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Civilization V

14 (28%)

Jagged Alliance 2 1.13

26 (52%)

Some other idea (please post it in the thread)

2 (4%)

Play Apoc again and try not to embarrass yourself this time!

7 (14%)

Nothing. The LP was bad and you should feel bad.

1 (2%)

Total Members Voted: 50

[Fikes]

Welcome to MegaPrimus!

(Sorry about the boxes and cursors on the map)

First thing is first. I love X-Com. X-Com Apocalypse is the third out of 5 (soon to be 6) in the X-Com series. It is the last X-Com tactical strategy game.

This Let’s Play will be on the highest difficulty setting of Superhuman and will be played under “ironman” rules, meaning I will not save scum. What happens happens, with two exceptions. First, I won’t accept the loss of my Valkyie Interceptor. These bastards cost 75% of your starting budget to replace and as we will see, money is extremely tight. Instead, if my interceptor is shot down in UFO combat, I will load and leave it in the hanger.

Secondly, I will not accept the cheap ass move of a UFO blowing up my base and killing everyone inside. For reasons you’ll see in the first update, the base we have is extremely weak and prone to collapsing in devastating fashion. It is a cheap way to lose the game.

That being said, I do not expect to win. Money problems and the air superiority race will likely lead to our downfall.

But those problems are for later! Let’s get started!

Spoiler: Table of contents (click to show/hide)

Chapter 1: Prequel
Chapter 2: First battle and final setup
Chapter 3: When Aliens attack and the rest of Week 1
Chapter 4: The bigger war begins
Chapter 5: The clouds of war
Chapter 6: Sunny days ahead
Chapter 7: The beat goes on
Chapter 8: Club X-Com
Chapter 9: Entropy Blues
Chapter 10: A period of Calm
Chapter 11: Bankers, Bureaucrats, and the breach
Chapter 12: They can't afford us
Chapter 13: Groundhogs day
Chapter 14: Make a neat gun(for the people who are still alive)
Chapter 15: A Good case of gas
Chapter 16:Sacrifice

These numbers are updated once a week. Any trooper killed in action will be marked as KIA with his or her numbers from the previous Sunday saved. Troopers that last less than a week will be marked only as KIA.

All units on "Eternal Patrol" didn't make it back from the Alien dimension.

Code: [Select]

B12 Kill Board:
Name missions kills Improvement%/Status
Cpt. Timferius: 61 84 53% 4 medals - Eternal Patrol
S.L. Bulldogger: 20 25 29%   - Eternal Patrol
Sgt. Geener: 21 35 37%  - Eternal Patrol
Col. Nirur Torir: 70 182 69% Full Decorations
Cpt. GlyphGlyph: 63 148 70% Full Decorations
Sgt. Maxclone2: 60 96 37% Full Decorations
Sgt.Shadowgander: 36 63 59% 4 medals – Eternal Patrol
Sgt. IT-NET: 24 50 Robot 4 medals
S.L. 612-DWARF: 43 39 Robot 4 medals - Eternal Patrol
S.L. Sniper Joe: 36 32 Robot - Eternal Patrol
Sgt. DDR-RAM: 28 49 Robot – Eternal Patrol
Sgt. Kicior: 19 31 69% - Eternal Patrol
S.L. Jay Cin: 35 46 48% - Eternal Patrol
Sgt. Haspen: 22 40 42% - Eternal Patrol
Sgt. Miranda: 16 15 30%
Sgt. Jacen-BOT: 35 33 Robot - Eternal Patrol
Cpt. Aqizzar: 36 45 Robot
S.L. Sean Mirrsen: 50 29 26% - Eternal patrol
R. Eu-K-RJK-4: 2 4(honorary) 6% - Eternal patrol

