Classic XCOM

[ZZoMBiE13]

So with the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown on the horizon I've been trying to play the classic XCOM: UFO Defense. It's a bit daunting to someone who isn't used to playing much TBS and certainly not one that is known for being punishing. I never played it when it was new because I didn't have a PC that could run games at the time.
I've got a friend who is a long time player and he's helped a bit, but I was hoping I could get some tips from some of you guys.

Any tips on opening strategies would be appreciated. Or if you know of some good "Let's Play" videos or strategy videos I could watch. Links appreciated if you've got them.

Also, if you have some great XCOM story you'd like to tell, I'd be very interested in hearing that as well. I know I'm 18 years late to the party, but I'm eager to learn.

 

[Zhukov]

Big ol' tip:

Your bases will sometimes be attacked by the aliens. They will come in through the hanger(s) and lift. So when designing bases make sure the hanger(s) and lift are all in one place and as separate from the rest of the base as possible. It makes defense so much easier since you will have a natural choke point to work with. Otherwise you have them waltzing on in from multiple angles which gets messy in a hurry.

The game is nowhere near as hard as people say it is. It's just every so often the game will screw you over in completely unfair ways. Like when you step off the transport and there are three high tier enemies spawned right outside the doors.

There'll generally be a bit of a difficulty spike early on, but once you gain momentum you'll be swimming in resources and you can just mindlessly bludgeon the enemy into submission with logistics.

It's the main reason I never finished a X-Com campaign. That and the bug which scrambles you troop's inventories, forcing you to go through and manually sort them out before each and every mission.

 

[Aeshi]

GuavaMoment [http://lparchive.org/author/GuavaMoment#results] has Let's Plays of just about every X-Com game (though the "Terror from the Deep" one is slightly different than normal)

As for tips:


- Weapons in this game have a very long range, and soldiers can shoot at targets that are in their LoS but are too far for themselves to see, so try keeping your Veterans at the back with the more expendable rookies/Tanks at the front to act as spotters for them. Have the spotters move out from behind cover/a building, have everyone else shoot at whatever Aliens they can see, and then have the spotters move back behind cover/a building so they don't get sniped on the Aliens turn.

- If you're having trouble capturing UFOs, try setting up outside and eventually (around Turn 21 I believe) the Aliens will actually leave their Vessel to try and look for you, whereupon you can snipe them as they pop their heads out.

- Try and have at least 1 Tank for each strike-force and send them out first, as they're usually tough enough to take whatever the inevitable 3 dudes outside the transport can throw at them.

- If the entrance to a Building or UFO is too well secured for your liking, try using explosives or plasma blasts to make a new entrance.

- Psychic Aliens usually try to go for the Soldier(s) with the lowest Psi strength, so you might want to take one Soldier who has no weapons and a much lower Psi strength than the others to make them waste all their turns Mind-Controlling him for nothing.

- If a Veteran soldier is about to die, try and knock him out yourself with a Stun grenade. The Aliens don't finish off Soldiers who are just unconscious and not dead, meaning if you win they'll still be alive (I think you can revive them with medkits in-battle too)

 

[teqrevisited]

Advance very carefully. Keep a reasonable distance between your squad members in case of random explosions. What Zhukov said about bases. If you're going to attempt night missions always carry flares and be even more careful. Don't let any squad member go alone.

Also if you do make it to the last mission take plenty of spare ammo in your squad's inventory. Preloaded ammunition will disappear after a map is "completed".

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Thank you all, very much. I appreciate the tips.

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

get lasers as soon as possible, and don't be afraid of hurling explosives everywhere. Have a large amount of scientists and research alien weaponry and machinery before researching corpses.

Don't bother with tanks at first (until you can build hovertanks) - they aren't worth the loss in firepower. Four rookies armed with grenades and lasers are together tougher, more flexible, and have better firepower. I can't remember if they are cheaper than a tank as well ( they are in ammunition, certainly).

 

[cathou]

this guide is still one of the most complete i've ever found

http://www.the-spoiler.com/STRATEGY/Microprose/xcom.ufo.defense.1.html

also, for me the best trick is to be patient. dont spend all you TU's keep plenty for reaction in aliens turns

 

[Jandau]

Tips? Ok, here goes...

Starting out

Autocannons with High Explosive Ammo for anyone with Strenght over 35. Heck, you could simply go with Autocannons for everyone or fire people with under 30 Strenght. Barring that, Rifles. HE AC is the best weapon available to you early on, letting you autofire grenades like crazy at the enemy.

Remember to get Grenades and Flares. Personally, I don't care much for Tanks, but if you insist, get the Rocket one.

Get Avalance Launchers for your Interceptors. The other two weapons are poop.

