Poll: XCOM: Enemy Unknown help

[Mr Dizazta]

Talk about a brutal game. I am thinking about restarting my game again before my first terror mission. I think I researched Beam Weapons a little too late and I think I might have chosen the wrong starting base (I picked Europe). The problem is that Japan is about to pull my funding and I am freaking out about the terror mission. Luckily I have a satellite almost ready before the end of the month, but I just know unlocked Beam Weapon like the pistol and rifle. To make matters worse, my primary medic was killed and my new medic is wounded until after the terror mission along with a lot of my really good officers. So should I restart and choose a better base and if so, where?

 

[Strazdas]

i been talking with a friend about this 2 days ago. we came to a conclusion that Africa is the best choice due to extra funding.

 

[Dandark]

I also have this problem. I really want to put my base in Europe because I actually live in Europe and it's a pretty cool place. However the bonus is really meh, so far I have been putting my base in North America for the cheaper aircraft since I had a lot of trouble with aircraft on my first playthrough. Im attempting normal difficulty now and it seems to be working alright but I have restarted countless times just to change my mind on where my base is.

 

[Zhukov]

Anywhere but Europe. The bonus there sucks.

South America is pretty crummy too, but at least it isn't Europe. It will save you some time early on, although since South America only has two coalition countries, you can easily get its bonus while starting somewhere else.

North America (AMURICAH!) starts you off with the highest funding and saves you maintenance costs on your aircraft.

Africa gives you an overall funding boost that gets better the more countries you have on side.

My personal favourite is Asia. Half upgrade costs, allowing you to juice up your squad early on. Also, since Asia has four coalition countries, it's one of the harder bonuses to get if you don't start there.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Talk about a brutal game. I am thinking about restarting my game again before my first terror mission. I think I researched Beam Weapons a little too late and I think I might have chosen the wrong starting base (I picked Europe). The problem is that Japan is about to pull my funding and I am freaking out about the terror mission. Luckily I have a satellite almost ready before the end of the month, but I just know unlocked Beam Weapon like the pistol and rifle. To make matters worse, my primary medic was killed and my new medic is wounded until after the terror mission along with a lot of my really good officers. So should I restart and choose a better base and if so, where?

In terms of immediate, short term scaling, NA is significantly better than any other country. It gives you the most cash at the time when you're most likely to be struggling, allowing for earlier satellite saturation and for things to snowball in a positive direction more easily.

Africa's bonus scales the best late game, assuming you have solid satellite coverage (which can be difficult if you're new to the game due to Africa's poor starting income).

Asia is solid as well, assuming you take full advantage of the discounts it offers. It can allow for the earliest possible access to some of the more expensive squad upgrades such as iron will. It doesn't scale as well as Africa or NA unless you grab absolutely everything, though.

SA has a strong supplementary bonus but not the greatest core bonus. There's no cash benefit at all to SA, just a research/time benefit, which is of the most use in the early/mid game. SA is so easy to saturate during regular play (2 satellites) there's really no need to take it as a starting country.

Europe is rubbish and should be left to die, with the possible exception of a single satellite for Russia for their $150. Sorry Europe.

I usually favor a North American start, and then proceed to saturate South America, Asia, Africa (if possible) and then any choice countries in Europe still standing. On Classic you can usually get all but 1-2 countries if you're quick about getting your satellites out and don't fail missions. On Impossible...not so much.

 

[Doom972]

Europe's bonus isn't worth it because you won't build more than one lab or workshop since you'll get more scientists and engineers than you're going to need as mission rewards.

I suggest starting in North America since halving the price for buying and maintaining interceptors saves you a lot of money. Also, you'll get every other continent's bonus if every country on it gets a satellite.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Anywhere but Europe. The bonus there sucks.

Europe is rubbish and should be left to die, with the possible exception of a single satellite for Russia for their $150. Sorry Europe.

Well now I know why I wasn't doing so good my first time playing through. Think I'll start again as either Asia or North America.

