Actual, turn-based strategy X-Com sequel in the works

[aenemic]

Also, I wish they'd make a less retarded ending. I had a mission on the largest UFO size I shot down (a battleship) and this was MUCH MUCH harder than the last mission where I was pretty disappointed...

the last mission was really easy up until the last fight. but that one was the hardest in the game for me.

[spoiler:679055d8f4]three of my guys were mind-controlled and one dead at the second turn. took me a few tries to do it, especially since killing the Uber Ethereal resulted in me losing the game, since he had mind-controlled my volunteer. really glad you got to restart the mission on ironman, btw.[/spoiler:679055d8f4]

what do you guys use for a standard combat squad, btw? when I unlocked the 5th slot I added a second support, then a second assault with the 6th. used that setup for every single mission, except for one - I thought that on a terror mission maybe a third assault would do better than a heavy. of course, this is the first terror mission where I get a sectopod. other than that, that was my standard setup. didn't want to experiment too much with it since I was doing ironman, but I'm curious to see what other successful combinations there may be. or if anyone tries to adapt the setup after the type of mission. I've been thinking of trying two snipers, one with squad sight and one with snap shot.

 

[Surf Solar]

Also, I wish they'd make a less retarded ending. I had a mission on the largest UFO size I shot down (a battleship) and this was MUCH MUCH harder than the last mission where I was pretty disappointed...

the last mission was really easy up until the last fight. but that one was the hardest in the game for me.

[spoiler:36934126c5]three of my guys were mind-controlled and one dead at the second turn. took me a few tries to do it, especially since killing the Uber Ethereal resulted in me losing the game, since he had mind-controlled my volunteer. really glad you got to restart the mission on ironman, btw.[/spoiler:36934126c5]

[spoiler:36934126c5]Huh, the endfight was easy for me, since the Etheral couldnt even do a single move. Just shot at him twice with my sniper and I won. Ignored the Muton berserkers.[/spoiler:36934126c5]

what do you guys use for a standard combat squad, btw? when I unlocked the 5th slot I added a second support, then a second assault with the 6th. used that setup for every single mission, except for one - I thought that on a terror mission maybe a third assault would do better than a heavy. of course, this is the first terror mission where I get a sectopod. other than that, that was my standard setup. didn't want to experiment too much with it since I was doing ironman, but I'm curious to see what other successful combinations there may be. or if anyone tries to adapt the setup after the type of mission. I've been thinking of trying two snipers, one with squad sight and one with snap shot.

I played through pretty much the entire game with my alpha squad consisting of 3 assaults (one with a shotgun and very offensive perks, one with more defensive perks and an assault rifle and the third one I mixed both perk trees) 1 Sniper who pretty much owned the battlefield at the late game, a support guy who wasn't that much useful safe for the medipaks and my heavy gal with holo targetting that owned robot enemies.

I heard a lot of good things about support classes, but I never really used them :/ I first always tried to turtle down and let the enemies approach, but I found that boring and adopted a very aggressive playstyle to push attacking aliens back (they have some sort of"panic" too, when they get numbered they often retreat if you play aggressive and push forward). It's a pretty risky tactic and I wouldnt recommend it for ironman runs though.

 

[aenemic]

[spoiler:09634eec8d]Huh, the endfight was easy for me, since the Etheral couldnt even do a single move. Just shot at him twice with my sniper and I won. Ignored the Muton berserkers.[/spoiler:09634eec8d]

[spoiler:09634eec8d]I think the problem for me was that I rushed into the room, trying to get everyone into cover first of all. my sniper didn't make it all the way in and got stuck in the corridor leading up to the room, with no cover between him and the mutons. so he was killed before he could even join the fight. on my first turn I managed to kill both of them and do some damage to both normal ethereals with my volunteers psionic rift, but after that I was pretty much screwed. the uber ethereal went down easily enough, but as I said he was mind-controling the volunteer so killing him also killed off my guy for some reason. I guess it's all about getting the upper hand during the first turn.[/spoiler:09634eec8d]

I played through pretty much the entire game with my alpha squad consisting of 3 assaults (one with a shotgun and very offensive perks, one with more defensive perks and an assault rifle and the third one I mixed both perk trees) 1 Sniper who pretty much owned the battlefield at the late game, a support guy who wasn't that much useful safe for the medipaks and my heavy gal with holo targetting that owned robot enemies.

