*Quite probable. I blame that on my lack of alloys and elerium.
And once I fell behind, I couldn't ever catch up. That's a bit of a problem in single-player games; when you screw up, you generally want either a way to climb back into victory, or a swift loss. Once I fell behind on tech and was nearly out of alloys and elerium, there wasn't much I could do to stop my top soldiers from being killed.
The solution has more to do with resource management than difficulty curve, although some more intermediate alien species would be nice. Towards the end of the game, I was almost entirely going either "Oh good, it's just X" or "OH CRAP IT'S A Y!" There wasn't much middle ground, and I don't think that had anything to do with resource management.*
Yes, once you start trailing behind in the arms race, failure begins to become the most probable outcome. This is the kind of game where if you're in a no-win situation, you just have to concede defeat and start over. I've already had to do that once.
At the point I've gotten to now, I treat the Beserkers, Mechtoids and Cyberdiscs as middle-of-the-road enemies. None of them are particularly worrying, but I have to prioritize them lest I want my soldiers to start dying. And on Impossible, every enemy from Thin Men to the higher ranks becomes a "OH SHIT" enemy, and a lot of people like it that way.
*Yeah.
And while I'm here...what are alien weapons, armor, and so forth made out of? Why can't we melt those down for alien alloys, if the alloys from spacecraft hulls can be used for anything from armor to lasers?*
The humans can reverse engineer what they get, but can't melt it down or re-purpose it. Dr. Valhen comments on this a few times, as we lack technology that could do that.
*I suppose the big thing is that the arc thrower is basically a pistol, from what I can see.
That, and the backpack slot is a little bit silly. Why can you carry a thin nanofiber vest, a grenade, or a scope, but not all three?*
Then this game would become the Original X-COM games, where you can carry tons of things on your soldiers, and to compensate, the game will throw 30+ aliens at you in a normal mission.
*Noted.
And I know (I've read the TV Tropes page), but still...it sounds like it's pretty linear.*
Perhaps it's for the best. X-COM's inherent plot campy-ness is part of the fun in my opinion.
*Indeed. Still, it seems like it's focusing a lot more on the minor than on some kind of overarching theme.*
If you play the mission, you'll see why one zombie apocalypse mission in-game is more than enough.
*I don't know about the chrysalis thing. They remind me more of those wasps that lay their eggs in paralyzed caterpillars, or those wasps that lay their eggs in paralyzed tarantulas, or those wasps that--why is it always wasps? They're kinda jerks, I guess.
Ahem.
And yeah, I know that there's tradition and such. I guess most of the naming advice would be best given to the developers of the original X-COM.*
You have to imagine that it's the soldiers and crew (the first ones who are exposed to them) are naming these aliens, not the engineers and scientists.
*I was listed as having saved 0 civilians.*
Okay, I dunno. Game mechanics. You lose, you lose everything.
*How many aircraft do you know that are composed entirely of alien alloys, with elerium reactors and plasma cannons?*
The best we can do with that is the Firestorm, which holds 3 pilots at the most.
*I did not.
This brings up another question, though. If alien weapons destroy tanks in a couple shots, why don't they pulverize anyone wearing less than Titan armor? If we at least got a blurb about how there were multiple settings on captured weaponry or something that would be great, but there isn't any explanation beyond "Alright, you want all alien shots to be OHKO's? That's what I thought.*
The aliens are deployed via ship to each of their specific areas. It's definite that the ships can easily destroy armored vehicles in a couple shots. And if the ground forces had to take on a tank, maybe they couldn't one-shot it, but a combination of plasma fire from multiple aliens would surely blow it up before it could manage to get its own shot off. Even with armor on, 4-6 bursts of enemy fire from the standard Muton (who make up the largest bulk of the standard invasion force) is enough to kill just about any human. If the action were in real-time, I imagine a Muton squad could easily overwhelm a tank.
*It seems like this should have a lasting impact, though.
