You can lose up to 8 nations, so don't worry as much about that. Just focus on getting as much satellite coverage as you can (ideally you want to leave) and getting the plot missions done. The biggest problem that people have with the game is that they have plot missions available and a squad capable of winning the game and they just don't win the game
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AlazullYour body is not a temple, it's an amusement park.Enjoy the ride.Registered Userregular
It's been a while since I played, but I remember in Classic trying to get the Alien Base Assault ready to fire as fast as possible and then kind of waiting until I was in a bad spot with global panic to do it since it reduces all countries panic by 2. After that you get less attacks overall, and can really just win the game at your own pace.
Although in EW I'm led to believe that taking out the base triggers other events that can really fuck you, so you might want to watch out for that.
User name Alazull on Steam, PSN, Nintenders, Epic, etc.
Oooooh yeah. ESPECIALLY if you wait to do the base assault until a few months in.
I think May was the last month you could do the base assault and have the base defense in June at the "relatively easy" range. Base defense in July and after is all sorts of crazy.
It's been a while since I played, but I remember in Classic trying to get the Alien Base Assault ready to fire as fast as possible and then kind of waiting until I was in a bad spot with global panic to do it since it reduces all countries panic by 2. After that you get less attacks overall, and can really just win the game at your own pace.
Although in EW I'm led to believe that taking out the base triggers other events that can really fuck you, so you might want to watch out for that.
You can't ever fail the base defense though. So you can always retry, even on Ironman, to get a better finish/luckier set of enemies. The first time i got it on classic i was ruined by a terrible assortment of impossible to beat enemies. Then i replayed the mission and it was a breeze
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
It's all good.
I had to stabilize one of my mecs, but otherwise I flawlessed the next two or so missions and I got tons of loot from the first one because it was a landed ufo.
Also I've got mimetic skin.
Like basically I've won the game because I put it on my defensive based assault who has been single handedly destroying everything.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Playing EW for the first time on Classic Ironman and oh boy does mimetic skin change things. I've got it on my heavy who has the "two attacks" move and 3 rockets. I just run her in to scout, find a pod, get my double tap sniper in place, and on the next turn shred everything. It's also absolutely saved me on some of those small abduction maps where you accidentally activate enemies by walking too close to a window or something.
No longer are the early months as easy as they used to be, so there isn't a lead in time to hilariously hard missions. This is because sectoids all have gunslinger now, and a -1 damage malus to compensate. Which should have given them a significant to-hit boost since they're sectoids are no longer effected by the pistol range penalties.
Moreover all units now have negative base defense. Which ruins the normal to-hit math with regards to probability (because defense is calculated last). So if you have -5 defense you have a minimum chance to be hit of 5% for any action. Hunkering down doesn't appear to be granting DR for light cover. Aliens shoot more and so are more likely to hit you. Alien pod spawns are closer together. Etc etc etc
I had to stabilize one of my mecs, but otherwise I flawlessed the next two or so missions and I got tons of loot from the first one because it was a landed ufo.
Also I've got mimetic skin.
Like basically I've won the game because I put it on my defensive based assault who has been single handedly destroying everything.
Mimetic skin is completely overpowered, and I can see why Long War removed it completely. It is an awful lot of fun, though!
No longer are the early months as easy as they used to be, so there isn't a lead in time to hilariously hard missions. This is because sectoids all have gunslinger now, and a -1 damage malus to compensate. Which should have given them a significant to-hit boost since they're sectoids are no longer effected by the pistol range penalties.
Moreover all units now have negative base defense. Which ruins the normal to-hit math with regards to probability (because defense is calculated last). So if you have -5 defense you have a minimum chance to be hit of 5% for any action. Hunkering down doesn't appear to be granting DR for light cover. Aliens shoot more and so are more likely to hit you. Alien pod spawns are closer together. Etc etc etc
And this is why I was holding off on B14. It'd be nice to have a mod that's merely hard and not "fuck you and everything you stand for" hard.
I love how the nerf they gave it was "Just make it obscenely expensive" but that still didn't help, because you only need it on one man, and then have one ITZ sniper.
I don't want to go back to vanilla, I just want Long War to give me a fucking break now and again. It also bothers me that "Not so Long War" is labelled as being "for casual players" which makes me feel like the game is mocking me if I select it... so I don't select it.