I heard a lot of good things about support classes, but I never really used them :/ I first always tried to turtle down and let the enemies approach, but I found that boring and adopted a very aggressive playstyle to push attacking aliens back (they have some sort of"panic" too, when they get numbered they often retreat if you play aggressive and push forward). It's a pretty risky tactic and I wouldnt recommend it for ironman runs though.

the only reason I used two supports was to have six medi-kit uses. which was definitely needed on long mission late in the game. I often used up most of them, and I wanted a back-up if one of my supprts were to die. other than that, I didn't find the supports to be that effective, except when they finally got plasma rifles (I used shotguns on both my assaults and often felt restriced by their short range). on my current game I'm trying to find more potential in the supports. their smoke grenades are actually pretty darn good, especially with the drugs upgrade. I'm also taking covering fire instead of sprinter this time, because the longer movements pretty much only resulted in me letting them do the scouting and get into rough spots instead of my assaults.

I did play pretty aggressive to be honest. now that I'm on classic I try a more defensive approach. everyone is on overwatch most of the time, while one poor guy gets to scout out the aliens.

I would love to do more specific builds (ie, one aggressive assault and one defensive assault, like you did), but the problem with this in ironman is that they can be really hard to replace if you lose them. therefore I go for cookie-cutter builds where I have back-ups of every role. by the end of the game I had two full squads on highest rank, plus some extras. I tried hard to split the experience/missions between all my guys, and not leave everything up to six guys I might lose eventually. even with a fully upgraded officer training academy, you do NOT want to rely on rookies/squaddies in late game.

on my last missions I had one assault using ghost armor for recon, arch angel armor on my sniper and titan armor on the rest. it would be pretty interesting with a full ghost squad. I wonder how effective that would be.

 

[rcorporon]

I'm loving snipers. I bring two and they absolutely own the battlefield.

 

[TheGM]

My snipers seem to be plasma magnets. Aliens will bypass my colonel Heavies and Assaults and go after my Captain Snipers.

I've never even had a Major with one yet.

 

[Alphadrop]

You forgot to speak in the third person.

Anyone got a spare support? I only have one and a zillion snipers and heavies. Alternative tactics for the support, they make sodding good flankers. The smoke grenade coupled with the faster movement means they are damn good at battlefield control.

 

[TheGM]

You forgot to speak in the third person.

Anyone got a spare support? I only have one and a zillion snipers and heavies. Alternative tactics for the support, they make sodding good flankers. The smoke grenade coupled with the faster movement means they are damn good at battlefield control.

When I feel like it. Then was not it.

Nor is now the time either.

Anybody got any heavies? other then the 1st guy I have only got one from a mission for the council. sure do like having 16 snipers on the bench and having to use shivs to fill the gap.

 

[aenemic]

I keep getting my ass handed to me in Classic. just failed my third game in a row. I may give up too easily, but losing an entire squad on the third mission and losing three countries on the second month just makes it feel pretty pointless.

as for soldiers and classes, is it completely random or are they assigned a class based on actions in some way? because I just keep getting snipers. and supports have been extremely rare in my last three games.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

It's pretty random.

Which is why I freaking love the New Guy upgrade at the training camp.

No having to take plain rookies into a fight anymore, just hire them and if they're not what I want, let em go.

Though, I did just lose a good Heavy and my best Support to a goddamn Sectopod.

Did not know they had a freaking AoE attack.

 

[FearMonkey]

I'm at the point where I don't customize my troops until they're promoted to Squaddie. It's taking me too long to come up with names. If I'm gonna lose on Ironman, I'd rather it happen quickly and not get drawn out because I'm wasting time customizing soldiers. Though of course that's the point. Getting attached and stuff. Oh well. Maybe once I finish an Ironman run I'll start customizing them right away again. *shrug*

 

[Surf Solar]

Anyone else annoyed by this?

The lines get seriously on my nerves over the time, especially since many voices sound very similar. It would be serious incline if Firaxis allowed for mod support to implement custom made shouts and soundpackages to be installed for the soldiers.

 

[TorontoReign]

http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/20...eview-that-took-18-years-to-write/#more-17616

Heh.

 

[Dead Guy]

Anyone else annoyed by this?

The lines get seriously on my nerves over the time, especially since many voices sound very similar. It would be serious incline if Firaxis allowed for mod support to implement custom made shouts and soundpackages to be installed for the soldiers.

I like the shit they say when it's loading and you get a shot of your squad in the dropship. My favourite:

"We are dropping near the German border."

Oh, ok. So, might be in the alps, might be like in Poland or it might be in Belgium, although the mission is clearly somewhere closer to Berlin.

Or: "We're dropping deep inside Nigerian territory"

So what? Is it harder to get there? Is Nigeria hostile to XCOM? Both these quotes make it sound like it's just a regular old nation vs nation wargame, kinda retarded.

 

[aenemic]

Anyone else annoyed by this?

