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[Rolan7]

I have admittedly never actually played a vanilla oldcom campaign, hah. Crazy, I know.

Original OldCom is so bizarre, especially from a perspective of X-Piratez and similar mods.

It's actually sorta easy, to be honest, but mostly due to the jank:

Every unit has perfect squadsight and no range penalty to accuracy, sorta.  It's more complicated than that, but basically your veterans can snipe across the map with standard laser rifles

Laser weapons have infinite ammo, but you get enough plasma ammo that it's really up to you whether you stick with lasers or switch to plasma.  Lasers will help against a specific terror unit which resists plasma

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sectopods

But that's almost irrelevant because human psionics are broken as hell.  Though to be fair, so are alien psionics.  The alien psykers get squadsight too and no distance penalties AFAIK, so they will happily mind control your dude with a rocket launcher while you're still in the Skyranger if one of their grunts spots them.

Edit:  We complain about the Airbus's windows, but leaving the skyranger without a smoke bomb is a rookie move.  But you DO want to leave turn 1, usually, because it's a killing floor otherwise

Corollary, you can do exactly the same to then, and I've defeated Cydonia by having a S̷̢̧͇̹̑̀́̇͒̅̑̊̓̕͝t̶̡̛̻̱͚̤̝̩̐̀́̒͋̂̈́̊̿̅̚͝ą̴̝̥̫̹̘̩̓͝ŗ̴̣͈̠̖͎̳̓͘ ̶̧̡̛̗͖̺̤͎̄́͋̈́͗̾͌̏͆̓͘͠G̴̡͓̯̼̲̤̝̦͙̐̈́̎͆ͅô̵̡̥̣̗̱͎̗̹̻̼̠͊̿̏̎͜͜͝ͅd̷̟͕͖͉̭̟̆͒̈́̈́̇̓͝ shoot the objective in turn one through chaining mind-control.
Mm.  We are the knights of Cydonia~

I'm looking forward to more information about them in X-Piratez.  So far I know that they reached Mars, from ancient-logs I received in-game but I'm being careful other than that.

Also the economy is 100% broken.  You can print money almost instantly, and massively once you research craft lasers.  So it's mostly a matter of not losing ALL your crew on a given mission.  Score matter more- it's harder to keep positive than (early) X-Piratez.  If you dally, nations will get infiltrated.  But the game is pretty short if you know what you're doing.

Terror From The Deep is... more difficult.  And deeply disturbing.  And has a lot of X-Piratez liner missions, but without the allies.
It actually unnerves me.
The typical line is "It seems harder because the original game was broken such that Beginner was the only difficulty (after loading your game)", but no, it's also just harder.  and in a meta way, it also has some potential game-breaking bugs in the tech tree.

[ZebioLizard2]

I thought the typical line was "They didn't realize there was a bug about difficulty, and thus overcompensated and made it massively harder".

[Rolan7]

That's what people say, yeah.  I'm skeptical.

[E. Albright]

The bug part is definitely true.

Difficulty Bug

The DOS version has a problem where no matter what difficulty level you choose, it will revert to "Beginner" level after the first mission. This is caused by one incorrectly set bit in all DOS versions of the game (1.0 through to 1.4). The Collectors Edition Windows port (also commonly known as UFO Gold or CE) does not have this problem. To check your Difficulty Level:

• Look at offset 60 in IGLOB.DAT. (If this file is only 60 bytes long, you've got the bug!)
• Look at statistics for aliens in your game with a Mind Probe or Psi-Amp

To fix the Difficulty Bug, you can install XcomUtil and it will repair this bug. Alternately for those familiar with hex editing, you can fix this bug by referring to the appropriate section on the GEOSCAPE.EXE article and manually setting the incorrect byte to its proper value.

This TVTropes page has been known to state that due to the bug, players asked the developers to increase game difficulty. The rumour goes that a new bug was supposedly introduced as a result, where TFTD's difficulty would reset to Superhuman instead of Beginner. The facts of the matter are that, while the overall difficulty of the game was increased, TFTD does manage to correctly keep track of which specific mode you're supposed to be playing in.

It's possible the difficulty was ramped up due to player feedback WRT UFO:EO's bug, but honestly, it's probably more likely that TftD being developed by a new team who rushed it out the door was the cause for the wildly harder difficulty.

[Aoi]

I went through the original X-Com at the middle difficulty a few... Years ago at this point, after a lot of X-Piratez, and found it to be downright boring, from a tactical standpoint. Basic leapfrogging was sufficient for survival beyond untrained starter squads, and later on, launching an explosion around blind corners to try and pull things in safety.

