The Official XCOM Thread

[Blarg]

Couple quick follow ups re your response, and different points of view.

Laser ammo doesn't run out like plasma does, and doesn't cost like plasma does. It's also less of a danger in a psi-weak soldier's hands. It also fires extremely quickly, so much so that a soldier with nothing in his hands can get a laser pistol in his hands and fire it within the same turn. Firing first is pretty huge. It's also a cheap way to blast down walls/haystacks without wasting ammo. And it can get an alien almost killed but not quite, so you can capture it live easier. Finally, if you have to throw it away to pick up a more sellable plasma or other item from the aliens, it's not that big a deal and you've come out with a profit.

Picking up things on the run is how you replenish ammo and sometimes get your guys weapons they haven't got. Picking stuff up is good!

As to the artic not being a good spot, it overlaps a ton of wealthy areas(Europe and North America) and so can hit aliens in either. It is a pretty good place, but of course doesn't provide funding.

Giving a guy an unloaded rocket launcher means he probably won't get the rocket in in time to do anything aimed. That doesn't sound like a good solution. Giving a psi-weak guy a rocket launcher is just asking for trouble.

I'm also not as keen on blasting stuff or ignoring civilians. You can pay a high price for dead civilians, and blasting everything means you can lose vital weapons, and live aliens, you could have recovered.

I'll confirm that you can need more than one alien containment device. If you get back to the base without capacity for an additional live alien, the game will kill it. It doesn't come up that often, and so it's questionable whether money should be spent on a second one, but it's a pretty big loss when you lose a live alien, especially one of the rarer ones. It can push your research back quite a way.

[bobman0330]

I think I disagree with pretty much everything you have to say here.

Blarg's point about smoke (I assume), is that it's super useful for concealment. If your landing zone ends up being an open field surrounded by aliens with cover, you can lose half your squad just getting out of the plane (unless you do something lame like reloading a bunch). You need to keep in mind that the aliens always see as far or farther than you (especially at night), and cover your movements with smoke.

Tanks are sweet. Their weapons aren't that hot (particularly the rocket tank) compared to what soldiers carry, but they're invaluable as scouts, and for not dying after one shot.

Ditto on blowing the hell out of the terrain. Ironically, I usually find this most necessary on farmland maps where there's no cover to approach aliens camped in buildings.

Base placement: Ugh. Put it in Europe where all the countries are. Russia can't even be infiltrated.

[Blarg]

Yes, smoke is very useful for concealment for those reasons.

I will reiterate my other point about it too, though. Your guys will sometimes collapse without enough health to survive if they are not picked up and taken out of smoke. Sometimes you can get to them in time, sometimes you just can't. There's no one way or the other here; it varies.

Wookie, you speak of letting soldiers die. They're very expensive, and I don't let them die lightly.

One more thing about tanks. They take up four spaces that could be used for leveling up soldiers. Which is not to say they're bad, but that everything has a cost. Considering how valuable increased stats are in this game, how critical even, I tend to think of the game as a giant machine for testing out soldiers and leveling them up. You need good ones badly, but they aren't necessarily all that common, especially as regards psi vulnerability, which is extremelyh common. I like being able to stat up and kick out as many soldiers as I can, and sacrificing a big chunk of my squad to a piece of metal that doesn't level, and dies as often as anything else, isn't a trade off I like.

Just a matter of taste, though.

[BCPVP]

This sounds like a pretty cool game. Once finals are over (because I do NOT need another distraction, especially an addicting one!), I'll be sure to try this game out.

I'm amazed at how complex this game seems to be from you guys talking about it. For such an old game...wow. I was a huge fan of Civilization and this game sounds similiar.

[Blarg]

It has a pretty satisfying depth to it, but what still strikes me all these years after it first came out is how vivid the battles were, and that even though they are turn-based. They're much more absorbing than the usual turn-based game, because the combat model is so perfectly designed. At every moment you're wondering if some small movement will make one or a handful of aliens suddenly show themselves and open fire on you at once. It's really spooky.

The game is honestly frightening at times. Lots of fans talk about jumping out of their chairs when seeing certain aliens and the panic that ensues, and it's one of the very few games I can say actually gave me a scare, and quite a few times too.. I still remember parts of battles after all this time, they were so intense.

One of my favorite things is to get the game going for a while and have a bunch of battles saved right before they begin. The game randomizes battles -- scenery, lay-out, aliens, etc. So if you have a game or two saved, you can step right into a great battle at any time. They're still good even after you've beaten them, because they'll be randomized and still new to you.

