X-COM: Enemy Unknown remake by 2K / Firaxis!

[thespyder]

Great,
Can't wait to pickup the game. Still have the original. And of course, all of my soldires are named after my friends and family (incl wife).

Um, didn't that make it kind of personal? What happened if the aliens killed off some of your squad? I mean, would you reload? Or party?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yeah, in X-Com 1 squaddies had an expected lifespan measured in minutes.

Until I had anti-gravity power armor, my squaddies just got names like Jim Stat1Stat2Stat3 (action points, marksmanship, etc.) to mark their best stats, and the ones with NO good stats were marked to be the door-openers.

Someone has to soak up the interrupt fire when opening up a saucer, and it's going to be Sue Redshirt not Jim Ap50Mk40. Sorry Sue.

 

[adlep]

Um, didn't that make it kind of personal? What happened if the aliens killed off some of your squad? I mean, would you reload? Or party?

It actually helps with the focus. My wife is a grenade tosser/psi fighter. There is no need for her to go out of a skyranger or avenger typically.

Edit:
Did you know that the "hidden moment"/alien turn would take up to 4 minutes on Amiga 500?
Yeah, UFO was stressing it to the limits.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Some of the best moments in x-com where how rediculously hard the game could be near the start. It was always great to go on a terror mission and you can see 5 aliens from your skyranger, and 3 of those are the those UFO disks. FFUUUUU.... My personal favorite was when I was shot at on my first step out. Was one of those sleep guns, missed its intended target and hit a guy behind him in the ship. 6 of my crew took a nice long nap.

I also used to mass produce laser rifles for money. I would also cycle through around 30 soldiers a month in psi training till I got a crew all with spectacular psi strength. It always seemed that my best soldier I had prior to psi training, always turned out with a psi strength of around 5.

It was also fun to launch blaster bombs into the alien command centers. The large alien supply ship was the easiest to do this with. 2 blaster bombs would blow a single whole in the top of the ship, and then the third goes right into the commanders room. Kills the 4 top ranking aliens, and after that, the rest usually panicked. Easy pickings from there.

Also never give Sue Redshirt a blaster bomb. I had one not even make it out of the ship (hit the side of the wall). Killed my BB and psi guys. Needless to say, I reloaded the game.

 

[you2]

I wonder how this compares to Xenonauts which comes out this summer.

 

[QuantumPion]

Maybe I'm just lame but I always played x-com with the same 8 guys and if any of them died I would re-load. So by the end of the game they all had enough accuracy to make 100% snap shots and plenty of time units.

 

[DigDog]

honestly, i never got anywhere in that game, it was so f* hard at the beginning with noob troops and hardcore aliens. i would not be offended if they made it slightly easier ...

 

[Martimus]

honestly, i never got anywhere in that game, it was so f* hard at the beginning with noob troops and hardcore aliens. i would not be offended if they made it slightly easier ...

They pretty much have to with a 4 man limit. My early tactics all involved outnumbering the aliens enough that at least 1 of the guys shooting would actually hit it. Making marines more accurate at the beginning would greatly help, although from the videos it looks like the characters dont die very easy, but the aliens do. That part is disapppinting.

 

[Magusigne]

They pretty much have to with a 4 man limit. My early tactics all involved outnumbering the aliens enough that at least 1 of the guys shooting would actually hit it. Making marines more accurate at the beginning would greatly help, although from the videos it looks like the characters dont die very easy, but the aliens do. That part is disapppinting.

Indeed my strategy as well

Step 1. Research Laser Rifles. Step 2. ???? Step 3. Avoid Terror Missions.

 

[Mem]

honestly, i never got anywhere in that game, it was so f* hard at the beginning with noob troops and hardcore aliens. i would not be offended if they made it slightly easier ...

I use to save after every turn and reload if one of my soldiers died,after awhile they were all crack shots ,later when you have good armour/weapons it was not that hard.


Hardest part was early in the game ie start with fresh soldiers ,always funny how a soldier would miss an alien 6 inches away lol....

 

[thespyder]

I use to save after every turn and reload if one of my soldiers died,after awhile they were all crack shots ,later when you have good armour/weapons it was not that hard.


Hardest part was early in the game ie start with fresh soldiers ,always funny how a soldier would miss an alien 6 inches away lol....

And once you got teleporters, it was totally game over.

 

[blastingcap]

Funny to hear others' strategies. I got to be exceptionally good at X-Com after playing it through a bazillion times with NO RELOADS. The trick is to be patient at higher difficulty levels. I literally would just kneel all my guys around the opening of a saucer and hit next turn long enough for an alien to step through and get annihilated by all the Reaction fire. (Be careful to place squaddies in positions where they are unlikely to shoot each other in the crossfire, though.) Base defense, you need to design your base so that the aliens (which ALWAYS enter via hangars) have to walk down a long hallway to get to anything. Have six guys kneeling/shooting over the kneelers and a few guys mid-hallway to act as spotters, and you should annihilate everything that enters from the hangars. Cheesy but effective. It even works in base assaults where you can just park everybody in the green room and let the aliens come up to get you.

However, the "let them come to you" strat doesn't always work, you still have to clear the aliens that are OUTSIDE of UFOs first, and I hated terror missions where you kind of have to walk around killing aliens instead of clicking Next Turn for 20 turns with 8 guys pointing guns at a UFO door.

Most effective moneymaker is building and selling laser cannons. If you don't have those yet, build and sell laser rifles.

