XCOM : Enemy Unknown - by Firaxis Games - Thread

I have 2 things annoying me at the minute...

1) The number of times aliens hit for critical. I know I am playing on classic, but almost every hit seem to crit! The bonus is too high for the aliens.

2) Just recently I am having loads of problems with the game screens overlaying each other, not being able to select things, marines dissapearing from the squad view when launching a mission... Really got worse since it was first released!
 
Streeteh said:
That's not actually the case. Yes nothing will happen when you are in the 'safe zone', however I'm assuming that's because the aliens are unaware of your presence. After the battle begins though, especially in the later levels on the higher difficulties, enemies will start to seek you out.

I got flanked by three mutons very late in a ship-raid mission as i was unaware i had missed them. Right at the end they charged into the ship and up behind me, resulting in being totally surrounded.
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Once you make some noise (gunfire, petrol explosions, kicking down doors, busting through windows) those aliens outside of your line of sight will be drawn to it. Unless the difficulty levels make the aliens more deaf as it goes down, this behaviour is common between them.

Most aliens are having a picnic otherwise. Some (though seems to be very few) alien packs are put on patrol routes, but don't fully explore.
 
Quick question: does the difficulty progress with the timeline in the game, or with the completion of story missions? I.E., can I take my time building everything up before progressing with the story, or am I gonna get smacked by big scary aliens if I play around too much?
 
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Hi,

I think both change which aliens turn up, so if you sit there not doing the main missions, you will start to see the next types, just means you will see more of them on the main mission line,
 
Finished my ironman classic play through last night, the most helpful piece of advice I can give is to never ever dash into unknown territory especially with your last movable unit. Its always best to move -> overwatch over and over in case you get ambushed.

If you have a good idea where the enemy is then move your whole squad onto the line with one turn and advance with a single unit with the next turn, then use all your moves to try and knock out the contact before their turn begins.
 
Limenote said:
Finished my ironman classic play through last night, the most helpful piece of advice I can give is to never ever dash into unknown territory especially with your last movable unit. Its always best to move -> overwatch over and over in case you get ambushed.

If you have a good idea where the enemy is then move your whole squad onto the line with one turn and advance with a single unit with the next turn, then use all your moves to try and knock out the contact before their turn begins.
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I would second that, single move then overwatch, also someone mentioned moving your units back out of "LOS" then let them move to you whilst you have overwatch on, another good idea.
 
Some Tips:
  • Never move past the overwatch unless walking into already explored and empty area
  • Move your team as one unit, dont split the team
  • Never flank into unknown territory, it is better to pull back and let them come to you. The reason for this is that you can sometimes set even more enemies off and you don't want a loan gunman trying to deal with a cyberdisk on his own.
  • Satellites and engineers are the key to success, so build satellites and favor missions with engineers
  • Never do priority missions until you have captured relevant tech
  • Snipers and support are probably the best units in the game; With Snipers dealing damage without getting hit and support are great for keeping your squad alive, so always bring one of each and preferably two
  • Sounds obvious, but the chances of success reduce significantly with each dead squadmate. What I mean is that sometimes it is better to just get out and quit than to lose everyone. Especially terror missions!
  • Some builds stack such as power and satellites, so build with future expansion in mind.
  • To fully complete you need about 6 standard satellite rooms and about 5 power and 1 thermal, so plan accordingly.
  • Build space to develop, so clean the top and second row as soon as you fill one, clean out another. Only on level 3 should you consider waiting
  • It is better to kill one Alien than to injure 3, so focus fire
  • Never stand to close to one another, late game the enemy gets nades and they can royally mess up what should have been a slaughter
 
Deadbeat said:
Quick question: does the difficulty progress with the timeline in the game, or with the completion of story missions? I.E., can I take my time building everything up before progressing with the story, or am I gonna get smacked by big scary aliens if I play around too much?
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You won't face psionic enemies until you do the alien base assault mission. the hardest alien regular troops will unlock with time and only time.
 
Crashed and burned in my latest game. The global situation 'under control' and the game looked to be playing out well, until a superbly well placed Muton grenade took out my main assault chap and heavily wounded my B sniper. Then a rookie went nuts and landed a sweet shot on said Sniper.

If it had just been Muton's, I could've handled them with 4 troops, but the Cyber Disc that chose to make its debut during this mission, well that was another matter... :eek: My best soldier was the only one to make it out alive.

It was too close to the end of the month to really pull things back, so I sat back and watched the 'faliure' video for the first time. :p
 
lost after 214 days :) seems if you lose 8 country's you lose the game

does anyone know how to take screenshots I tried the print button but it just gives me a blank page when pasting
 
Latest rage inducing bug - my 'rotate camera left' button mysteriously changing to the 'end turn' button. Right in the middle of a terror mission :p
 
Tried classic with the anti-cheat mod and it's MILES better. The game is now fun again rather then being so annoying I was thinking of uninstalling it. I just can't stand playing this when I get a 60% chance to hit from 3 tiles away while flanking and the AI can crit me from 10 tiles way when I'm behind heavy cover.
I am also finding that on classic aliens just seem to appear right in the middle of my troops and I'm 100% sure this didn't happen on normal. I finish my turn and then 3 aliens suddenly appear in an area where I have LoS?
 
I just started a new game on classic, first mission a little dude shoots straight through a wall from across the map killing one of my guys in cover, then the one next to him panics and just turns around and kills another one of mine!
 
Pighardia said:
I just started a new game on classic, first mission a little dude shoots straight through a wall from across the map killing one of my guys in cover, then the one next to him panics and just turns around and kills another one of mine!
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This does happen sometimes but what about when it happens in your favor? swings & roundabouts IMO
 
Theres also reports of a bug related to replaying the game.
If complete the game and then just restart on a higher difficulty you will see much harder enemies and elite ones earlier.
If instead you complete the game, then delete all your saves and your profile.bin your 2nd playthrough even on a higher difficulty will not be so hard.
Its the difference between sectiods starting to have 5-6 HP within 3-4 missions instead of lower values. It makes a big difference when you have squads full or rookies who only seem to shoot straight when they panic.
 
Amazingly addictive game... I bought and installed this last night. My 'quick test before bed' turned into a 4 hour session!

I may restart though as I seem to have restricted myself by not grinding a little to get a few more satellites. Is there a punishment for grinding the random missions and avoiding any 'priority' researches etc?
 
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