I dont know why i find it so difficult the first few missions are easy then those arachnids/spider things show up with zombies show up barley an hour in gameplay and I always end up gettting killed i just feel the difficulty curve goes up what to quickly. Is this game hard or do i just suck at turn based combat?
I find XCOM really difficult
- Thread starter Ryanrulez5
- Start date
You have a certain degree of control over the pace of XCOM, despite appearances. The game tries to trick you by labelling certain research or engineeering projects as 'PRIORITY', but you don't have to research those as soon as they become available - in fact, it's probably suicide if you do. If something else important is available (Laser/Plasma weapons, Carapace/Titan Armor, Firestorm, etc.) you should definitely focus on researching and implementing those before moving on with the 'priority' projects.
Not hard at all you just haven't been through proper schooling -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-bxlJN3z_o#t=2m42s
But yes the starting missions and the actual game are completely disconnected.
But yes the starting missions and the actual game are completely disconnected.
Incidentally, if you are having difficulty with the Chrysalids (the big tough spidery things), try getting the Assault class upgrade that gives you a Reaction shot whenever something comes within 4 spaces. Two Assaults (armed with laser or better weaponry) positioned correctly on chokepoints will absolutely murder those guys as they rush you.
Otherwise, just do your best to use your range advantage over them, and don't let one guy become the target of two or more Chrysalids if you can avoid it.
Otherwise, just do your best to use your range advantage over them, and don't let one guy become the target of two or more Chrysalids if you can avoid it.
Keep your team close, Concentrate fire, get lasers, use explosives.Ryanrulez5 said:
Sending out your soilders by-themselves is like 'going it alone' in a horror movie, monster chow.
You see a Chrysalid, you target that bastard with everything because due to its rapid movement it WILL get among your team and shred them to pieces.
A standard rifle needs to hit three times to down a Chrysalid unless you use three of them. A Laser Rifle only requires 2 shots (unless the RNG hates your guts)
Chrysalids don't have any items to loot so blowing them up doesn't destroy any weapon fragments.
And yes the game is brutal.
I found that the difficulty curve for XCOM is perfectly good if you ignore chrysalids. chrysalids are a massive spike on the curve though until you know how to deal with them. Snipers and assault are what you want to take them down - high burst. You should have a sniper at colonel rank with squad sight by the time they show up - since SS snipers shouldn't ever be able to be shot at - and In The Zone is devastating against chrysalids, since they don't take cover. Use other squadmates to weaken them then use the sniper to finish them off - especially deadly with Execution. Grenades (though I never use them) and the rocket launcher also weaken and grant LoS for the sniper to finish them off. Also, you can't interrogate them, so don't try and arc thrower them.
Also, don't do the assault the alien base until chrysalids are out of the standard rotation - My first game had my squad of 6 clear most of the base taking no injuries, and then no fewer than 11 chrysalids came at me. Got utterly destroyed, their movement is too high.
I've taken down 6 at close range along with 2 of their zombies (terror mission obviously) with base weapons and not taking a hit the entire mission, with the chrysalids not killing anyone once on screen on classic difficulty - they force you to learn how to synchronise your squad and do tactics better, or wipe you out.
Also, don't do the assault the alien base until chrysalids are out of the standard rotation - My first game had my squad of 6 clear most of the base taking no injuries, and then no fewer than 11 chrysalids came at me. Got utterly destroyed, their movement is too high.
I've taken down 6 at close range along with 2 of their zombies (terror mission obviously) with base weapons and not taking a hit the entire mission, with the chrysalids not killing anyone once on screen on classic difficulty - they force you to learn how to synchronise your squad and do tactics better, or wipe you out.