S.L. ZombieBob: 19 27 38% - Eternal Patrol
S. Jacob/Lee: 2 3 7%
S. Cuckoo: 18 15 32%
Sgt. RAM: 8 23 KIA Week 3
Sgt. Maximumzero: 5 26 KIA Week 3
S.L. EuchreJack: 7 26 KIA Week 3
S.L. Biag: 5 14 KIA Week 3
S.L Rabbit Joe: 9 11 KIA Week 4
S.L. Bulldog: 3 7 KIA Week 6
S. Sheb: 3 14 KIA Week 7
Sgt. Geen: 26 52 KIA Week 7
S.L Jerick: 29 56 KIA Week 7
Sgt. Anja Gelena: 25 58 KIA Week 8
S. Sean Mirrsen: 4 5 KIA Week 8
Sgt. Eucherer: 13 13 KIA Week 14
BunnyBeth: KIA
Euch-R-Jane KIA
BunnyBob: KIA
Jacen: KIA

Bay12 bikersDisbanded:
Sean Mirrsen (KIA - Week 4)
Sheb (KIA - Week 3)

Edit: Last side note. I have the save game from the very begining, where all I have done is sold the cars. If anyone wants it, feel free to PM me. It is 1.8MB

[BunnyBob77]

Sound interesting.  I'll be following this.  Name a soldier after me!

[Nirur Torir]

This should be interesting, redshirt Nirur Torir reporting for bullet-absorption (and cultist-hating) duty.

I vote swarm craft. The bigger stuff's just too painful when lost.

[Biag]

Biag enlists!

I vote swarm craft, too. Hoverbike cloud!

[RAM]

I vote for hoverbikes for the first week, I recall losing entire swarms in a matter of moments against actual military craft, and unless we buy different weapons for them, they are likely to exhaust the know universes' supply of autocannon ammunition in the space of a few days... Having said that, I wouldn't touch hovercars with a pole of theoretically limitless length. They combine the wonderful features of exploding when merely glanced at by enemy craft, being incapable of avoiding anything unpleasant, and mounting a similar armament to the hoverbike. I suppose that you could try to design them as some sort of long-range bombardment vehicle, but even then they will drop like flies...

Sign up my first clone for duty! And collapse a building for me. I really do suspect that this game is the single greatest example of destructible environments that computer gaming has yet produced...

[Fikes]

Chapter 1: Prequel

Spoiler: What we have to work with (click to show/hide)

Here we see the headquarters of the group that is to save the world!


Uhh. Yeah. The government put us up in the slums. Cool huh? We’ll be lucky if the place stays together without any UFO fire! See why it is okay to save scum that rule?

The Slums are a bad part of town. Our neighbors quite literally include “A criminal syndicate with a particularly violent reputation” called Diablo and “the wealthiest criminal organization in the city”, known as Orison. Finally, and completing the triangle of violence and oppression is the third and poorest criminal faction which goes by the name of Psyke.
(Blurb on these groups and the political system a little later)
Since you can get several starting options for a base in Apoc you may wonder why I thought it was a good idea to shack up in a crumbling facade like this. The fact is I started over until I got this base for two reasons that won’t come into play for a few in game weeks, but I will explain them anyways.



This is the inside of our base. The layout here is the reason I picked this location. It provides us with two very important features; security and expansion.

On the security side, eventually we will get attacked either by aliens or by an enemy faction. Enemies can only enter through your access lift or your hanger, the area marked as 1. When you are attacked in Apoc, you have to protect your scientists as well as your base. Scientists will spawn either in labs or living quarters, places marked as area 2. Having a buffer zone will give them time to hide some place safe.

On the expansion side we will need 3 2x2 squares for advanced labs in a few weeks.  In area 3 you can see we have 1 set that is ready made and one that only requires a training facility to be moved. This will save us time and money.

One last thing to mention on this screen is how much money we have. $124,000. I sold off some useless equipment already. Don’t expect to see that number this high for a while.



Next up we have our starting units. I numbered them instead of named them so I could get a bit ahead while I waited for people to pick names. Here you also see our current air units, of which we have 3. The famed un-killable Interceptor and two Phoenix hover cars.

The Interceptor is pretty good; it can pack a punch and take a hit for the first few weeks. The cars are pretty weak, but useful.

Finally, we have research and manufacture.

