Seriously, that page is an astounding design.
To its credit, it does specifically only make you choose the year of your birthday- acknowledging that the gate is really an honor pledge.
But then, all it tells you is that Long War is coming. Then links to the main site...
yeah, that information definitely needed to be agelocked
On the previous note, I'm not making proper use of the experimental grenades and equipment... Which is probably why the Archon Ruler is currently kicking my ass despite several reloads, on easy. Spires of Obliteration or whatever is pretty fucking OP if you don't have cheese to counter it, since you literally don't get the opportunity to move away- it's PRETTY UNINTUITIVE, in my defense
NewCOM 1 was only moderately challenging on normal. I appreciate the added depth of NewCOM 2, but the fucking Avatar Project leaves even less room for failure than NewCOM 1.
Actually, realtalk. I think X-COM (OldCOM) really did that better, in that you could literally get wiped on missions pretty often, and it didn't mean that much. There was no accumulating endgame timer, and enemy advancements were partially tied to your own research progress. You could grind out a success with massive losses, by re-attempting missions until you won.
In NewCOM 1&2, that's not possible. You need to have a certain level of game mastery, or INEVITABLY fail.
Not to say either is better! I do love NewCOM. It added a *lot*, and is so much easier to play. I only wish it was possible to have a glorious, BLOODY war against the aliens. It promises that, but in fact... if you're losing soldiers, you're playing wrong. And that's a shame.