Focus on engineers and money.
Choose missions by which one gives you engineers (unless another country will drop out, then choose that one).
Get up more satellites as soon and as often as possible. 2, better yet 3 per month.
Build them up before the new uplink goes online.

Also: you can get the starting bonuses of other continents, if you get up a satellite over every country on that continent. (But don't forget that satellites also reduce panic - you can't always beeline straight for a continent.)

 

Just picked this up today, put about 4 hours give or take into it. Thin Men get ALL my hate, fucking ninjas. Floaters, however, get rockets. The Heavy getting two different rockets (at the level I'm at now, one regular and one shredder) and a grenade upgrade to carry two is just over the top awesome. And kind of game-breaking. Kills all things. Loving it.

 

Play on Ironman Classic difficulty and that tends to change really quickly. I do miss the whole random shots from the dark that kill tons of your squad before you even have an idea what just happened. Just doesn't seem like Xcom without those rage inducing moments.

 

Bah, just ran into my first bug. Got to the assault on the alien base (using the skeleton key), then a bunch of Chryssalids turned up, killed Major Juan Rivera (god damn but that was annoying, he's been with me since the start) and tried to attack another of my guys when the game froze.

Other than that this game is fantastic. A bit repetitive once you've done a few abduction/rescue/crashed ufo missions, but just when it starts to get boring you run into something new that completely ruins your day.

I've lost about 6-10 men so far, most of them rookies. My highest ranked officer just got killed. Since I've got the hang of the game though I think I'll restart and go through it on Ironman/hard difficulty. Didn't intend to let the tutorial/normal difficulty go on so long anyway, plus my base is a complete mess.

 

I fucking adored the original XCOM, and I fucking adore this one, but this is not a remake. In any way.

In the first XCOM, you were the Vietcong. You could take your time, appropriate their supplies at your leisure, and fight on your terms.

In this one, you're France during the Blitzkreig. You're getting the shit kicked out of you so quick you don't even know where to turn, and your only hope is a desperate regrouping followed by a wild haymaker.

It's a completely different flavor to the game, and the way you have to play is completely different. There's still many paths to victory, it's still brutally hard, and you're still casting about desperately for any advantage you can find, but now you've got the added pressure of doing shit real quicklike. A mediocre job done quickly is now better than a good job done slowly, and I can dig that, but it shocked the hell out of me my first game.

Also, a lot of the tedious fucking micromanagement from the first is gone, but most of that was silly shit anyway.

All in all, I'm amazed this turned out so well. I basically thought this game would suck, or that they'd just completely remake XCOM. Neither is true. This is a reimagining that /actually manages to keep the heart of XCOM./ It's XCOM for the 21st century, and, well, god damnit... How often is an updated version of a classic actually good?

 

That is probably the best description I have read for the differences between the versions yet. Congrats.

 

Let me tell y'all a little story about a stone cold motherfucker named Gao Ye.

Gao Ye was a big burly son of a bitch from the People's Republic of China. Fully clad in tactical armor, he looked more like a tank on legs than a person. He's one of our most celebrated heroes, having killed more of the alien menace than the soldiers with the next two highest kill counts combined. He's been wounded seven times and almost died twice, and never once complained.

In his first mission, he shot a fellow XCOM operative in the face.

Remember, in the earliest days, before we began to develop laser weaponry and better armor, before we understood the aliens enough to adapt our tactics, we had an attrition rate of well over fifty percent per mission. It was a coinflip whether or not you'd walk back out of the meatgrinder, and everyone knew it.

Now, imagine knowing those odds, then being sent out to a downed UFO that crashlanded in a forest on a cloudy night. Flames and smoke obscure your vision as you move forward, darting from cover to cover and desperately hoping you at least see your enemy before they blow your head off. This was the situation that Gao Ye found himself in on the mission that popped his cherry.

As his fireteam approached the craft, two green flashes struck out in the night, and gaping holes burst from his squadmates' chests. Gao Ye ducked behind a fallen tree, then popped up, stuck his rifle out, and held the trigger until his gun went click.

Shaking, he dropped back behind cover, and clumsily inserted another mag. Then, suddenly, two things happened.