In Apoc research is split in to two fields, biochemistry (researching biological noise like dead aliens) and quantum physics (researching things like ships and armor). In a crazy twist, biochemistry actually offers the best weapon, but we’ll get to that later.

Research works by picking a topic and applying skill points to it. The game doesn’t tell you how many skill points the research costs (or how often the points are applied) but it does give you a handy progress bar.



Since there are five slots in a small lab and the max skill is 100 simple math tells us that the “Total Skill” number should be somewhere around 500. Simple math tells us that our quantum physicists suck at their job.

Manufacturing works in much the same way. Once we have researched something we assign the engineering lab to build it. It costs a set number of skill points and the lab ticks away at a regular basis.

Spoiler: Setting the ground work (click to show/hide)

One thing you want to do right off the bat in Apoc is take advantage of any finite resource.  The most important ones are skilled personel, ammo, stun grenades, and medipacks.



Here you can see a solider I’d hire right off the bat. In my opinion, the most important stats are accuracy, strength, and stamina. Every trooper we hire into our ranks will shoot things, run around, and wear heavy armor. Ergo, accuracy strength, and stamina are important.



Next up we have a unit that looks way better. The accuracy and reactions are much higher and it’s psi-defense is off the charts. The reason is, this unit is a cyborg. They are kind of a trade off. They start out great but don’t get better, that is the only way they are different. Still an instant hire.

In all I hired three soldiers and 1 quantum physicist. As a general rule I only replace crappy egg heads with others who are over 90 skill. Once everyone is over 90 I replace them if I can justify the cost.

The next finite resource we need to think about is weapons and ammo. The economy in Apoc works in ways that will totally fuck you up. Stocks get replenished once a week, so if you have a favorite gun you use for every mission every time, expect to be short on ammo by the end of the week.

For that reason it is very important to plan ahead. Some guns have specific situations where they are important, others are just cheap and effective. I plan to stock pile both types.



What we have here is all of the ground equipment we own (that isn’t equipped) and the current standard unit load out. This is how we will be going into battle for the next few days…
And speaking of battle…



Aliens have been spotted in a warehouse belonging to our bestest buds the government!

Next time on Iron Man Apoc: Battle!

[Fikes]

While I wait for names and junk to roll in, there are a few things I wanted to explain.

Spoiler: Apoc Political System (click to show/hide)

Apoc came out in a mostly complete state. Part of what didn’t make it in the game was a fully fleshed out political system.

In a nut shell, there are 26 different groups in the game that like/hate you/each other. Occasionally they will send heavily armed troops to raid the people they don’t like, including X-Com. If they do raid our base and kill all of our troops, we lose.

They will also occasionally attack the building of their rivals with vehicles. Because we are in that triangle of hate, there is a good chance we will catch a rocket once in a while, but it isn’t anything to worry about. Our base is structurally sound, right? Right…? (crickets)

There are five levels of relations you can have with any organization. Allied, friendly, neutral, unfriendly, and enemy. It is important to stay friendly with some of these groups; it is impossible with others. It is rumored that allied relations will net you some benefits, for example, keeping the gangsters happy is supposed to get you more recruits. I have no way of knowing if this is true or not. What I do know is unfriendly relations with some groups have an immediate negative impact.

On the flip side, we can go raid unfriendly organizations as well. This serves two purposes. First it costs them money when we damage their building and secondly it nets us money when we steal their stuff. It is really hard to tell what impact zero monies has on the enemy organizations beyond the fact that they will rebuild their building more slowly when they are poor. I enhanced the truth when I said there were two reasons to raid people. The third and most important reason is that it is a hell of a lot of fun to use those rocket launchers that generally just gather dust.

The problem with this whole system is that your relations to a group are very unpredictable. There is no way of knowing how much damage you can cause on tactical missions without taking a relations hit and there is no obvious way to improve relations without just giving the faction money. All in all the system is convoluted to say the least.

One thing I know for sure is we can make nice with one group of thugs by making mean with another. We will probably do this… later.

Spoiler: Meet our neighbors (click to show/hide)

I mentioned them in the prequel, but here is their actual information







With keen wizard eyes you might be able to read that Psyke is supposed to have made the psiclone implant. All gangers have them in their base. They are a good reason to go to war, but will talk about them later.

