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[Chaoswizkid]

No, they dropped support because they panicked and didn't have faith in the program. Which is understandable, except the program is the only thing holding humanity together.

[WillowLuman]

Except they never explicitly say that's why do they?

[Mephansteras]

Except they never explicitly say that's why do they?

Yeah, they do. The council says something about funding nations withdrawing their support due to lack of faith in the X-com project.

[Sirus]

Once again, I don't think countries dropped support in a show of "We'll succeed alone where everyone failed". In my eyes, it is more of a case of "If these guys (XCOM) can't win, no one can. Best surrender now and hope our new masters are lenient with us".

[Mephansteras]

I think that depends on how far into the storyline you are. Early on, I imagine they are exactly thinking 'We don't need to waste resources on this program! We need to use them here to fight off these aliens!'. Later on, after the regular military forces have been proven to be overmatched, they're more in the 'We surrender!' camp. Either through actual capitulation or through infiltration by alien agents.

I mean, I just can't see the United States quickly surrendering after a few abduction missions in Mexico go unanswered. But I could see them declaring X-Com a waste of resources that isn't doing a good enough job and trying to fight the aliens separately. After terror missions around the globe and Alien Battleships flying around, them actually surrendering after a failed military campaign makes more sense.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

From reading the news reports, it's a combination of factors. High panic means the government has both lost control of the situation and is beginning to be subverted by the aliens. For example, one of the critical panic news messages is "[Country] troops rumored to be fighting alongside aliens".

[Mephansteras]

Good job!

Personally, I find Classic to be the most fun. Challenging, but I can afford to take risks and mess around a bit that I can't in Impossible while still being very easy to lose.

[Culise]

From reading the news reports, it's a combination of factors. High panic means the government has both lost control of the situation and is beginning to be subverted by the aliens. For example, one of the critical panic news messages is "[Country] troops rumored to be fighting alongside aliens".

Plus, there's the failure ending where they shut down the program that plays along with this.  What you the player can see that the X-Com leadership cannot is the psionic Sectoid lurking behind him, mind-controlling your shadowy overlord and forcing him to say what they want.

[Parsely]

Also, a good sequel takes what made the original work well and builds up on that, without guarantee if it will be better or worse.

I can dig that.

[Ibid Straydrink]

I think the "Enemy Within" deal is going to be about the development of technology running rampant due to humanity's exposure to the invaders and the willingness behind that to do whatever might be felt as necessary, losing whatever moral standards humanity had in the process. That was the entire thing in Enemy Unknown, with the scientist and engineer continuously commenting on how scary the tech was becoming, hoping it was worth it and that it wouldn't bite them in the ass later and if only it could have been developed for peace.

I haven't gotten all that far with Enemy Unknown yet myself, but all along I have felt that the "evils of technology" theme was pretty latent, as if it might be building up to something. I had been hoping (and now, I think it's fair to say that hope will be disappointed without the need for spoilers) that this would be Enemy Unknown's endgame twist- humanity actually overcoming their invaders by virtue of effectively employing their own technology against them factoring some of that uncanny homosapien innovation, at last utterly beating them back (we do, after all, as defenders have the luxury of our manufacturing centers and research labs right on-hand)- only to find itself grappling with a monumental rebuilding effort, shattered world economy, the need for defense measures against future invasions, and some all too-tempting means for some very Orwellian propositions at world leaders' fingertips'.

It'd also be neat to see a sort of "bad ending canon" spinoff where we're the invaders. Draw from a base pool of investment to determine the most alluring interstellar invasion prospects, then mobilize a fleet of Murican war machines screaming electric death and GMO soldiers accompanied by the third-world citizen human equivalents to sectoids, that we may seize that distant prize for the glory of the Father World Wall Street.

[Krevsin]

Eh, I'm still hoping for chrysalid cultists in robes with plasma rifles myself.

[WillowLuman]

Eh, I'm still hoping for chrysalid cultists in robes with plasma rifles myself.

WTF?

[Krevsin]

Eh, I'm still hoping for chrysalid cultists in robes with plasma rifles myself.

WTF?

Well, why not? Humans manage to build religions around flying monsters made of spaghetti, what's so odd about scientology evolving a religion based around an alien that wants to devour you and make you into one of its own kind? And all the buggers who are trying to stop them are Evil Satan Pagans. The Aliens would love to supply then with weapons provided they could bring some more discord into the fray.

[WillowLuman]

FSM isn't actually a religion, it's a parody.

[LoSboccacc]

He cannot be sirius!