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I just recently started playing this game, and I've developed an unhealthy addiction. Some thoughts about the best starting location.... For comparison purposes, the standard start is a satellite over a $100 country. It seems the standard impossible first month build is a workshop, an uplink, and four satellites. In the first month, the different starts give you: North America: +$80 Europe: +$63 (saved on the workshop) Africa: +$30 Asia: $0 South America: -$20 So far Asia looks pretty bad. The second month things diverge more, but assuming you rush out an OTS: North America: Possibly another $80 (you may or may not have been able to pick up the US while controlling panic the first month), and some amount saved on buying/maintaining interceptors ($20 for each bought, $10 for each maintained). Europe: Only $10 (I think) saved on workshop maintenance. Africa: At least another $145 (5 satellites x $90 average for each country covered) Asia: $25 + $38 + $100 saved in the OTS (two squad size upgrades and Iron Will) = $163 South America: another -$20 Ok, this is back of the envelope, and your builds will vary, but you can see the argument both for and against Asia. On the plus side, that's a considerable savings, and more savings from the OTS and armory are on their way. On the down side, it doesn't have quite the financial punch of Africa and, a small but important point, money will be a little tighter the first month. North America is, to me, actually a more interesting argument. That first month $80 is quite a nice bonus at the time, and the savings on interceptors are easy to forget about, but if you hire two per continent, that's $160 on the purchases and $100 maintenance each month. I love South America's bonus, but I wouldn't want to start there.
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Jan 20, 2013 17:42
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Nephilm posted:Looks like you're failing to take into account that the continents start with different amounts of starting cash. Asia and Europe start with §165, SA with §145, Africa with §217 I believe and NA starts with §275. This is in Impossible, add §25 for Classic. I took that into account (that's why I gave North America an extra $80) but if you've got the amounts right, my numbers are a little off. Then North America has a $90 advantage, not $80, and Africa $52, not $30.
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Jan 20, 2013 18:15
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Some semi-newbie questions. Do people start by focusing on leveling one group of solders as much as possible? Or do you work in a few rookies to see what classes they get? Or do you try to get a bunch of soldiers up to a "nickname" level? In other words, a single group of elites or a larger group of pretty good? I'm also not clear on the upgrade paths for air coverage. I know only one interceptor, with missles, will be good enough for small scouts and maybe large ones, but I'm not sure what to do from there. A second interceptor? Upgrade to one of the better weapons? Which one?
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Jan 20, 2013 18:39
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Nephilm posted:I'm still not seeing where your numbers are coming from. By "first month" I mean the start of the first month. The end would be the start of my second month. And yes, I messed up the math - twice. I forgot about the Skyranger. Even so, I don't think you can come to any conclusion other than Africa is the best start, but if you're going to hit the OTS early Asia isn't far behind. NA is also competitive.
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Jan 20, 2013 19:03
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jackofarcades posted:Keep one person in to get them to Major so you can get all of the OTS upgrades. Rotate everyone else in. I recommend keeping an assault in so you get to Lightning Reflexes and not worry about enemy overwatches. The Assault's first four upgrades really do fit together wonderfully, don't they? It seems each class has a level where they get a key upgrade: Squad Sight completely changes a Sniper, I love the three use medkits on the Support. I guess a Heavy doesn't have that one defining ability early on.
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Jan 20, 2013 19:07
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monkeu posted:I bought this game a week or so ago, and I'm loving it. I tried out classic to begin with, but was losing at least two or three soldiers per mission and bleeding out countries left and right, so I decided to drop back to normal to learn the basics. Now I'm about halfway through a normal run (I think? I've invaded the alien base and found the whosits or whatever it's called) and finding it a bit too easy. I hardly ever lose dudes, I think I've only lost 2 or 3 soldiers total and they were all rookies. I've got like 10 soldiers at pretty high levels, and everyone's rolling with plasma weapons and I've just finished researching titan armor. How far into the playthrough am I? Do you guys think it's worth finishing my normal run, or should I start a classic run instead now that I have a much better understanding of the basics of the game? I went Normal to Classic and have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was useful to learn the out of combat game. On the other, Normal actively teaches you the wrong tactics to use on Classic and Impossible. On Normal the aliens will sit and wait for you, and you can survive some fire from them, so you go after them. On the higher difficulties, neither of those is true.
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Jan 21, 2013 02:38
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I've seen two things with the bugs, and was wondering if they match other people's experience, or if it's just luck. First, if I start getting bugs I'll keep getting them, but if I save, exit the game, and restart, they go away for a while. Second, I seem to get bugs more when I use battle scanners.