People will give you convoluted base building strategies. Don't listen to them, it's not really relevan on lower difficulties and is more trouble than it's worth. When starting out, build Alien Containment, Large Radar System, one more General Storage and Living Quarters. Get some Scientists (10-20) and Soldiers.

Early Research should focus on getting 3 items: Laser Rifles (infinite ammo, autofire, easy to use, good damage), Medikits (save wounded soldiers) and Personal Armor (better chance of staying alive, needs Alien Alloys to research). These will drop your casualty rates drastically and give you a solid chance.

Later on

Make sure you build more bases. You might start as early as during the first month, depending on how much money you're making from selling alien crap. The secondary bases should mainly have a Hangar for an Interceptor, Radar systems and a General Stores. Their purpose is to increase your coverage and make sure your superiors don't get pissy with you.

Try to capture a Navigator as soon as possible. Researching any alien Navigator gets you a superior radar system with 100% detection, long range and details on the enemy craft. The Navigator will usually be in the innermost room of any small UFO, usually armed with a Small Launcher (small, greenish weapon). You can run up to him with a Shock Lance, use a Small Launcher if you researched it, OR (and this is my favourite) park one of your soldiers next to him and get hit with the sleeping gas at point blank range, knocking both your soldier and the alien out.

Get Heavy Plasma. It's the best regular gun in the game, no debate. Don't bother with the smaller Plasma Guns. Also get Blast Launchers, Small Launchers (for capturing live ones) and Plasma Cannons (infinite ammo craft weapons).

For research you want at least 50 scientists once you get rolling. 100 would be a good number to aim for.

If you can capture a telepathic alien (Sectoid Leader or Commander or any Ethereal), research him and the followups until you get Mind Shield, then build one in all your bases. This will reduce the chances of your bases being discovered.

In combat

Reserve units for a Snap Shot. I can't stress this enough. Use this option. Please. It saves lives.

Advance cautiously, prefferably in small groups. Cover all angles and windows (Line of Sight is important, you can right click to turn around without moving). Concentrate your fire on single targets. Use your grenades!

Avoid night missions. Have an idea of how long it'll take your Skyranger to get to the destination and try to arrive during the day. If a Terror mission pops up and you'd arrive at night, wait a few hours. As long as you dispatch a team to the Terror site before it expires (even if it's one second before it expires), the mission will stay active until you get there. If you just HAVE to fight a night mission BRING FLARES AND/OR INCENDIARY AMMO.

 

[Frankster]

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=User:Seb76

Hopefully this wont be too headache inducing for you but on this page youll find a number of mods that enchance the game and take away some of its frustrations and faults.

As for tips... Stunrods are very useful and not just for stunning aliens.

Also bringing enough explosive weaponry to totally eradicate the map is a legit strategy (though prone to backfire if aliens telepathically take control of the people wielding heavy explosives).

 

[Pink Gregory]

Think, think and think again, basically; early on, soldiers die, and die a lot, but it's inevitable.

Also you can't blow holes in the alien craft when investigating crash sites, not really a tip, but something that I discovered recently.

 

[cathou]

Think, think and think again, basically; early on, soldiers die, and die a lot, but it's inevitable.

Also you can't blow holes in the alien craft when investigating crash sites, not really a tip, but something that I discovered recently.

actually, the blaster launcher that you get later in the game can punch an hole in a ufo

(i know for sure that it can do an hole in the roof of an ufo, but i'm not so sure for walls)

it's one of my favorite strategy when dealing with a very large ufo, having one team going from the entrance, and the other trough a hole in the top floor roof.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Download and use xcomutil.

Give the first people to get off the skyranger smoke grenades and throw them on the ramp to cover your exit.

Early mission tricks -- Starter rifles are pretty much awful against aliens. Set up a firing line of men so that when you see an alien you can just unleash a storm of automatic fire. When breaching ufos use grenades. Prime it before you open the door so if your man is killed before he can throw it he has a chance of doing damage.

 

[Jandau]

Get Avalance Launchers for your Interceptors. The other two weapons are poop.

To add onto that; work like hell towards getting Laser and Plasma Cannons for your aircraft. They outperform missles AND require no ammunition ta boot, saving you loads of storage space and cash. Wouldn't take on anything larger than medium craft with lasers, though...

I don't much care for Laser Cannons. Their low range means your Interceptors get shot at more, their damage isn't much and you need to waste time researching Heavy Lasers (which are poop). It's just not worth the time. Also, Avalanche outperforms it in some regards (huge range, if nothing else) and two Avalanche Interceptors can take down all Medium UFOs and even some Large ones (most notably, Terror ships, so you don't get Terror missions).

