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[Urist McSpike]

Effing bomb runs!   

Anyone know if there's a way to not auto-end your turn?  I ran a guy next to the bomb, but he dashed to get there - and the round auto ended.  Even though you can go back to the guy & click it.

Try doing the important life or death decisions at the beginning of your turn.

Unfortunately, things had gone badly by that point - I had one guy who could dash to it, an alien in oversight nearby, and a rookie.  Plan was, draw fire with the rookie (had to dash to get in sight of the alien, I thought), then use the squaddie to disarm.  Rookie didn't draw fire, squaddie was missed - end turn.  Disarming a bomb is a free action, even if you've used all your moves.  It's really a load of bull that they auto-end the turn in situations like that.

Yeah, I read something about the +hit & +crit of aliens being boosted at higher difficulty levels - in Classic, it seems like they hit hard & from far off, too much.  Couldn't imagine what Impossible would be like.

[612DwarfAvenue]

Yeah, you can do stuff like open doors and disable bombs and power cores even if that soldier dashed to get there, but you have to have another soldier who still has actions available as well otherwise the turn will end.

[Sirian]

I restarted 4 times, and i think i'm doing good now (normal difficulty). The hardest part is that you're almost helpless against nations leaving the council if you're unlucky with the abductions. I had to rush engineers and satellites, but the damn things take way too long to build. Almost everything takes too long to build actually, if you contrast it with how fast research is and how often you have to take missions.

On a previous save of that game, i had an A for my 2 first months, but the USA and Australia were at max panic and left the council during the 3rd report (which got me a B). I had to reload and do the first big story mission (i didn't realize that i could already make the key). This reduced panic levels before the report and allowed me to keep the nations. But the problem wasn't that i slacked off, i had satellites and uplinks in the building queue, but 3 days too late.

Story-wise, it's a bit weird that even though you're humanity's "first and last line of defense" (quoting the game), you're only given pocket change once in a while and have to barter to even be able to help the ones who need and want your protection, yet even if you ace everything you do, they can still abandon you at the drop of a hat.

It's like those rpgs where you're the world's last hope against evil and yet the merchants will ask you to pay for your equipment even right before the last battle that will determine if everyone survives or gets killed. Even the whole "uplink" thing is ridiculous : if you want to send and receive data to/from a satellite, you only need an antenna dish and some basic hardware. It would probably cost you only a few hundred $ and take a couple hours to setup or something. (I doubt however that it's a good idea for them to build their antennas under 100m of rock...)

Also i find it weird that they use the dollar symbol for the money unit.(Edit : wait, actually they don't, it's a "§") Are they really dollars (that would be hilarious) ? or are they thousands of dollars ? millions maybe ? It's all very weird and unclear, and while i realize that it's a matter of game mechanics vs realism, part of me isn't satisfied with all this handwaving. I tend to believe that game mechanics can be awesome and realistic. In this instance, it's not like they had no other way to balance the game. I mean, we're fighting aliens, they have a clear technological advantage, so you'd think the big problem wouldn't be "how many months until i can have enough antenna dishes" and "I hope that countries will give me enough cash to save their sorry asses instead of abandoning me because they're freaking out".

I mean think about the kind of budget that goes into a war. Does it feel to you like it's the kind of budget that your team has ? And is it not the most important war of mankind ? How expensive can it be to do maintenance on (brand new) elevator shafts ? So many questions...

[hemmingjay]

And is it not the most important war of mankind ? How expensive can it be to do maintenance on (brand new) elevator shafts ? So many questions...

If my office was that deep underground and only had one elevator shaft, the could spend whatever they wanted on it's maintenance and I wouldn't make a peep.

[Sirus]

It's probably not just some rinky-dink elevator, either. You have to use large and heavy equipment to bore out the hole for the access shaft, and even more heavy equipment and raw material is required to be brought down or up. It's probably several elevators for the aforementioned staff plus a heavy cargo lift for transporting things like captive aliens, alloys, firestorm parts, etc.

[umiman]

Trying to rationalize logical thought into a situation where even the basic premise is completely irrational is quite a pointless undertaking.

Just think of it this way. The entire world has gone to shit. When XCOM is starting out barely anyone believes there's aliens so no one wants to give you anything. Then later when shit starts getting a little bit real, governments are more interested in their own agenda than helping you out. After all every single country probably has their own "alien research division" or whatever. Who cares about XCOM.

Then when shit hits the fan and everyone is dying by the boatload, the economies are too screwed and everyone is in too much disarray to contribute much to your cause. Even if they wanted to throw money and people at you, they can't even keep track of anything at that point. All the economies would have gone to shit. Everyone is dying or committing suicide or running away or going insane. Their own armies are fighting fruitlessly against the aliens. People will be throwing revolts. Giant legions of people would have been mind controlled and wrecking havoc.