 

[veloper]

Europe's bonus isn't worth it because you won't build more than one lab or workshop since you'll get more scientists and engineers than you're going to need as mission rewards.

I suggest starting in North America since halving the price for buying and maintaining interceptors saves you a lot of money. Also, you'll get every other continent's bonus if every country on it gets a satellite.

Labs agreed (zero), but workshops are useful.

Getting satelites up as fast as possible is crucial. That requires engineers and without workshops it takes longer to get enough engineers to meet the required numbers.
The production discount from adjacent workshops also adds up and will save you alot of credits. Still not worth a Europe start, but don't neglect shops entirely.

 

[Doom972]

Europe's bonus isn't worth it because you won't build more than one lab or workshop since you'll get more scientists and engineers than you're going to need as mission rewards.

I suggest starting in North America since halving the price for buying and maintaining interceptors saves you a lot of money. Also, you'll get every other continent's bonus if every country on it gets a satellite.

Labs agreed (zero), but workshops are useful.

Getting satelites up as fast as possible is crucial. That requires engineers and without workshops it takes longer to get enough engineers to meet the required numbers.
The production discount from adjacent workshops also adds up and will save you alot of credits. Still not worth a Europe start, but don't neglect shops entirely.

On my playthroughs, I never needed more than one workshop. If you can't get enough engineers in a timely fashion, you might need two workshops, but I don't see how more would be useful.

 

[veloper]

Europe's bonus isn't worth it because you won't build more than one lab or workshop since you'll get more scientists and engineers than you're going to need as mission rewards.

I suggest starting in North America since halving the price for buying and maintaining interceptors saves you a lot of money. Also, you'll get every other continent's bonus if every country on it gets a satellite.

Labs agreed (zero), but workshops are useful.

Getting satelites up as fast as possible is crucial. That requires engineers and without workshops it takes longer to get enough engineers to meet the required numbers.
The production discount from adjacent workshops also adds up and will save you alot of credits. Still not worth a Europe start, but don't neglect shops entirely.

On my playthroughs, I never needed more than one workshop. If you can't get enough engineers in a timely fashion, you might need two workshops, but I don't see how more would be useful.

The discounts for all the stuff that you build really adds up and it's not like you can use up all that space under your base for anything more useful, after you got all the satelite control, power generators and unigue rooms built anyway.

 

[Doom972]

Europe's bonus isn't worth it because you won't build more than one lab or workshop since you'll get more scientists and engineers than you're going to need as mission rewards.

I suggest starting in North America since halving the price for buying and maintaining interceptors saves you a lot of money. Also, you'll get every other continent's bonus if every country on it gets a satellite.

Labs agreed (zero), but workshops are useful.

Getting satelites up as fast as possible is crucial. That requires engineers and without workshops it takes longer to get enough engineers to meet the required numbers.
The production discount from adjacent workshops also adds up and will save you alot of credits. Still not worth a Europe start, but don't neglect shops entirely.

On my playthroughs, I never needed more than one workshop. If you can't get enough engineers in a timely fashion, you might need two workshops, but I don't see how more would be useful.

The discounts for all the stuff that you build really adds up and it's not like you can use up all that space under your base for anything more useful, after you got all the satelite control, power generators and unigue rooms built anyway.

By the time you have spare money to build those things, you won't really need them since no project would take more than three days. I agree that workshops are not useless, but at least with my playstyle I didn't need more than two of them. If you found a use for Europe's bonus - good for you. Many others (probably most people) such as myself, found that bonus useless compared to the others.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I think my first base was in Europe and things went okay. My game where I put my base in the US was pretty rocky early on since the plane bonuses didn't really pay off until later in the game. But that game had a load more other problems(multiple times of the tricky maps like the fountain, trouble finding psionic soldiers, etc)

 

[scorptatious]

I'd probably start with NA or Africa. Then place satellite coverage over SA to get the ability to do instant autopsies and interrogations.