Also, immediately fire all troops with too-low skills. Just hire a ton of them and fire the ones with low bravery, psi strength (which can't be built up like psi skill can be), and reaction. Accuracy can be built up. Action points and strength too--just overload your guys with heavy equipment and after a few missions, they will get buff. But low bravery, psi strength, and reaction time = insta-fire. (Reaction is technically buildable but the problem is that on a team stocked with high-Reaction teammates, a low-Reaction guy will never get better because he or she won't ever get any kills since the faster-reaction guys take them all.)

Once you get Psi Amps the game is definitely over and too easy.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> But low bravery, psi strength, and reaction time = insta-fire.

I forgot about Sue Coward

I didn't have the patience to do 20 next turn, or spend 20 turns inching around a map, so I'd move more normally and reload after some disasters.

I did use spotters though, including the hovertank. Send hovertank forward until it spots an alien. DON'T FIRE -- return fire could be deadly! Instead have some other squaddie move just in to firing range and try to take the alien out.

For night missions I also liked equipping one squaddie with a cannon or autocannon loaded with incendiary rounds. A super-flaregun that lights an area and starts fires that cook nearby aliens.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I also saved often, so I usually only had a few acceptable casualties near the start. Bases and large ships could mostly be cleared by just waiting it out. You still had the commanders you had to go kill, since they would usually never come out of thier commanders area. Also every once in awhile at a base, an alien would throw a grenade up to the green room and kill most your guys (oh well, reload).

As for terror missions, those are actually avoidable if you saved often enough. Once you had a terror event, reload to about a day or 2 before that. Send your skyranger out to the area near that so that it arrives ~6 hours or so before the event happened. You will most likely detect the terror ship looking for a terror drop site with enough time to send your interceptors to knock it down. Now go terrorize the aliens without having to worry about civilian casualties.

Anyway, the original x-com isn't all that challenging. If you want a challenge, play terror from the deep. Terror maps and base assaults can be very challenging even with veteran crews. It doesn't help that the best gun doesnt have a burst shot either unlike the original plasma rifle.

Also 5-6 plasma/laser defenses were enough to defend your base from anything. No need to actually let the aliens inside.

 

[nemesismk2]

I was gutted because I lost my original xcom disk

 

[irishScott]

I was gutted because I lost my original xcom disk

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/964/

 

[nemesismk2]

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/964/

Thanks for that

I also found an Atari ST game called Laser Squad which looks very similar to Xcom.

http://www.atarilegend.com/games/games_detail.php?game_id=2077

 

[Born2bwire]

Thanks for that

I also found an Atari ST game called Laser Squad which looks very similar to Xcom.

http://www.atarilegend.com/games/games_detail.php?game_id=2077

That was the precursor made by the designers of XCom.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Also 5-6 plasma/laser defenses were enough to defend your base from anything. No need to actually let the aliens inside.

Depends on difficulty. 4 Fusion Ball Launchers + Gravipult was the only sure fire way to not let them in. However, on a properly designed base a win gave you the resources from taking down a Battleship without even a fraction of the difficulty.

 

[Baked]

I would just recruit new squatties until I get the ones I want. I tend to hire ones with high morale so they don't shit their pants and run around shooting up everybody when one team member dies. I wanna buy this game and replay it.

 

[adlep]

Don't forget to empty all the clips from rifles (plasma and regular) prior to ending the field mission. Computer will count these as "full"...

 

[DaveSimmons]

Don't forget to empty all the clips from rifles (plasma and regular) prior to ending the field mission. Computer will count these as "full"...

You had to, otherwise the computer would just take the clips away and give you nothing -- especially bad for alien weapon ammo.

 

[GundamW]

... clicking Next Turn for 20 turns with 8 guys pointing guns at a UFO door....

Arhhh, the 20 turns exploit...

(wall of text)
So there I was, still early in the game, assaulting a base with 12 guys equipped with plasma/laser rifles, cheap armors, and such. Did the 20 turns wait, killed most of the aliens, only losing 2 guys in the process.

Time to move in to the control room. Did a scan and got 3 aliens in the control room. No problem.

Positioned 8 guys in the room right underneath and surrounded the "elevator platform", ready to shoot any alien coming down. The remaining 2 guys doing the patrol/sweep in other area just to be sure.

Here's the plan, Sue Redshirt, you will be the sacrificer next turn. You will charge in and drop the stun bomb right in front of the aliens. So time to equip and prime your bomb. Everyone else, close in, get ready, and when the bomb goes, you guys charge in and shoot anything that's still standing...no question? good.

Alright new turn, time for you to shine, Sue. Go get them!
Sue with primed stun bomb in hand, step forward to the elevator platform, ready to move up....

Aliens saw the Redshirt. React. *Pew* Blaster bomb was shot from the floor above, went thru the elevator platform, and *BAM* exploded right next to Sue.
Whoopsie, Sue died/obliterated... along with her 7 comrades that were surrounding the 3x3 elevator. (I was stun and amazed, of course.)

The 2 remaining soldiers panicked. One drop his gun and ran. The other went berserk and started shooting wildly in every direction. The next few turns, I tried to get control of the guys to no avail.

Oh well, lessons learned. Time to reload...

Hehe, Good times!

 

[SickBeast]

This game would be really cool if they combined a first person shooter with the strategy portion.

 

[Qbah]

This game would be really cool if they combined a first person shooter with the strategy portion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Alliance

Was never released though...