Xcom, very late to the party

[DrSpike]

Sod that - I haven't played Xcom in years but I'm damn well posting here about it if I want to.

[Alinestra Covelia]

"sod that"

I haven't heard that expression in yonks! I've been away for too long

Another expression I love is "dodgy". It's a wonderful word. It should be adopted here too.

Every so often I find myself saying "Yes, it should do" instead of "Yes, it should".

My study group used to fall about laughing when I was using the dry-erase board and I asked them if it was all right for me to "rub this out now". Apparently it means something different here.

[Alinestra Covelia]

So I'm up to my fourth terror attack. The game is okay, but I'm finding certain interface things very annoying.

You can't generally toggle the people's stats when equipping them. I spend a very large amount of time when the plane lands just sorting through all the crappy equipment assignment choices that the AI has given my people, and redistributing them more intelligently. It's clunky in the extreme to make me write down my people's stats just so I can access them at the kit-out process upon touchdown. This wouldn't be so bad if my people would survive, but the game's rather abstract approach to any sort of learning curve means there is no point in investing any time or effort to familiarize myself with team members. Likely as not they'll be dead before six turns.

The in-fight interface is sluggish and has no undo function. Very often I've clicked something expecting one thing to happen, and something else happens instead that I did not intend. An undo button would help. If not, there needs to be a Reload button. The game as is forces you to abandon mission and then go through cutscenes describing the interface designer's your team's failure before you can reload.

Some enemies appear to vanish without a trace even when there is nowhere for them to hide and we're in broad daylight. I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a plot device that I haven't researched yet.

The fights are the most boring part of the game for me. Building the bases and intercepting planes and stuff is great. But the battles on the ground are clunky and frustrating and apparently arbitrary. I've literally pissed away hours of my life because I had to abort and reload until I caught a break. There is no device to show you your possible moves, either, which would have been a big help. As it is, I'm basically guessing blind how many Time Units a given maneuver will take, which makes combat hard enough even if you see every enemy on a wide open daylight battlefield. Throw in the hidden enemies in a nighttime Terror Attack and you're pretty much guaranteed your first playthrough will end in failure.

The game had promise, but the difficulty needed more playtesting (read as: designers shouldn't have left so much up to variance and chance) and the turn based battles needed more interface tools.

Still good enough that I can understand why they made sequels.

[Lord Avalon]

You can't generally toggle the people's stats when equipping them. I spend a very large amount of time when the plane lands just sorting through all the crappy equipment assignment choices that the AI has given my people, and redistributing them more intelligently. It's clunky in the extreme to make me write down my people's stats just so I can access them at the kit-out process upon touchdown.

Part of the reason for my elaborate naming convention.

But it is too bad that you can't flip to soldier's stats, and that the game doesn't remember what kit they had last time.

[Main_Brain]

One Solution to the Outfit Problem is to standarize the Weaponery as soon as you get Laser Rifles. Even the most green Soldier has no encumberance Problem with it and the Autofire Accuracy is decent enough.

Spoiler:

PLus can be used to create new Entrances in everything but Alien Metal

Its too bad that the Tactical Part which is the most Fun at the Beginning becomes a burden after a while. In Midgame I tend to shoot down UFOs only over Desert, Ice or Water :/

[Unimatrix11]

AC, i agree with your assertion on the interface-defects - that´s why i am clamoring for a remake so much.

As for the difficulty level: I agree it´s freaking hard, but on the other hand i think thats okay. On the easiest level, i am playing on, i feel i could actually make it - and given how superficial i play character developement, for example (partly due to the clunky interface), and that i am playing this particular game only for a couple of days (I played ´Terror from the Deep´ like 10+ years ago, tho - but never finished it), i think that i should only be able to win on the easiest level.

I do like the variancy, also. Too me, it is totally okay, to be sometimes faced with ´just too much´, if that means i dont get exactly the same missions each play-through. Given some experience, you can kinda tell sometimes, when you see the first alien, wether you will stand a chance in the terror attack or not (or at least how hard, roughly, it´s gonna be), cause i find they come in certain teams.

I do agree, that the tactical ground combat turns into some kind of errand after a while though. After a while, all you really want is to expand/build new bases, to cover your sponsors and research as much as fast as you can. In the beginning it´s like ´I am researching weapon XY, so i can kick butt in my next mission´, while later on it´s ´after this mission, i hope i will finally have researched *something probably not weapon related*, so the story progresses, before i have to do another one...´ Fortunately, on ´beginner´ small UFOs contain like 3 aliens, and such an encounter is over in like 15 minutes or so (reloads and equiping included).

So, can we all agree, we want a remake, badly? Who owns the rights now? Let´s write them emails...

[El_Cid]

@AC, hmmm i'm wondering if some of your issues are down to hardware problems(ie your hardware is too modern).

Ive never had aliens vanishing on me or orders get carried out i didn't sanction(unless a team member goes beserk). Are you using a slow down utility(i'm presuming you must be), if so I found that i had game 'stickiness' when trying to slow my modern(Athlon 2.2Ghz) XP system to run Xcom.

