]My successful run was in South America. The reason was that you need a really successful start to succeed on classic iron man or you're completely boned. So everything I did was to maximize that.
I would take 2 rookies on every mission. Get as many squaddies as I could. All the way till I got the OTS second final level thing where everyone would be a squaddie. This way if anyone dies I still have useful soldiers instead of a handful of crappy morons with no skills.
I rushed to laser weapons before all else. So that means capturing a sectoid for the boost. Getting two labs, etc. I'm not sure how to optimize that but that's what I went for. My rookie survivability rate went through the roof the moment I got those.
Yeah, the death rate killed me, I think. I took some stupid risks in the earlier missions, and lost guys to it - then had wounded/dead, and was sending out rookie squads. That's a definite no-go.
I'm doing another run (Classic Ironman), and doing the tutorial. It's really almost a cheater start instead of going straight into the game...
Con: Limited to NA or Europe starting base, and all the time spent doing what you're told (and
only what you're told) to do.
Pro: Free squaddie from the first mission, 2nd mission got me two more (and the aliens never hit; might have been the RNG), abduction mission rewards, free satellite, and I've just started the first shot-down UFO mission. Bonus xp from the early missions, and bonus research time & materials from the first couple of missions.
Yes, you do indeed get a free satellite on Classic Ironman from doing the tutorial. I did not get one on my previous (non-tutorial) Classic Ironman.