UFO: Enemy Unknown, remake by Firaxis

[PhilBowles]

I remember someone noting a while ago that Deluge was too easy for its place in the game. In my Ironman campaign I've just found a reason to reevaluate that - due to timeout I lost my full squad (all except my main heavy and my MEC, as they were wounded at the time). My star Sentinel sniper was critically wounded (stabilised, but I couldn't bring her home), my Support was killed (a familiar feeling, but this guy had lasted a while), while Zhang and my assault had made it all the way to the truck but not triggered it because there were still aliens alive - they couldn't physically get all the way back in time. Only my former covert agent (filling in for one of the wounded soldiers) made it out - at least she's a sniper major, but not with the advantages of the previous one.

It's not critical to the campaign, I don't think, because I've already completed all the really difficult missions (and won't be getting the final Progeny mission now - shame, I need the soldiers) and have almost full tech, but it's a huge setback to lose three colonels.

 

[Pikkis]

Decided to try I/I once more; now for the first time in EW. I think it's just brutal. While it's been hard to believe C/I is supposed to be harder now, it's easy to believe I/I is. Using the kind of strategies I'm used to with C/I, I was finished by mid-April. Might have to give it a second shot, though.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

I'd love this game if not for the Rubberband AI. It's a very entertaining type of gameplay- it's just too bad for that one element.

 

[PhilBowles]

Decided to try I/I once more; now for the first time in EW. I think it's just brutal. While it's been hard to believe C/I is supposed to be harder now, it's easy to believe I/I is. Using the kind of strategies I'm used to with C/I, I was finished by mid-April. Might have to give it a second shot, though.

CI is definitely harder - I've fought through to September and just downed the Overseer, but I'm hurting badly now. I'm down to two colonels and no promoted heavies after a Sectopod one-shotted my starting heavy, Colonel "Kong" Powell, in a terror mission and killed him outright, and I came very close to losing the MEC on a UFO mission. I've just built a couple of SHIVs to help me get through a few more missions and promote a new team (I have a colonel MEC, a colonel sniper, a psionic Support Lieutenant - so far only at Psi-Specialist rank - and other than that only squaddies left).

I'd love this game if not for the Rubberband AI. It's a very entertaining type of gameplay- it's just too bad for that one element.

Curious, XCOM is one of the few games I've played where I've seen (and had) very few complaints about the AI. I wish EXALT's AI was rather better, but the AI generally is very capable. What do you mean by "rubberband"?

 

[Pikkis]

I'd love this game if not for the Rubberband AI. It's a very entertaining type of gameplay- it's just too bad for that one element.

I've played many street racing games and I'm pretty sure XCOM AI isn't a rubberband one.

CI is definitely harder

Well, of course there's the fact that I've been getting better at this game during the past year, but even when trying to account for that, I'm really not sure C/I is harder than before. Of course there is natural fluctuation because of the stochastic elements involved, also.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

XCOM has a bizzare form of rubberband AI which adjusts based on how well or poorly your troops fight against it.

 

[Pikkis]

XCOM has a bizzare form of rubberband AI which adjusts based on how well or poorly your troops fight against it.

Have you some support for this claim? I've at times suspected that some non-AI aspects of the game adjust to player performance (for example getting "new recruit" council missions after suffering heavy casualties), but I don't have nearly enough data to back that up.

 

[sherbz]

Its £9.99 on steam sale if anyone wants to pick it up cheap

 

[sherbz]

Have you some support for this claim? I've at times suspected that some non-AI aspects of the game adjust to player performance (for example getting "new recruit" council missions after suffering heavy casualties), but I don't have nearly enough data to back that up.

I agree. I find if you take heavy casualties in month 1, either deaths or lots in med bay, then invariably you get a sergeant reward as your council mission. Again though, i have no proof of this, it might just be conjecture.

 

[PhilBowles]

Well, of course there's the fact that I've been getting better at this game during the past year, but even when trying to account for that, I'm really not sure C/I is harder than before. Of course there is natural fluctuation because of the stochastic elements involved, also.

As usual with XCOM, if you keep your starting team alive, it won't be difficult even in the late game, but trying to recover from losses makes the game much harder now.

