XCOM: One Does Not Simply "Shoot" a Cryssalid...

[Hiro Protagonest]

No, he is not the second one into that room. NO ONE goes into that room with 2-3 alive and grinning at you. Your assault, Lt Sir "Brave" Robin, pokes his head into the room and runs away using run and gun to get back to advantageous cover, where he either isn't seen and pops over watch or has los on no more than 1 at a time and takes his shot. If he cant fall back far enough to get good cover you messed up, but besides that, your scout, who should be able to move somewhere safe, throws smoke and licks wounds in the aftermath.

I'm guessing you prefer for your Assaults to use rifles. And aren't the kind of guy who uses the Arc Thrower just because it's cheaper than paying for plasma weapons.

[Anarion]

I don't know how you're all going more than one turn without encountering any aliens. If you're assaulting a door inside a UFO, you get your whole squad in position first, nobody is an advance scout that's ahead of the entire group.

Any other time, the snipers are way back and the rest of the squad shouldn't even have time to get that far.

[Impnemo]

I'm guessing you prefer for your Assaults to use rifles. And aren't the kind of guy who uses the Arc Thrower just because it's cheaper than paying for plasma weapons.

Heh, wrong on both. I prefer using shotguns, then light plasma rifles, then alloy cannons as they are available. In short, whatever hits hardest or most reliably. I stun only the last one up in a group, if he is or can be wounded, if moving to him won't reveal terrain, and only if I can have him killed or suppressed should the 90% sun fail (two or three times in a row, every time damnit!). But I make every effort to stun early and often, dont make what you can steal.


Tactics which seem sensible and reasonable watching normal gameplay go out the door when you play classic or impossible. Caution is victory.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Tactics which seem sensible and reasonable watching normal gameplay go out the door when you play classic or impossible. Caution is victory.

By the time I get in with a Support for a capture, half the team still has their actions left and can easily move in and soften up or destroy any new spawns. Because what Anarion said is right, you always have your entire team prepped and ready before opening a door.

[Cheesegear]

Sometimes when I kill the last guy on the map, my game freezes. It's happened to me three times now. Really annoying when you can't save.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have come to the conclusion that I probably suck at this, since I do not get any more sqaddies killed on Classic than on Normal. Which is to be read as "too many already on Normal". However Classic is definitely more fun, since the enemy AI is much better.

I am reloading one or two times on hard and very hard maps because I am trying to learn. I have not played a turn-based game such like this since Laser Squad on my Amiga 500 100.000 years ago.
That said, I only keep one save per battle, the starting one. Because I want this to be a learning experience. I also try to only reload if I make an obvious mistake, not if I have bad luck (if I am in the right position, but my heavy misses a 95% shot then gets killed... I do not reload. If I dash to the wrong place and do an obvious mistake, I reload, because I want to learn the game).

As for the discussion above... I have very limited experience (I am just past my first council briefing, just built my second satellite uplink on my first ever Classic game)...

Personally I find Assault to be the opposite of Snipers (makes sense, huh): Assault is the best class on tight maps and indoors. Sniper is the best class outdoors on open maps. That said, the maps I have the absolutely hardest time with are maps where you have to storm a building. It makes sense realistically, I guess. The enemy have fortified positions with cover everywhere.
I find that I tend to get the best result by taking cover behind whatever is closest to the landing craft, then blow up one wall in the building with a rocket or grenade. Then let them come to me and advance sloowly.

[Cikomyr]

Man, I do miss intentionally shooting walls. The original game was really fun in that aspect: I once spent 5 minutes tearing down the walls of a farm house, one at the time, to get at a sectoid holed up inside.

I didn't felt like going inside and risking my men, so I peeled the farm like an onion.

[Parra]

Man, I do miss intentionally shooting walls. The original game was really fun in that aspect: I once spent 5 minutes tearing down the walls of a farm house, one at the time, to get at a sectoid holed up inside.

I didn't felt like going inside and risking my men, so I peeled the farm like an onion.

how do you intentionally shoot a wall? I thought you could only fire if there was a target. Cept for explosives ofc

[Cikomyr]

how do you intentionally shoot a wall? I thought you could only fire if there was a target. Cept for explosives ofc

in the original game, you mean? or this one?

[Cespenar]

Man, I do miss intentionally shooting walls. The original game was really fun in that aspect: I once spent 5 minutes tearing down the walls of a farm house, one at the time, to get at a sectoid holed up inside.