Eh I just make ini changes to remove the dumb stuff when I can.
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
edited October 2014
Muhahhahaha.
South America interrogation gambit WIN!
I didn't even have laser weaponry researched!
This was also on Acopulco and I had a guy on top of the single central building to do spotting/shooting as I scouted the sides of the building. The last side contained three floaters - two of them immediately jumped up on top of the building - shit!
He managed to crit one, and my heavy - inside the building - managed to rocket the goddamned ceiling to kill the other without catching anyone in the splash.
That's X-COM baby
SummaryJudgment on
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Playing Enemy Within again and man, I really really really wish I could turn off the randomized weapon damage; I picked it at the start and didn't realize it meant an enormously random range of damage, from "jack shit" to "slightly more than jack shit because of a critical". I've had stuff like 6 out of 8 shots do a 1-2 points of damage from a mix of heavy machine guns, light plasma rifles, and MEC machine guns, which is extremely frustrating and silly.
Sure, it's worked in my favor a couple of times, but it would've been way, way, way better to just be able to reliably kill what I can shoot rather than randomly have things survive multiple hits and get a chance at freakishly-low damage.
Eh I just make ini changes to remove the dumb stuff when I can.
Stuff like the insane health on some enemies (like Ethereals do not need 40 base health. Fuck off) and shit like that. Guaranteed losing a soldier because you cannot physically do enough damage, even with 100% hit on everyone, is dumb as shit.
Playing Enemy Within again and man, I really really really wish I could turn off the randomized weapon damage; I picked it at the start and didn't realize it meant an enormously random range of damage, from "jack shit" to "slightly more than jack shit because of a critical". I've had stuff like 6 out of 8 shots do a 1-2 points of damage from a mix of heavy machine guns, light plasma rifles, and MEC machine guns, which is extremely frustrating and silly.
Sure, it's worked in my favor a couple of times, but it would've been way, way, way better to just be able to reliably kill what I can shoot rather than randomly have things survive multiple hits and get a chance at freakishly-low damage.
Damage Roulette makes the game utterly unplayable. Don't use it.
Playing Enemy Within again and man, I really really really wish I could turn off the randomized weapon damage; I picked it at the start and didn't realize it meant an enormously random range of damage, from "jack shit" to "slightly more than jack shit because of a critical". I've had stuff like 6 out of 8 shots do a 1-2 points of damage from a mix of heavy machine guns, light plasma rifles, and MEC machine guns, which is extremely frustrating and silly.
Sure, it's worked in my favor a couple of times, but it would've been way, way, way better to just be able to reliably kill what I can shoot rather than randomly have things survive multiple hits and get a chance at freakishly-low damage.
Damage Roulette makes the game utterly unplayable. Don't use it.
Seriously, don't. So important I had to post this twice.
Rainfall on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Haha, well, yeah, I know that now.
But MECs still punch and explosives still explode, so I've got squads loaded way the hell up on both. Got a heavy that gets to take a shredder rocket, two regular rockets, and four grenades.
I like him. He gets shit done.
So would the two Assaults who both have Low Profile and can triple-shot if they don't have to sprint or use Run and Gun, except the stupid Damage Roulette screws them over.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
nooooooooooooo
remember my problem from before
well i thought i could just scrape in a sat facility just before the council report
but its listed after the council report
it must be a few hours too late
i was trying to save everybody
now its triage time
also this is screwing over my expansion big time
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I think I may have well and truly boogered myself.
I've got two mecs, but no foundry (don't ask), a gene mod station and two dudes with mimetic skin, no meld left, i'm only up to carapace and lasers, and I completely forgot about the big scary ships in the third month and i dont have enough money to buy a sattelite so im hoping that sheer brilliance with my stompy mechs and lasers and carapace on this large ufo will give me enough crap to sell that i can buy the sattelite upgrade or im basically fucked
on the upside i havent actually lost any countries yet
[skyknyt's writing] is like come kind of code that, when comprehended, unfolds into madness in the mind of the reader.
PSN: skyknyt, Steam: skyknyt, Blizz: skyknyt#1160
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited October 2014
I have done this all wrong and somehow it is all working out because when i am placed into a nasty tactical situation against ridiculous odds I pull out all the cheap.
All the cheap.
Every bit.
