XCOM: Enemy Within

[Crimefighter]

I bought an Ipad recently and have been replaying this game (It has been fantastic for long boring flights!)

Anyone here still play EW? (I haven't tried Long War).

I play on Classic difficulty, and I am looking for a reliable, repeatable smooth opening strategy that gets Beam Weapons and an OTS (for squad size upgrade) up quickly. Followed by MECs while researching Carapace. I like to get on top of the Tac layer early.

Not too interested in Sat rushing as I feel it compromises the tac layer too much, I am happy with +1 Sat 1st month, then a Workshop + Uplink for 3 more sats in the second month.

What I am not sure about is starting continent. Am trying Asia at the moment, but my Beam weapons came later than I would like (never got offered Scientists in the 2nd abduction), and I am short of cash.

I am wondering if NA (more startup cash), or even Africa (grabbing USA or Russia at end of 1st month), would be a better starting location for this strategy?

Second topic Id like to throw out is squad composition.

Ive pretty much decided my ideal squad makeup will be one of each class, and a double up for the 6th slot. The question for me is 2 of which class will add the most to my squad - a 2nd MEC, Heavy, or Assault?

Assualts are my favorite class, but I have awful trouble with them activating additional alien pods when running & gunning - they can be a real liability sometimes!

I havent played much with MECs yet, but they seem awesome.

Thoughts?

 

[silversurfer]

Its a great game, played the original ages ago. Im only playing it now on easy as its got multiplayer for the harder games vs people who know all the tricks.

Started south america which I know is probably wrong, just playing for the story and want to finish it without replaying missions and I like the instant research

Assault is the best or Heavy is my highest rank as the rocket kills are easy. Assault run and gun then adjacent bonus is lethal, I should probably stop using shotgun already but it kills in one blow or I use him to stun also + instant interrogation

Dan Stapleton of GameSpy wrote: "I consider the 1994 turn-based tactical masterpiece X-COM: UFO Defense to be the single best videogame ever made. Compared directly to that impossibly high standard, Firaxis' 2012 remake, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, does remarkably well."

I bought the whole pack but I guess Im not on within yet, trying to get through them as its been a game Ive got but not played

 

[Rezident]

Picked this game up cheap a while ago and absolutely loved it. Brilliant game. I can see myself replaying it again it was so good.

 

[Sleepery]

I've spent so long playing the long war that I'd probably fall flat on my face in the vanilla game now

Seriously, give it a try, but use the Not So Long War option, and maybe the cinematic combat option to give yourself a slight edge. This way you get to play with the dozens of new toys and skills, but the game doesn't take longer than the age of the universe to complete

 

[joeyjojo]

Iron Man is the only way to play Surrender those shades right now!

Agreed with this.

Only got into XCOM fairly recently. Played EU normal once through for the story. Now playing EW classic ironman, and it's a serious challenge!

Mid-July now and tbh it seems like this playthrough is too far gone. Went well at the beginning focussing on satellites and not losing any countries. Got almost all covered now but a few countries with satellites have max panic so unless the right mission comes along they'll be leaving this month. Got lasers and carapace, most of the OTS, 5 uplinks, plenty of power, a few workshops, MEC workshop and GL (but not enough meld for either to be that useful). Got most of the countries crossed off the Exalt base list too.

The main problem is I had a few bad missions in a row last month and lost ALL my high ranked soldiers. Seriously, only got squaddies left (OTS upgrade) One mission was a bit like Smokey Deza's screenies above - a dozen chrysalids and TWO cyberdiscs on a terror mission (and I had only just got laser rifles and no armour upgrades) - the former just went around spawning zombies, including one from one of my dead soldiers, which was annoying. Lost my maxed out sniper on that mission which was a serious blow (but was my fault, I had him near some cars which a Cyberdisc grenaded, instant kill).

The other was an Exalt mission where they had a substantial advantage in HP and weaponry, resulting in a very tense 2 (Zhang and my MEC) versus 4-ish retreat, during which they caught my MEC Zhang made it out though thankfully. Was a crappy map - a night-time rooftop cafe? Not much cover but was having some success overwatch trapping and getting them to climb up the walls.