[20Five]

[ QUOTE ]
This sounds like a pretty cool game. Once finals are over (because I do NOT need another distraction, especially an addicting one!), I'll be sure to try this game out.

I'm amazed at how complex this game seems to be from you guys talking about it. For such an old game...wow. I was a huge fan of Civilization and this game sounds similiar.

[/ QUOTE ]

i cant believe there is even a thread about X-COM.. this was easily my second favorite game of all time, only to civ.. what an amazing game that so many peolpe dont even know about. Used to always name my soldiers after people I knew, to make me even more attached to them.

Definetly in the top 5 games of all time on any platform!

[strunks]

Collapsing from smoke happens too rarely for it to be a concern. Especially if your man hasn't been shot. If he has, then the combination of wounds and the smoke inhalation may knock him out, but it's still unlikely.

I let my rookies die a lot. I play without reloading, so if I have to send someone through a door, it's always some unarmored newb. If he dies, oh well $20000 is chump change and well worth the benefits of knowing that there are aliens lying in ambush. Not every rookie is treated the same though. Some rookies come with exceptional stats, and I armor them up and build them. But the poor suckers with any deficiencies get labelled as fodder and always die first. I never fire a soldier for bad stats. I already paid for him. He's more useful to me if I send him through a door to die. Because my soldiers die, I always keep a few extra around as a buffer so I don't have to wait 3 days for replacements.

I used to use tanks back when I used to reload. I didn't like my troops dieing so I sent the tanks ahead first. I don't usually let the tanks kill anything though unless as a last resort. They're great scouts. Tons of movement and high hitpoints.

But now, I'd rather have 4 rookies than a tank. With the 4 rookies, I have 4 pieces of fodder I can send to check corners and doors instead of just one. And the total cost of 4 rookies is 80 grand instead of whatever the tank costs which I think is more than that.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Collapsing from smoke happens too rarely for it to be a concern. Especially if your man hasn't been shot.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, what I'm talking about is if they've been shot. Which happens to soldiers all the time of course.

[ QUOTE ]
If he has, then the combination of wounds and the smoke inhalation may knock him out, but it's still unlikely.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wounding alone can knock him out, that's the problem. The smoke isn't about knocking him out, it's about dropping his health much more quickly when he's knocked out. If you're racing to get to him with a medi-kit, your chances can drop significantly.

And any time a soldier has lowered health, it means more recovery time. Having a soldier do nothing but soak up salary hurts quite a bit, as does having to train up yet another guy.

[ QUOTE ]
I let my rookies die a lot. I play without reloading, so if I have to send someone through a door, it's always some unarmored newb. If he dies, oh well $20000 is chump change and well worth the benefits of knowing that there are aliens lying in ambush. Not every rookie is treated the same though. Some rookies come with exceptional stats, and I armor them up and build them. But the poor suckers with any deficiencies get labelled as fodder and always die first. I never fire a soldier for bad stats. I already paid for him. He's more useful to me if I send him through a door to die. Because my soldiers die, I always keep a few extra around as a buffer so I don't have to wait 3 days for replacements.


[/ QUOTE ]

Definitely a different play style. I treat my guys like I would if they were real live dudes, where bringing my guys back alive is a very important part of the mission. There's usually a better way of doing things than killing off my own soldiers. Semper fi, alien mothafuckas!

[ QUOTE ]
I used to use tanks back when I used to reload. I didn't like my troops dieing so I sent the tanks ahead first. I don't usually let the tanks kill anything though unless as a last resort. They're great scouts. Tons of movement and high hitpoints.

But now, I'd rather have 4 rookies than a tank. With the 4 rookies, I have 4 pieces of fodder I can send to check corners and doors instead of just one. And the total cost of 4 rookies is 80 grand instead of whatever the tank costs which I think is more than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

People often either love them or hate them. I tolerate them here and there, but they are expensive and easy to lose. I used them more in Terror of the Deep, which was harder and got harder faster, and it was even easier to lose soldiers.

I also don't like the way they hog up space. Maneuvering soldiers around them, or to get a sight line around them, can be a pain, especially in narrow corridors.

[astroglide]

i never played it, but it is shocking that a game so heralded has yet to be re-released with a new engine

fwiw there is a game boy advance game that was put out recently by people that were related to the original x-com, and the game is supposed to be similar. it only got okay ratings though, not great.

[Blarg]

Pretty much all the follow-ups got that reaction. They never were able to recapture the magic.

It's true that it's surprising there has been no good follow up to such a hugely loved game. I think one of the big problems is they always try to add something extra that just takes things away. And the subsequent monster designs have usually been very uninspiring, too. Some of the ones in later attempts have looked like scoops of mashed potatoes.