I've never had a problem with them. I always have two snipers (1 with squad sight, 1 with snap shot) so they die on the turn they appear. Now sectopods on the other hand, fuck those guys.Draech said:
Problem with this plan is you NEED a colonel sniper, and you have to be lucky enough to have him set up in the right position, 1 floater flanking your sniper and you are basically buggered. If its possible I strongly suggest you take along 2 heavies, even at lower ranks bullet storm and plenty of missiles will make short work of the chrysalids.Richardplex said:
Without knowing specifics of why you are struggling it's hard to say exactly where things are going bad for you, but I can try give you some general outlines for success. This works on any difficulty level up to Classic Ironman (in fact, Classic Ironman is the ONLY difficulty level I've ever played). I can't help you if you're playing on Impossible.Ryanrulez5 said:
We'll cover strategic and tactical layers separately, keeping in mind that each informs the other, and dramatic failure on one will eventually result in failure on the other.
[HEADING=2]STRATEGIC[/HEADING]
1. If you are struggling, I recommend you engage the tutorial. It will help you plot out your base and make sensible early decisions. Most critically, you will receive a bonus satellite in the first month, which is a significant boost.
2. The tutorial will lock you into NA or Europe. You will choose NA. NA is the overall "best" choice of start in the game due to the extra starting cash you get (and the savings via interceptors, although that tends to pay off later). A strong player can make good starts in Asia, Africa and SA as well, depending on their personal strategies, but Europe is all around terrible.
3. PRIORITIZE SATELLITE COVERAGE. More Satellite uplinks is your #1 priority for months 1-3. It does not mean it is your only priority, but you are aiming for as much satellite coverage as possible, to boost income and keep panic under control. You should be getting out at least one new uplink +3 satellites per month (and you should, of course, be building those uplinks beside one another for the bonus). Start building your satellites as soon as you are able, it doesn't matter if you have no uplink capacity yet. They take 20 days.
4. For early mission rewards take Engineers. On the rare occasion you can take cash, but not soldiers, and certainly not scientists. The only time you should deviate from this is if you absolutely have to do a mission in a particular location due to panic.
5. Remember with abduction missions you get a reduction in the country you do the mission in, and an increase on the CONTINENT for the missions you ignore. Abduction missions will always result in a global panic increase until you can cover enough countries with satellites to cut down on the number of simultaneous missions you receive.
6. When placing satellites, think unlocking continent bonuses first, reducing panic second, unless you *need* to drop a satellite in order to keep a key country from leaving. You already have the US, so Canada and Mexico should be your last priorities. Unlock/give coverage to the following continents in order of priority: South America, Asia, Africa, Europe. SA for the instant interrogations (this will help tremendously, bootstrapping the research you've been neglecting to rush satellites/engineers), Asia for the OTS and Foundry upgrades, Africa for money. Europe's bonus is negligible, so these countries (save for Russia) are safest to abandon to a grisly fate.
7. Xenobiology is your first priority, for the arc thrower. Live captures of Sectoids and Floaters will give you Beam Weapon and Basic Armor research credits respectively, greatly reducing the research time on Lasers and Carapace Armor. Without these credits, you will research one or both AFTER your first terror mission, which can be problematic unless you are very comfortable with the tactical game.
8. OTS Upgrades: Try to get the two squad size improvements and Iron Will as soon as possible. The rest are optional.
9. Foundry Upgrades: Increased Ammo, Improved Medkit, the pistol upgrades, stealth satellites...there's a lot of good stuff here. You can safely ignore anything to do with SHIVs. They're bugged, and even if they're fixed now, they're inferior to soldiers (save in very specific circumstances which we will cover later).
10. Workshops...you will need 2-3. Try to build them together.
11. Labs. You won't need any. If you are building labs, you are making an error.
12. Power supply. Build as necessary. You'll usually need a couple + a thermo or two, or an elerium generator. If you have steam handy, try to group your power supplies around it.
13. When shooting down UFOs, remember you can retreat with an interceptor and bring in a new one, and the damage on the UFO persists. 2-3 Interceptors with rubbish weapons can down larger UFOs. Not Battleships, you'll need the Firestorm for that.
14. Getting Excellent in all 3 categories on a terror mission gives a global panic reduction. Worth shooting for, but don't get your squad killed chasing civilians around.
