XCOM Enemy Within: First Impressions

[EternallyBored]

Well, Enemy Within makes the problem even worse! Normal is same or a bit easier, while Classic is notably harder. I've decided to really give Classic a shot, though not on Ironman. I don't have that kind of free time, to restart over and over and over again until I figure out what's the optimal course of action while lucking out on missions. EW made the game better, but this is the one part they didn't quite get right IMO...

With the exception of a couple of the council missions, most specifically Portent, Enemy Within is probably a little easier on Classic than Vanilla was. Particularly if you rush meld and get a Mec out early. Mecs are moderately to significantly overpowered at pretty much every tier, and it's pretty easy to rush meld on the first few missions.

Portent is a problem. I anticipate a lot of campaigns coming to a crashing end on that mission. It's over tuned for when you get it.

You must be some sort of X-Com master, because I found the complete opposite to be true.

I beat Classic on vanilla X-Com, and while it wasn't easy, it wasn't soul-crushingly difficult either. But I gave up on EW on classic pretty quickly. Portent was, no doubt, pretty ludicrous, but even without it, missions seemed to come much faster than I remember from EU. I'd complete a mission, and then literally 2-3 days later I'd get hit with another mission. My guys wouldn't even have time to heal before another mission would pop up, and before long I'd be getting slaughtered. Once the Chrysalids came in, I pretty much threw in the towel.

If you turn off the slingshot missions, that tends to make it a lot less hectic at the beginning, or at least you don't get so many missions stacked in the same month, Slingshot throws the last two missions at you in rapid fire, and stacks them on top of everything else going on, as well as the portent mission that introduces EXALT.

As for the rest, as long as you focus on what you want to go for right away, the expansion actually seems to make classic a lot easier. I never made it all the way through classic in EU, I tended to get screwed in the mid-game and ended up with not enough good weapons and armor for the level of enemies it was throwing at me. With the expansion, I've now got two level 3 MECs with grenades and proximity mines and 2 explosives focused heavies that just blow the crap out of the entire map by turn 5. The only thing that can survive more than a turn against me is a sectopod, and even then thats only if they get lucky on the positioning.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

So I just did the base defence mission, and holy shit was that hard. And even then I'm just playing on Non-Ironman Normal. When the game decides that 4 Sectoid Commanders and an Ethereal all want to mindcontrol your squad on one turn, that's when I start cringing at the expected outcome

It's a pretty damn good expansion though, loving it so far. Haven't tried the gene-mods yet, went all out MEC for the first playthrough so I've got 2 MEC-3 Paladins with different loadouts, and they rock hard.

That base defense... The first time it hit me with 4 Mechtoids drops on turn 2, then it dropped another 3 in the second area and finished it off with 2 Mechtoids and a sectoid commander for the last area. And this was just two weeks after I had cleared out the Alien Base and was still working on getting the Hyperwave Relay.

I had to reload a save two missions back and make sure all my idle soldiers were kitted out before trying again. And then the RNG decides to "only" drop 5 Mechtoids total distributed evenly over the course of the mission, which made it far more manageable when I wasn't losing 2 soldiers a turn to each of their bullshit plasma cannons. I mean, those guys regularly score critical hits while suppressed and firing at soldiers in full cover, on higher ground and in smoke.

 

[Sixcess]

If you're hard wiping on Portent (the first EXALT mission) and don't want to save scum or groundhog day your way through it, try running it without Aiming Angles on.

I really like Aiming Angles, so I'll take the rough with the smooth for now. I'm slightly less apprehensive about Portent than I was, since I've now beaten it once (out of four attempts) by going in with two Mecs. Sticking to the rooftops where possible also seems to pay off.

Though in my latest attempt I was doing just fine until the civilian got poisoned and, to my disbelief, took poison damage 4 turns in a row, which I don't recall ever seeing before.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I really like Aiming Angles, so I'll take the rough with the smooth for now. I'm slightly less apprehensive about Portent than I was, since I've now beaten it once (out of four attempts) by going in with two Mecs. Sticking to the rooftops where possible also seems to pay off.

Though in my latest attempt I was doing just fine until the civilian got poisoned and, to my disbelief, took poison damage 4 turns in a row, which I don't recall ever seeing before.

