Recent bought XCOM Enemy unknown.

[Patrick Church]

XCOM: enemy unknown. A console strategy game that doesn't use a bastardized mouse-pointer to move units around, and is a shit-load of fun? Yes please!

I only have 3 complaints;

1.glitchy. Mostly just graphics bugs, but last night it froze after winning tough mission and had to do-over...not fun.

2. Stun and capture evil aliens for interrogation later, with no real indicator of what aliens are capture-able.
Became problem during mission to with civilians and the murderous spider aliens as I chase one all over hell trying to taser him and he kept targeting civ's.

3. Secret group funded by council of nations, and must keep nations happy or they withdraw support and funding. There should be a way for a withdrawn nation to re-join.

Overall, the game is tits. And if someone adapts a final fantasy tactics (or a similar medieval/fantasy) style game with this, my first reaction will be "shut up and take my money!!!"

 

[Aeshi]

1. Agreed, kinda sick of losing all my best guys because 3 Muton Elites teleport on top of them.

2. As far as I know the Chyrsallids (the "spider aliens") and the Robots are the only enemies that you flat-out can't capture alive, and you might need the Foundry Arc Thrower upgrade to capture the tougher ones (Mutons, Ethereals etc.)

3. I wouldn't mind this, though I think it's mentioned somewhere that nations that pull out do so because the Aliens have infiltrated/mind controlled/made a deal with their governments so it probably won't happen.

 

[Bostur]

I think it's nice if XCOM is making an impact on the console. Maybe it will make biggish publishers rethink the viability of strategy games. Personally I find it a little bit too simplistic, expecially the strategic layer. But it is no doubt one of the best sequels of the series.

1. Yeah it does have some bugs and glitches, hopefully patches will fix most. Firaxis does have a history of supporting their games for a while after release.

2. You should consider yourself lucky that it didn't target you. One would need to be exceptionally death defiant to try to capture a live Chryssalid. ;-)
Historically the X-Com games always had an element of exploration and trial and error. Letting people figure some things out on their own is one of the features I like.

3. You wouldn't want them back. Notice the big red vortexes on the globe after they leave? That has to mean they are evil beyond redemption. It's another traditional feature, I think it helps prevent economical power creep and adds some urgency in the early stages of the games.
In XCOM there is no such thing as a perfect result, it's a matter of preventing total disaster. A few cracked eggs will be inevitable.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

The game was even more buggy when it was released. Atleast they fixed that *camera getting stuck in the ceiling* bug. For the most part I haven't ran into too many bugs. Sometimes my character will be in a spot that can clearly hit an alien, but for some reason isn't allowed to shoot.

I can't really think of majour complaints about this game, I am loving it. Already have played through 11 playthroughs on Classic Ironman...mind you I have died in all of them, but I get a little further each time. Now that I have got the hang of killing Cryssalids, the Mutons usually fuck me good. They are a right pain.

 

[Patrick Church]

By the point that I was trying to grab the cryssalid I would have welcomed him attacking the soldier i had chasing him. Dude was in Titan armor, the cryssalid had 1 health and it just kept running out of my guys Dashing range to gut and zombify an innocent. Eventually I looked up online that those bastards can't be captured and said "screw this" and loaded an older save so I could just shotgun the little bastards.

Bummer about returning nations, I just have Nigeria and South Africa lost and I'd like to do some kind of super mission to at least set them back at the "almost panicking" level

 

[epidemia]

The alien base mission is the "super mission" you are hoping for, but it wont bring back those nations you lost. It causes a worldwide panic reduction but you really want to save it for month 3 or 4 and until then launch satellites over nations with high panic levels at the end of the month to keep them in line for a little while longer. Choose your abduction missions wisely. The first time you should always go for engineers as it will give you enough to start building a second satellite uplink the next month and also make the production of your first sat a bit cheaper, but after that you should check the situation room to see which continent has the highest panic overall and choose whichever country is on that continent, otherwise you will lose at least one in the first month. Every month your main priority should be satellites and uplinks until you have global coverage.