15. If you play your cards right and don't run around failing missions, you'll lose at worst 1-2 countries by the time you're ready to head into the alien base. Once the alien base is done (a global panic reduction of 2), that will usually be the end of your panic issues. The tactical game gets some new wrinkles at this point, but the strategic layer goes on auto-pilot.
16. Make good use of the grey market. Don't hoard anything save for weapon fragments, alloys, and elerium. Early on you don't need those power sources and flight computers, so sell them. Anything broken, sell. Keep 4-6 corpses on hand for research, and then sell (not Chrysalid corpses). The early cash boost is extremely helpful.
17. Prioritize the following research as soon as it becomes available. Carapace Armor. Laser Sniper. Titan Armor. Plasma Sniper.
If you're struggling on the strategic layer, it usually comes down to one of two things. Either you're not pushing satellites early enough or often enough, or you're spending your money on the wrong things.
[HEADING=2]TACTICAL[/HEADING]
1. Rule of thumb #1. Be very, very careful with dashing. I won't say never dash, because sometimes dashing is appropriate. Most properly, don't dash like an idiot. Don't dash into "fog of war". Don't dash ahead with the last guy on your turn. If you CAN move slowly from solid cover to solid cover without dashing, that's what you should be doing. No one ever died from moving too slowly and carefully.
2. Rule of thumb #2. Don't overwatch spam. Specifically, don't a move a guy into cover and then immediately spam overwatch. Once your turn is done and no aliens have been uncovered, then go around and overwatch everyone. Nothing is worse than having 80% of the team overwatched when a run and gun or smoke grenade could've made a difference. The only exception to this rule is squad sight snipers with opportunist.
3. Rule of thumb #3. Half cover is no cover at all. Full cover is a 40% accuracy reduction. If an alien has an 85% chance to hit you, he now has a 45% chance to hit you. Half cover is 20% reduction. That alien now has a 65% chance to hit you. Are you comfortable with that? Neither am I.
4. Rule of thumb #4. Fall back, don't charge forward. If you've engaged enemies and your best options are A) a risky charge forward or B) a careful retreat, choose B 100% of the time. Careful retreats do not uncover the fog of war and trigger 3 new monster closets. Pull enemies BACK into your trap, don't bull rush into theirs.
5. Don't stand around taking low % shots unless there's literally nothing else sensible you can be doing. If aliens are not on overwatch, you can move to a better position. If you're playing on Classic, the alien has a better shot % than you do, and you will eventually lose the war of attrition on those long range battles. Be smarter. Flanking alone gives you huge to hit bonuses, if you can do it intelligently (note...charging into the fog of war or into a no/low cover area just to get a flank is not intelligent).
6. Use grenades and rockets for more than just killing aliens. Blowing out their cover can expose them to fire from the rest of the team. If you don't have a clear shot, sometimes you can turn it into a clear shot. Grenades are also excellent softening tools to get aliens under 3 health for capture without risking a lucky critical on a pistol.
7. Pistols are your friend, especially once upgraded. They don't burn ammo and they're incredibly accurate at short and long range.
8. Open doors, don't boot through them. Opening doors doesn't make noise and expose your position.
9. Overwatch, on everyone but opportunist snipers, is horribly inaccurate. It has its uses, but do not over-rely on it. You're better off taking high % shots on your turn than waiting to take low % shots on theirs. That all overwatching soldiers will fire at the same target if it enters all of their LOS first is another reason to avoid this.
10. Monster closeting (enemy reaction/scatter upon discovery) seems annoying, but it's a huge tactical edge for you. The enemy will NEVER attack during a reveal, they will only take cover. This means you always have the ability to alpha strike them BEFORE they can return fire. Take advantage of this. Burn down new aliens as fast as possible. A dead alien does no damage.
11. Snipers. You should always be taking squad sight, and always be taking opportunist. Everything else is optional depending on your preference. A squad sight sniper is your most dangerous weapon and will likely lead your team in kills. Find them a spot with good sight lines, flush enemies with a spotter, and pick them off. Use a scope, and either Skeleton or Archangel armor once available. Snipers are the only class where low will isn't usually a problem.