I just decided to setup my prefered gaming rig for these old games(a P166) and now it's smooth and very controllable, and the music plays.

The interface does have blind spots, still it's from a period where standard interface design had only started to emerge in certain places, and for a game that covers alot of territory it generaly inst the worst example from it's time

The 'naming convention' many long time players of Xcom adopt is for a reason, to help us know at kit out time who should have what weapons, as this is 100% vital to helping your team survive missions(although not always a guarentee).

At the beggining of the game you will lose more guys than survive, but you will notice over time and missions a general improvement in that survival rate as they get more experienced. Armour is one of the early vital discoveries(via alien alloys) that helps your survival chances.

Basicaly dont worry about the death of your guys just yet - the game has it's own kind of darwinian system and maybe by the time your on your 30th combat mission you will have in place a strong, well armed team that can start to really take the fight to the alien scum bags. Remember at game start we are like cavemen compared to the technology of the aliens, proceed with extreme caution.

Which leads me onto an important point. Dont be impatient to max out each soldiers time unit allotment each move, leave some in reserve(click the 'snap shot' reserve icon(it's redish) to keep your guys from rushing, and it gives them a chance to kill an alien if one pops up in front of them during the aliens turn.

I find rushing ahead is what normaly leads to a soldier getting killed, but if i take a more organised approach to moving around the battlefield(try to use 'real' covering fire and troop spaceing for example) then i suffer much less death overall, but of course you still get the odd killer mission from time to time.

Use tactics, play methodical, develope a good strategy for giving your guys the best chance of survival. Once you are through the early stages and you have a tough veteran team of hard asses it is very satisfying to know the pain you've gone through to get to that stage. Soon the aliens will fear you - really!

On terror mission i always wait for day break before flying out, you can employ this to some extent in normal missions also, dont leave it too long mind you

OK short ARR from my game last night:

So i'd had some reasonable mission success, no total wipe outs after that last game(thank god), but some pretty high casualty ratings(down to 4 troops at one point, three of which were in hospital).

So now i have my tank rocket launcher - a vital bit of kit for scouting and backup firepower(i like to give the kills to my soldiers if i can).

I think at this stage i've done 4 missions. I get a radar report of a large alien ship just to the north of me(i'm in the alps, alien appears in poland(roughly)).

I've changed my Incerceptors now so 1 is carrying two sidewinder missile systems, the other a sidewinder and an avalanche system. I figure if i get a very small ship, i may well destroy it completely in the intercept, but after 4 missions i've got low level alien stuff by now to look at.

So out go my two Interceptors and they engage over northern france, one is completely destroyed as soon as it's sidewinder missile hit the alien ship(the shorter ranged 2xsidewinder missile interceptor got there a few seconds before my other craft). Ok ouch.

Interceptor 2 fires it Avalanche - gets a hit and takes a little nose damage. Fires a seconf Avalanche, again hits and also fires off it's sidewinder missile, that was it's last action. Alien fires and Interceptor 2 is destroyed. Double Ouch!

Oh well i think as i watch the alien ship carry on its merry way. I order 2 more new Interceptors and the weapons i will need to kit them out(they come with none installed). The large alien craft heads to Madrid and becomes a terror attack! dirty scumbag! Ok well i can't let this slide, so my full compliment aboard the skyranger get ready, tank+11guys(no personal rockets mind you ).

I have a good selection of weapon types for my two heavyweapon platforms, and on the kit out screen reload both with HE(pick up the weapon, move it to the grey icon on the right of the screen, that looks roughly like some ammo removed from a gun, click to unload your current ammo). Most my guys are still with ****ty rifles and i make sure most have a grenade in hand, ready for primeing and throwing if need be.

Long story short - it was probably the most succesfull a terror mission it's been my pleasure to experience. I lost 1 soldier right near the end, because i pushed her too far ahead, rescued 7 citizens(7 died, 1 at my hands) and got a shed load of interesting stuff to take back to base.

My soldiers are coming along nicely, still vunerable but body armour is now being produced and their skill levels are getting good.

My base is coming along well, and after the first month I got an extra $700,000 for my performance so far. If i can nail down a few good missions in this current month also, to go along with the succesful terror mission, things will realy be coming together

As a little note - I like the battle missions, sure they eat up alot of time, but you can save mid-mission, and i often do and go back to them later. When i was a kid i had the time to just play through one after the other.

I suppose in todays market you probably really need some kind of auto-resolve(say like in the Total War games), and while i do end up using those in Total War games, i don't think i ever would in Xcom. I like the stress - god darn mind sucking alien freaks!

[Lord Avalon]

Which leads me onto an important point. Dont be impatient to max out each soldiers time unit allotment each move, leave some in reserve(click the 'snap shot' reserve icon(it's redish) to keep your guys from rushing, and it gives them a chance to kill an alien if one pops up in front of them during the aliens turn.