 

[epidemia]

Also, alien interrogation is not nearly as useful in the early game as one might be led to believe. you NEED to capture an outsider alien to unlock the alien base mission of course, but its a huge investment of time and money better spent on satellites. You can easily research laser tech and carapace armor without the research bonuses you get from interrogations. Capturing a muton when they start showing up is a good idea for the plasma weapon bonus though. By that point you should have a lot of money and most of the world covered with sats.

1. Choose engineers reward abduction mission, start building 1 satellite as soon as you return. Launch it at the end of the month over the country with the highest panic
2. If you get lucky and recieve engineers as a council mission reward, immediately start building a second uplink, if not wait til next month and also build 3 satellites, launch them over high panic zones at months end.
3. Rinse and repeat

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You can easily research laser tech and carapace armor without the research bonuses you get from interrogations.

If by "easily" you mean at 3-4 times the research length. If you're rushing satellites, that means you're rushing engineers, which means you'll be stuck at ~4-6 scientists for quite a long time. Which means Carapace Armor/Beam Weapons can take up to 30 days without a research credit.

Research credits are your friend. Use them. Love them.

 

[epidemia]

You can easily research laser tech and carapace armor without the research bonuses you get from interrogations.

If by "easily" you mean at 3-4 times the research length. If you're rushing satellites, that means you're rushing engineers, which means you'll be stuck at ~4-6 scientists for quite a long time. Which means Carapace Armor/Beam Weapons can take up to 30 days without a research credit.

Research credits are your friend. Use them. Love them.

Haha you must play on normal difficulty. You dont need scientists at all. IIRC, laser research bonus only shaves off 7 days but it takes nearly twice that time to get the arc thrower tech not to mention a bunch of money to build the facility. ALWAYS prioritize satellites, engineers over scientists. This is basic Xcom: EU stuff here, man.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Haha you must play on normal difficulty. You dont need scientists at all. IIRC, laser research bonus only shaves off 7 days but it takes nearly twice that time to get the arc thrower tech not to mention a bunch of money to build the facility. ALWAYS prioritize satellites, engineers over scientists. This is basic Xcom: EU stuff here, man.

I'm not even going to dignify this with a detailed reply. I recommend you check my post history regarding this game before this bizarre...I don't even know what it is...trash talking? Good grief.

Early game Carapace/Beam weapons research is ~30 days. Research credits (easily acquired from Floaters/Sectoids) will knock those down to ~11-15 days.

I've covered general build orders in the past, but without going into specifics you should really start with xeno/arc thrower and move into carapace or beams from there, depending on which credit you have available first. If you're playing second wave and you're on marathon mode getting research credits is even more essential.

 

[epidemia]

Say what you will. You're not taking into account the time, money and electrical power an alien containment requires apparently. (you wont have enough power for a satellite uplink AND a containment without first building a power generator which is just more money down the tubes while you start with enough power for an uplink AND the officer training school which are much more useful than containment) Scientists are a complete waste and arc thrower tech is not something one should be focused on in the early game. The goal is to have either laser rifles or carpace armor before the first terror mission, preferably both. If you get lucky you might get just enough scientists by placating high panic countries but most likely you wont.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Say what you will. You're not taking into account the time, money and electrical power an alien containment requires apparently. Scientists are a complete waste and arc thrower tech is not something one should be focused on in the early game.

This is such a bizarre disconnect. Do you even read what people post?

A "proper" XCOM start on Classic or Impossible means taking Engineers for every mission reward for at least the first month. Why? Because you need to be pushing satellites. That means you're stuck at the absolute base level of scientists unless you pick up 1-2 via council missions and/or satellite saturation. Which means your research pace is absolute rubbish. Which means you either make use of SA and research credits to slingshot it, or you end up going into your first terror mission with assault rifles and basic body armor. That make it clear for you now?

If you can't afford an alien containment unit in month one then you're doing something seriously wrong, or you did an Africa start and spent all your starting cash on Nano Weave like a champ.