Yeah, curing cancer is nice, but what does that mean, worldwide? Are the Canadians glad you managed to give them such a panacea? Will...okay, this is a tougher example, but if you provide weapon and armor samples to various countries for them to reverse-engineer, surely there should be some effect from this? You're (ideally) beating up the aliens with these, why can't the locals? Also, this might convince me to actually complete some missions.*
Curing cancer means cancer is cured in Canada and will probably spread, though I imagine proper eradication of the disease wouldn't be able to start until the aliens are dealt with.
While normal soldiers getting armor and alien weaponry is nice, you still have to realize that every at X-COM starts out as an amazing super soldier. The "Rookies" you get are seasoned, top-of-the-class special forces veterans, with incredible accuracy, speed, discipline, toughness, etc. Thus, when your Rookie has a 45% chance to hit an alien with their assault rifle, the standard soldier making the same shot probably has a >10% chance at hitting, and this percentage would be much lower for police or civilians.
*I'm referring more to how little funding and whatnot X-Com gets without launching satellites or something, and how easy it can be to lose a nation.*
Nations are pretty finicky and self-centered, like actual people. Hey, what can you do about that? X-COM is a military group, so it's much better at killing things than convincing governments to fund them more.
*An argument that breaks down when you're just scouting the area.*
Standard X-COM Procedure: Rule of Cool.
*Isn't that the left mouse button? That didn't seem to work after the tutorial.*
Oh, PC Controls? Can't help you there.
*I'm just wishing there was some kind of in-game explanation for this stuff.*
You are the commander of X-COM, thus everyone in the organization assumes that you're smart enough to assume these things on your own. Like this very statement.
*Interceptors get used every few months, but you need four Firestorms to get a decent chance of using them.*
Um, what?
*The cost was less the money and more the...everything else, really.*
/Resources.
*I'm not sure what the logic of that 80% is, but they got really...repetitive. Which is basically what I'm complaining about.
And yeah, I'm aware that none of these concerns are ones likely to be addressed.*
Logic = Most people like them, so they're going to stay around. If you want, you could turn off the Action Cam.
*That requires me to wreck or autopsy one.*
I know they're big and scary, but they're really not that bad.
*Assuming you aren't putting much faith in your advanced equipment, the ability to take cover, or the ability to level up. And my SHIVs never seemed to last more than a mission for some reason.*
Not my area of expertise, maybe someone else can help you with that.
*A memetic quote from a Let's Play does not count as in-game.
Although it is, technically, an explanation.*
Is it from a Let's Play? I don't believe it is. The meaning behind the phrase is that it's just X-COM, and X-COM is what it is. Redundant? Yes. Best explanation? Yep.
*I feel like your actions in the world should leave a lasting effect on the world. If you give Egypt advanced weapons and armor, they aren't so easily frightened by aliens and/or they have a chance to "complete" abductions or something in their territory (preventing terror from rising). Giving corpses that leads to medical advances should...I dunno, I just like it better if your choices have lasting effects past "Ooh, money!" or "More engineers?"
Also, it might encourage me to actually complete some. "No, 36 Alloys are not worth $241. Go away."*
No matter how many laser guns and armor suits you give a country, it won't make their soldiers any more efficient, just possibly more deadly. That would require some sort of mass training regime, which would be impossible in the current circumstances.
*Makes you wonder what they did to the Ravens.
And why no one ever asks for Interceptor-related equipment.*
They probably Science'd the Ravens until they were really good fighters.
The Dr. Shen and his engineers are way too fond of their creations, along with their accompanying tools, to give them to anyone.
*It felt that way for me, at first.
As time went on, it began to feel like someone was trying to reduce production costs by splicing a bunch of stock footage together over a green screen or something.*
Turn off action cam.
Hey GWG, is there any chance you could upload some footage of you playing a mission of X-COM onto a public video sharing site like Youtube? If we saw what you were actually doing, you could get a lot of really useful advice.