The lines get seriously on my nerves over the time, especially since many voices sound very similar. It would be serious incline if Firaxis allowed for mod support to implement custom made shouts and soundpackages to be installed for the soldiers.

I like the shit they say when it's loading and you get a shot of your squad in the dropship. My favourite:

"We are dropping near the German border."

Oh, ok. So, might be in the alps, might be like in Poland or it might be in Belgium, although the mission is clearly somewhere closer to Berlin.

Or: "We're dropping deep inside Nigerian territory"

So what? Is it harder to get there? Is Nigeria hostile to XCOM? Both these quotes make it sound like it's just a regular old nation vs nation wargame, kinda retarded.

yeah, most of the quotes from the soldiers and the briefings sound like they're trying really hard to make it feel like a real war (and an awesome one), without having a clue about different expressions or terms. it feels pretty tacky.

but I couldn't care less. I'm not playing the game for memorable dialogue.

 

[TheGM]

I don't know where this small map shit is coming from. GM spent 20 minutes hunting down a Secotopod in the black forest. And GM doesn't really feel like scouring a county sized map in search of one lost alien. Fuck Bug hunts. So all those Small Map Cocksuckers can go bite a power outlet.

And what the fuck is up with Classic sometimes. All of a sudden every damn sectiod becomes Doc Holiday and blasts you from 200 yards away yet you can't hit shit if your life depended on it...and it does.....and you die.

 

[Alphadrop]

Classic adds mucho % to aliens aim and crit ratings because it likes you so much.
Remove it and Thin Men suddenly aren't @#&%ing frustrating anymore. Well less so... slightly.

Taking on da alien base, using nothing but 5 dudes and a robot I really want to rename. Worst enemy so far has been a ctd.

 

[FearMonkey]

Classic adds mucho % to aliens aim and crit ratings because it likes you so much.
Remove it and Thin Men suddenly aren't @#&%ing frustrating anymore. Well less so... slightly.

I understand it should be harder on Classic, and that's cool, but they really need to hotfix the accuracy of the Thin Men. They are just way too accurate from way too far a distance. My sniper wasn't even in range to hit one (was a Squaddie) yet the Thin Man could still hit her. And died. And she died painfully and horribly. They just need to tweak it just a tiny bit. Nothing extreme. Just so it's a *little* fair. :p

EDIT: The description of Classic mode is "Challenging but Fair". But it just doesn't seem that it's particularly "fair". :p

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I don't know where this small map shit is coming from. GM spent 20 minutes hunting down a Secotopod in the black forest. And GM doesn't really feel like scouring a county sized map in search of one lost alien. Fuck Bug hunts. So all those Small Map Cocksuckers can go bite a power outlet.

And what the fuck is up with Classic sometimes. All of a sudden every damn sectiod becomes Doc Holiday and blasts you from 200 yards away yet you can't hit shit if your life depended on it...and it does.....and you die.

Classic adds 10 aim to all aliens, making your average sectoid comparable to a sergeant.

Try making more use of heavy cover. That takes away 40 aim, 30 after modifiers.

Light cover only removes 20 aim, 10 thanks to the modifier.
Flanking is your friend. And explosives. Explosives make camping alien bastards sad.

Oh, and for the love of god, use smoke grenades! They are as important in the NG as they were in the OG.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Classic adds mucho % to aliens aim and crit ratings because it likes you so much.
Remove it and Thin Men suddenly aren't @#&%ing frustrating anymore. Well less so... slightly.

I understand it should be harder on Classic, and that's cool, but they really need to hotfix the accuracy of the Thin Men. They are just way too accurate from way too far a distance. My sniper wasn't even in range to hit one (was a Squaddie) yet the Thin Man could still hit her. And died. And she died painfully and horribly. They just need to tweak it just a tiny bit. Nothing extreme. Just so it's a *little* fair. :p

That would be because the thin man is armed with a Light Plasma Rifle, which gives +10 aim. In classic he effectively has +20 aim.
Which is indeed most insane.

I doubt they will fix it, sadly. That would either involve removing the +10 aim from LPR (making them useless compared to laser rifles) or removing the +10 classic modifier (which would be...unfair? Dodgey?)

 

[FearMonkey]

That would be because the thin man is armed with a Light Plasma Rifle, which gives +10 aim. In classic he effectively has +20 aim.
Which is indeed most insane.

I doubt they will fix it, sadly. That would either involve removing the +10 aim from LPR (making them useless compared to laser rifles) or removing the +10 classic modifier (which would be...unfair? Dodgey?)

Just giving them a +5 instead of +10 in Classic mode would solve the problem. I would hope it would be reasonable for them to fix that.