12. Heavies. I recommend taking Holo-Targeting, HEAT Ammo, Suppression, Mayhem, and Danger Zone. Heavies can take a while to develop, but the above described Heavy makes an excellent team support unit. Suppression cannot miss, and upgraded with Mayhem and HEAT ammo a single burst of suppression will badly damage a Cyberdisk along with killing all its drones. This makes the Heavy extremely effective at shutting down Disks and Sectopods...two of the most dangerous enemies you'll face. The alternative heavy makes use of shredder rocket, grenadier and rockeeter in order to become a breach/cover removal specialist. I do NOT recommend taking bullet swarm or using your heavy as a fire-focused character, as even with a scope equipped their accuracy is poor enough to give you fits.
13. Assault. You can take your Assault one of two ways...either as a high defense scout, or a high offense flanker. I prefer the former, but the latter can work well in lieu of a 2nd sniper if you're struggling with offense. Once they get resilience your Assault is probably the most durable character you have, and with Titan armor and Chrysalid chitin plating you shouldn't be afraid to take some risks with run and gun. Assault should have high will, especially if used as recon. All Assault should take "Lightning Reflexes", as they're the only unit you have that can safely burn an enemy overwatch.
14. Support. A good recon alternative to Assault, especially if it's early game and you're being cautious. Sprinter makes your Support the most mobile unit on the field, so they can cover a lot of ground easily, and retreat just as easily if they don't like what they see. ALWAYS take Field Medic and Savior with your Support. If you use them for recon, they should have high will. You shouldn't need more than one support once you have a sergeant or higher.
15. Thin Men. These guys are likely to be the biggest stumbling block you face in the game, due to when they appear. Don't bother suppressing them, as they'll just spit on you. The first council mission where it's 100% Thin Men is usually the failure point for many aborted Iron Man games on Classic and above. Squad sight snipers are effective here, and make sure you stay in the heaviest cover possible, as they're extremely accurate.
16. Mutons. Suppression can be risky with Mutons as they are not shy about using grenades.
17. Chrysalids. If you haven't researched Carapace Armor or Lasers by the time these guys show up, they can be a little intimidating, but they're manageable. They're a relatively low HP unit, and they have no ranged attack. Bait them out and gang up on them with snipers and grenades, and you'll be alright. The major issue with Chrysalids is that they make getting Excellent on terror missions near impossible unless you take care of them very early on.
18. Sectoid Commanders/Ethereals. This is where a SHIV can come in handy, as it cannot be mind controlled. It makes a good spotter for your snipers. Alternatively, if you don't want to use a SHIV, you can use a high will soldier as a scout, or a soldier with ghost armor. If you have no LOS for snipers you can MAKE one with a rocket, and if all else fails you can bunch up and blitz the room with everyone at once and try to alpha strike them down. Do be aware that anything <90 will is pretty much an automatic mind control success for the aliens, and even that is dodgy.
19. Sectopods. This is the last real threat you'll face in the game, by this time most everything else will be relatively easy for you. Heavies with HEAT ammo work here, as do Snipers with Plasma weaponry. Sectopods suppress very well, and you can park a unit next to them to kill them with their own AoE. Just keep an eye on them for the red pulsing to end their turn, that means next turn they are going to AoE bombard, which does not require LOS and can do fairly significant damage.
20. Will. I recommend thinking hard about retiring low will soldiers by the time you've passed the Alien Base, if you can stand to lose them from your rotation. This is a good reason to work the occasional rookie/squaddie into the mix when doing missions, to have backups available. Not only is panic a risk, but having your guys endlessly mind controlled is no fun. This is a reason why early acquisition of the Iron Will trait is highly desirable.
21. Remember that elevation counts. You can get some serious accuracy bonuses from elevation, especially snipers with "Damn Good Ground".
22. Reload constantly during lulls/down time. Running into enemies and discovering everyone has 1-2 shots left in the chamber can be disastrous.
23. The frag grenade is the rookie's friend. Use it to get them one easy kill, which gets them their squaddie promotion. You can use it for squaddies as well, as sergeant is really where classes start to open up.