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Jan 21, 2013 04:22
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I've been working on my XCom tactics. I've had two ironman games in a row messed up when I got a little sloppy and paid for it with a panic chain that ultimately led to a squad wipe. Some of that is bad luck and some of that is XCom, but I hit the books (ok, Youtube) to see what I could do better. It seems good players, at the start of each turn, decide if they can kill all the visible enemies. If they can't, they go very defensive. Perhaps they move a few guys around to set up for the next turn, but mostly it's "nobody get hurt." By far the best defense is breaking line of sight. If you have to leave a soldier exposed to fire, look for cover, preferably heavy, hunker down, throw smoke grenades, suppress the alien - whatever it takes. But remember that the aliens only have to get lucky once in a while to ruin your game. Both my panic chains started when an alien crit and killed a soldier who had full cover. If you do decide to kill the enemies, I hope you kept track of how many have activated, where any of them were when they ran into the fog of war, and if they're on overwatch. Then you figure how to kill them, and I mean kill for sure, not "Well, one of these two 50% shots will probably hit." Yup, 75% of the time at least one will land. And the other 25% you're screwed. When you go offensive, you want to use really high percentage shots. Until you've leveled up your soldiers that will usually mean flanking, or blowing up the alien's cover, or at least running right up next to them. Explosives, because they either rarely or never miss and do exactly predictably damage, are excellent (even if Doctor Doesn't-Apply-Her-Morality-To-Herself complains). But they come in limited supplies and give less loot, so they aren't the first choice. The last thing to do is to get into half cover and swap shots. It works on Normal - and gets you killed on Classic. Edit: And the thing that burns me most often? Overwatch sucks. You take a -20% to hit (maybe more if they dash), they have to move through two squares you can see, and everybody fires at the first alien. When there's a hidden alien lurking around I keep counting on overwatch to take it out when it shows up and I'm disappointed again and again. BurningStone fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 22:44
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WeaponBoy posted:The best thing I found for offensives is to use a single unit as a scout (always an assault with Lightning Reflexes) and move them only as far as they can get with one time unit. Then use your squadsight snipers who are way the gently caress back and can safely fire wildly, then pull your scout back. The rest of your team should be out of LOS and ready to gun down anyone stupid enough to approach. Anyone that isn't killed by the overwatch will be dead the next turn and your snipers are mostly immune to attacks. This is fantastic for supply barge cargo holds, abduction ships and several segments of the battleship. I've done something similar, but instead of running back and forth my scout used hunker down after all the shots were taken.
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Jan 23, 2013 02:11
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FairGame posted:Game beaten on classic ironman. I...I lost 2 soldiers. I hadn't had a non-squaddie die since month 2. Ok, how? I search carefully until I bump into aliens. 90% of the time I pull back, putting everybody I can into heavy cover (but there's never enough to go around) and set up an overwatch trap. And the drat alien walks out of dark, ignores my overwatch fire, and one shots somebody in heavy cover. Yea, it's low odds, but it does happen. What are you doing to stop this type of thing?
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Jan 31, 2013 23:56
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bokkibear posted:Rather than use overwatch, try using Hunker Down, which will make you nearly impossible to hit in high cover and make you immune to crits, so even a direct hit won't kill. When the aliens advance, use your turn to gun them down, reposition your guys for a flank shot, or take them/their cover out with explosives. Overwatch traps are pretty unreliable with rookies unless you do it with 4 of them and they can all see the advancing enemy. Even then, the second alien can just walk forward safely and fuckblammo. Thanks, I'll give that a try. It's more "wait for their attack and counter" than "bait them into overwatch." Overwatch is frustratingly unreliable so it makes sense to avoid it, even if you're in a good firing position. And yes, my biggest problems seem to be when I run into enemies while near the map edge, particularly first thing. There's rarely enough cover and if you try to move around too much you're likely to trigger more enemies, which can be particularly deadly.
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Feb 1, 2013 23:32
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My nemisis map is the graveyard bomb mission.
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Mar 2, 2013 23:29
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I've never had Close Combat Specialist bug on me. In fact, I've finished the game three times, with a variety of difficulties and settings, and I simply don't see the bugs people keep complaining about. The teleport bug, once. Distant enemies deciding to activate, maybe three or four times. I wasn't able to find anybody as good as Beaglerush, either in ability to play or broadcast, I'm afraid.