You can also see each organization’s cash on hand and income. These numbers will go negative pretty quick, but again, it is hard to see any in game impact.

One thing that has a huge impact on the game is that little number off to the left called “Alien infiltration”. If that number reaches 100% the organization is hostile to you for the rest of the game.

One of the most dangerous situations in this game is when aliens attack a hostile organization and you have to decide if you want to go after the aliens. On one side, it is bad when any organization gets taken over, on the other side, the organization will still shoot at you.

One final thing to mention about these three is that they tend to carry around rocket launchers when you piss them off. Rocket launchers are something you learn to dread. They are one of the few (the only?) human guns that can one shot your armored units.

Spoiler: Meet our friends (click to show/hide)

These guys pay the bills. Their description says they cover mass transit (never noticed that) but it is bullshit. I only wish they did. They really are the most important organization in the game (other than us! ) and if they get taken over our income will be zero.



Megapol takes the place of the police in Apoc. When UFO’s show up they’ll send out crappy meatshield hover craft to help out. Completely ineffective after the first week, but every little bit helps.

More importantly, however, Megapol makes weapons.



If they go hostile, we will no longer have access to anything they make. You can see on that screen that there are other weapon manufacturers, but only 1 manufacturer for each item. Mega-Primus never heard of anti-trust lawsuits  .

I’ll be introducing each faction as they come up, to protect against wall-o-text sickness.

Back to the game at hand, names have been added. I tried to match everyone to their gender. Biag didn’t have one listed and we are short of females so Biag is a woman warrior. Since RAM didn’t suggest a name, I used the name RAM. Since RAM is a computer do-jobber he is our Cyborg. RAM missed out on the first mission.

I won’t be posting any pictures of your guys directly, unless they live long enough to earn a place in my heart or we have a slow news day.

[Fikes]

I did not mean to tripple post, the battle got in the way. Future updates will be longer.

Chapter 2: First battle and final setup.

Spoiler: First battle! (click to show/hide)

Every new game of Apoc has an early easy mission. I didn’t intend for this to happen so quick, but while I was waiting for our equipment to pour in it popped up, so we take a quick rabbit trail to kick some tail!

As a side note, I will only be writing about battles that are important or particularly strategically brilliant. I’ll write about this one to give everyone a taste of how I play. I’ve given the order and the interceptor has landed at the warehouse…

There is no going back now…


Unless we click no.

(but we don’t)

First thing to do in tactical battles (after you pick real time) is to set up our squads. Three pre squad is where I like to stay. With 4 they will end up standing in front of and shooting eachother.


Shown: Woman warrior takin the lead!



Here we have a pretty standard start to a battle. Squads go out and cover the most likely attack routes. Then they wait. Apoc has less of a pressing time requirement than UFO Defense. Aliens don’t really seem to target civilians and you don’t seem to lose any points when civilians die. Because of that, we can afford to sit tight, ready to pounce. The aliens, however, don’t show. So we go looking.

It doesn’t take long.



And we have our first alien contact.

Meet: the Antropod.

These guys are general foot soldiers of the alien menace. They can equip any item in the alien arsenal and use them better than any other species (at least in my opinion). They can take a pretty good beating too.

Right now, instead of using guns that shoot frickin’ laser beams, they are using big ugly guns that shoot these bastards:

Meet: The brain sucker.

These guys are and always will be extremely dangerous. If we lose anyone in the first week it is most likely from these bastards. They work by jumping on your head and… get this… sucking your brain! IKR? While one of these punks is on a soldier’s head he cannot shoot, meaning someone else has to kill the sucker for him. You know that stupid gnome that says “Never roam alone”? This is why.

If you fail to kill the sucker (lawls) it will take control of your unit and they will fight for the alien side. This is a bad news double whammy. The worst part is no armor or (much later) shields protect you from them.

If you look at the screen shot, you can see we are in an extremely dangerous position. Two out of three of our units are being attacked by brain suckers. Chances are one of our guys will die.