 

[veloper]

Europe's bonus isn't worth it because you won't build more than one lab or workshop since you'll get more scientists and engineers than you're going to need as mission rewards.

I suggest starting in North America since halving the price for buying and maintaining interceptors saves you a lot of money. Also, you'll get every other continent's bonus if every country on it gets a satellite.

Labs agreed (zero), but workshops are useful.

Getting satelites up as fast as possible is crucial. That requires engineers and without workshops it takes longer to get enough engineers to meet the required numbers.
The production discount from adjacent workshops also adds up and will save you alot of credits. Still not worth a Europe start, but don't neglect shops entirely.

On my playthroughs, I never needed more than one workshop. If you can't get enough engineers in a timely fashion, you might need two workshops, but I don't see how more would be useful.

The discounts for all the stuff that you build really adds up and it's not like you can use up all that space under your base for anything more useful, after you got all the satelite control, power generators and unigue rooms built anyway.

By the time you have spare money to build those things, you won't really need them since no project would take more than three days. I agree that workshops are not useless, but at least with my playstyle I didn't need more than two of them. If you found a use for Europe's bonus - good for you. Many others (probably most people) such as myself, found that bonus useless compared to the others.

The european bonus is still very weak, only the workshops discounts(EU or not) are okay.

Come to think of it, the worst thing about Europe isn't even it's weak bonus, it's the lack of monthly engineers.

 

[MetalGearblack]

What difficulty are you playing on, if it is your first time and you playing on classic you should lower the difficulty to normal. When you are in a mission are you saving in multiple files it helps a lot to go back a turn or two to save a soldier. As for starting bases I prefer North America so you can get your air-force and satellites out faster, but I don't think you should restart even though Europe's bonus is only good for getting workshops and maybe one lab. I think you should try the terror mission a couple of times you might be able to pull it off.

 

[Mr Dizazta]

What difficulty are you playing on, if it is your first time and you playing on classic you should lower the difficulty to normal. When you are in a mission are you saving in multiple files it helps a lot to go back a turn or two to save a soldier. As for starting bases I prefer North America so you can get your air-force and satellites out faster, but I don't think you should restart even though Europe's bonus is only good for getting workshops and maybe one lab. I think you should try the terror mission a couple of times you might be able to pull it off.

I did reset so that my base was in North America and the terror mission went better than expected. However I at the point were I feel like I messed up again seeing as I was unable to take done an UFO and now I am facing Mutons.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I started my base in Europe this time around on Normal and I've had no problems. I lost Nigeria in the first month, but after that it's been smooth sailing. I'm starting to wonder if I'm doing something differently than everyone else. I'm playing on Normal, and if one of my soldiers dies, I simply reload the previous auto-save and do something different. I also save before going into any mission, in case things don't go my way. I know auto-save is rather disabled on Impossible, but so far I've not really had any decimating missions.

I think it all comes down to what you want the most right out of the gate. Each country has it's own unique bonus, and depending on your play style, each one should prove useful. Based on what you've told me, I say start in Africa for the extra cash. Use said cash to build satellites, then start focusing on build supports for said satellites. If you can get every country covered, you no longer have to choose which country to help during missions (or at least I haven't since I got satellites over everyone), and that makes the game much easier.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Anywhere but Europe. The bonus there sucks.

South America is pretty crummy too, but at least it isn't Europe. It will save you some time early on, although since South America only has two coalition countries, you can easily get its bonus while starting somewhere else.

North America (AMURICAH!) starts you off with the highest funding and saves you maintenance costs on your aircraft.

Africa gives you an overall funding boost that gets better the more countries you have on side.

My personal favourite is Asia. Half upgrade costs, allowing you to juice up your squad early on. Also, since Asia has four coalition countries, it's one of the harder bonuses to get if you don't start there.

Pretty much this.

Also try to put rooms of the same type next to each other for the bonuses, two workshops next to each other will provide a rebate on anything built/resarched.

 

[Mr Dizazta]

any idea when i should start doing autopsies?