 

[epidemia]

Taking engineers for each mission results in a loss of nations in the first month, (in classic difficulty at least) every single time unless you reload until you get the reward you want. One engineer mission a month and maybe, just maybe a workshop is enough to cover a new uplink each month.

No need to be hostile btw.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Taking engineers for each mission results in a loss of nations in the first month, (in classic difficulty at least) every single time unless you reload until you get the reward you want. One engineer mission a month and maybe, just maybe a workshop is enough to cover a new uplink each month.

No need to be hostile btw.

Oh I'm sorry, was I being hostile? Perhaps I was responding to your ridiculous "haha u must play on normal nub!" post, when I've been posting Classic Ironman strategy outlines on this forum for weeks. I play on Impossible now. Maybe it's just me, but I think I have a handle on what I'm doing.

I suggest you check out Beaglerush's channel if you don't believe me, he follows a very similar build process to what I use for his Impossible Ironman games.

And no, you do not "automatically lose nations" by focusing Engineer rewards. Maybe 1 in 4 abduction missions you need to take for panic control purposes. Maybe. On Impossible it's just a given you're going to lose nations, and you don't lose sleep over it.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

1. I agree with you there are quite a lot of bugs but nothing has ever gotten any of my soldiers killed or anything so I can't complain really, as you said most are just graphical glitches.

2. Yeah I hate stunning the aliens, I mostly just ignore that feature of the game simply because its a pain in the ass. I'm playing on normal at the moment, when I complete the game I might try stunning some aliens when I play on classic.

3. That would be nice, sometimes withdrawing countries are pretty much impossible to stop from withdrawing even if you have the money to buy them satellites etc simply because of how long it takes to build the satellites and the facilities needed to launch them.

I really love the game though, I'm addicted to it and can't stop playing.

 

[Karoshi]

Recently started this game and surprised how much I'm enjoying it. Usually I am not the type for strategy games, but this one is truly engaging and fun. Spent the whole weekend playing it.


1.glitchy. Eh, never encountered any.

2. Trial and error is most of the time frustrating, but seems to be the core mechanic of this game.

3. Yes, it's impossible not to lose some of them. I think it was for the good, since it gave me a wake-up call and made me actually pay attention to the damn panic levels.

 

[epidemia]

This is such a bizarre disconnect. Do you even read what people post?

A "proper" XCOM start on Classic or Impossible means taking Engineers for every mission reward for at least the first month. Why? Because you need to be pushing satellites. That means you're stuck at the absolute base level of scientists unless you pick up 1-2 via council missions and/or satellite saturation. Which means your research pace is absolute rubbish. Which means you either make use of SA and research credits to slingshot it, or you end up going into your first terror mission with assault rifles and basic body armor. That make it clear for you now?

If you can't afford an alien containment unit in month one then you're doing something seriously wrong, or you did an Africa start and spent all your starting cash on Nano Weave like a champ.

No actually I dont spend money on anything other than the officer training school/squad size upgrades, uplinks/satellites and a few laser rifles and 6 carapace armors in the first two months. Which means that I have a lot of money sitting around just waiting to be spent on something but it doesnt last. If this 'discussion' means anything at all, its that there is no "proper" way to play Xcom. That said, choosing all engineer rewards is a sure fire way of losing a country or two in the first month.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I haven't even finished on normal yet, I am looking the FUCK forward to classic with second wave options.

I really hope that Firaxis makes them official, seeing as they were unfinished options (though the modders are doing a good job of unlocking them and verifying what works and what doesn't), could really raise the stakes.

Also, in response to a few people questioning, Chryssalids can't be captured, it says so in the autopsy details. Not that I didn't try before I did the autopsy...

As for glitches, yeah, there are still a few issues (a few, but they're quite large issues with camera etc), and it sometimes semi-freezes on me in third-person cam, but it resumes, it just sticks in the slow-motion animation for a bit (but that's kind of my fault cuz I like to have it on).