I didn't felt like going inside and risking my men, so I peeled the farm like an onion.

Heh. I remember being pretty thrilled when I discovered a way to take down an alien colony in less than 10 minutes. If I recall correctly, it involved storming through the second floor, blasting a balustrade/low wall-thingy with a plasma shot, and dropping a grenade down below. You destroy the core, and voila.

[Cikomyr]

Heh. I remember being pretty thrilled when I discovered a way to take down an alien colony in less than 10 minutes. If I recall correctly, it involved storming through the second floor, blasting a balustrade/low wall-thingy with a plasma shot, and dropping a grenade down below. You destroy the core, and voila.

is that X-Com Apocalypse you are talking about?

[Cespenar]

is that X-Com Apocalypse you are talking about?

Terror from the Deep.

[Archonic Energy]

apoc was just funny.

step 1: plant explosives at the base of the building.
step 2: detonate.
step 3: fly home.

[Cikomyr]

apoc was just funny.

step 1: plant explosives at the base of the building.
step 2: detonate.
step 3: fly home.

Wasn't there political repercussion if you destroyed a building...?

[CreganTur]

I was unable to shoot down the first Battleship I encountered and I've been putting off the end game of my current run because I really, really want to take one down.

Is there any way to make one appear or is it just luck?

[Gamerlord]

I was unable to shoot down the first Battleship I encountered and I've been putting off the end game of my current run because I really, really want to take one down.

Is there any way to make one appear or is it just luck?

I've heard if you let a UFO that was searching for your satellites get away, a Battleship will later appear to try and destroy the satellite. Emphasis "try". Never had this happen though, so cannot personally confirm it.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

I've heard if you let a UFO that was searching for your satellites get away, a Battleship will later appear to try and destroy the satellite. Emphasis "try". Never had this happen though, so cannot personally confirm it.

It worked for me. Let the UFO float about, a while later a Battleship turns up, looking for the satellite. Not 100%, but fairly reliable.

[Name_Here]

Man, I do miss intentionally shooting walls. The original game was really fun in that aspect: I once spent 5 minutes tearing down the walls of a farm house, one at the time, to get at a sectoid holed up inside.

I didn't felt like going inside and risking my men, so I peeled the farm like an onion.

Yeah once you go laser weapons doors were for suckers. I always had my demigods blasting down walls when storming buildings. Cut down on blind spots for aliens to hide and I wouldn't have a soldier with who knows how many TUs facing off against an unknown amount of enemies at close range. Hell one of my favorite things was blasting a hole in a multi story UFO and storming it from top and bottom.

[Archonic Energy]

Wasn't there political repercussion if you destroyed a building...?

yes.

intresting note: you can do a better job of defunding a company in the tactical view than in the cityscape.

those poor cult of syrus never stood a chance.

[Anarion]

Man, I do miss intentionally shooting walls. The original game was really fun in that aspect: I once spent 5 minutes tearing down the walls of a farm house, one at the time, to get at a sectoid holed up inside.

I didn't felt like going inside and risking my men, so I peeled the farm like an onion.

If I could make a change to the new X-com, it would be to allow shooting even if there's not a target. There have been a lot of times I wanted to simply blow out a UFO wall with plasma weaponry and it sucks that you can't do it unless you have spare rockets and grenades.

Though blaster bombs in the original were just too good. I greatly enjoyed capturing an alien commander by blowing a hole in a battleship roof and having my troops with flight armor drop in on the commander. I imagine having that animated would have looked like them all flying in and airlifting the unsuspecting commander straight out of the ship.

It worked for me. Let the UFO float about, a while later a Battleship turns up, looking for the satellite. Not 100%, but fairly reliable.

I've never had this work, and I have no idea why. I've let at least 4-5 UFOs go and never gotten a satellite shot down.

[Beacon of Chaos]

Eeeyup.

Spoiler

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[Hiro Protagonest]

If I could make a change to the new X-com, it would be to allow shooting even if there's not a target. There have been a lot of times I wanted to simply blow out a UFO wall with plasma weaponry and it sucks that you can't do it unless you have spare rockets and grenades.

Hopefully, by the time I get the game, there will be a mod for that, so that scouting with heavy firepower is a lot less costly.

Anyway, I think good DLC would be a lot of new mission maps. Small towns in rugged wilderness, farming communities in prairie areas, Asian architecture for the appropriate areas, towns built on wetlands, train stations and historical castles in Europe.