I think I'm about ready to concede defeat on this playthrough (shame, it's been a very long, enjoyable one) - I was forced to abort the Overseer mission with only my sniper and a squaddie heavy surviving (I was trying to move the damaged MEC round the back of the terrain to electropulse the surviving Sectopod - unfortunately the pathing routine decided to send him over the top and he was downed by the overwatch shot). Since I aborted I lost the MEC altogether, and don't have the meld to even build a new level 1 MEC, let alone upgrade it, or to gene mod anyone else (my heavy from the terror mission was fully gene-modded, but unfortunately I'd given him adrenal neurosympathy rather than Secondary Heart).

I'm down to one surviving - seriously injured - colonel (the sniper, who does not have the promotions I'd most like - particularly, she doesn't have Disabling Shot), one SHIV, and everyone else is a squaddie. I do have a replacement psi-support, but only with Mindfray at this stage, and with a terror mission just announced.

Training Roulette, on balance, makes life quite a bit harder, so maybe this is part of my difficulty - I've also got some pretty bad results on damage roulette in this playthrough (it's why my last sniper went down in Deluge - all my shots against Thin Men were dealing non-fatal damage, and one succeeded in flanking and finishing her off). With TR I'm finding Supports harder to justify, as the main combinations that make them useful - such as Medic/Saviour - aren't there, and their only fixed promotions are those relating to smoke grenades (which are very good, but not really enough by themselves); plasma rifle assaults do the rest of their job better.

 

[Pikkis]

As usual with XCOM, if you keep your starting team alive, it won't be difficult even in the late game, but trying to recover from losses makes the game much harder now.

Well, there's some implicit boundary below which losses are acceptable w/o endangering the whole game. It could be lower now; I don't really know as I tend to either lose the game very early or build enough momentum to go all the way through. In my "no MECs" playthrough I did lose 3 Colonels during base defense (poor weapons and armor!) and it hurt a lot, but I did have 6+ Colonels again well before the completion of Gollop Chamber (and of course it's not necessary to do the final mission right away).

Training Roulette, on balance, makes life quite a bit harder, so maybe this is part of my difficulty - I've also got some pretty bad results on damage roulette in this playthrough (it's why my last sniper went down in Deluge - all my shots against Thin Men were dealing non-fatal damage, and one succeeded in flanking and finishing her off). With TR I'm finding Supports harder to justify, as the main combinations that make them useful - such as Medic/Saviour - aren't there, and their only fixed promotions are those relating to smoke grenades (which are very good, but not really enough by themselves); plasma rifle assaults do the rest of their job better.

I've had very good experience with Training Roulette; wouldn't say it makes the game harder (wouldn't say it makes the game easier, either; it's well balanced in that sense). Losing dedicated Medics (usually) isn't critical when other soldiers can be multipurposed better (Tactical Rigging, mostly).

Training Roulette does all but obsolete Supports. In theory (and w/o other randomizations), that is. In practice I tend to get one or two very high-aim Supports (with the other randomizations) each game and they are of course valuable. In general Support is the weakest class (in late game perhaps the 2nd weakest after MEC Troopers, not sure), however, even w/o Training Roulette (b/c of Tactical Rigging and Deep Pockets change).

 

[PhilBowles]

Well, there's some implicit boundary below which losses are acceptable w/o endangering the whole game. It could be lower now; I don't really know as I tend to either lose the game very early or build enough momentum to go all the way through. In my "no MECs" playthrough I did lose 3 Colonels during base defense (poor weapons and armor!) and it hurt a lot, but I did have 6+ Colonels again well before the completion of Gollop Chamber (and of course it's not necessary to do the final mission right away).

Well, I'm carrying on with this one and so far my best is having 1 colonel, a lieutenant, and a sergeant, plus a SHIV (it's proved very useful, but having no anti-mech or explosive/multiple shot abilities is a real pain). I'm shooting down the Overseer every time without engaging - I did try taking it on again, but achieved basically nothing when the second Sectopod walked round the corner and my team aborted (I lost no one that time).

Losing people in the base defence is probably fine because it's still rather early - you've completed key 'hard' missions and have time to promote before the Overseer (or any other Sectopods) shows up. I actually had a remarkably easy one - for the first time, only two Cyberdiscs in the aerial assault, and not much to worry about anywhere else; I didn't play it particularly early either. Compared with the attempts where I've had 8 Mechtoids simultaneously running around, after losing key team members to the Cyberdisc invasion, it was a walkover, and I lost only three base defence staff.

Training Roulette does all but obsolete Supports. In theory (and w/o other randomizations), that is. In practice I tend to get one or two very high-aim Supports (with the other randomizations) each game and they are of course valuable. In general Support is the weakest class (in late game perhaps the 2nd weakest after MEC Troopers, not sure), however, even w/o Training Roulette (b/c of Tactical Rigging and Deep Pockets change).