So at every step of the way XCOM is facing a challenge from the stupidity of mankind.

[Sergius]

Hey guys, I think abductions still occur even if you have coverage unless you've got the hyperwave thingy (apparently abductors may be cloaked?). Eventually abductions will only occur in areas where you have no sats. AND you'll even multiple abductions in the same continent if they can't abduct elsewhere! If you go to EITHER of those abductions, NO PANIC will increase in that continent at all (in fact, you probably don't want full world coverage since you'll have less to do each month ).

Also, if you have to decide which Continent to protect, don't just look at the panic level... remember some continents are smaller and thus you get less overall "panic points" (worse are Europe and Asia with 4 countries each. best to let panic at first is South America with only 2 countries). And save your sats until the very end of the month (unless you really want that cash/whatever bonus... don't bother to get anti-UFO coverage everywhere at first since Sat detection is pretty crappy without the proper upgrades), if a country is at 5 panic, obviously panic won't increase if you fail a mission, and that saves a bit on Sat-Healing... I don't think a country ever leaves the council before the meeting. And there's always the chance you'll get one of those global-panic-reducers.

So yeah you can pretty much keep playing forever and never trigger the last mission.

[Neonivek]

So yeah you can pretty much keep playing forever and never trigger the last mission

I always thought that limiter was that eventually abductions will panic the world to death.

Though I guess if you stop any panic it helps.

[Urist McSpike]

Trying to rationalize logical thought into a situation where even the basic premise is completely irrational is quite a pointless undertaking.

I would agree with about all of your post, but there are just some inconsistencies that seem too odd.  Like, you can build a brand spanking new hybrid alien/human fighter craft, that's based on a fusion of alien & human tech, in 14 days.  But basic satellites take 20.  And it doesn't matter if you're building 1 or 50 - it takes 20 days.  I honestly think satellites should be around 10 days, maybe 15.

Actually, from my finished Normal game run, I think there isn't a good balance between the early & late game, as far as build costs and difficulties.  Early game, it's just so difficult to get things set up or built in time to do any good, and by late game it doesn't matter.

[Microcline]

Remember that team of colonels I was coasting to victory on?  Enter operation Lazy Rain, a raid on a landed small scout.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That clown car had three sectoid commanders, three thin men, and three muton elites.  Not even Hemmingjay could save that mission.  Only one survivor made it to the skyranger.

I've been rebuilding my force with him, a colonel assault who I had in reserve, a sidelined sergeant, two noobs, and an endless supply of hover S.H.I.V.s, so it looks like I'll still be able to pull this run off.

[Owlga]

I don't think a country ever leaves the council before the meeting.

This is something me and Janet experimented with a little, to make sure we got the mechanics down. The only thing so far that seems to make a country leave the council besides max panic at the end of the month is ignoring a terror mission. And you pretty much need to try to do that.

[Sergius]

I have to ask, but... what's with the GIANT TURTLENECKS in male Titan Armor? Seriously looks like the guy got spinal injury or he's from one of those African countries where they keep pulling and pulling the youngun's necks so they get longer and thus more "beautiful".

EDIT: It seems to depend on which slot in your squad selection screen he is. Apparently whoever is in the 5th slot gets the huge neck thing.

[Aqizzar]

I don't think a country ever leaves the council before the meeting.

This is something me and Janet experimented with a little, to make sure we got the mechanics down. The only thing so far that seems to make a country leave the council besides max panic at the end of the month is ignoring a terror mission. And you pretty much need to try to do that.

Yes, it is entirely possible to have a country leave mid-month, by getting it's Panic rating through the roof.  Bear in mind that failing a Terror Mission counts the same as ignoring it.  That's what happened to me, when Argentina refused to leave for like four months, but then had a total wipeout.

[alway]

Started another classic game with tutorial. Going for a fast satellite expansion build, and things are starting off perfectly. It's April 1, and I have 3 satellites a mere 4 days from completing and just started building the uplink to use them. Not a single death yet (aside from the tutorial-on-rails ones, because the base overseer teaching you how to do things is an incompetent rube), and already got a lieutenant and 2 snipers with squadsight.

[Xotes]

Remember that team of colonels I was coasting to victory on?  Enter operation Lazy Rain, a raid on a landed small scout.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You know, that story is entertaining, but I can't help but notice you've had two randomly named ops end up as Operation Frozen Father and Operation Burning Mother. Those go amazingly well together.