XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Game - Developed by Firaxis

The tutorial forces variety, but later it's pretty random. There are some heuristics to try to make sure you don't end up with zero of something, but you have no control over it at all—it's not based on how the units are used as rookies.

Edit: Just to note, I'm saying that based on what Jake Solomon said in an interview, so...

I am having serious cash flow problems. I don't know if I could afford to replace soldiers if I let them die willy nilly.

Also, I have a rule. I only rename soldiers if the person is actually from, or living in the country whose flag they carry.

This meant it took a long time to get a soldier named after me. Though weirdly, one of my first missions was to Edmonton, Canada. It was awesome.

Nevin73 wrote:

Man, I feel actually feel bad for your rookies even knowing that they are just digital people.

It's cruel, but effective. If they survive, they'll probably earn a promotion and enter my regular squad rotation. If they die, at least they helped locate the enemy.

Kier wrote:

I am having serious cash flow problems. I don't know if I could afford to replace soldiers if I let them die willy nilly.

Also, I have a rule. I only rename soldiers if the person is actually from, or living in the country whose flag they carry.

This meant it took a long time to get a soldier named after me. Though weirdly, one of my first missions was to Edmonton, Canada. It was awesome.

I have yet to scratch the surface of resource management. Like most strategy games, I will do it through trial and error

Anyone know if countries will re-enter the alliance if they leave? If the only way to prevent them from leaving is to have satellites over them I don't see how it can be done because $ is so frigging tight.

Kier wrote:

This meant it took a long time to get a soldier named after me. Though weirdly, one of my first missions was to Edmonton, Canada. It was awesome.

I also had a mission in Edmonton, at a gas station where the price of gas was listed using $/gallon. Apparently we revert back to the Imperial system in the future, which is probably why the aliens attack Earth the first place.

JC wrote:

Anyone know if countries will re-enter the alliance if they leave? If the only way to prevent them from leaving is to have satellites over them I don't see how it can be done because $ is so frigging tight.

That's not the only way to keep them from leaving. You can also keep them from leaving by running the missions in their country (ie Alien Abductions). When you get one of those, you get three places you can go to, and you can choose the one that is in the country closest to panic (though that one is usually harder - of course).

And I'm pretty sure that once they're gone, they're gone.

There's some flavor text in the first promotion screen that says "Bob really liked blowing things up in the last mission so he's being upgraded to a Heavy," so I think it does take some context from the soldier's past experience. In the first X-COM the soldiers skills leveled up the more they used them, which was a good reason to use rookies as cannon fodder--either they died or skilled up quickly. I don't know if Enemy Unknown does the same thing or if it applies experience evenly to surviving soldiers though.

The biggest difference I've found so far is just with the overall flow of the game. With UFO Defense, the more time between when an alien ship was shot down and when your team was on the ground, the more spread out and the better fortified the aliens would be. So what I'd do is send a Sky Ranger with the Interceptor so I could land the moment the UFO was grounded. This left all the aliens either still in or at least very close to the UFO at the start of the mission, and if I rushed to the UFO I could catch them there unprepared and the mission would be a lot quicker and easier as a result.

With Enemy Unknown the timing doesn't seem to matter so much. Instead, groups of aliens are activated or spawned when a soldier (or NPC in some cases) enters a specified region of the map, so instead of a mad rush to the crash site or spreading out to search for aliens I'm finding it's much better to keep the group together and make a coordinated sweep of the area. This does give them impression that with rescue missions I could just sit at the drop zone and skip turns for five hours without the aliens ever finding and killing the guy I'm supposed to rescue, but at the same time I think the combat flows a lot better and is more engaging overall. And maybe I'm wrong. When ending my turn the aliens do get an opportunity to move even if I haven't encountered them yet. But I suspect with the comparatively small size of the map that their movement will at least be constrained to specific areas. Though on some level I admit that I'll miss having my entire crew blown out of the back of the Sky Ranger by a well-positioned alien the first turn I land.

ebarstad wrote:
Kier wrote:

This meant it took a long time to get a soldier named after me. Though weirdly, one of my first missions was to Edmonton, Canada. It was awesome.

I also had a mission in Edmonton, at a gas station where the price of gas was listed using $/gallon. Apparently we revert back to the Imperial system in the future, which is probably why the aliens attack Earth the first place.

Perhaps the aliens are just Canadians who couldn't adapt to feet, inches, and gallons? I always suspected you were hoarding laser guns, anyways...

complexmath wrote:

There's some flavor text in the first promotion screen that says "Bob really liked blowing things up in the last mission so he's being upgraded to a Heavy," so I think it does take some context from the soldier's past experience. In the first X-COM the soldiers skills leveled up the more they used them, which was a good reason to use rookies as cannon fodder--either they died or skilled up quickly. I don't know if Enemy Unknown does the same thing or if it applies experience evenly to surviving soldiers though.

Pretty sure it doesn't spread the XP around (or at least it doesn't just do that). You can get text that says "Cpt. Dudeface earned a promotion" during a combat mission (usually after he kills something).

TempestBlayze wrote:

Ah, I am glad I turned it off then. I decide to not do the tutorials since I already played the demo.

Just wanted to mention the tutorial in the main game is longer and covers a lot more than what was in the demo. In the main game it covers equipment building, base building, satellites, Interceptor mangagement, capturing aliens, shooting down UFOs, etc. It starts off the same as the demo, though the 2nd mission played out slightly different for me, but goes on for another hour or so past what was in the demo.

Vega wrote:
TempestBlayze wrote:

Ah, I am glad I turned it off then. I decide to not do the tutorials since I already played the demo.

