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

[Thanatos 51-50]

Originally Posted by Anarion

I think the fiancee advantage is probably decisive. Both versions are very similar and the single player is the experience you want unless you're dead set on doing a Let's Play. So, I'd say console.

Without that factor, this wouldn't even be a question.

RE: Next Thread: I like "Terror from the DLC", personally.
Although some variation of "Back to the Skyranger" might be fun, too.

[Reynard]

Originally Posted by Lord Magtok

XCOM: Intergalactic Boogaloo

XCOM 2: The Aliening

[Kudaku]

XCOM: Put on the red shirt already!

[Krade]

Originally Posted by thorgrim29

XCOM: We're all living in America, america, it's wunderbar

I vote for this over my own. Because it's appropriate and that song is ridiculous.

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by Avilan the Grey

Okay, the cargo ship mission is annoying! The cover is too far apart, you have to Dash a lot. Not good.

There's no mission where you have to dash a lot, it's almost always detrimental unless your move is to have the lead scout move up and then dash backwards to safety.

For the cargo ship, instead of going through the front, try going through the sides outdoors. There are ladders that let you get high ground and shoot down into all the food box areas. You can also go straight to the captain's cabin if you want and then work backwards. And you can come into the main cargo bay from the back using the closed down to set up your position first and then drop down for point blank shots on triggered enemies.

Originally Posted by Eurus

XCOM: That wall won't save you.

I like this one.

[Jade Dragon]

Originally Posted by Anarion

Blaster Launcher? I hardly knew her! /slaps self.

XCOM II: Interceptor? I hardly knew 'er!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

XCOM II: Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy Graduate Association

[Cheesegear]

Does anyone play with Mods, if so, which ones? And could you point me in their direction? I'd love to play a game with the smart AI except where they don't also have hax buffs with bonuses to hit and crit (not including the mind-meld buff of Sectoids, that's, like, their thing).

[Iskandar]

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

Does anyone play with Mods, if so, which ones? And could you point me in their direction? I'd love to play a game with the smart AI except where they don't also have hax buffs with bonuses to hit and crit (not including the mind-meld buff of Sectoids, that's, like, their thing).

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/categories/ has a nice selction of mods.

I use the military retexture mod, atm. Real camo. Combined choosing 29 for the armor color, it makes a nice urban camo effect.

Also thinking of using the mod that enable the second wave stuff.

[king.com]

XCOM II: Press Y to Overwatch

[CreganTur]

Come on, guys- you're missing the best new thread name available:

XCOM II: Roger Dodger

[TechnoScrabble]

A friend let me play this while I visited his apartment lats night. Cryssalids aren't as dangerous as they used to be, but the psychological aftereffects from UFO: Enemy Unknown remain.

[Jade Dragon]

Originally Posted by TechnoScrabble

A friend let me play this while I visited his apartment lats night. Cryssalids aren't as dangerous as they used to be, but the psychological aftereffects from UFO: Enemy Unknown remain.

Chryssalids were overrated back then, mainly due to the players who knew what they were doing not being able to tell everyone else about it on an internet forum. If you used two tanks and lots of lasers (except for the alien ships, which need plasma to deal with), and/or did all your scouting with the first few guys to act, you could pretty reliably mow down 'lids before they did any serious harm.

I think that if people didn't have ready access to info on good tactics, a lot more of them would look back on the new game as having enemies that used 'nades when you clustered, and "that one alien that kills your guys and turns them into zombies".

[Kalmarvho]

Originally Posted by TechnoScrabble

A friend let me play this while I visited his apartment lats night. Cryssalids aren't as dangerous as they used to be, but the psychological aftereffects from UFO: Enemy Unknown remain.

Probably the most hilariously depressing thing ever was watching three chryssalids cross the map and nearly wipe out my drop team. Carapace armour doesn't do zip against them.

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by Jade Dragon

Chryssalids were overrated back then, mainly due to the players who knew what they were doing not being able to tell everyone else about it on an internet forum. If you used two tanks and lots of lasers (except for the alien ships, which need plasma to deal with), and/or did all your scouting with the first few guys to act, you could pretty reliably mow down 'lids before they did any serious harm.

I think that if people didn't have ready access to info on good tactics, a lot more of them would look back on the new game as having enemies that used 'nades when you clustered, and "that one alien that kills your guys and turns them into zombies".

I agree with this. The new XCOM really is quite hard, especially the first couple times through. It's easy at this point to dismiss the problems, but the first time you run into new aliens, get shot through solid walls, or trigger several groups of aliens at one time, you're in deep trouble. And if everyone just played the game without consulting the Internet, I think it would be very hard to figure out all the details by yourself. It takes some dedicated experimentation (or several runs of casual observation) to get the details of chrysalid movement, but you can just pop into the forum and people will tell you how to set up on a particular map and suggest tactics and positioning.

Originally Posted by Kalmarvho

Probably the most hilariously depressing thing ever was watching three chryssalids cross the map and nearly wipe out my drop team. Carapace armour doesn't do zip against them.

That's intentional. If chrysalids didn't even one-shot you the first couple times you meet them (when you can easily have carapace armor if you want) it would be embarrassing for them.

[Kalmarvho]

Originally Posted by Anarion

That's intentional. If chrysalids didn't even one-shot you the first couple times you meet them (when you can easily have carapace armor if you want) it would be embarrassing for them.

That's the only reason I'm not so fond of the new squad sizes. One of my favourite bits about the old game was finding yourself in a Snakeman night terror mission, with no idea where the chryssies and plasma are coming from. Squadmates dropping like flies.

[Jade Dragon]

Originally Posted by Kalmarvho

That's the only reason I'm not so fond of the new squad sizes. One of my favourite bits about the old game was finding yourself in a Snakeman night terror mission, with no idea where the chryssies and plasma are coming from. Squadmates dropping like flies.

