X-Com 2 confusion (potential spoilers!)

[GothmogII]

If the Commander is so important why then:

Spoiler

Is he/she left in a barely guarded above ground room that a couple of rookies can easily break into?

You'd think they'd keep them in a bunker or on a satellite or something. It's almost like they -wanted- the Commander to get re-captured...

I think I'd almost prefer if the focus was more on a character rather than a faceless/voiceless Commander. I lost one of my top soldiers last night, she cried out 'My kids!' as she died, not something I had considered, that these people do have families, but the game doesn't really focus on individual interactions.

 

[cathou]

If the Commander is so important why then:

Spoiler

Is he/she left in a barely guarded above ground room that a couple of rookies can easily break into?

You'd think they'd keep them in a bunker or on a satellite or something. It's almost like they -wanted- the Commander to get re-captured...

I think I'd almost prefer if the focus was more on a character rather than a faceless/voiceless Commander. I lost one of my top soldiers last night, she cried out 'My kids!' as she died, not something I had considered, that these people do have families, but the game doesn't really focus on individual interactions.

the thing is that XCom is design in a way that you are suppose to fill up that part of the game yourself. it give you all the tools : you can design each soldiers with massive details, choose where they come from, their attitude, there's even a place to write a bio for each soldier, and when they die, you can mourn them, write an epitaph. So you make up your own little stories if it's what you like, or ignore that part of the game and just play missions...

 

[Lightspeaker]

WHY? Aren't you the guy who lost? Aren't you the chump who failed and let Earth get taken over?

You're also the one Earth trusted was qualified enough to stop the alien invasion. Nobody else seems to have stepped up - it seems that you're simply the best out there.

Indeed. In fact without wanting to spoil anything the game can't really stop telling how supergreat and awesome you are. If anyone wants to know what I mean exactly I will put it in the following spoiler

Spoiler

The Fact that you are apparently such a tactical genius, that the aliens hooked you into their system and used your tactical prowess as the foundation for the tactical capabilities of all the advent officers everywhere.
I found it pretty amusing to think how that plan got made.
"You know that planet that we rushed down recently? The one with the tiny resistance we obliterared within a few weeks? Yeah they lost, but I bet their commander could be a really smart, don't you think? We haven't seen any tactical capabilities from him, but we should definetly use him as an essential part of our plans!"

Looking at this it somewhat feels like people haven't actually been watching the cutscenes and reading the texts and listening to the voice cut-ins. >_>

Spoiler

Its implied through these that XCOM lost and Earth fell not because of any failure in overall strategy by you, the Commander, but from a specific tactical operation early on in the war (before you developed all the advanced stuff like Psionics and MECs and Gene Therapy) in which they found and assaulted the XCOM base and overwhelmed the defences. In essence...XCOM was proving to be such a thorn in the aliens' side even early on that they specifically hunted down your base to kill or capture you and your staff.

In this attack you were captured in a last stand in the command centre as the aliens broke in. So basically your 'defence' of Earth never really got off the ground and the loss was because you weren't there to coordinate it.

Although it does somewhat lampshade-hang the fact that you only get ONE base in the original remake. Which can't move about. So realistically the aliens could have found you and attacked you no problem. Which happens in one of the DLCs with the assault on the XCOM base (which the aliens never follow up on after being pushed back for some reason).

 

[Silverbeard]

If the Commander is so important why then:

Spoiler

Is he/she left in a barely guarded above ground room that a couple of rookies can easily break into?

You'd think they'd keep them in a bunker or on a satellite or something. It's almost like they -wanted- the Commander to get re-captured...

In fairness, the Commander is routinely referred to as a 'package'. The implication is that the Commander's tank is constantly moved around so as to keep any potential resistance operatives guessing. Remember, it took a highly placed double-agent to locate the commander to begin with. Secrecy is a great asset and the room wasn't 'barely guarded' either. There was almost an entire platoon of ADVENT standing around the doorway.
And it did take more than a 'couple of rookies', you know. It took a high-speed stealth dropship (Firebrand) combined with the distraction of a major public event (Unification day) combined with the further distraction of 'splosions (Central and Jane Kelly). It wasn't a stroll in the park that the tutorial implies it was.

 

[Jandau]

Regarding the awesomeness of the Commander: Apparently this gets filled in with the prequel novel - basically, you were winning, kicking ass and taking names, but then got sold out by the government and your base got steamrolled. Now, all this happened some 2-3 months into a game of XCOM. This does bring up some interesting possibilities:

Spoiler: Speculation regarding how XCOM:EW fits into the whole thing

After you are rescued, it turns out the aliens were taking advantage of your tactical genius by using your brain to run combat simulations. Now, the first thing that comes to mind is that the events of lategame XCOM are all simulations. But it gets better - What if all of Enemy Within is a simulation? MECs and Gene Modded troops would then simply be Aliens feeding you info about their actual troops to see what you would do with them. And EXALT? They are the Resistance cells and the Aliens were having you run combat sims specifically to combat a more or less conventionally armed human force.

 

[vallorn]

I know - but that doesn't make it better. Because it implies that the Scottish secession caused the invasion.

"Quick, the Commonwealth of Nations is more splintered than ever, the time for invasion is nigh"
Now if only their supreme leaders were called The Tallest'

Reading that in an "alien" voice gave me a hearty chuckle, thanks.

Obviously though, Alex Salmond invited them in thinking that they were just "The EU but in space" and signed over sovereignty in exchange for more North Sea Oil money. Then with their nemesis from the earlier invasions in the 80s, The Iron Lady, quietly assassinated, they were free to replace Prince Charles with a Thin Man (Nobody could tell the difference, he didn't even need those dark glasses) and take over the world!

 

[sXeth]

...Still, though, that's not the thing that made me rage the most. Freakin

Spoiler: Very early game enemy spoilers

The sectoids START with goddamn mind control now. My shotgun weilding badass changed sides and then rushed my tier-3 medic and one shot him and there was NOTHING I could do. At least in Enemy Unknown I had Disabling Shot by the time mind control entered the equation. Not to mention, a Faceless ganking one of my guys out of freakin' nowhere. How was I supposed to be prepared for that?!

Yeah, but once you kill one of them, you can autopsy them for the Mind Shield, which makes you completely immune to Psionics (which I don't even think was possible in Enemy Unknown? Maybe with the expansion stuff. Its sort of a nod to progression that the end-game tactics of the last game get upended so early.


Adding to the Stun Lancer counters. Suppression fire usually halts their day pretty badly.