IIRC, poison is 2-5 turns, randomly determined. You were unlucky. Or "Thin Manned", if you prefer.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

I found the base defense mission a bit easy (Ironman Normal player). I had the rookies toss grenades down on any sectoid commanders while my sniper handled the mutons and disabled any enemy mechs she (or any of the squad) saw. My fully upgraded MEC's (one melee/healing-oriented, one long-distance fighter) made short work of the mechanized units with my support keeping them healed. Things got heated when the last of the alien waves came through the front door, with 2 sectoid commanders, an ethereal, a cyberdisc, 3 floaters and 2 repair drones. I tossed the last of my prox. mines in the bottleneck (where the two paths met up) and did some heavy damage to a lot of stuff, then had my melee MEC run up to the ethereal and punch. He and my support got mind-controlled the next turn. In comes my sniper who introduced her plasma rifle to everything stupid enough to stand out of cover (5 units + disabling support's gun), with my sneaky assault finishing with capturing the remaining sectoid commander.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

What works, exactly? Precious, irreplaceable units dying randomly and forcing a restart? Maybe it works for you, but I've had my fill.

But the point is that the game is made so it never forces a restart and no unit is irreplaceable. You're just too attached to being in a position of comfort.

Bull shit. I've tried a number of times to continue playing after losing the units that I deemed crucial to my squad. It's a pure gamble. You have to hope that a few decked out rookies can luck their way through enough missions to keep you from losing countries.

Edit: I might add that I am referring to classic difficulty always. Normal actually gives the player a leg up in the odds department.

What works, exactly? Precious, irreplaceable units dying randomly and forcing a restart? Maybe it works for you, but I've had my fill.

1. They're completely replaceable.
2. Games having a failure state doesn't make them broken.

It doesn't "work for me" so much as it works in general. It's a legitimate form of turn based strategy.

1. They're replaceable, if you luck out.
2. Not what I argued, at all, or ever.

In general it's more like turn based gambling.

That's why in a squad of 6, I always have someone with them a bit lower, so as to level up others. Take them on Abduction missions that are ranked easier, if it happens to fit where you want to go in terms of reducing panic. Heck, 4 colonels and 2 squaddies works fine for me, try let the low ranked ones finish them off (give em grenades for guaranteed hits.) and you'll rank your backup soldiers to a competent level.

There are also mission rewards that give you decent ranked soldiers. I have about 13 soldiers I would consider all decent enough if I have to bring them out in case my A-Team is out of commission. I'm doing a classic play through, have lost 3 countries and have just finished the Alien base mission.

I grant that you can have bad luck sometimes and that can end a game, I've had that. But part of XCOM is base/squad management that can help get the odds in your favor.

 

[Souplex]

I've beaten it on normal. I enjoyed it. Enough bugs were removed that I actually feel like Ironman might be playable.
Playing on Classic now to acheivement whore myself Army Of Four. I hate Thin men so much.

 

[Therumancer]

I've been playing this a little, and my opinions are mixed. I'm not wonderful at it and play on normal as opposed to classic, iron man, or other levels (incidentally classic does not feel like the original X-com to me for whatever reason, which is part of the problem I think). To me the new options are nice, but it seems to be broken in some respects. I do half a dozen missions all with solid victories and I've already pretty much lost all of Africa more or less arbitrarily, leading me to seriously contemplate a restart despite some pretty strong soldiers and a decent pile of meld, basically it seems like I needed to be psychic and have satellite coverage there. Now I could still pull off a victory (and might stick with it to see how close I can cut it) but generally speaking that much panic, that early in the game is pretty crazy, and was either a fluke, or something integral to the new expansion.

I've also noticed the enemies do seem to be considerably more accurate and almost always crit. Given the way the game doesn't re-roll, I've actually played around with it to get some general idea of enemy accuracy and crit rate... and wow, just bloody wow.

That said in response to comments about irreplaceable soldiers, there is some truth to that. Losing the guy from Slingshot is a pain since you can't get him back, what's more later in the game losing a psychic can be pretty much impossible to recover from if you've had bad rolls/luck in recruiting them given the win conditions and what the
endgame is like.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I've been playing this a little, and my opinions are mixed. I'm not wonderful at it and play on normal as opposed to classic, iron man, or other levels (incidentally classic does not feel like the original X-com to me for whatever reason, which is part of the problem I think). To me the new options are nice, but it seems to be broken in some respects. I do half a dozen missions all with solid victories and I've already pretty much lost all of Africa more or less arbitrarily, leading me to seriously contemplate a restart despite some pretty strong soldiers and a decent pile of meld, basically it seems like I needed to be psychic and have satellite coverage there. Now I could still pull off a victory (and might stick with it to see how close I can cut it) but generally speaking that much panic, that early in the game is pretty crazy, and was either a fluke, or something integral to the new expansion.

