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[Domenique]

One of the only things I liked from the Xcom shooter was the fact that you could walkthrough your base. I think it would be cool to see scientists dissecting chyssilids, and engineer's building hover tanks. I also hope they give you the option of giving bases unique defences, like automated turrets or some such.

Now that I think of it, being able to fly an interceptor would be cool

There's a game for that.

[Virex]

One thing I never liked about X-com and I hope they solve in this game, is that the alien tactics feel heads-on retarded. No one invading Earth would start by dropping a few light units hither and thither (except for scouting parties maybe, but then they should be attacking military complexes and not civilian areas). They would start by shoving regiments of Chrysalids down your throat. Any self-respecting force would have control over Earth in a matter of hours. Maybe the first few missions would be against scouting parties, but by the 5th mission you should realy be expecting orbital bombardments instead of laser fire.

[Cthulhu]

You have to make some concessions to realism in order to make a game that's fun and functional. 

1.  Aliens are just that, alien.  Their behavior seems retarded and inexplicable to us, but that's because they're operating on a completely different psychological wavelength.  They have motives we can't fathom.  What we think of as strange and unintuitive may be axiomatic to them.  Maybe that's why we won, because we were the first race they found that wasn't vulnerable to whatever they hell they were doing.

2.  If you want to be all Ricky Realism, look at the way technology has advanced on Earth.  It's not linear, it's exponential.  The odds of meeting aliens within 5000 years of us technologically are basically zero, and if they're travelling through space to reach us there's only one way that discrepancy can go.  A real war against aliens would be less Independence Day and more burning ants with a magnifying glass, and we're the ants.

[Nelia Hawk]

One thing I never liked about X-com and I hope they solve in this game, is that the alien tactics feel heads-on retarded. No one invading Earth would start by dropping a few light units hither and thither (except for scouting parties maybe, but then they should be attacking military complexes and not civilian areas). They would start by shoving regiments of Chrysalids down your throat. Any self-respecting force would have control over Earth in a matter of hours. Maybe the first few missions would be against scouting parties, but by the 5th mission you should realy be expecting orbital bombardments instead of laser fire.

somehow this sounds alot like that space game AI:WAR ...

-humans own alot planets and sectors.
-AI goes rampant and captures everything
-humans hide/keep one sector secure
-uphill battle from one sector against a alot stronger enemy.
-fighting in places that you can win and ignoreing places that are too strong.
-destroying the ai cores to win.

in ufo:
-humans own all provinces of earth.
-in a matter of hours aliens invade and capture or terraform most of earth.
-humans are enslaved, made to meat balls, whats left of the goverments agree to build up a military in one half secure sector.
-uphill battle against tons of highly advance tech aliens.
-fighting in places you can win... helping civillians where possible... and ignoreing the forts and too strong defended places at the beginning.
-destroying the mother brain/warpgates/make anti-alien-virus/whatever endgoal to "win" against the aliens... (maybe as win you abandon earth with whatever survivors you could get (that sounds like a zombie survival game now, avoid large zombie masses, rescue survivors, build bases...) and fly off with some selfmade ufo to another planet... where in a sequal you might enounter different aliens and fight agaisnt them... and in another sequal humans+new aliens come back to earth and fight to get the planet back.)

hmm that last sentence with "get back to earth" makes me curious how the air/space battles will look like in the new game... alot potential for good looking battles.

[Jake]

2.  If you want to be all Ricky Realism, look at the way technology has advanced on Earth.  It's not linear, it's exponential.  The odds of meeting aliens within 5000 years of us technologically are basically zero, and if they're travelling through space to reach us there's only one way that discrepancy can go.  A real war against aliens would be less Independence Day and more burning ants with a magnifying glass, and we're the ants.

Not necessarily. Technology isn't the be-all and end-all of winning a war, not matter how great the disparity. Logistics come into it as well; It's a long trip between Earth and their forward operating base on Mars, much less wherever their homeland may be, and the invaders have a finite amount of manpower and equipment. There's also a limit to what they can throw around in the way of nukes or RKVs if they want a planet they can use afterwards.

[LoSboccacc]

One thing I never liked about X-com and I hope they solve in this game, is that the alien tactics feel heads-on retarded. No one invading Earth would start by dropping a few light units hither and thither (except for scouting parties maybe, but then they should be attacking military complexes and not civilian areas). They would start by shoving regiments of Chrysalids down your throat. Any self-respecting force would have control over Earth in a matter of hours. Maybe the first few missions would be against scouting parties, but by the 5th mission you should realy be expecting orbital bombardments instead of laser fire.

There was an almost reasonable in game explanation: they started slowly because they are avoiding a frontal assault with military forces that allegedly vastly outnember them.

After they meet xcom resistence, they ally with earth nations creating alien bases. That is only possible because they did not went on a killing spree

[a1s]

One thing I never liked about X-com and I hope they solve in this game, is that the alien tactics feel heads-on retarded. No one invading Earth would start by dropping a few light units hither and thither (except for scouting parties maybe, but then they should be attacking military complexes and not civilian areas). They would start by shoving regiments of Chrysalids down your throat. Any self-respecting force would have control over Earth in a matter of hours. Maybe the first few missions would be against scouting parties, but by the 5th mission you should realy be expecting orbital bombardments instead of laser fire.