There is only 1 good option for this situation.

Pull the pin and pray.

Meet: The stun grenade!

The stun grenade is an amazing weapon and integral to many of my strategies. Expect to hear about it again.

When you set a stun grenade to go off in 0.25 seconds, there is a good chance it will knock out the brain sucker before he sucks you dry. Bunnybob nearly got big props for executing this move in a dangerous situation.



Nearly. The down side of this move is that often it results in your men going unconscious. In this case the sucker on Nirur’s head was killed before the sucker landed on Biag’s head. As a result Nirur ends up KO’ed and Biag and Bunny end up fleeing.

Win some lose some…



This is a tactical map you can pull up. When fights are dangerous I spend most of my time here. You can see the red pentagons towards the right. They are the enemies. This is what the battle field looked like before the nasty double whammy sucker attack.

While squad one waits for Nirur to wake up, squad 2 goes down to the basement and finds and eliminates 3 brain suckers with ease.


In spite of his over eagerness, Bunny bob was promoted to squadie. Also note “5” was promoted. That could be you! Join the resistance today!
 

Spoiler: Back to Base-icks (yuk yuk) (click to show/hide)

Our “basic setup” phase was interrupted when I foolishly let time advance, so we’ll go back to that now and a big part of that is the base remodel.

Remember the reasons I picked this location? It is time to start thinking about them. That means clearing out room for our 3 labs and security stations.

Whether we want to pursue it or not, right now the psi-gym is a waste and it needs to be removed. We’d have to remove it either way, as that is an import point for a security station. Sooner the better I say!

Additionally the stores right above it needs to go to. We don’t really need two stores (capacity is at 47% with only one) and, again, it is the location of a future security station.

The next facility change is a little more tricky. We need to move the living quarters that is smooshed between the access lift and the hanger. This is a terrible position and will lead to many dead egg heads if it is allowed to remain.

The problem is our living capacity is at 97%. That means we can’t just tear it down and build another; we have to pre build its replacement. Not only that, but 97% means we only have room for 1 more unit and we are going to need many more than that. So we are going to have to build TWO living quarters.

The problem is. Where do they go? We have to plan for our large labs and we don’t want to put ourselves in a position of building something just to bring it back down. This requires careful planning!



We already have the blue areas pegged as security center locations and the yellows planned as large labs. That leaves 1 2x2 square for the final lab.

The best place for the last lab is in area 1, this would only require us to move the alien containment building. We can move it into 2, 3, 4, or 5 without any issue. 5 is probably the best for it since no egg heads should hang out there. Since we want living quarters as far away from entry points as possible, we’ll put them in 2 and 3. Finally, we’ll move the training area to number 4. I’ve never used paint to help plan my base before. Now I wish I had! It makes life easy!



And here is X-Com HQ. Currently under construction. Please excuse our dust! Note our money has dropped quite a bit.

On the vehicle side, I went ahead and took everyone’s advice. Selling my 2 hover cars and buying 3 turbo bikes. This only netted me 600 bucks, but money is money.

I gave them all the best engines they can run, light weapon controls for added accuracy, and stocked up on ammo for them.


Shown: Hover bike setup.

With our vehicles squared away and our base under construction we are positioned to meet the alien menace head on.

Next time on Ironman Apocalypse: UFO Showdown!

[Thexor]

Sounds like fun! I recently remembered I got Apoc from a Steam sale and started a game, but I'm a pathetic coward and picked "Easy". Let's see what Superhuman is like!

Incidentally, one thing I did read was the details of the political system. The basic idea is simple: You attack/damage somebody, they dislike you. All of their friends also dislike you. And all of their enemies like you.

So, if you want to make someone happy (and don't want to bribe them), you have to attack one of their enemies. Of course, figuring out who likes who is not exactly easy, outside the obvious ones of "Cops dislike gangs" and "gangs dislike each other".

Protip: the infamous Transtellar starts out liking the aliens, which is why they quickly start getting grumpy with you - every time you handle an alert, that counts as 'attacking an ally' of theirs. 


