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[Sirus]

I'm not using Long War. I want to complete the vanilla game at least once first. And I'm pretty sure it was an EXALT mission; the VIP was going on about how XCOM doesn't actually know what's going on and making like XCOM is the bad guys.

[Krath]

That mission is actually the first Operation Progeny mission, and doesn't affect anything EXALT-related.

[puke]

I'm not using Long War. I want to complete the vanilla game at least once first. And I'm pretty sure it was an EXALT mission; the VIP was going on about how XCOM doesn't actually know what's going on and making like XCOM is the bad guys.

There's your mistake.  Long War has a reputation for being harder, it also takes out lots of the bullshit.  The way I understand it, Thin Men have an ability that allows them to get shots that totally ignore cover and can one-shot your dudes.  LW generally ups the difficulty, but removes this particular ability.  So TM can still overwhelm and flank you, but they shouldn't get random crazy lucky shots as often as in vanilla.

They do keep coming as long as the VIP is alive though, so you were not totally out of the woods.

The first Exalt mission is actually significantly harder than this.  The Thins come in larger numbers, and much more often.  Or maybe that is just a LW thing.

Terror mission, of course, failed. Two rookies and my Sergeant Heavy died, the last two rookies managed to get back to the evac zone and escape. Australia straight-up just left the council

Did they leave because the panic pushed them over the top?  I thought that as long as you made a showing, they would not automatically leave?  Do you have to have all your dudes KIA for it to count as a showing?

[Sirus]

Terror mission, of course, failed. Two rookies and my Sergeant Heavy died, the last two rookies managed to get back to the evac zone and escape. Australia straight-up just left the council

Did they leave because the panic pushed them over the top?  I thought that as long as you made a showing, they would not automatically leave?  Do you have to have all your dudes KIA for it to count as a showing?

No idea, dude. Australia's panic wasn't in the red zone. I'm not even sure it was orange. Maybe if everyone were KIA they wouldn't have left, but I wasn't willing to lose two rookies with kills when I was in such dire straits.

[Sirus]

On the bright side, I just returned from another Council mission, to escort a VIP through territory which is, of course, infested with Thin Men.

It turned out perfectly. It was an all-female squad, so I earned the Flight of the Valkyries achievement. The only person requiring sickbay was my assault, who took multiple poison clouds to the face and kept ticking thanks to her gene mod. Two of the squad members were recruited at the same time, came from the same country, and had similar appearances, so I made them sisters and they both went along. Everyone got promoted. The VIP wasn't even scratched.

Now watch as the next mission rolls around and all of my valkyries die

[Sheb]

PTW, I really need to get into this game once I have a windows machine again.

[crazysheep]

Oh, Portent. Yeah, you get all the glory of Thin Men in this mission. On the plus side, there are no roaming alien pods, you don't really need to overwatch until you reach the surviving EXALT agent. After you reach the EXALT survivor (at which point he turns into a VIP), Thin Men drop in as the VIP advances, not as your soldiers advance. Take your time getting ready on the retreat to the Skyranger, there's no point being too hasty.

[Sirus]

Refresh my memory: Does destroying the alien base reduce global panic levels, or no? I've got 2 nations on the verge of leaving XCOM and 5 others in the orange level of panic. I don't have any more satellite capacity at the moment, and if another abduction occurs I'm bound to lose at least two, maybe three nations come the end of the month. So far as I can see, destroying the alien base is my only hope at the moment. However, my equipment is less than ideal. Only a few laser weapons and not even enough carapace armor for the whole squad. Plus I have FOUR freaking assaults. Why do I have so many assaults? My only other veterans are a sniper and a support.

So if destroying the base will reduce panic levels, I'll do that. If it doesn't, I'll probably take the time to build my forces more.

[Robosaur]

I'm pretty sure it does. By a huge amount, too.

[GiglameshDespair]

Two points, at least in XCOM: EU.

EDIT: Only by one in Enemy Within though.

[Sirus]

I almost lost the base assault already .__.

Five chryssalids, first two then immediately afterward three more. The two were gunned down with no problem, but the other three surrounded one of soldiers (thankfully none were able to attack). All my others were nearby except for Squadsight sniper, so I was confident of being able to kill them...except damage roulette decided to kick in right there. No shots missed, but it took every single one of my soldiers (my laser-assault twice because of Close and Personal) to kill a single chryssalid thanks to repeated 1-damage hits. Thankfully the chryssalids suffered from the same problem, and we were able to finish them next turn, but sheesh.


ETA: Nope. Fuck this game. Fuck these chryssalids that can, in the exact moment that they are revealed, move towards my sniper, leap up to her perch, and move adjacent to her for free. Fuck this game that decides that two point-blank overwatch shots (one scatter laser, one assault rifle) should miss when I attempt to save my sniper. Fuck this game that deals enough damage for my sniper to survive two chryssalid attacks with a single HP then kills her with poison. God fucking dammit.

[Anvilfolk]

Never do damage roulette... or the other one that gives you progressive flank bonuses. Once I stopped using those my games started having much better chances.


Also don't forget that overwatch can actually be pretty lame. The players who I've heard succeeded usually use hunker down a ton more.


For me, the game is very make it or break it. If you happen to do good at the beginning, your guys get powerful and missions are manageable or downright easy. If something goes wrong at any point, it devolves into impossibility... I find that already a few missions in you're on one track or the other.

[Rolan7]

I finally got a chance to play XCOM Apocalypse, and the interface isn't bad at all now that I saw a few minutes of a LP.  I love the setting and the depth of the simulation in the Geoscape.

Unfortunately I have a reliable crash at the end of a long mission, and overwrote my save.  Frustrating.  Ah well, My 12 person squad was down to 3 traumatized badasses anyway.  I wasn't very far in anyway.

I plan to use all the robots I can...  I like the fluff, I love the brainsucker immunity, and once PSI starts happening they'll be immune to that too.  Their stats are significantly better than other recruits too, particularly strength.  Strength actually matters in this game - every recruit is over their light load limit in basic Megapol armor, so more strength means more TU.  Not like original XCOM where weight only really mattered for rocketeers.

The downside is they can't be trained, use PSI, or I think gain stats at all.  MEH!  They're *immune* to PSI, so they'll be even more useful late-game.  Maybe I'll bring some mutants along to use PSI and train into superhuman killing machines, but I want most of my squad to be robots.

I've been sticking with turn-based because I'm bad at real-time strategy clicking.  If I pause a lot then I guess it'd be like the UFO Afterlight trilogy, which wasn't bad at all.

Fricken brainsuckers and poppers, though.  I raided the Cult of Sirius a few times and thought I was invincible, until I met these first-tier aliens.  Sectoids with plasma pistols they ain't.  I wonder if they're even more dangerous in turn-based, since they can charge crazy-far on their turn, and reaction fire is hit-and-miss as ever.

About the gangs... I assume most people stay friends with Psyche in order to sell looted drugs, and raid Osiron for their IEDs and such.  That about right?

[GiglameshDespair]

Brainsuckers are devastating on turn-based. Poppers are pretty damn dangerous as well. In real time they're a lot less dangerous, because they can't run up and kill you while it's their turn and you're immobile.

[Neonivek]

Honestly apocalypse had a lot of potential and I really wish it turned out better. I love that stray bullets actually damaged the city and that each faction had their own agenda and could be compromised in their own way... with their hatred or acceptance actually affecting the game.

Shame they didn't finish most of those features. Heck the game had an unfinished ending too.

I do find it funny that if you REALLY start losing the game you actually get some Easter Eggs. (well sort of losing... you have to start losing in a specific way)