I think without Training Roulette Supports are actually somewhat more valuable - they get 4 uses out of medkits thanks to Deep Pockets, plus usually two grenades by that stage in the game, on top of all their smoke. The old 'scope and medikit' build is available somewhat early (depending on when the Foundry goes up and you pay for rigging) as well. I don't find Tactical Rigging as much use for everyone else - it's a nice bonus, but for the most part it just means an extra scope or chitin plating over what they'd be carrying anyway; Deep Pockets + ghost grenades is much more useful.

 

[ls612]

And they said that the Alien invasion was made up by moviemakers. Little did they know.

 

[Pikkis]

I only learned about the post-selection thing after it had been fixed (I consider it a bug). This was not about a transponder, but getting to the front of the train. I had all transponders in place, MEC in front and 2 or 3 turns remaining at that time. The train didn't move so I assumed I had to kill the remaining aliens and had that done by the time it was my last turn. The train didn't leave even then, however. I lost the mission and I think I didn't even get the resources I had gathered (which included two Muton captives i.e. two Plasma Rifles). Quit that Ironman save at that point.

This "train doesn't leave" bug is much more serious than I previously thought. Had it happen again and this time the unit in question was a Sniper, not a MEC. So that's another Ironman save ruined by it.

 

[King Flevance]

Sorry guys, I have totally lost sights on this thread over the past year and am recently getting back into XCom again. Has there been any word on when the next patch will come out?

Does Firaxis is still communicate with CivFanatics or Apolyton "unofficially" or whatever? There was some hubbub back during Civ 4 where I think Dennis Skirk got attacked in a Thread over a patch or something. I don't remember. I haven't been wanting to play Ironman since the latest patch which kinda sucks. (Although I am on the final mission in a game with this patch. The train didn't leave with a support soldier in question on it.)

Fun question: What do you think is the possibility of Firaxis opening Xcom up for modders?

 

[PhilBowles]

The game just got a 'Complete Edition' and the associated patch was very small; I don't know whether any further patch support is planned. Enemy Within fixed most of the outstanding bugs with the game. The only noticeable gameplay change with the patch was that it unlocked all the Second Wave options you had in the original in Enemy Within as well (so, for instance, I'd finished Impossible in the standard game but not EW, and so until the patch couldn't use the Impossible SW options in EW games).

 

[ImperialGuard]

This "train doesn't leave" bug is much more serious than I previously thought. Had it happen again and this time the unit in question was a Sniper, not a MEC. So that's another Ironman save ruined by it.

I just had this happen to me as well (with an Assault)

I am curious, when you say the "Ironman save was ruined", what that means?

Does this impact finishing the entire game, or just that you do not get to do the "battleship mission"... this mission is apart of the Portent DLC isn't it?

Please note! I've never finished the game, so if you can answer without any spoilers -- thanks!

 

[ImperialGuard]

Hey, another question while I am thinking about it ...

Is there a bug/feature in the game where you automatically get the "continent bonus" of the continent you start with, regardless if you have satellites over all the countries.

I started in Asia, and I swear that the Officer Training costs are reduced right away, and didn't go down any further once I got satellites over all the countries...

 

[PhilBowles]

Hey, another question while I am thinking about it ...

Is there a bug/feature in the game where you automatically get the "continent bonus" of the continent you start with, regardless if you have satellites over all the countries.

I started in Asia, and I swear that the Officer Training costs are reduced right away, and didn't go down any further once I got satellites over all the countries...

This is intended, and is mentioned when you select a continent that you get that bonus at the start - it's the only particular reason to choose one continent rather than another.

 

[King Flevance]

I just had this happen to me as well (with an Assault)

I am curious, when you say the "Ironman save was ruined", what that means?

Does this impact finishing the entire game, or just that you do not get to do the "battleship mission"... this mission is apart of the Portent DLC isn't it?

Please note! I've never finished the game, so if you can answer without any spoilers -- thanks!

It means that you don't get the battleship mission. I believe the train is part of the "Slingshot" DLC. I have been playing "Ironman" without turning it on by just not reloading standard games. Portent is frustrating as it wipes a team usually. You pretty much have to run it with heavy's (rocket) and assaults (Run&Gun) to not die. But Thin Man's Accuracy can still kill you.