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Apr 3, 2013 14:53
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That Beaglerush video is interesting, letting you watch his thought process. I gamble a lot more than him (and get burned for it). I don't think the game is winable with those second wave options, though. He's actually losing money each month and can't build a satellite.
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Apr 16, 2013 19:18
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Well, Beagle, I actually like the uncut missions better than the edited ones. First, I'm trying to get better and it helps to see your thinking. Second, it's a hoot listening to you freak. I started a new C/I game and rushed the barracks instead of sats. I'm liking it quite a bit. While it's nice to build up my cash reserves, the money doesn't really help you get through the hardest part of the game. In this game I've got laser weapons and squad size six, just before the first terror mission. Much better than four guys and a big bank account.
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Apr 20, 2013 03:46
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Edmond Dantes posted:Also, Thin Men don't give a gently caress about which cover you're in. God drat. Yes, one thing I've been trying to do is stay out of sight, even if I could be in heavy cover. As well as being the only perfect protection, it often baits the aliens in charging you instead of hanging back and exchanging shots. I'd much rather deal with an aggressive enemy than one who hangs back.
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Apr 20, 2013 05:18
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revtoiletduck posted:You influence shot success by taking better shots, and having a back-up plan in case your shots fail. If the RNG is what turns you off about the game, it's possible that you're just not quite grasping it. That was pretty much the case with me when I was all mad about not being able to beat classic. Currently working on an ironman impossible run now. Yea, it was a surprise to me when I found out that when a good player sees a 65% shot - they look to set up a better shot. Failing even one time out of three is too many, 'cause you die the 3rd time. I just ran into what wasn't a bug, I guess, but something very strange. On a small scout ufo mission all the aliens were waiting in one big clump by the ufo, right next to the starting area. It made for an easy mission (two rockets), but I've never seen three groups spawn on top of each other before.
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Apr 22, 2013 01:41
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If Beagle likes the first couple of months, maybe he should just turn on Marathon. As long as he can actually build satellites this time....
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Apr 25, 2013 04:03
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Static Equilibrium posted:The difficulty drop-off in Marathon is even more pronounced than in the regular game. You have a couple more challenging months but you get high rank soldiers faster in comparison to alien progress and you still hit mid/end game weapons and armor in time to fight mid/end game enemies, so it's not really that much harder. I think the idea is he wants fighting sectopods and berserkers with plasma rifles and psychics to have the same tension as fighting sectoids and thin men with rookies. Yes, but I bet he finds rebalancing things will take a lot longer than a few days. There are always surprise consequences.
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Apr 25, 2013 05:29
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My inner math analysis nerd salutes you, sir. It looks like Zoneout had problems as well.
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Apr 28, 2013 05:29
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Coolguye posted:I can't recommend ever playing on either of these difficulties due to the stealth cheating that happens. I detail it a bit in the OP, but basically what happens is that every time you miss a shot, you get +15 hidden Aim until you get a hit. Then, every time you get hit, the aliens get -15 hidden Aim until they miss. This poo poo makes the Gambler's Fallacy true and it's awful. I don't think this is good advice for everybody. If somebody wants to learn so they can ramp up to a higher difficulty, then yes, you're right, Normal is so very different from Classic you'll have to unlearn some things. But it's perfectly legitimate to never go above Normal if you don't want to agonize over each move - or deal with the heartbreak when it goes wrong anyway. It's a game. Let it be fun.
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Jul 16, 2013 04:03
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Eh, I don't know about that. I only played Jagged Alliance 2, but it would happily let one gunshot permanently cripple your guys.
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Jul 17, 2013 03:27
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I once got Operation Rotting Paramour. Yuck. I've been adjusting to Classic fairly successfully, and I found one important mistake I've been making: keep your soldiers close enough that they can help when an alien pack gets uncovered. Especially early when you only have four guys. Ideally you want to overwhelm the aliens as soon as you see them, before they have a chance to go on over watch or shoot back
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Jan 8, 2014 17:01
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Can somebody explain how they use their Snapshot snipers to me? I don't seem to be getting the idea. I understand that it's been made closer to Squadsight in EW. I can see how it combines well with In The Zone and the ghost skin upgrade. But if you've got those two already, you don't need Squadsight or Snapshot to chew through aliens (and you're probably into the easy part of the game). Squadsight lets snipers, right from the early days, control line of sight, which is vital, especially on high difficulty levels where you can't let enemies shoot at you. I don't understand why you'd bring a Snapshot sniper instead of another class, just dropping the sniper entirely.
