Lol making civilian saves a priority on impossible/ironman.

I blame the designers for making ignoring them a viable strategy.

Looking forward to this. The original is my #1 all-time. Sucks that I have deadlines to meet all month and can't stand a distraction.

For the people who consider the original 10/10 and have played this for >10 hours, what does this one rate? I'd read through the thread but don't want to spoil anything.

You are definitely right to not get it until you meet your deadlines. I find it incredibly hard to play casually. Super addictive.

I'd say a solid 9/10 (plus or minus a half of point), could understand someone going as low as an 8/10 though. There are a few more things I would like, but at the same time I like a lot of the additions that I was originally iffy about. Overall this is great and I hope they continue with this series and don't abandon it.

Definitely a time suck, highly recommended, even if you can't shoot holes in walls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9zJE9GodMQ
This impossible ironman playthrough is way more entertaining.

On Classic I always shoot for 5 satellites by end of month 1. Get 4 engineers from first mission, build workshop. Build 4 satellites, sell your alloys and fragments and elerium if you need to. Build uplink. Launch on the last day of the month to get Russia and all of Africa. No more money problems!!

Doing an impossible ironman play through now. Game seems all about just getting over that initial lump where your guys suck and you have ****ty armor/weapons.

you will def be disappointed if you think this is a remake of the original. don't get me wrong, its a fun game. however, this is not a remake of the original. seems they just added the xcom name for branding reasons.

you will find a lot of things missing that made the original such a classic. this one is way too dumb downed and streamlined for console users. everything feels scripted and you get these terror/abduction missions magically appear once a month where you hav option only to pick 1/3 missions since you only have one base and skyranger. you dont get to assign soldier classes based on their skill rantings(you only have two, will and accuracy), the cpu randomly assign classes for your soldiers. inventory management is pretty much non existent.

also in the original it feels like the ufo enemy is actually playing against you in a strategic level(base attacks etc), or where u can just follow an ufo instead of intercepting if u have fast enough aircraft and fuel; and if you are lucky u can see where it lands to find its base(s). here it will feel like u are simply fighting against the countries panic level instead of an actual ufo opponent.


if you care more about gameplay content than graphics, then check this out:
http://www.xenonauts.com/
http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/forum.php

upcoming actual remake of the original by an inde developer.

Watching a stream of a guy. He's raging on ironman, so great.

I love the design of this game. The two best decisions were imo

1) Reduce massively the length of the game. When you are learning what does what, you can restart without feel like you wasted so much effort. When your corporal dies, you aren't tempted to reload a save, because you can just play it out and start a new game no biggie.
2) 6 soldier max on missions. None of that tedius "throw bodies at the aliens" type of gameplay in the original.

They really made an effort to cut out a lot of the chaff in the original game. Of course, the super hardcore gamers hate it because they like the zillion things, but it's so much better for normal gamers.

Just finished the game on Classic Ironman. Lost 3 countries and 5 soliders. 4 of my soldiers were squaddies. I lost 1 Col sniper(that sucked) with 79 kills to a misclick. Once I got carprice armour I didn't lose a soldier except my Col sniper to a msiclick The original x-com is in my top 3 of all time games (probably #1) and even thou it's slightly dumbed down for the masses it's still a great game in it's own right.

I do miss some of the tactical elements such as kneeling or going prone and some design decisions such as reloading your weapon taking an entire move or the inability to select classes for your rookies are strange but the game is still very good.

I am a little dissapointed in the final assault on the temple ship as that level seemed very easy. it was the largest map by far but the difficulty was a joke, a few random encounters with 2-4 aliens and then the final boss fight,

As a matter of fact once you get past the initial hump of the first 3-4 missions with poor health/armour/weapons the difficulty level goes downhill fast. As soon as I got carprice armour the survivability/difficulty of the game went from a 9 to a 3 and as soon as I got lasers/plasma the game went from a 3 to a 1

I also felt that some of the classes can use a few balancing tweaks. Snipers are far to overpowered. Any tactical encounter was pretty much GG aliens once I got 2 snipers leveld up as they could shoot anything with about 95% hit rate and critical those hits 50% plus. My snipers were 1 shotting everything with the exception of a sectopod/ethreal but 1 sniper could take out a sectopod in one turn with double tap.

I found heavy's absolutely useless as a class. My typical squad was either 2 snipers/2 assault/2 support or 2 snipers/1 assault/3support. I used the latter combo more often mid/late game once I discovered how good support were overall. To be honest I probably would have replaced assault with support and ran a 2 sniper/4 support squad the entire game had I known from the begining how good of a class support ws going to be. If I replay the game I absolutely will be running a 2 sniper 4 support squad the entire game. Support has to many awesome skills. Snipers/assaults are a no brainer so that left me deciding between heavy's and support. Support has the ability to shoot twice while on overwatch/ heal/carry an extra item in inventory/throw smoke gernades/surpress/ and move an extra 3 tiles. Heavy's can launch a rocket that does 9 damage(12 with upgrade blaster cannon) /have crappy aim and less mobility than any other class so heavy's got chucked. I didn't need the 100% bonus vs robotic enemies since Snipers could destroy them anyway. If I had to rank classes in order of power it would be 1) Sniper 2) Support 3) Assault 4) heavy. Support beat out assault IMO as they have so many useful abilities.

I also never got to use/level up any PSI powers on any of my guys. As soon as I could use the gallop chamber I did and it was game over. The one soldier who did have all 3 levels of psi powers unlocked automaticaly when I assaulted the final base were very underpowered and I used weapons instead of the powers. The final mission my snipers were wiping everything out like any other misison.