(Also, the wiki suggests that the Grav Ball League, not the gangs, add additional human recruits when they like you. So don't blow up sports stadiums!)

[Itnetlolor]

Why not?

* IT-NET-101-0R enlists

Guess what I want to enlist as?

[Nirur Torir]

I consider any outcome involving myself unconscious rather then brainsucked and shot to be a good one. I use stun grenades similarly, but it amuses me to have brainsucker targets drop their own stun grenades just before the alien lands. Perhaps not tactically sound as a first resort, but amusing.

I should play this again, and see if I can convince the aliens to shoot buildings to get X-Com lots of allies.

[Fikes]

I consider any outcome involving myself unconscious rather then brainsucked and shot to be a good one. I use stun grenades similarly, but it amuses me to have brainsucker targets drop their own stun grenades just before the alien lands. Perhaps not tactically sound as a first resort, but amusing.

I should play this again, and see if I can convince the aliens to shoot buildings to get X-Com lots of allies.

Badbunny was the only ont having a brain sucker jumping at him and he dropped the nade. It is never a first resort but I was convinced we were going to have 2 out of 3 unable to shoot. That would have been a death for sure. It is such dangerous timing. Some times even when you are on top of things the sucker wins the race.

Sounds like fun! I recently remembered I got Apoc from a Steam sale and started a game, but I'm a pathetic coward and picked "Easy". Let's see what Superhuman is like!

Incidentally, one thing I did read was the details of the political system. The basic idea is simple: You attack/damage somebody, they dislike you. All of their friends also dislike you. And all of their enemies like you.

So, if you want to make someone happy (and don't want to bribe them), you have to attack one of their enemies. Of course, figuring out who likes who is not exactly easy, outside the obvious ones of "Cops dislike gangs" and "gangs dislike each other".

Protip: the infamous Transtellar starts out liking the aliens, which is why they quickly start getting grumpy with you - every time you handle an alert, that counts as 'attacking an ally' of theirs. 


(Also, the wiki suggests that the Grav Ball League, not the gangs, add additional human recruits when they like you. So don't blow up sports stadiums!)

The basics of the system are simple, but it is hard to track down particulars. For example, if UFO's blow up the sports stadium, does that increase my relations, because now Grav Ball League hates them, or decrease them, because I didn't protect the building? On the tactical side, is it my score that determines if I get a relations bump or some formula for how much damage was caused to the building? Who knows?

I am not going to look very deep into it, simply because I know these things have a pretty minor impact on the game. I can make nice with a group and then accidently destory their building, now they are PISSSST! Even if I do manage to get all chummy with someone, the slight bonuses it gives me have never been noticeable.

I have a feeling the "Meet Transteller" introduction is coming very soon, but I don't want to ruin it. If you look at the first post and know about the game, you get a hint.

Finally, this is my first LP. If you have suggestions, let me know.

[Julius Clonkus]

The political system is really screwed up in this game. I recall reading about a playthrough where alien-inflicted collaterral damage managed to bring the Cult of Sirius to friendly terms with X-COM.

So, you might want to keep a few craft parked in Transtellar buildings (especially that huge piece of target practice that is their Space Port) and have them set to fly at low altitude. If you're lucky, the xeno scum will do things that fix Transtellar's opinion of them.

[RAM]

I believe that a hoverbike can mount a lineage plasma cannon, but the autocannon looks to have very impressive damage in its own right and is cheaper...

I am enjoying the L.P. so far, the biggest fun-killer of all is the author getting burned-out, so try to minimise things that feel like chores and don't be afraid to throw up your arms and say "These spectators are boring, I am going to do this the fun way!". On the critical front, some of those pictures may be quite resource intensive, I don't know what modern internet forum picture etiquette is, but keeping the file sizes below a megabyte may be a good guide-line. On the other hand, I really wouldn't know...
On the topic of pictures though, I do like their current size...

Also, double-posting in your own L.P. is very forgivable.

[BunnyBob77]

I'm really liking the LP.  You're doing a good job of explaining game mechanics, and I liked how you're showing a lot of different things.  Keep up the good work!