Realistically, post Alien Base you just shouldn't be losing battles any more. Once you have Titan Armor and Plasma Weapons the tactical layer becomes significantly easier, and once you have access to Ghost Armor it becomes even easier. It takes a disastrous miscue, or a Sectopod in a really disadvantageous position, to take down a squad of Colonels and Majors in full gear. The game is actually most challenging early on, when your gear is rubbish and Thin Men are tearing you a new asshole every time out. I've had Iron Man games where I didn't take a single casualty past the 2nd month. And that's good, too, because losing your "A Team" and being forced to head out with rookies at a late stage in the game would be virtually game ending.
Things progress whether you do the research or not. I had a marathon game where I got jammed behind a 38 day research cycle just to get arc throwers out, resulting in me still running around in basic armor/weapons when Cyberdisks and Mutons were out on the field. There's no real benefit to putting off priority research, unless it's to get a critical armor or weapons upgrade.simmeh said:
I'm finding the Normal difficulty quite easy, Classic+Ironman I had trouble with the finances but was managing to get the missions done. First time in the alien base it was a massacre because of the Chrysalids, but then I adjusted my strategy and got out of there without a scratch.
Don't send soldiers alone, position your soldiers well, use Overwatch to cover movement, get better weapons (laser) if possible.
Don't send soldiers alone, position your soldiers well, use Overwatch to cover movement, get better weapons (laser) if possible.
Just out of curiosity, since this is a thread full of Xcom players, is this game in any way similar to Fire Emblem but with guns and aliens? I've only seen a little gameplay of the original, and none of the new one. Just wondering if I could get a comparison.
From the snippets I've heard, it puts me in mind of Fire Emblem and Advanced Wars, but more robust. Is this accurate or am I not seeing it correctly?
Sorry to the OP for posting this unrelated to the OT, but I didn't want to make a new thread just to ask this question.
From the snippets I've heard, it puts me in mind of Fire Emblem and Advanced Wars, but more robust. Is this accurate or am I not seeing it correctly?
Sorry to the OP for posting this unrelated to the OT, but I didn't want to make a new thread just to ask this question.
I've now gotten 4 playthroughs were my sniper reached colonel no problem, way before chrysalids show up, I've found this to be the best plan. Find a raised area if possible, otherwise somewhere with reasonable lanes of sight, and fuck everything up that comes into anyone's line of sight. A floater needs to teleport to flank my sniper, and then I can either a) own them with the sniper rifle, get and move on, b) run behind them and own them with a pistol shot (especially with Absolutely Critical - flanking shots having 100% critical chance) or c) get my assault to run and gun them. I've also dealt with chrysalids just fine without a colonel sniper, it just means I can't take out overwhelming numbers in one turn.Gnmish said:
I don't find heavies all that useful, and will use 1 maximum for the rocket, for taking out cover so my sniper can start chain killing. Support is a more valuable spot with their 3 medkits.
The only time I get into trouble is if I'm in a very enclosed space - 11 chrysalids in a small area, the construction site where tons of mutons will rush me with grenades on the enemies first turn, those sort of things. That time is the only time a chrysalid has actually attacked me, excluding my early attempts of trying to arc thrower one. It's good that you can have squads based around the (in my opinion) OPness of In The Zone and ones that aren't heavily sniper based both viable though.
The RNG hates me using disabling shot, I've only hit one out of 5 times with it. Also, I like making big numbers with headshot, /preconditioned from WoW.AntiChri5 said:
Yeah, Anti-cheat mod classic, especially with Absolutely Critical is really fun and fair and tactical, vanilla classic is a rage inducing experience.hazabaza1 said:
I have actually found it is in your interest, long term, to let some countries leave the XCOM program. If the smaller ones which offer less to you are gone, it means you are stretched out less, are able to focus on the more..ahem, willing to offer countries, less resources are needed to watch over them, etc. However, I will never let the UK go down in XCOM, it is kind of watching over an northern part of my own.