[Anarion]

So, I stumbled across a series of Impossible Ironman videos by a game named Beaglerush. They're highly educational and amusing.

He's done 6 missions so far. Here's the first one. Also, don't play the drinking game if you like your liver. Oakley is rather inaccurate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9zJE9GodMQ&feature=plcp

[Starscream]

Hey, guys, just poking my head in this thread to ask you a question.

I was a big fan of the original XCOM back in the day, but held off on buying this one because at the moment I have more games to play than time to play them.

I finally decided to cave after Yahtzee gave it a good review. I mostly watch him for the comedy, but he's so negative that I rarely take his opinions to heart; he's dissed too many perfectly fun games. But because he's so hard to please, I know that when he does like something, I should take notice (Portal, Arkham Asylum, Assassins Creed 2).

So now I want XCOM. Only question is which system I should buy it for. I have both a PS3 and a rather powerful laptop. Of course, my first instinct would be to get the PC version, since that's what I played the original XCOM on, but even though my laptop can handle the game with flying colors, it has a nasty tendency to get rather hot when playing modern games; I bought an external fan, which helps a lot, but the problem is still noticeable.

PS3 wouldn't have that problem, but I don't know if it would be the same. The review scores are comparable (88.48% vs 89.31% on GameRankings, 90 vs 89 on Metacritic). So I figured I'd ask you guys; do you know of any differences in the PC and PS3 versions that make one a better buy than the other?

[RagingKrikkit]

The only difference is the UI, but the game is identical otherwise.

[Cikomyr]

I finally decided to cave after Yahtzee gave it a good review. I mostly watch him for the comedy, but he's so negative that I rarely take his opinions to heart; he's dissed too many perfectly fun games. But because he's so hard to please, I know that when he does like something, I should take notice (Portal, Arkham Asylum, Assassins Creed 2).

Zero Punctuation's video on XCOM was hilarious

[Luzahn]

I'd recommend pc, if only for the flexibility mods give. Plus, I'd imagine controlling would be more difficult on the PS3, but I'd wait on hearing from someone who's played that version. PC does have some weird issues with movement and heights.

[Krade]

Plus, I'd imagine controlling would be more difficult on the PS3, but I'd wait on hearing from someone who's played that version.

I played the demo on PC and got it for Xbox. The controls aren't particularly different. Instead of a mouse you get an analogue stick. that's about it. Selecting actions is hotkeyed to the numbers on PC, though. I think that would be the biggest 'pro' to the PC version.

PC does have some weird issues with movement and heights.

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, then that issue is not unique to the PC.

[nooblade]

So, I stumbled across a series of Impossible Ironman videos by a game named Beaglerush. They're highly educational and amusing.

He's done 6 missions so far. Here's the first one. Also, don't play the drinking game if you like your liver. Oakley is rather inaccurate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9zJE9GodMQ&feature=plcp

Yannow, I expected this game to be something I'd really enjoy playing. But no, I would rather watch more of his videos. I guess I think positioning the guys good over several turns is pretty boring.

[Anarion]

Hey, guys, just poking my head in this thread to ask you a question.

I was a big fan of the original XCOM back in the day, but held off on buying this one because at the moment I have more games to play than time to play them.

I finally decided to cave after Yahtzee gave it a good review. I mostly watch him for the comedy, but he's so negative that I rarely take his opinions to heart; he's dissed too many perfectly fun games. But because he's so hard to please, I know that when he does like something, I should take notice (Portal, Arkham Asylum, Assassins Creed 2).

So now I want XCOM. Only question is which system I should buy it for. I have both a PS3 and a rather powerful laptop. Of course, my first instinct would be to get the PC version, since that's what I played the original XCOM on, but even though my laptop can handle the game with flying colors, it has a nasty tendency to get rather hot when playing modern games; I bought an external fan, which helps a lot, but the problem is still noticeable.

PS3 wouldn't have that problem, but I don't know if it would be the same. The review scores are comparable (88.48% vs 89.31% on GameRankings, 90 vs 89 on Metacritic). So I figured I'd ask you guys; do you know of any differences in the PC and PS3 versions that make one a better buy than the other?

I'd suggest PC for the modding community. There have been a bunch of mods out there, including additional difficulty settings, a way to change the frequency of UFOs, one that lets you mod it so a UFO appears before an abduction that you can shoot down to prevent the abduction, and all sorts of less ambitious mods.