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Jan 9, 2014 03:27
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Yea, I plan to start a training roulette game, and I expect I'll want to get a few levels on a bunch of soldiers. The difference between a soldier with either bullet storm or double shot, and one who gets unlucky, has to be huge.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:18
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With the slowed research, I think the scientists are better unless you're doing a full on sat rush. Beam weapons drop from 34 to 19 days (I think that's right for Classic). That's the difference between before and after the first terror mission. I'm liking only building one sat in the first month and heading for meld/mecs/lasers, but it's nice that there are a number of good openings now. I want to try a run with no mecs and early gene mods, too.
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Jan 21, 2014 07:21
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I've been skipping reaper rounds because the range penalty scared me off. Are they good even when you aren't fighting Crysalids at point blank range? Or do you only swap them in for the one mission?
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Jan 21, 2014 17:27
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Both choices are fine. A mech with an aim of over 100 is great. But a sniper who turns invisible in any cover, can jump to rooftops, and then gets a bonus for shooting from above is also great. It's just a question of where you want to spend your meld. A question of my own: are my English attuned ears fooling me, or do my German speaking soldiers keep saying "Allison Stone?"
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Jan 22, 2014 07:25
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I've gotten good enough that Classic feels easy now, but Impossible keeps kicking me in the head, so this was interesting. I noticed that you're planning a full turn ahead, always aware of where the lines of sight will be. Anybody have any more advice for somebody struggling to make the jump to Impossible?
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Feb 5, 2014 06:56
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wuffles posted:Master the first few missions. If you can nail that you'll put yourself on good footing for the rest of the run. I make sure I get a kill on every soldier for the first mission so you get all 4 promotions at the end, then on the next mission I bench the sniper and the support and bring along 2 more rookies (and get them each a kill). Ideally those next 2 promotions will give you at least 1 additional heavy. Having 2 rockets early game is a huge advantage, and if you get a second assault that is just gravy. Research meld first and turn that worthless squaddie sniper into a MEC ASAP. In EU, the promotions came on faster so it was worth trying to get the sniper 5 kills by end of the 2nd mission for the promotion for squad sight, but with the increase in exp required for a promotion in EW he's dead weight during the time you need firepower the most (protip: if you want to bring a sniper early while he's still a squaddie, you can over watch him with the pistol and then select him with the mouse and press X and he will now be on overwatch with his rifle--so long as you still have actions available to your other soldiers so the turn isn't over). Thanks for this advice, and for all the others who helped a few pages back. I think I have an I/I run off to a good start (knock on wood - I know it can quickly go to hell) The best pro-tip may be: stop getting Murder Street. I never thought it was that bad on Classic, but on Impossible it's been a meat grinder for me.
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Feb 7, 2014 01:30
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On my Impossible base defense, two of the security guards got the the little "has gained a promotion" notice. It's really too bad you can't keep them around so Officer Chunk can join X-Com.
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Feb 14, 2014 17:22
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Indolent Bastard posted:Installing XCOM EU now... No, no, your role is to sit back at base and direct things. "drat. Bradford, order another batch of rookies. And somebody get me a fresh daiquiri."
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Feb 21, 2014 00:37
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While I always bring med kits, I agree that smoke is generally underrated. It's a little like a rocket: a panic button to get you out of a bad position. I hardly ever thought of it until training roulette forced me to, but now it's always a part of my tactical plan when pushing somebody into a risky position.
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Mar 2, 2014 20:02
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SeaTard posted:I think I broke something by doing a scientist/capture rush, because the base defense was almost entirely Chryssalids, no Berserkers, and only 3 Mechtoids and 4 Mutons scattered throughout the thing. One of the Mutons even killed himself by jumping into the hole in the middle of the Mec Bay, it was hilarious. I'm going to lose a few countries because of a lack of satellites, but getting a very easy base defense was well worth it. I should have Psi dudes by the end of the 4th month, which is going to be so much fun. Interesting. What'd you do to get this? Just alien containment, then capture everything? In my current game the RNG is determined not to let me get an outsider. Usually I snag one before the plot mission is ready for it .
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Mar 11, 2014 23:47
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Stabilize just stops bleeding out. Revive gets them up and lets you heal them fully.
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Mar 16, 2014 20:24
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:You can stabilize and then revive but you can't stabilize and then heal. The circular thing is an artifact of them making sure you're still allowed to revive a stabilized guy, not a signal that you can get away with healing them after stabilizing. This is correct. My training roulette games have made me appreciate Revive. Just today, against the Overseer ship, I found myself down three soldiers, stabilized but not revived.
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Mar 17, 2014 07:26
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