Oh and I finally tried out a squad sight sniper with in the zone. Got a free sniper and just thought "You are the squad sight back up sniper I have been wanting to mess around with for a while."
She has so much aim she must have rolled all the sixes on not created equal and hidden potential. I gave her the cloak skin and a skeleton suit (she was a bit slow). And now I carefully set up all the enemies (plink them all with various characters) so she can knock them all down like dominos.
And it is incredible.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
ITZ gets so much better in enemy within. Why? Because of Mech grenades. "Oh. You need to kill the enemy and they need to be out of cover? Well, there's six enemies at full health all in cover but bunched up...MEC GRENADE! Cool. Now they have no cover, and are very much within sniper kill!"
and you kill six enemies when normally you'd have killed maybe two.
It gets really good with archangel. Fly at start and just hover and don't move till end of mission. Murder everything.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I probably should make mec grenades but I'm always running out of cash. My strategy layer is all sorts of messed up.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited October 2014
Fucking hell, I may actually just completely ditch this playthrough because of this incredibly shitty Damage Roulette. Heavy plasma rifles will regularly deal only 3-4 damage against exposed enemies and I'll get crits that don't do any damage higher than 6, but for the fucking enemy? Long-range flanking shots that one-shot crit-kill 15-health squad members. I got a weapon, that wasn't a MEC punch, to do 12 damage in a fight before that, and I think it's the highest damage I've dealt in the game so far by shooting. The number of 1-3 damage hits with plasma weapons is utterly, utterly absurd, and it really does completely kill all the fun of the game to have the enemy have 2-3 times the effectiveness I have with the same exact weapons.
The info for Damage Roulette really should read something like "adds a damage range where you will virtually never see the upper end of the damage potential of a weapon, see a middle range sometimes, and minimal damage the majority of the time, while enemies will conveniently be able to double-digit crit damage constantly." What a terribly-implemented extra option. Having situations where four different soldiers shoot a single enemy and only just manage to combine to hit 10 damage is utterly absurd.
But Ninja Snarl P, the original X-COM had random damage values just like that!
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited October 2014
Sure, but you know what I had in the original? The ability to use TUs to have high volume of fire, and lots of soldiers; an enemy could get absurdly lucky and survive 2-3 laser salvos with 5-7 hits from one soldier, but the next soldier or the next soldier after that was definitely going to get them for sure. If I get lucky with spacing and random skills in this incarnation, I might be able to get three shots with one soldier out of six. And when disaster or success is frequently separated by just a single shot operating properly with only a handful of soldiers available, it is super-frustrating to need to spend 2-3 times the attention as usual on single enemies to have any reliable chance of downing them.
It was a decent enough idea, it was just absurd to have the damage value range from "regular weapon damage" down to "1 HP damage" for practically everything, because that will randomly average out to basically having shit for damage on a consistent basis. It is really fun-sucking to hit Run and Gun, take a risk on a flanking move, find out you'll get 100% to-hit, then deal a crit from a plasma weapon and it does 6 damage, leaving the target plenty alive to deal double that damage back to your soldier. Which happens shitloads.
I could finish out the game like this, but it's just going to be a terribly un-fun grind, because the Damage Roulette basically gives everything 50% or more extra health. Though maybe I'll give an all-punchMEC crew a spin, just to avoid the terrible implementation of this system without giving up on the game.
Looking it up: apparently Damage Roulette rolls between 1 and 150% of the base damage. "Base damage" in this case meaning the average damage of a weapon without Damage Roulette. So you take the basic assault rifle that normally does 2-4 damage and now it does... 1-4 damage, because that 150% is rounded down. Upgrade to laser rifles and you're doing 1-7 instead of 4-6. The higher the damage, the larger of a hit it takes.
On the bright side, crits should be adding the base damage (ie 3 for the assault rifle) to the normal damage roll, so those are more than double damage on average!
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Looking it up: apparently Damage Roulette rolls between 1 and 150% of the base damage. "Base damage" in this case meaning the average damage of a weapon without Damage Roulette. So you take the basic assault rifle that normally does 2-4 damage and now it does... 1-4 damage, because that 150% is rounded down. Upgrade to laser rifles and you're doing 1-7 instead of 4-6. The higher the damage, the larger of a hit it takes.
On the bright side, crits should be adding the base damage (ie 3 for the assault rifle) to the normal damage roll, so those are more than double damage on average!