You are assuming Chrysalids (who, by the way, don't grow to full maturity in 10 seconds flat in the lore) are friends. They could just as well be an enslaved race (note how they never appear unsupervised*), a very dangerous enslaved race that could in the span of a year take over a planet that the aliens want for themselves.
Aside from that, the aliens don't want to escalate the conflict. Earth has over a hundred Million people in armies, militias and military reserves, and pay for it with over a Trillion US dollars every year (1/25 of our total goods and services go directly to the military). We have a combined nuclear arsenal of over a Gigaton and if forced to work together we could have a means of delivering a nuclear device to Mars within a year. You've seen the Cydonia base, ask yourself, could the aliens really take on a whole planet? This Planet?

______________________________________________________________
(*) Cyber-disks and Sectopods are robots, Reapers are animals, stupidity of a Silacoid is noted in the 'pedia, and Celatids have no brain at all. So it makes sense that you'd need to have someone control them. Not so the Chrysalid. It's bipedal, has an opposable... appendage, and it's brain's size rivals that of a human- clearly it's a sentient race. More powerful then Mutons and more replaceable then a Snakemen, Chryslids should've lead the charge for earth, and yet you never see one that isn't escorted by a Snakeman or five...

[amjh]

I assumed a large part of the slow start is because the aliens think humans aren't a serious threat; They could wipe out all resistance in weeks with their superior technology, but they think the cost would be too high. Instead, they take a more subtle approach, using low-cost tactics to take earth to a point where it loses it's will to fight. When you start fighting against them and improving your technology, they start using more and more of their resources on the invasion. Finally, when they take the threat seriously, assuming you've succeeded in your mission you have enough technology to match them.

[Cthulhu]

It's also not like they're bringing the entire brunt of their forces to bear here.  Cydonia is a military outpost, not a city.  Something tells me Earth was the aliens' Vietnam.

[a1s]

Cydonia is a military outpost, not a city.

It's an outpost alright, but it's also their entire expeditionary force, or pretty close to it (maybe there are other bases on mars, but Cydonia was The Big One). They couldn't ring home and ask their version of president Johnson from more troops (again, maybe they could, but it wouldn't arrive for a century or something), all the aliens sent at you was made locally on Mars.

What I really don't get, is why the aliens didn't announce themselves publicly, bought the bases they needed with a few otherworldly trinkets (alien tech could revolutionize transportation, power, and the drug culture- take your pick) and did whatever it is they do in the bad ending.

[amjh]

Based on the information in the game, all they really want is the genetic codes created naturally by evolution. If they would have been all reasonable and respecting lifeforms with a concept of individuality, they'd just have traded technology for samples. But, the way I see it that kind of thinking just isn't part of their culture.

[Neonivek]

Also as for why Aliens don't take over earth in Xcom... It is supposed to be important as to why and they explain it too.

Namely they don't have the resources and that they know nothing about earth (it is why the first UFOs are actually scouts and not battleships)

[Tellemurius]

Cydonia is a military outpost, not a city.

It's an outpost alright, but it's also their entire expeditionary force, or pretty close to it (maybe there are other bases on mars, but Cydonia was The Big One). They couldn't ring home and ask their version of president Johnson from more troops (again, maybe they could, but it wouldn't arrive for a century or something), all the aliens sent at you was made locally on Mars.

What I really don't get, is why the aliens didn't announce themselves publicly, bought the bases they needed with a few otherworldly trinkets (alien tech could revolutionize transportation, power, and the drug culture- take your pick) and did whatever it is they do in the bad ending.

You know they could park at the dark side of the moon and it would be a while before we can detect them.

[a1s]

It's not about time- they need biomass. And that in turn means they need repeated harvesting trips to earth.

[kerlc]

well, concerning the armies, polices, etc.: well, i never said the police/army could take care of things. they're there as firendly mooks, and imagine going through a city in a terror mission, and there are civillian corpses everywhere. you see a policeman corpse, and there is a pistol next to him. ten feet down the line, a dead Sectoid can be found. you find the police station, some poor souls fortified it, trying to protect it, but the aliens had an explosive weapon of sorts, and it blew the thing right up. you see corpses (or bits of them) everywhere. and lastly, you find a military APC, smoke coming out of it, soldier corpses around it, and some way away from them, a couple of dead sectoids. trust me, this would add a whole new level to the gameplay.

oh, and if you are in good standings with the country in wich a UFO crashed, the police and military will corner it off. if not, they won't do shit, and there will be civies on site. let me explain: if youa re in good standings with the authority, they will believe you. if not, they will probably think: "they're pulling our leg. there are no such things as aliens!". well, it would be so until the first terror mission. then, the civies (in countries with who you have bad relations) would be replaced by the army/SWAT teams. you know, the "don't tell us what our military isn't capable of!" stuff.