I've also noticed the enemies do seem to be considerably more accurate and almost always crit. Given the way the game doesn't re-roll, I've actually played around with it to get some general idea of enemy accuracy and crit rate... and wow, just bloody wow.

That said in response to comments about irreplaceable soldiers, there is some truth to that. Losing the guy from Slingshot is a pain since you can't get him back, what's more later in the game losing a psychic can be pretty much impossible to recover from if you've had bad rolls/luck in recruiting them given the win conditions and what the
endgame is like.

Enemies are only more accurate on Classic and up.

You can lose multiple countries and still do fine. I'm only down two in my late game C/I run, and I'm swimming in cash I really have no way of spending.

The guy from Slingshot is indeed irreplaceable, but that's a nod to how stupid creating a series of set missions with a specific NPC was.

Psychics are a dime a dozen now. Especially since the game will feed you slightly leveled up extras through a series of very easy council missions just in case you have trouble unlocking your own.

There are also mission rewards that give you decent ranked soldiers. I have about 13 soldiers I would consider all decent enough if I have to bring them out in case my A-Team is out of commission. I'm doing a classic play through, have lost 3 countries and have just finished the Alien base mission.

I grant that you can have bad luck sometimes and that can end a game, I've had that. But part of XCOM is base/squad management that can help get the odds in your favor.

Yeah I have approximately fifteen Sergeant and up at this point, and eight of them are Colonels. Mind you, I'm at the stage of the game where things have to seriously pear shaped to lose a trooper. Things always seem to snowball heavily in XCOM's favor at that point. Game has had its G&K expansion. It needs its BNW. End game is too damn easy.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

There are also mission rewards that give you decent ranked soldiers. I have about 13 soldiers I would consider all decent enough if I have to bring them out in case my A-Team is out of commission. I'm doing a classic play through, have lost 3 countries and have just finished the Alien base mission.

I grant that you can have bad luck sometimes and that can end a game, I've had that. But part of XCOM is base/squad management that can help get the odds in your favor.

Yeah I have approximately fifteen Sergeant and up at this point, and eight of them are Colonels. Mind you, I'm at the stage of the game where things have to seriously pear shaped to lose a trooper. Things always seem to snowball heavily in XCOM's favor at that point. Game has had its G&K expansion. It needs its BNW. End game is too damn easy.

I'm still getting challenge out of it, but you're probably right. But I think that's kind of the idea, when you get near the end, that's the tipping point of the war. It's not going to be as hard with all that's now available to you.

 

[Elijin]

This topic got my interest piqued, then I went and opened steam...49.99USD in my region? False alarm, I wasnt interested.


Onto the wishlist so I get notified of sales I guess.

 

[FoxKitsune]

Having just failed my first playthrough (though I never completed one before the expansion! Damn you aliens, one day), I have to say I loved it.

Mec's, I thought were a bit overpowered at first, but even they are not immune to that single mistake that can send your mission out of the window.

Gene mods, excellent addition (and I really like how you can have both and there's no real trouble balancing the two), and I'm sure everyone has that obligatory sniper with thin man legs.

Medals are fun, there's not much more to say there. Kind of a `why not`?

Best part? Enemy Within is just as brutal as ever. What I always loved about Xcom was that the game makes you adapt. When you're winning you're loving it, when you lose your A-team and things spiral rapidly out of control, that's a whole new challenge that it's still hard not to enjoy, for that rare occasion you can pull it back.

I failed because I lost my A-team against the darn Chryssalids, then what I had left in the first Exalt mission. It's my own fault for rushing all the new content and not playing more sensibly (beam weapons and good armour.)

So yep, game over. I say I've failed, but that's not strictly true. I COULD pull this back, having lost three council members and rapidly outmatched by the baddies, but I think now I've lost and I'm just waiting for the game to realise it

 

[Dodgeboyuk]

i managed to build my first MEC and trooper before the first covert op i sent that MEC straight to the encoder and he held off a lot of exalt troops solo with all my other team members being rookies(because the troops with ranks got killed or injured) i send them to guard the operative as i took down the com relays.

the good news is that when your MECtrooper gets killed in battle so long as you win the battle you can recover the suit to put another soldier in it.