Ouch.
I initially assumed that it was at least working off original XCOM scaling of 0 to 200%. But that's even worse than I imagined.
Oh yes, Damage Roulette. Don't use Damage Roulette. I learned this once when, on the first UFO raid mission in a game, we grenaded the Outsider and his cover, then shot him for one damage, leaving him alive to one-shot my Corporal, who was behind cover and up a hill.
Oh yes, Damage Roulette. Don't use Damage Roulette. I learned this once when, on the first UFO raid mission in a game, we grenaded the Outsider and his cover, then shot him for one damage, leaving him alive to one-shot my Corporal, who was behind cover and up a hill.
I had two turns back-to-back where a soldier fired twice. The first two hits? One point of damage each. The next two? 21 and 22 damage. Which averages to a bit over 11 points of damage per shot with the alloy cannon, except the enemy suvived to a second turn it never should have had. And when I beat the game, the statistics said that my average damage per shot was literally half the worldwide average. Damage Roulette really is nothing but punching yourself in the balls for no reward.
Ended up getting around it by having 4 MECs: 2 with grenade launchers, 2 with heal mist and mine throwers, and all four as punchers. The other two soldiers were really just there to carry arc throwers and medkits for healing, while spending the majority of the time invisible because of Mimetic Skin. Damage Roulette is bullshit, but it's still pretty fun to have four punchy MECs running around, punching and exploding things to remove almost all concerns about whether or not you'll be hitting a Sectoid with a particle cannon for 1 damage. Which happened way too fucking much, even when I did bother to shoot instead of punching. Having a game option where you can have the top-end weapon in the game and it being completely unreliable for killing a 3 HP enemy is absurd. And you can bet your ass that the enemy never seemed to have trouble getting 15+ damage when it got to flank me, while I was stuck with shit like 6 damage from a crit with the same weapon.
But whatever, I punched the fuck out of their boss, right out into the ocean below. Easiest time I've ever had of the final mission, actually, despite Damage Roulette.
Ninja Snarl P on
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
God, I love my Heavy-class MEC-2. The dude piloting it is just the best and doesn't take shit from anything. Punching cyberdisks and mechtoids all day. He's never even had injury time, do MECs get that?
Just finished the Base Defense mission by facing down a deployed cyberdisk and dodging the shot from his Heavy defense field, and then punching him for something like 15 damage.
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
Posts
Although in EW I'm led to believe that taking out the base triggers other events that can really fuck you, so you might want to watch out for that.
I think May was the last month you could do the base assault and have the base defense in June at the "relatively easy" range. Base defense in July and after is all sorts of crazy.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
You can't ever fail the base defense though. So you can always retry, even on Ironman, to get a better finish/luckier set of enemies. The first time i got it on classic i was ruined by a terrible assortment of impossible to beat enemies. Then i replayed the mission and it was a breeze
I had to stabilize one of my mecs, but otherwise I flawlessed the next two or so missions and I got tons of loot from the first one because it was a landed ufo.
Also I've got mimetic skin.
Like basically I've won the game because I put it on my defensive based assault who has been single handedly destroying everything.
Portfolio
No longer are the early months as easy as they used to be, so there isn't a lead in time to hilariously hard missions. This is because sectoids all have gunslinger now, and a -1 damage malus to compensate. Which should have given them a significant to-hit boost since they're sectoids are no longer effected by the pistol range penalties.
Moreover all units now have negative base defense. Which ruins the normal to-hit math with regards to probability (because defense is calculated last). So if you have -5 defense you have a minimum chance to be hit of 5% for any action. Hunkering down doesn't appear to be granting DR for light cover. Aliens shoot more and so are more likely to hit you. Alien pod spawns are closer together. Etc etc etc
Mimetic skin is completely overpowered, and I can see why Long War removed it completely. It is an awful lot of fun, though!
And this is why I was holding off on B14. It'd be nice to have a mod that's merely hard and not "fuck you and everything you stand for" hard.
Muhahhahaha.
South America interrogation gambit WIN!
I didn't even have laser weaponry researched!
This was also on Acopulco and I had a guy on top of the single central building to do spotting/shooting as I scouted the sides of the building. The last side contained three floaters - two of them immediately jumped up on top of the building - shit!