Oh and then there was that stupid site recon with the fishing village. Seriously what an imba mission scripted near-infinite chrysallids??? Retreated after losing a few including my first MEC Wasn't worth it.

Ironman if you're stubborn like me is absolutely brilliant though, because it makes you play through these ****, hopeless situations! And most of the time if bad stuff happens it's your fault.

Will carry on a bit longer since I managed to beat a data recovery this morning which gave me a nice cache of Elite Exalt weapons which might help. Lost yet another MEC though and probably can't replace it this time.

 

[Sleepery]

Seriously, install Long War, you will never, ever look back

 

[joeyjojo]

Seriously, install Long War, you will never, ever look back

I don't think I have the time. I actually put XCOM down for ages and only got back into it from watching a twitch streamer (TorNis) playing LW impossible ironman. It took him 57 days playing 8 hours/day to complete

See e.g. the penultimate day http://www.twitch.tv/tornis/v/3832503

IIRC he only restarted half a dozen ish times to get to this run. But he managed to stay ahead of the curve and play near-perfectly, and it still took 400+ hours. That puts me off a bit

 

[Sleepery]

There's an option to have a shorter version of it I'd never, ever consider doing an ironman on LW, it's just too bloody tough. The amount of extra toys you get is fantastic though, there are whole new classes of weapons, new skills, and classes, and the air war is absolutely brutal now.

It does go on a bit, even with the short version. I tend to play it in bursts over weeks

 

[silversurfer]

Nice option to have, always that game left to play

night-time rooftop cafe?
fishing village. Seriously what an imba mission scripted near-infinite chrysallids???

I remember those, chrysallids I killed with the sniper who never uses up a turn if its a kill on uncovered enemy.
I havent the patience to play or repeat these missions, I find easy tough enough or most enjoyable I guess Im not hardcore like this :

Spoiler

 

[joeyjojo]

^ lol I was watching that bit just before I linked it. I'm not surprised he went to the temple ship soon after - those buffs were getting mental.

 

[joeyjojo]

Finally got around to doing the base defence on this playthrough (first time). Was very hard!

37 aliens. (2 sectoids, 4 sectoid commanders, 3 floaters, 1 heavy floater, 5 mutons, 2 muton elites, 2 berserkers, 3 cyberdisks, 6 chryssalids, 3 drones, 3 mechtoids, 2 seekers, and an ethereal!!! First ethereal of the game.)

Didn't lose anyone (other than rookies) though. Started with a sniper, heavy, and assault, reinforced by another sniper, my MEC, and finally a support with 3x medkits (thankfully!). All top/second top rank with top equipment.

The most dramatic turns were at the end. The ethereal charged me while several soldiers needed to reload, including the nearby MEC. First Zhang fired off a rocket, killing the Cyberdisk and injuring the Ethereal, followed by a grenade to the face from the last surviving rookie. With 11 HP left the MEC used his flamethrower, causing the Ethereal to panic!

The game then crashed! But thankfully the save was at the start of my turn so I repeated the same actions again and made it. With only a couple of HP left my assault lucked a 50-60% pistol shot to kill him.

The other drama was a successful mind control on the MEC from the sectoid commander in the first screeny (who was also shielding a hidden mechtoid at the top left - impressive brainpower to do both at once...).

I thought my two snipers would squadsight him if I could get my assault close enough, so I charged him with run and gun right into a group of mutons! He survived thanks to lightning reflexes but the snipers still had no line of sight. Without any rockets on Zhang I decided to fly both snipers up to max height and forward into pistol range, where they managed to kill the commander with their maxed out plasma pistols.

With its shield now down the mechtoid was easily killed by Zhang thanks to his heavy plasma, bullet swarm, and heat ammo (2x 15 damage).

After that it was simply a case of cleaning up the mutons. (Note the two flying snipers.)

GG! Wish I'd filmed it.