Having said that, I did rack up a lot of deaths towards the end because I got sick of methodically advancing around the map for fifteen minutes trying to find the last survivor, so I had a poor grunt just sprint around at full speed to search, often catching a grenade to the face for their efforts.

[GiglameshDespair]

Yeah. Unfortunately the far more limited progression and reduced variety for OG oldcom make it pretty much a solved puzzle for me at this point.

[Robsoie]

beginner difficulty was still killing your squaddie that's probably why none really noticed that the original game difficulty always reverted back to Beginner

xcom1 being more simple in term of researches and equipment also makes the game a lot more fast paced than the various megamods
Though the fast pacing makes it so you very quickly reach the better weapons and make previous one completely obsolete.
So basically you rush toward laser and never look back because laser is much better anyways.

Then you rush to plasma or you blaster launcher anything and you don't use laser anymore (even for sectopod, you just blaster launcher them  )
For armor the simplicity also lead to the same progression, you just research better armor and never use the previous one anymore.

But that faster pace and simpler gameplay can also be a lot of fun this way.

I still have some screenshot of my last xcom1 victory on Beginner difficulty, i didn't go for mind control, i had too much fun with the blaster launcher

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The landing on Cydonia


After clearing the surface, going all in into the enemy lair


The enemy huge brain leader attempt to negociate, but as said blaster launcher is so much fun.


Victory stats


160 squaddies died to save the world this time, as said as long as you don't do save scumming the beginner difficulty has no problems killing your troops

For people that wants to replay old xcom1 but would like some more content like they are used to with the various megamods, there's the "Final Mod Pack" or the "Hardmode Expansion" that are supposed to keep old xcom1 gameplay while expanding it with more content. Never played any of them personnaly so can't recommend either.

xcom2 , well TFTD , i didn't liked it, i have so many memories of the cruiser boat mission that was just completely unfun. Too bad, the underwater missions added some new gameplay but overall xcom1 was the much better game

[Rolan7]

I really enjoyed XCOMUTIL for a while there.  It fixed a couple bugs, optionally rebalanced the heavy laser to actually be an option, and most interestingly: could randomize UFO interiors.  I don't think that's technically possible with OpenXCOM mods (though nothing's preventing the XCOMUTIL method of directly futzing with the data files pre-launch).  It was impressive because interiors remained "solvable", though some of the corner cases really showcased the strange bugs of the engine.  IIRC, it was possible to shoot through NW-SE corner walls or something like that.

I think it even had an option to nerf the Laser Cannon sale value so money remained tighter.  And could rename soldiers to show their skill levels.  Interesting modset.

[Robsoie]

There are several of the excellent xcomutils features that can be enabled in the mods menu when you play xcom1 with openxcom/oxce unfortunately no random interior.

[Dostoevsky]

xcom1 being more simple in term of researches and equipment also makes the game a lot more fast paced than the various megamods
Though the fast pacing makes it so you very quickly reach the better weapons and make previous one completely obsolete.
So basically you rush toward laser and never look back because laser is much better anyways.

This is the big reason I don't feel particularly compelled to go back and give OG-com a go. Early game in XPZ (and now x-com files) are kind of what I like the most. Having limited acquisitions, scrounging for weapons and ammo, and the more limited scale conflicts I find pretty neat.

X-Com Files also does a good job of significantly limiting craft reach, so that multiple groups of forces becomes more valuable.

[Robsoie]

From what i read, one of the main author (as there were several) of the "Final Mod Pack" i mentionned is the same guy as the author of X-Com Files

My current project, The X-Com Files, a successor to the Final Mod Pack, is much bolder with the changes.

So maybe it could be to your liking if you want one day to try to play xcom1 , i often read people loving this final mod pack.
But after playing xpiratez, 40k/rosigma or xcom files it's hard to get back into vanilla xcom1.

[Robsoie]

Got an alert about guardsmen deserter hideout.
While it seemed simple, i decided to use my best MK7 assault armored space marines in their Drop Pods.

Things started well, one of my guy killed 2 traitor guardsmen and a traitor orgryn in a same turn with his mighty chainsword (i found that melee is not that bad finally, the difficulty is to make sure you have enough TU left after sprinting to an enemy, going with Assault Strategy is good, as the MK7 Assault Armor has +20 TU ).

Until we ran into some hooded woman that was wielding a meltagun, and wounded one of my SM.
Said SM that on my turn ran to her and hacked her in half with his chainsword, and instead of dying the enemy revealed its true form, a "Neverborn".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's annoying when those normal looking enemy respawn into a more powerful enemy on their death as they then are back at full health, ignoring all the damage it took in its previous form, Rosigma has a lots of such enemies that transform on death.