That means that the soldier and mec both take damage and require repair separately of each other (it costs meld and cash to fix).
easy to over look that the mec needs repair since the soldier get healed automatically

 

[Sixcess]

That means that the soldier and mec both take damage and require repair separately of each other (it costs meld and cash to fix).
easy to over look that the mec needs repair since the soldier get healed automatically

I wasn't expecting the repair of my MECs to cost Meld but thinking about it it's probably a necessary balance. I've found MECs to be extremely useful early on, but the cost of repairing them may make me a little more cautious in throwing them in front of... well, everything.

April has been a hell of a month in my current playthrough. In addition to Portent and the first Slingshot mission I also got 2 abductions, one shot down UFO, one landed UFO and a Terror mission. That I came through all that with only 3 fatalities is something I'm pretty pleased with.

 

[Phantom Kat]

I found that MECs pretty much replaced assaults in my squad. The MECs were tanky enough that I didn't need a lightning reflexes assault to draw overwatch fire, and packed enough firepower to kill most things easily. I ended up taking two MECs, two medic Supports, a heat ammo heavy and a snapshot/inthezone sniper. With gratuitous use of ghost grenades (holy shit I love these) it was incredibly easy to simply ghost my entire squad for a turn if anything went wrong.

I also ran into a situation where I had plasma weapons before I even had access to research beam weapons.

I also found gene mods to be somewhat pointless except for the bio-electric skin mod though I mainly play on normal so that may be why. Currently planning on a training roulette run to see what kind of crazy skill combos I get.

 

[Kyrdra]

My thoughts on EW: Exalt Missions are really unbalanced. Some of the random mission hand you your ass and other could be so easy theoretical I could do those with one SHIV

Mecs are close to OP but I still managed to lose 1 Colonel

Training roulette: BEST OPTION EVER. I had a Assault that could theoretical dish out 4! Shots in one turn and had the thing which made half cover to full cover. Which brings me to my next point

Gen mods: They have variable use and most of the time I had a standard layout which I could apply on every soldier because the other ones are not worth it. Mimetic Skin also sometimes causes the KI to break.

All in all the additions are nice and welcome.
The start was a little harder for me than in EU but the end is easier.
A good add-on and I hope there are more to come.

 

[veloper]

I found that MECs pretty much replaced assaults in my squad. The MECs were tanky enough that I didn't need a lightning reflexes assault to draw overwatch fire, and packed enough firepower to kill most things easily. I ended up taking two MECs, two medic Supports, a heat ammo heavy and a snapshot/inthezone sniper. With gratuitous use of ghost grenades (holy shit I love these) it was incredibly easy to simply ghost my entire squad for a turn if anything went wrong.

I also ran into a situation where I had plasma weapons before I even had access to research beam weapons.

I also found gene mods to be somewhat pointless except for the bio-electric skin mod though I mainly play on normal so that may be why. Currently planning on a training roulette run to see what kind of crazy skill combos I get.

I have had my MECs replacing the heavies instead.
The heavy rocket is usually just one shot and because of that I don't even use it every mission, but only when I really have to, such as when I activate multiple alien trios by accident. The regular shot is simply too inaccurate and usually only serves to activate holo-targeting. Suppresion + area + mayhem is the only thing heavies are really good at and it burns through ammo, while the sniper can just disable an alien weapon with one shot.

Now the MEC's collateral damage I use more often, because it will do the trick against that hard to reach alien in cover and you can simply reload. Then there's also the option to install long-range grenades to blow up big area of cover, more than once.

I keep my assault class because a fully tricked out assault guy is as tough as lvl3 MEC, but can also use cover and cannot take any critical damage on top. Fast reflexes is also preferable to simply soaking up damage. Run&gun followed by double shot remains a real life-safer, that is often 100% reliable with a shotgun, for massive damage. When the sniper cannot aim around an obstacle, the assault guy can still get there.
Add double heart and regeneration and these guys just won't die and when they do fall you get 5 turn to bring them back.

Assaults and snipers(even after the nerf) remain my top classes and I always try to take atleast 1 of each. After armor is researched I usually want atleast 1 support medic aswell (2 in the late game, where every casualty can simply be revived), just for the 3 upgraded medikits. Atleast 1 MEC in the early game is good, but when I have a bunch of colonels in titan armor and with 2 hearts, I may leave them behind and maybe even take a psionic heavy.

