michael Scott, Hank Hill, Hank Schrader. But near the end I realised I hadn't used my name yet, so I just popped myself in as a new unassuming soldier. I tested myself along with any other low ranking soldier for psychic powers, turned out I did have the gift. Then right before the final stretch of missions, I lost all other psychic soldiers. I was the only one left who had the power to go into the final mission and stop the aliens. I was the most important team member for that final mission, as if I died then the mission was a failure. I was also the least experienced member on that team. It was my crack elite of surviving captains... and a rookie who got lucky with the gift. Few of the team survived, but that rookie gave his life to save the team and protect Earth.

 

Damn, I haven't gone back to play Enemy Within yet, even though I own it but I've gotten myself all hyped up for it again. It is flat out the best roleplaying narrative experience I've had in a game.

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I guess the reasoning for the 'one shot' was that there could only be one "volunteer" which seems odd, given that all the facilities which lead up to that point were still intact. I agree, just having people die would have been better.

 

I did name all my soldiers (after writers from my university courses, with Friedrich 'Gonzo' Nietzsche as the volunteer). The final mission just sapped by enthusiasm for the game, so I just looked up the ending and let it go. Looking forward to doing another playthrough on 'classic' though (and to eventually get Enemy Within).

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The final mission was the only mission I restarted on my first non-ironman playthough. The very first person I tested had the gift, and I went right in as soon as he got out of the machine, so I had no cool mind powers at all. I got totally destroyed.

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You get a chance to redo the mission if you fail, even if you are on Ironman (I'm like 99 percent sure about this and the wiki backs up my memory). 

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You get a chance to redo the mission if you fail, even if you are on Ironman (I'm like 99 percent sure about this and the wiki backs up my memory). 

Yeah, this is what happens. I played on Ironman and it just endlessly repeats, that's what annoyed me after a whole game where my screw ups were permanent.

 

Also kind of annoying is that once you reach a point in the sequence of events leading to the final mission you can no longer do anything to progress time other than going on the final mission. You can't stall and grind or anything if you just want to get a particular piece of equipment or level a character or wait until your star soldier recovers from an injury.

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Just completed my first play though and wow, I got my butt kicked.  I realized too late the crucial importance of getting satellites up...but beyond that, anyone know of a good strategy guide or strategy focused play though?

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Off the top of my head, no, but the single most important thing you can do is rush satellites and target the most valuable continent bonuses, even if it costs you a country.  On normal, it should be possible to get 3-4 is in the first month, on Classic 2-3.   It's better to be a little underpowered early to get sats.   Starting with the USA is the easiest start, as it gets the biggest single income.  Starting in Asia is also good, as you secure its bonus which becomes crazy valuable mid-game, and with 4 countries can sometimes be harder to get.  Africa should be the first continent you cover, but isn't worth starting there as its bonus isn't particularly valuable in the first month.  Europe and SA can be the last ones you cover.  There are some interesting strategies that actually cover them early, but they're really for later playthroughs when you want to try new stuff.

 

After making sure your satellites are bought and you have capacity for them, focus on getting some early workshops up and for your first reward, take Engineers.  Being short on engineers early on represents one of the worst resource barriers you encounter.  Early on, reward value is essentially Engineers>Money>Scientists>Soldiers.  Engineers and Workshops never stop being valuable, while money and scientists eventually stop being useful.   Late game, your resource limitation is going to be rarer alien materials, not cash or research.

 

Also remember to check the timing of when things will be finished.  You don't need to launch satellites until right before the end of the month, so just make sure your new relay and sats will be done by the last day of the month.  I've hosed playthroughs before because of botching this (usually not getting extra power built fast enough to get another relay up). 

 

Don't be afraid to sell almost everything you scrap from early missions to get satellites, power and workshops, just save the minimum you'll need for the next research project or two you'll want.   You won't have anywhere near enough cash if you try and save that stuff. 

 

Anymore, I will also restart if I get a shitty base, with poor already excavated locations or terrible steam vents.  If vent location is such that it seriously disrupts the 2 or 3 preferred base layouts I have or it's going to be the third month before I can get to one, it's not worth pursuing that game.  Though that really only applies to Classic, Normal it doesn't matter as much. 

 

For combat, on Normal it's pretty easy to rush Plasma weapons early be getting the containment as early as possible, allowing you to skip lasers completely.  On Classic, you have to go through lasers, research just takes too long and you'll start hitting hard enemies earlier and your ballistic weapons are not up to the task of taking on Mutons.

 

Make sure you level up snipers, even though they are terrible to start with.  They become gods eventually.  I actually forced myself to stop using them on a couple of playthroughs just to try some different strategies for fun. 

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Ironman is the only way to play in my opinion.  XCOM with ironman is a strategy game, you might win, you might lose.  XCOM with loading is a series of missions where the difficulty levels determines how much reloading you will have to do to clear them all.  Even for first timers I'd recomend ironman, just set the difficulty down a notch.

 

Since this thread bumped I'll mention what I've been trying lately, an XCOM mod called Long War.  Practically the only non-trivial XCOM mod out since modding XCOM is such a nightmare in practical terms:

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?

 

It makes so many changes I won't even attempt to summarize.  Vastly more than Enemy Within for example. 

 

If you do try it be sure and apply 'hotfix' for alien research speed in beta 9a.  If you don't make that change you'll be playing on a difficulty level higher than impossible when you select normal and you'll probably think the mod is absurdly difficult.

 

It's pretty buggy at the moment so I wouldn't commit to a full run or anything until it's a little more mature but I had a lot of run just playing through a few missions with the changes. 

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I don't think I agree with your assessment that playing on anything other than iron man just means people will just reload to clear levels. It assumes every player will do that, and I certainly didn't. I think I reloaded once during my first Xcom attempt (which is lost now unfortunately) and that was because I made a dumb mistake that I couldn't recover from. Your statement just sounds elitist: assuming that everyone is a baby and will quit if something goes wrong.  

 

Ironman is great, don't get me wrong, but there's a certain beauty in restraint and telling yourself you're not going to reload, yet having the option there in case you need it. It also allows you to learn from mistakes quickly, rather than losing a 6 hour campaign, and having to start all over which I think is important for new players, especially those new to strategy in general. 

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Also worth noting is that XCOM has issues with giving clear player feedback about the implications of your moves.

More than a few times I got caught out because I thought I moved into a spot where I could attack an alien but it turned out I was entirely wrong and then it just moved into position to flank me instead. It's not that I needed it to tell me outright and inform me on all things, but the rules of what counted as a shootable alien seemed too arbitrary and fluctuating to accurately predict.

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