Requires really good Reactions: upper 40s or better, IIRC. But you might not want to leave RL or cannon/HE on snap shot, unless they're out in front. (Blown up, sir! )

I find rushing ahead is what normaly leads to a soldier getting killed, but if i take a more organised approach to moving around the battlefield(try to use 'real' covering fire and troop spaceing for example) then i suffer much less death overall, but of course you still get the odd killer mission from time to time.

I throw smoke all over the place. Or blow things up with rockets/HE. Doesn't always help, but it does make you set a more deliberate pace.

[Quillan]

I can recall more than one time where I told a soldier to move to a spot, only to have the guy take some route that made absolutely no sense to me, using up all his action point, and leaving him standing in the open inside a new room with two aliens in it.

Not to mention the times the path I plotted for the blaster clipped a corner in just the wrong spot.

[El_Cid]

@ Lord Avalon, yeah very good point on the heavyweapons! I just do reserv shot for the lighter weapons, and watch my spacing!

smoke can help quite a bit actualy, it realy puts of the accuracy of the alien shots. I normaly start with throwing a few as i get of the skyranger(to cover the DZ), then a few more in key choke points on the battle map(if there are any) or just between me and any likely alien hidy-hole.

@ Quillian, with moving just do baby steps - i never(hardly ever) give a full movement order in one step. I look at the terrain, and say click on the edge of a building not far away, so my soldier moves only that far, he is still in cover and has time units left.
Small steps at a time. It's when i give big(full) movement orders that i tend to lose soldiers, and its true they will sometimes step into blown out walls etc, maybe right into an alien ambush you didnt know was there! so i move maybe 5 terrain squares per mini order - check the situation and look for my next move untill my time units are done or i dont feel safe!

[Spaced Cowboy]

I remember trying to end my turn kneeling and saving enough for a reaction shot. I also remember taking far longer than I should on a mission by being very cautious. Cover was very important to me.

I do remember missions where everyone went down the ramp in a pile pile and got rocketed or grenaded on the first alien turn. After that, Id only more the first few guys out around the LZ and leave everyone else safely inside the ship, seemed to work a little better.

[Unimatrix11]

One nasty thing, one has to remember, and is a further point for ´mini-steps´, is that if you enter a new room, for example, the direction of your soldier´s facing determines what he can actually see in that room (even more important outside, if you leave the cover of a full-scale wall). This is obvious, when you enter that terrian the first time (like leaving the skyranger), as the fog of war only gets lifted in those areas. But sometimes it is not that obvious: I sometimes tend to leave soldiers standing where they are near the end of battles, when i think i know where the rest of the aliens are hiding and other soldiers are in better position to get there quickly - so i just dont move these guys at all. This can be costly oversight, since it happened to me more than once by now, that aliens would sneak up behind their backs (esp. those ´borks´, that turn your guys into aliens), even upto to the very adjacent tile, absolutely unnoticed by my soldiers (and hence myself of course). Turning around or covering each others back can be vital! So, when i leave a cover, enter a new room or such, i tend to go no further firstly than just enetering it, by virtue of wanting to turn around (Miami Vice style ) right after i did so.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I think I have an explanation for the "vanished" enemies. It's possible they were flying and merely moved to a different elevation. My men had surrounded the enemy but it appeared to have phased out of existence because it had gone up a level.

[El_Cid]

............ So, when i leave a cover, enter a new room or such, i tend to go no further firstly than just enetering it, by virtue of wanting to turn around (Miami Vice style ) right after i did so.

yeah using a few time units to fully scan the area(as much of 360 degrees as poosible) is a priority before actual movement, moving 'blind' is one of the gaurantees to quick death.

@AC yeah i suspect your aliens moved up a level(it's a good habit to occasionaly just check around you through all the planes, you can see roof tops you might not otherwise know are there etc), they sometimes start like this and if you ever see an alien warning icon(red numbered sysbol on the right of the screen) but cant see any alien around or hidden behind something, go to the map screen and move through the levels of view - a bright blue dot will tell you where they are).

ARR update - after my first good month(+$700,000) i've had two bad months in a row, it's quite weird as as soon as i destroyed my short range radar, after having the long range one built(and started to build a second long range radar), my frequency of alien ship sightings has dropped way down, maybe just one a month!! Maybe they are just staying out of european air space after my brilliant first month?

But i have had 3 terror missions, one i was too late getting too. So my team are still looking good(10 decent guys + laser tank in Skyranger), i'm back to two Interceptors, my science research rate is pretty good(80 scientists now) but i've lost money each month overall(about $1,000,000 down per month!) and am relying on alien tech sales to the black market and my own manufacture of medikits to keep money coming in to cover costs and keep my bases(oh yeah second 'radar base' down in australasia added) growing.

It's really strange thats it so quiet except for the terror attacks....i've not seen this in any previous game, so it's quite cool

[Main_Brain]

Couldnt you jump to the Alien Position by clicking the same Red Warning Button or was that only in Later Parts of the Series?

I remember UFO Sightings became quite cyclic after a while. Several quiet Weeks followed by an Adlertag?