 

[Phantom Kat]

I found that MECs pretty much replaced assaults in my squad. The MECs were tanky enough that I didn't need a lightning reflexes assault to draw overwatch fire, and packed enough firepower to kill most things easily. I ended up taking two MECs, two medic Supports, a heat ammo heavy and a snapshot/inthezone sniper. With gratuitous use of ghost grenades (holy shit I love these) it was incredibly easy to simply ghost my entire squad for a turn if anything went wrong.

I also ran into a situation where I had plasma weapons before I even had access to research beam weapons.

I also found gene mods to be somewhat pointless except for the bio-electric skin mod though I mainly play on normal so that may be why. Currently planning on a training roulette run to see what kind of crazy skill combos I get.

I have had my MECs replacing the heavies instead.
The heavy rocket is usually just one shot and because of that I don't even use it every mission, but only when I really have to, such as when I activate multiple alien trios by accident. The regular shot is simply too inaccurate and usually only serves to activate holo-targeting. Suppresion + area + mayhem is the only thing heavies are really good at and it burns through ammo, while the sniper can just disable an alien weapon with one shot.

Now the MEC's collateral damage I use more often, because it will do the trick against that hard to reach alien in cover and you can simply reload. Then there's also the option to install long-range grenades to blow up big area of cover, more than once.

I keep my assault class because a fully tricked out assault guy is as tough as lvl3 MEC, but can also use cover and cannot take any critical damage on top. Fast reflexes is also preferable to simply soaking up damage. Run&gun followed by double shot remains a real life-safer, that is often 100% reliable with a shotgun, for massive damage. When the sniper cannot aim around an obstacle, the assault guy can still get there.
Add double heart and regeneration and these guys just won't die and when they do fall you get 5 turn to bring them back.

Assaults and snipers(even after the nerf) remain my top classes and I always try to take atleast 1 of each. After armor is researched I usually want atleast 1 support medic aswell (2 in the late game, where every casualty can simply be revived), just for the 3 upgraded medikits. Atleast 1 MEC in the early game is good, but when I have a bunch of colonels in titan armor and with 2 hearts, I may leave them behind and maybe even take a psionic heavy.

Pre-EW I loved assaults. I often used my assaults as the guy who'd run in first as if it went bad, they were the best suited for making it out alive. A MEC with a defensive build was not only a bullet magnet since it couldn't use cover, but was pretty hard to kill as well. By the time I got around to late game, I had a snapshot/inthezone sniper with ghost armour who could basically solo most of a mission and didn't feel the need to train up an assault.

I think I stuck with a heavy because I was so used to using one for heat ammo and having extra ghost grenades was a life saver.

I think you're right though in swapping out heavies for MECs and I'll probably do it in my next play through. Truth be told I always despised heavies as inaccurate and mostly a one-trick pony for taking down the tough robot enemies in one turn.

 

[Jandau]

Nearing the end of my first EW playthrough, I must say I have very mixed feelings regarding MECs.

On one hand, they have definite strengths - high damage, useful abilities (Grenated, Punch/Flamethrower, EMP for Sectopods), they are fast (Foundry upgrade + Kinetic module), tons of HP (with self-repair). However, their downsides are an issue...

Relatively low Aim stat is the glaring issue for me. Since I can't equip a SCOPE one a MEC, this really bites me in the arse. It's not so bad if I convert a high-level Sniper, but even then I can feel the shitty aim. What use is a 13 damage Particle Cannon if it misses all the time?

Next is the cost. Put simply, a MEC is insanely expensive, both when it comes to cash and Meld. In fact, for the Meld price of a single MEC upgrade I can fully Gene Mod a soldier and have some spare change left. And it's not cheap when it comes to cash either, though that's less of an issue later on.

Then there's the fact that they kinda suck early game. I'm glad that some of you have success stories with a heroic MEC holding off whatnot, but people have those stories with other classes. In pure numbers MECs don't really start to outperform regular troops until Tier 3 tech.

No cover. This makes me think that they would be VERY squishy at higher difficulties. Let's be fair, the best defense is not getting hit in the first place (which is why Skeleton armor > Carapace armor), and MECs will be hit. If they stand back and try to snipe, the aforementioned shitty Aim comes into play.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that a fully upgraded MEC is superior to a non-psionic, non-genemodded Colonel of pretty much any class. But I'm not sure if it's worth the cost. And I'm even less sure that it would outperform a fully gene-modded psionic.

That being said, my next playthrough will focus more on gene mods, so I can get a basis for comparison. I might convert a Colonel Sniper into a MEC lategame, for the lulz.

Granted, the very act of chopping all four limbs off a person just feels wrong to me...