Having never heard about "Neverborn" before i googled a bit and apparently it's one of the name given to "Chaos Daemon" , and from the wiki a Neverborn

is an intelligent and usually malevolent entity of the Warp comprised of purely psychic energy. Daemons are sentient embodiments of Chaos and collectively the greatest servants of the Chaos Gods and of Chaos itself as a universal force.

Not knowing exactly what this thing power level was, but that wiki description made it sounds as if it was -very- bad news, i sent 5 of my assault space marines to hack at it with their chainswords.
First turn of the melee and the thing survived without any open bleeding wound !
Then he moved a bit away and shot (looking at its picture i thought he had a melee weapon but apparently it can do ranged attacks) some bizarro missile that one-hit killed 3 of my MK7 armored space marines !

Second turn i managed to move a few more space marines to help trying to chainsword that thing to death and finally the 2nd round ended with the Neverborn still alive (but at least it was now bleeding, though not sure how serious the bleeding was)

Then on his turn... the thing died from the blood loss. Phew, it was already a massive loss to lose 3 Assault Armors (as if you lose a SM , the armor is lost with him) but i was fearing even more death and destruction.

Spoiler: sadly one of the loss was a hero (click to show/hide)

that had enough kills to be eligible for Terminator armor once i would have got some, a big loss.

decided to check once back in the base

Spoiler: researched the corpse (click to show/hide)

Next mission we shot down an enemy ufo, i decided to send my team B to the crash site with my less good (but still competent) space marines in their Rhino.
Uh oh, looks like a bunch of chaos space marines, they're though but i have a bunch of SM in their MK7 tactical armor so things should be even

checked the couple of nearby enemies to see what kind of weaponry they had.

Spoiler: oh crap, they're not normal chaos space marines at all (click to show/hide)

Let's say things really didn't go well at all, especially as the many terminators utterly destroyed both my Rhino big usefull machineguns on the first turn, and proved that their terminator armors are indeed extremely resistant and their weaponry extremely strong.
Another loss of several MK7 armor (though Tactical this time, not Assault), damn.

[Dostoevsky]

Neverborn go down very quick to flamers / fire, but are incredibly resistant to most other armament. Nasty things.

[Robsoie]

Ah so that was that monster that i had mentionned previously without knowing which one it was :

Apparently there's mention of a monster that is extremely resistant to both bullets and lasers, but not to fire, so make sure to always have some flamers around, and flamers are awesome anyways, got a triple kill combo in the same shot recently with a scout and a flamer

I didn't thought it was this one and that it would spawn before i researched the chapter 2 of the progression (the "mid-tier" research), but after all i got a bnch of chaos terminator after that, so it seems the game difficulty decided to progress even without me researching that specific research.

Looks like i'll have to do that research as while it's supposed to increase the difficulty with the stronger baddies coming, they're already there anyways, but the research will also unlock a bunch of better weapons (and hopefully terminator armor too)

[Robsoie]

Looks like the game just wanted me to lose again, it didn't even let me finish the Mid Tier research that i noticed a large ufo roaming around my sector.
It landed at some distance, but i had not enough healthy troop to spare and try an assault, would have been ridiculous to even try.

I was waiting for more troops to heal when that large ship instead of leaving the area suddenly decided to ram straight into my base.

So let's see what we have there by sending a scout for recon the enemy that is breaching my walls ...  a chaos traitor ! ah so that must be a bunch of chaos space marines, should be a challenge but i believe my troops can prevail, we have a lot of MK7 armored people carrying a big gun.
Oh, that's not all there are a bunch more enemies this way, oh damn my scout just got killed by enemy reaction fire, but what he reported was that in fact there was only a few regular chaos space marines ... the heavy majority of the enemies were chaos terminators, more than a dozen of those guys !

Spoiler: And because it was not insane enough, i even spotted a few of those (click to show/hide)

... you must kidding me game ... 

Spoiler: my troops really tried to put a resistance (click to show/hide)

But the difference in power between Terminators + Obliterators vs regular Assault Space Marines was incredibly obvious (many of my MK7 armored guys were just one shot) , still some chaos terminators went down in heavy melee fights (supported by some heavy bolters)

And remember Gratia Oriorax, not only she is an anomaly in a space marine chapter by being an actual woman space marine, but she managed to take down (though many flamers and other space marines died wounding that beast in succession) an Obliterator !

Spoiler: gracias for your work, Gratia (click to show/hide)

But all those actions of bravery were not enough (especially as a few space marines went crazy/traitors and shot their own brethen, and one even tried to run away, looks like they are so in need of space marines that cowards are allowed )

Spoiler: and so the base fell (click to show/hide)