I doubt I will be replaying this game again as it has very little replayability IMO except for Multiplayer, which is fun but so buggy right now. Hard to get a game going as i am constnatly getting quick match or ranked match errors.

Overall 8.5/10

I find the main use for assault is on UFO missions where you can't just sit a sniper on a hill half a world away.

I do like the idea of going 2 sniper/4 support though. Or 3/3 perhaps with a sniper on move & shoot instead of squad sight? This also saves you a load of research - no need for heavy plasma, no need for alloy cannon (although I really like that gun with run & gun)

I'd guess you need to wait til you have the officer school ability of new soldiers start at squaddie to do that properly though.

What does carapace armour do? I've ignored it before. Also, which items do you use? I've been scope on sniper and medikit on everyone else (plus stungun on support once they have bigger pockets)

Sniper: scope
Support: as soon as they have the +3 movement, they get the stunner
Assault: nano-fibre
Heavy: Who uses heavy? I would use scope if I used heavy though

No medkits? I use them a LOT. I often end missions with no charges left. I guess I just suck.

My snipers run with the scope.
Heavies with the scope, it took a lot of missions before my sniper caught up with my heavy for top kill count.
Support runs with med kits x 3
Assault run with the stunner and usually die trying to get into position to use it.

I'm usually running 1 sniper, 2 heavies and 2 support. One of the heavies has 3 rockets with the double scrambler which is very nice.

Oh yes I have medkits for support guys also. Of course bring along two guys with medics

lost my ironman impossible squad horribly...

2 Snipers with plasma pistols both major a support and an assault was my team, last room on the abduction map where the aliens must be, 2 doors I put 3 guys b the one door, then the last guy on the other but no he ****ing runs through the room triggering 2 mutons and 2 floaters after I ahd dashed there assuming he wouldn't be so ***** stupid to take the shortest direction...

Then I had no moves just after the aliens had positioned themselves and bye bye longest run thus far. Such fail

btw support is best for arc thrower imo because of their extra 3 tiles ability.

The armour adds hitpoints to give you better survivability. I think it's +6 Hitpoints. It's the very first armour you research and it's also the weakest but it allows you to survive and take 2 hits instead of one which is really important at the begining.

I always use squad sight with my snipers. Snipers are still great in ufo crash sites with the gunslinger perk and a good pistol. You can move and shoot with a pistol but not the sniper rifle. You can level up your pistols power 3x in the foundry. A sniper with an upgraded pistol and gunslinger perk does more damage than an assault/support/heavy with a plasma weapon.

The armour is my #1 priority above all at the begining of the game, the added survivability can not be beaten IMO.

As far as loadout. Sniper=Scope (end game Col gets 105 accuracy with the scope) Support gets medikit & chitin armour (extra 4 HP) when he gets the deepocket perk/ Assault gets chitin armour and Heavy's got a scope. I only had 1 squad member carry a stungun and that was my assault guy.

Also I never had any issues with alloys like some people here have had. At the end of the game I had around 300+ alloys to spare and I built/upgraded everything. 5 Firestorms all with EMP cannons/10 interceptorcs all with EMP cannons , 6 ghost armours, 6 titan armours 6 Arkangel armour etc etc, 6 plsma rifles etc etc. At the end of the game I had enough cash/alloys that I built extras of everthing so I didn't have to equip/unequip my sqaddies when trying to level them up. I did have 8 worskhops connected thou and I saved a ton of resources

Aha, +4 hitpoints. I thought it was just for melee, thanks.

I have latched on to this more than any game bought in the past year - except for probably Catherine, an obscure, hilarious game that like XCom involves a good mix of strategy and action. Combat which involves thinking and not just mashing buttons is my flavor.

The original XCom was one of my all-time favorite titles but thankfully I didn't play it enough to where I find myself nitting this to death as some of the more hardcore fans are doing.

I still suck really badly though - for example I'll equip a guy with arc thrower and then don't even know how to use it. What a tard. Worse yet it's been an objective for months now and by not capturing an alien I'm not advancing the campaign, which I have a feeling is a Bad Idea.

Skimmed this thread, looks like Real Men play ironman which is how I will roll next time through. Treating this more or less like a long tutorial.

To use the ARC thrower have one of your guys who has one end their turn inside the indicator circle that should be drawn on the map when you mouse close to it with a dudes path. Then treat it like any other weapon. You really want to avoid low percentage shots since you end up stuck right next to the alien if it doesn't work. The more hurt the alien is the better your chances are as well.

I think Heavies are by far the best class early on right up until you get snipers with laser/plasma guns, but after that I agree snipers >>>> Support >> Assault > Heavy.

My biggest complaint with this game is that the difficulty scales horribly which ****s with the pacing of the game. The early part of the game where you have stuff like scope/nano vest but no carapace armor or better weapons is the best part of the game imo. The battles are extremely intense, and you always feels like you're riding a razor thin line between victory and complete annihilation. You have to make tough decisions with your abduction missions and carefully plan your satellite development. After a certain point right around carapace armor + laser or plasma things just start to get too easy even on impossible ironman.

Ah, thanks. Yeah I saw the blue circle, was like wtf is that all about, and then gave up trying to figure it out. With very little in the way of instruction manual (although I guess there is a more comprehensive downloadable one) I've just been learning as I go.

I've also been naming some of my soldiers, which has made me less interested in sending them into the thicker parts of battle. So far I have Lt. Rob Salaburu, Capt. Sexy Rexy, and Lt. Chipper Jones!

I color my dudes armor based on what they do.

Typing on xbox is ridiculous.