A large figure loomed out of the darkness, and a plasma bolt disentegrated the log he was using for cover. He shrieked, and pulled the trigger.

The figure's head disappeared in a red mist. The aliens bleed greed.

Gao Ye stood, staring blankly, until a sergeant ripped him out of the way of more incoming fire.

We won that engagement. Barely. Only Gao Ye and the sergeant survived. The shrinks advised me to immediately pull Gao Ye from combat duty. He protested, pleading for a chance to redeem himself. His fellow soldiers backed him up.

In the end, we were so short-staffed after the next mission that I had no choice but to send him out again.

This decision made out of desperation actually turned out to be quite wise. He threw away his rifle, picked up a shotgun, and proceeded to conquer his fear by never giving himself a chance for a blue on blue again. In fact, his habit of being the first in and last out meant that he rarely saw other friendlies in the field until the engagement was well underway.

We still have no way of knowing, but I swear they know him enough to fear him. Watching the video feeds, I once saw him charge a Chrysallid, slide under it, then jump up onto its back from behind, pumping lead into it the entire time. I understand that this isn't even close to the craziest thing he's done in the field. If that is indeed true, I don't blame them.

Speaking of that Chrysallid, he asked to keep the corpse after the mission was over. The eggheads objected, of course, but they weren't exactly lacking for corpses to study, so I let him have it. This, too, proved to be a wise decision. He cut apart the corpse with a hacksaw and nailed the chitin over his body armor. It turned out to be so effective that now we prioritize Chrysallids above our other targets in order to outfit the rest of our troops in effectively the same manner.

In the end, Gao Ye is the face the alien scum will remember of humanity. His will be the face that tortures them in the dark night of space.

And now? Well, now, unlike after that first mission, he sleeps peacefully, with a smile writ large across his face.

---

Inspired by events that happened over the course of that character's career. Oddly enough, the only time I ever saw him panic was that first time.

 

Now I really want to play this game.

 

And thus many awesome X-COM fics were born out of the legend of Gao Ye.

I can't write my way out of a holed bucket, but I'd read the shit out of it!

 

This game is fucking awesome. I found normal to be a bit too easy, so I kicked it up to 'classic' and suddenly wrong moves mean dead soldiers almost universally. I love it.

Except when a Maj. or Col. dies. That pisses me off.

Except doing this destroys resources. I almost never use rockets or grenades except when I'm seriously overwhelmed. You need those resources for research, development and manufacture.

I'm pretty far into the game, I NEVER have enough fucking Elerium or Weapon Fragments.

Thin Men aren't a big issue for me, I've got a sniper on my team that has twenty of their heads on his wall, but fucking Chryssalids get focused down FAST. Hate those fuckers so bad.

 

In my first

Spoiler

Alien Base Assault

mission, I had 4 guys left (1 other stabilized and 1 died) and was advancing cautiously. When my assault accidentally uncovered 3 chryssalids two levels below me and they jumped up right next to her! I didn't know they could do that, I thought they were safe with no enemy left on the upper level!

My other guys only had one move left: either run back further or try to kill them fast. I decided to try to kill them, because I didn't want to lose anyone else. So I was - of course - unlucky and only managed to kill one.
My assault was dead and they also got my heavy who was poisoned, but had some health left.
I thought I had it wrapped up now and killed the remaining chryssalids when

Spoiler

my heavy turned into a fucking zombie and killed his comrade. My last guy was 'kiting' the zombie and got him down to one remaining health when he turned into a new full-health chryssalid

and he also died.

Complete wipe and I had only one experienced sniper and one or two squaddies left in the sick bay from a previous mission.

I decided to start over again.

I now try never to uncover new territory with a dash - unless it's a rookie.

 

Psht. On my current Classic run through I've lost three entire squads and I've only been going two months. Fucking Mutons.

EDIT: And I'm done. I've lost my last veteran unit, too many countries have been destroyed and I don't have enough materials to build new equipment. Damn this game is difficult.