He managed to crit one, and my heavy - inside the building - managed to rocket the goddamned ceiling to kill the other without catching anyone in the splash.
That's X-COM baby
Sure, it's worked in my favor a couple of times, but it would've been way, way, way better to just be able to reliably kill what I can shoot rather than randomly have things survive multiple hits and get a chance at freakishly-low damage.
Stuff like the insane health on some enemies (like Ethereals do not need 40 base health. Fuck off) and shit like that. Guaranteed losing a soldier because you cannot physically do enough damage, even with 100% hit on everyone, is dumb as shit.
Damage Roulette makes the game utterly unplayable. Don't use it.
Damage Roulette makes the game utterly unplayable. Don't use it.
Seriously, don't. So important I had to post this twice.
But MECs still punch and explosives still explode, so I've got squads loaded way the hell up on both. Got a heavy that gets to take a shredder rocket, two regular rockets, and four grenades.
I like him. He gets shit done.
So would the two Assaults who both have Low Profile and can triple-shot if they don't have to sprint or use Run and Gun, except the stupid Damage Roulette screws them over.
remember my problem from before
well i thought i could just scrape in a sat facility just before the council report
but its listed after the council report
it must be a few hours too late
i was trying to save everybody
now its triage time
also this is screwing over my expansion big time
Hi-5 bottom floor steam buddy!
right next to each other 8-)
All the cheap.
Every bit.
Oh and I finally tried out a squad sight sniper with in the zone. Got a free sniper and just thought "You are the squad sight back up sniper I have been wanting to mess around with for a while."
She has so much aim she must have rolled all the sixes on not created equal and hidden potential. I gave her the cloak skin and a skeleton suit (she was a bit slow). And now I carefully set up all the enemies (plink them all with various characters) so she can knock them all down like dominos.
And it is incredible.
I am easily amused. 8-)
and you kill six enemies when normally you'd have killed maybe two.
The info for Damage Roulette really should read something like "adds a damage range where you will virtually never see the upper end of the damage potential of a weapon, see a middle range sometimes, and minimal damage the majority of the time, while enemies will conveniently be able to double-digit crit damage constantly." What a terribly-implemented extra option. Having situations where four different soldiers shoot a single enemy and only just manage to combine to hit 10 damage is utterly absurd.
It was a decent enough idea, it was just absurd to have the damage value range from "regular weapon damage" down to "1 HP damage" for practically everything, because that will randomly average out to basically having shit for damage on a consistent basis. It is really fun-sucking to hit Run and Gun, take a risk on a flanking move, find out you'll get 100% to-hit, then deal a crit from a plasma weapon and it does 6 damage, leaving the target plenty alive to deal double that damage back to your soldier. Which happens shitloads.
I could finish out the game like this, but it's just going to be a terribly un-fun grind, because the Damage Roulette basically gives everything 50% or more extra health. Though maybe I'll give an all-punchMEC crew a spin, just to avoid the terrible implementation of this system without giving up on the game.
On the bright side, crits should be adding the base damage (ie 3 for the assault rifle) to the normal damage roll, so those are more than double damage on average!
Ouch.
I initially assumed that it was at least working off original XCOM scaling of 0 to 200%. But that's even worse than I imagined.
What a bad option.
Why I fear the ocean.
Ended up getting around it by having 4 MECs: 2 with grenade launchers, 2 with heal mist and mine throwers, and all four as punchers. The other two soldiers were really just there to carry arc throwers and medkits for healing, while spending the majority of the time invisible because of Mimetic Skin. Damage Roulette is bullshit, but it's still pretty fun to have four punchy MECs running around, punching and exploding things to remove almost all concerns about whether or not you'll be hitting a Sectoid with a particle cannon for 1 damage. Which happened way too fucking much, even when I did bother to shoot instead of punching. Having a game option where you can have the top-end weapon in the game and it being completely unreliable for killing a 3 HP enemy is absurd. And you can bet your ass that the enemy never seemed to have trouble getting 15+ damage when it got to flank me, while I was stuck with shit like 6 damage from a crit with the same weapon.
But whatever, I punched the fuck out of their boss, right out into the ocean below. Easiest time I've ever had of the final mission, actually, despite Damage Roulette.
Just finished the Base Defense mission by facing down a deployed cyberdisk and dodging the shot from his Heavy defense field, and then punching him for something like 15 damage.