Plasma Cannons are well worth the time to research and I mentioned them as one of the high priority projects past the early game. A Plasma Cannon Interceptor can take down anything short of a Battleship.

 

[Bostur]

Half the fun of the game is figuring out some good strategies.

Nevertheless I shall compile a quick shopping list of things to buy at the start of the game:

10-20 extra scientists - Always a good idea to get a head start on the science.

Storage room - Start building one extra storage right away. You will soon run out of space and the sooner you get started the better.

Alien containment - Another essential base expansion that will take some time to complete.

Avalanche launchers for the interceptors. Get a bit of ammo while you are at it.

If you use tanks, use the rocket variety and get ammo for that as well.

Stun Rods - Very handy for capturing live aliens, but also a very effecient close combat weapon. Early on your rookies can't hit the broadside of a barn with a gun, but they can whack an alien with a stun rod.

Electro flares - For doing missions at night. You should try to avoid doing night missions, but sometimes you may have to. Your squaddies don't have night vision but the aliens do - so you are royally doomed without light sources. Alternatively use the Autocannon with incendiary rounds, it's much more fun to create light by starting forest fires. You may even get lucky and roast a few bugeyes that way.

Rocket launcher and small rockets. Not essential but having a weapon that will kill aliens without the need to hit accurately is handy. Give it to someone with high strength.

Stock up on normal ammo and normal grenades. You can never have too many grenades.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

Don't waste Elerium.

Manufacture and sell laser rifles if you need cash.

Try to capture navigators and sectoid/ethereal leaders once you have alien containment set up.

If one of your guys is mind controlled and the last enemy you kill is the mind controller, you will lose that soldier.

If you have a two-handed weapon like a rifle, putting something in the off-hand (like a grenade, med-kit, or mind probe) will reduce your accuracy. Not so for pistol-style weapons.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Half the fun of the game is figuring out some good strategies.

I agree. However, so many people seem to have their own style with this particular game. A few key things have risen to the top of the pile and given me a good direction towards a solid opening strategy.

I've watched enough late game videos at this point to know that a solid opening is probably the most important part of the game. Of course that's true of most strategy games, but still.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in. This thread has been really helpful.

 

[Bertylicious]

Another little tip: you can rename your soldiers for fun and profit so in early game you can label everyone with less than 60 accuracy "Cannon Fodder" whilst giving your proper soldiers heroic names like Clair_1.

Weapon accuracy is a percentage modifier on the soldiers accuracy so a dude with 50 accuracy shooting a shot that gives him 60% accuracy (you can find this in the UFOpedia) will only have a chance to hit of 35%. I would council using aimed shots rather than snap or autofire. Playing Warhammer 40k as a child taught me to never rely on probabilities of less than 66% and it rings true for XCom.

Also the time units required to take an action are expressed as a percentage of a unit's overall time units so something that costs 30 time units for one character will cost 40 for another. The only exception to this (that I can recall) is movement.

All the above have made viable strategies, but have fun! Want to equip all your men with nothing but grenades? Do it! Want to only field soldiers with massive reaction speed and overwatch your way to success? Give it a go! Want to beat a terror mission by stunning all the civilians you find and bundling them into the skyranger? Why the hell not?

 

[Bostur]

I've watched enough late game videos at this point to know that a solid opening is probably the most important part of the game. Of course that's true of most strategy games, but still.

It does help a lot to have the basics covered. There are a few almost essential opening 'moves' well covered by this thread.

All the above have made viable strategies, but have fun! Want to equip all your men with nothing but grenades? Do it! Want to only field soldiers with massive reaction speed and overwatch your way to success? Give it a go! Want to beat a terror mission by stunning all the civilians you find and bundling them into the skyranger? Why the hell not?

That is one of the interesting things about X-Com. There are a lot of viable approaches. They may not all the best ones, but a lot of different strategies can work. Some may like to blow up all the scenery and snipe from the skyranger, others may like clean and efficient kills. The strategies employed also impact the campaign to some extent.

 

[Henriot]

One nice, easy to remember trick is if you're attacking a landed UFO (not so much a terror mission), crouch your front 2 soldiers and end your turn without moving; aliens will wander around, use up TUs so when you step off the Skyranger, less chance of reaction fire coming out of nowhere.

Always enter rooms with full TUs; higher TUs, more chance of NOT getting reaction fire from aliens.

Some think of this as a cheat, but aliens are cheats anyway, so not a big deal... if you have just started, try and get a second base as soon as you have the cash, build enough living space for however many scientists you have, and send them to that base a couple of hours before the end of the month. When in transit, they don't get paid, you can keep however much they would have cost for other things, like buying new recruits.

Gosh, I could think of a million more, but I should stop while I'm ahead.