That's another point. Sure, Chryssalids can only take out one of your guys at a time in the new game, but that one guy is equivalent to three or four guys in the original.

[Triaxx]

Seems to me that the real hat-trick is the same now as it was then. Killing them before they get close. Of course the answer to that is the same. EXPLOSIVES!

Ahem. It also seems that Firaxis tried to counter act the smaller squad sizes by increasing the durability of each individual combatant. Not that it's necessarily worked mind.

[Saph]

Well, I've been giving Ironman Impossible a try, and after five or six failed attempts I've finally managed to find my feet in the current run. Lost six countries by month 3, but managed to stop the rot and haven't lost any since then (I don't have a single continent, but I've been just about managing on the diminished income).

The number of casualties has been fairly horrifying - every soldier from my original squad is dead, every soldier from the replacement squad is dead, and I think all but one of the replacements from THAT squad are dead too.

Memorable moments have included:

• First bomb mission: I advance, spawn three Thin Men, and kill two of them. The third one crits and kills one soldier, causing a second soldier to panic and shoot a third, who panics and sets a car on fire next to a fourth, who panics and kills a fifth. On my turn the car explodes and I've got three guys dead, only one of which was due to an alien. Needless to say I lost the mission.

• Going into the first terror mission with 4 rookies and 1 squaddie. Ironically I ended up doing better than most of the abduction missions (mainly because my laser rifles finished research 1 day before the mission).

• Having a Captain in power armour with full health take 1 point of damage from a drone shot and go into a panic. I hate Impossible panic thresholds.

• Having my one and only high-ranking sniper (and at the time, my only high-ranking soldier, full stop) killed in the third month because a Muton teleported next to him and shot him point blank. I was not happy.

At the moment I've just finished the alien base and flatlined the panic levels. I left the base raid late and the number of enemies in there was ridiculous – four Berserkers, eleven Mutons, a pack of Heavy Floaters, and some Cyberdiscs and Chryssalids as well. It obviously gets harder and harder the longer you leave it. Now I get to find out if psionic testing is harder on Impossible too.

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by Saph

• First bomb mission: I advance, spawn three Thin Men, and kill two of them. The third one crits and kills one soldier, causing a second soldier to panic and shoot a third, who panics and sets a car on fire next to a fourth, who panics and kills a fifth. On my turn the car explodes and I've got three guys dead, only one of which was due to an alien. Needless to say I lost the mission.

Oof, that one is the worst. That's almost identical to how I failed out of my last II run, except it was an escort mission, not a bomb.

You should be happy though. With panic flatlined and the base done, you're basically home free even if you fail missions past this point, especially if you've bought the "new guy" and "iron will" perks so that all your new recruits are squaddies with close to 50 will.

[Saph]

Originally Posted by Anarion

You should be happy though. With panic flatlined and the base done, you're basically home free even if you fail missions past this point, especially if you've bought the "new guy" and "iron will" perks so that all your new recruits are squaddies with close to 50 will.

That's what I'm hoping. Actually getting a soldier up to Major rank so that you can buy Iron Will is a nightmare, though. On three separate occasions the highest-ranking member of my squad was killed (once at Captain rank with enough XP to advance had he survived the mission) before I finally got one of my troops up to Major.

[Diego Havoc]

A neat little video is up on The Escapist about XCOM design. It has some fun little bits about the history of the games (and some dubious music choices).

[Thanatos 51-50]

The sale has expended my last point of willpower.

Finally downloading new XCOM now.
Wish me luck.

[KillianHawkeye]

Good Luck. We will be watching....

[Thanatos 51-50]

Holy wow.
I just started a Classic game. Second mission. Kept everybody in cover, liberal use of explosives (And overwatch).

Total party wipe.

Guess it's time to re-start on Normal mode.

[Saph]

Half cover just doesn't cut it on Classic. You need full cover to have a good chance of survival (and even then you can still get unlucky and have a squad member instakilled).

And on Impossible even full cover isn't much protection.

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by Saph

And on Impossible even full cover isn't much protection.

It's that moment when you first realize why they included the hunker down button that is really enlightening.

[Jade Dragon]

Originally Posted by Anarion

It's that moment when you first realize why they included the hunker down button that is really enlightening.

Yeah. If full cover is absolutely NOT available, and an enemy spawn is triggered, Hunker Down is the *only* viable option in Classic/Impossible.

This doesn't mean, however, that you should go for full cover at the first sign of it. DO NOT DASH. Patience is the name of the game. You'll fare better moving and hunkering down in low cover than dashing to high cover, which could potentially reveal enemies and give them a free move, as well as still leaving you vulnerable to critical hits. Single-moves. If no spawn is triggered, you can assign some troopers to Overwatch (rookies, as well as anyone you're trying to rank up for the Officer Training School benefits, shouldn't do this, and shotgun Assaults are also inaccurate over the longer ranges that Overwatch operates at. So Supports, Snipers, Heavies, and rifle Assaults can all go on Overwatch, although I would never put more than half your squad to it).

[Avilan the Grey]

Originally Posted by Saph

Half cover just doesn't cut it on Classic. You need full cover to have a good chance of survival (and even then you can still get unlucky and have a squad member instakilled).

To be fair this is only a problem very early in the game on Classic or if you are somewhere you cannot get your snipers, with squadsight, to cover you. Good armor helps a lot too, ignore the cute german woman's advice and force her to research good armor at the earliest opportunity.

With all that in place, half cover is completely adequate.

[Kalmarvho]

Originally Posted by Avilan the Grey

ignore the cute german woman's advice and force her to research good armor at the earliest opportunity.

Yeah, alien research is a lot less important when you've got more of your own corpses coming in than theirs.