 

Going to restart, focus on caputuring aliens early on for their weapons, starting in Africa, and redoing my base. I was ignorant of the importance of satellites for far too long. I've only lost, lol Nigeria, but I see many ways I could be doing better after all but one of my guys got wiped on the first base assault.

 

Give 'em red armor. Name him Ricky.

 

So probably going to start a new game soon and I have to wonder, where do you guys usually pick for a main base. Personally I prefer Asia for the monthly engineers but I also like the bonus that comes with Europe.

 

Europe with Satellite coverage of North America as first goal.. I also try to have one with a few easy steam thingies but not sure how important it is for late game.

Just one question.. Is it smarter to do the main missions fast or should I focus on equipment?

 

I focus on equipment at first, since you'll be facing Chryssallids fairly early, and those fuckers hurt if you let them get in close. Overwatch is your best friend on the first terror mission too.

 

Sooo. I've been fiddling around with starting strategies, seeing what can be done in those first two months. Haven't tested this on Classic yet (I'll get around to it), but this is what I've been doing on Normal

O - Officer Training School
S - Satellite Uplink (Numbered by month built in)
W - Workshop
G - Power Generator
A - Alien Containment


O - S1 - S || W - G - G
A - S3 - S2 || W - G - G

This seems to be a fairly solid opener, though the nature of it makes Alien Containment come pretty late--you end up building it shortly into month 2, which means you get a 1-2 mission window where you capture aliens before the first Terror Mission. The idea is to use your starting cash to immediately build 3 satellites, grab engineers off your first abduction, and do whatever you have to to fund a Satellite uplink that'll go up before the month ends. It cuts close, but it lets you have 5 countries covered by the end of the month.

Launch them RIGHT before the council report, and you can use your next month's funding to order interceptors, and they'll show up shortly after the satellites are in the sky.

This strategy revolves around getting a ridiculous amount of sats up by the end of month 2 --- you should be looking at ~1000 funding going into month 3 if you can swing the Africa bonus on your way there without screwing your panic levels.

Build order and timing is very important--make sure you have enough engineers to get those uplinks up in time, or this won't work. Prioritize engineers from satellite monthly rewards, if you have to. North America is a good choice for this strategy, saving you money on interceptors for a rapid expansion, with a very high starting cash count. Europe is okay with this one, though it would be more workshop focused, and it's lower starting fund makes it a bit more difficult.


Picking up a sectoid and floater with Arc Thrower makes your laser weapon and carapace/skeleton armor research twice as fast, respectively, so be sure to allocate enough money to build 2 throwers to grab them fast. Consider putting off researching the Outsider Shard until a bit later, to grab more easy Light Plasma Rifles off of them on UFOs, since it's fairly easy to breach and stun them as single target enemies, rather than Thin Men/Floaters who run in packs.


Gray Market is your friend with this---I will often sell the entirety of my first two UFOs to fund rapid expansion, depending on luck with council missions/abductions. It pays off in month 3, where your research can often make Light Plasma Rifles and Pistols beat the arrival of Mutons in the field.



As for Classic, I'm fairly certain you can switch the positions of Alien Containment and OTS, if you're willing to put off squad size upgrades for a small time and can afford it. Have yet to try it though.



Rambled a bit here, but I hope this helps.

 

Rushing sats makes such a major difference in the game it's insane. I went from month 4 always being broke, loosing nations, to month 2/3, 1,000+ a month, low panic levels everywhere, 23 engineers, 11 scientists, and a rapidly expanding base.

 

Yeah, that's one of the problems with the game I've found. The early game will repeatedly destroy you, the aliens will regularly make you their bitch and lucky crits will make you cry in the corner. Once the mid-game rolls around though with carpace armor and a few mid level soldiers the tension and difficulty start to level out with the longer you go the easier it gets. Plenty of sats make sure you very rarely run out of funds plus you should have enough engies/scientists to make anything you want immediately. Once you get to the half way point of promotions for your squad things have a hard time of touching you in general without the game deliberately fucking you over, get to the late game tiers with them and nothing can stop you. Team of 2 assaults, 1 sniper, 1 heavy, and 2 supports max level and you basically win the game on classic.

Now to try impossible. Gulp.