Just wanted to mention the tutorial in the main game is longer and covers a lot more than what was in the demo. In the main game it covers equipment building, base building, satellites, Interceptor mangagement, capturing aliens, shooting down UFOs, etc. It starts off the same as the demo, though the 2nd mission played out slightly different for me, but goes on for another hour or so past what was in the demo.

hmmm i may go back and do it.

Can someone explain how to get more uplinks? It doesn't seem intuitive, does this unlock later on via research?

My favourite tip from a friend, medics make them a distinctive colour like red - makes it much easier to spot them on the battle field

jonnypolite wrote:

Can someone explain how to get more uplinks? It doesn't seem intuitive, does this unlock later on via research?

1) Go to the Engineering Tab
2) Click on Build Facilities
3) Click on an empty space in your base (must be excavated already)
4) This will bring up a list of buildings you can construct. Choose the Satellite Uplink facility (Or the Nexus Uplink if you've gotten further in the game). This will provide you with 2 additional satellite capacity (+1 if built next to another uplink facility).

jonnypolite wrote:

Can someone explain how to get more uplinks? It doesn't seem intuitive, does this unlock later on via research?

You have to excavate and build more in your base. But this also probably requires more power stations as well. Essentially expand your base.

Edit: Tkylhausered!

Gotcha, thanks. Didn't realize that was a base building thingy.

talsworthy wrote:

My favourite tip from a friend, medics make them a distinctive colour like red - makes it much easier to spot them on the battle field

Doesn't everyone color code the armors of their troops?

For me:

Red: Heavy
White: Support
Yellow: Assault
Green: Sniper

Make it to captain and you get to put on a helmet!

Tach wrote:
talsworthy wrote:

My favourite tip from a friend, medics make them a distinctive colour like red - makes it much easier to spot them on the battle field

Doesn't everyone color code the armors of their troops?

For me:

Red: Heavy
White: Support
Yellow: Assault
Green: Sniper

Make it to captain and you get to put on a helmet!

I Color code by rank.... Mostly just so my rookies can be redshirts

But that is a really good idea to select it by type

mcdonis wrote:
Tach wrote:
talsworthy wrote:

My favourite tip from a friend, medics make them a distinctive colour like red - makes it much easier to spot them on the battle field

Doesn't everyone color code the armors of their troops?

For me:

Red: Heavy
White: Support
Yellow: Assault
Green: Sniper

Make it to captain and you get to put on a helmet!

I Color code by rank.... Mostly just so my rookies can be redshirts

But that is a really good idea to select it by type

Okay. I use a color code like this, but I'm finding a new color for my assault troopers so that rookies can be redshirts.

I also go by rank.

IUMogg wrote:

Well, on my 2nd tutorial mission I learned friendly fire can kill your soldiers. That reckless guy with the rocket launcher shall now be named lobster.

Yep. I learned the true meaning of XCOM last night when I aimed a rocket with it's blast radius a good three spaces away from any friendlies. The rocket instead slammed directly into my veteran support unit, killing him, as my heavy yelled 'Rocket Off Target!'.. Yeah, dumb-ass, I noticed!

I take the Warhammer 40k approach. You need to get to Sargeant to take your helmet off.

The specialty color coding is a good idea.

I managed to rank one of my assaults up to Major, he was a crazy Canadian nicknamed Devil Dog. Unfortunately, he was one of the soldiers who died in my alien base screwup.

mcdonis wrote:
Tach wrote:
talsworthy wrote:

My favourite tip from a friend, medics make them a distinctive colour like red - makes it much easier to spot them on the battle field

Doesn't everyone color code the armors of their troops?

For me:

Red: Heavy
White: Support
Yellow: Assault
Green: Sniper

Make it to captain and you get to put on a helmet!

I Color code by rank.... Mostly just so my rookies can be redshirts

But that is a really good idea to select it by type

I do this. Rooks are red shirts, specialists have their own colors (green = sniper, blue = support, gold = assault, white = heavy). Live long enough to make rank, you get to take off the red shirt. Haven't had anyone make captain yet though. And I have a whole case of helmets too!

Color coding by class helps when looking at the soldiers to select who goes on a mission (okay, got a green, a gold, a black, need a red, who isn't wounded right now...), but mostly I do it for flavor. The recruits get white armor, because they don't have a class, so they don't get a color.

Faceless Clock wrote:

Is anyone having trouble with audio skipping on the Playstation 3 version? It seems to happen quite a lot - skips in the music and character comments during missions.

Beats me, but I wanted to say I have the PS3 version as well. I just bought it so I can't answer your question yet but at least I don't feel like the only person with a PS3 anymore!

I wish when you were adding soldiers they didn't list the names but showed the pictures, as it is the colour class doesn't work for that.

My most useful colour is still medic Is it possible for a downed medic to be resusuciated by another member using the downed medics kit?

talsworthy wrote:

Is it possible for a downed medic to be resusuciated by another member using the downed medics kit?

Nope, can't loot soldiers' bodies, but items soldiers are carrying are recovered from their bodies after the mission is over so it's back in your inventory.

Loving the game but things I'd like to see:

Ability to free fire all weapons (not just grenades and rocket launchers) to tear down obstacles/cover
Ability to at least use a downed troop's equipment (medikit specifically).
Equipment locker on kitting out screen so I don't have to try and track down the guy with the missing suit of armour
Single button to go to Mission Control and start scanning
A troop status bar that shows me my entire 6 guys and their current health (or life state)
A less obtuse way of knowing things like how many satellites I have built, how many I can put in the air, how many engineers I have, how many scientists etc.
Also, let me know *before* I research something what I'm going to need to build it. Nothing worse than researching laser rifles only to find out that I don't have the engineers to build them.

A lot of these things I know are console compromises for the PC, but still, I'm using a PC, so give me a better interface!