XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Game - Developed by Firaxis

Steam wrote:

"The game will unlock in approximately 14 hours"

I just got it as a late birthday gift because (a) I begged for it on facebook and (b) gwawr is a gent =)

In Spain it has unlocked this past midnight, managed to play the first mission this morning before going to work...

If you have the fever like me you can also try this: http://xenowar.net/

Stuck on a narrow bridge (that's all the map was, a short narrow bridge, yuck), and 95% of the available cover was vehicles. Also known as 'death trap waiting for a stray shot to set them on fire and make them blow up in the face of the soldier silly enough to use it for cover'.

Then I had an epiphany: cars that have already blown up don't blow up again, and can still be used as cover. And I have a rocket launcher...

LtWarhound wrote:

Stuck on a narrow bridge (that's all the map was, a short narrow bridge, yuck), and 95% of the available cover was vehicles. Also known as 'death trap waiting for a stray shot to set them on fire and make them blow up in the face of the soldier silly enough to use it for cover'.

Then I had an epiphany: cars that have already blown up don't blow up again, and can still be used as cover. And I have a rocket launcher...

When all you've got is a rocket launcher, every problem starts to look like an unexploded car.

anyone wrote:

If you have the fever like me you can also try this: http://xenowar.net/

Looks cute but I'd rather play the original XCOM:UFO Defense on my phone. I used andosbox when I played and got to the stage (just checked) I have 3 Avengers and one of them is loaded with 4 hovertank/plasma . The current research project is blaster bomb while blaster launcher have already been unlocked . I guess quit it near end game. It's very playable on my phone but I had to use trackpad mode (tiny buy/sell icons) and it's not that bad when you get used to it. It's possible to use touchpad mode and switch to trackpad mode by holding one of the volume buttons. I might have TFTD installed .

I also have master of magic installed on my phone but it's not as practical to play on the phone ( I guess it's a matter of taste).

Maq wrote:
LtWarhound wrote:

Stuck on a narrow bridge (that's all the map was, a short narrow bridge, yuck), and 95% of the available cover was vehicles. Also known as 'death trap waiting for a stray shot to set them on fire and make them blow up in the face of the soldier silly enough to use it for cover'.

Then I had an epiphany: cars that have already blown up don't blow up again, and can still be used as cover. And I have a rocket launcher...

When all you've got is a rocket launcher, every problem starts to look like an unexploded car.

When God gives you nothin' but rocket launcher, go make some BOOOM!

Can't you just shoot the car with your assault rifle to make it go boom?

I think it's improbable to happen IRL unlike what happens in BF3. I watched Myth Busters' 007 special where they tried to recreate a propane tank explosion from one of the newer Bond movies and got to the conclusion it's impossible to very improbable . They shot the gas tank with a 9mm and it didn't even go through the metal tank . When they tried a shotgun (went in but didn't get out) and something that looks like a carbine (bullet went through the tank) they both failed to make the gas ignite even when they shot the tank twice with the carbine.They even shot it with tracers and nothing ignited The only thing that made the gas tank explode was a small explosive device . They then tried a Gatling gun with incendiary ammo and that worked.

If the devs of the game didn't watch myth-busters maybe you can just shoot it with a car with a pistol ;).

Niseg wrote:

If the devs of the game didn't watch myth-busters maybe you can just shoot it with a car with a pistol ;).

Judging by how volatile cars and barrels are in most games I'm surprised if any game developers have the cojones to drive to work, or spark up a barbecue grill.

As someone new to xcom and a little intimidated by this game, I found this article from PC gamer with some tips and tactics. It's not a walk-through, but gives tips on how to best approach all the different aspects of the game. I also haven't tried these, so I do not endorse this message.

May contains some spoilers:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/08/xc...

Continent Bonuses: does placing your base automatically give you that continent's bonus or only a one-satellite head start toward unlocking it? I thought the bonus was automatic but from looking at what is and is not highlighted in the Situation Room, it looks like you'll need to put a satellite up over every country even of your home continent to get the bonus. If someone doesn't know for sure, I'll test using South America since their bonus (instant autopsies and interrogations) is easier to acknowledge than the incremental bonuses of the other continents. If placing only your base does give you the continent bonus, does that mean you can get that bonus twice by launching satellites over the rest of the countries in the continent?

Keithustus wrote:

Continent Bonuses: does placing your base automatically give you that continent's bonus or only a one-satellite head start toward unlocking it? I thought the bonus was automatic but from looking at what is and is not highlighted in the Situation Room, it looks like you'll need to put a satellite up over every country even of your home continent to get the bonus. If someone doesn't know for sure, I'll test using South America since their bonus (instant autopsies and interrogations) is easier to acknowledge than the incremental bonuses of the other continents. If placing only your base does give you the continent bonus, does that mean you can get that bonus twice by launching satellites over the rest of the countries in the continent?

Placing your base there automatically gives you the continent bonus. However, you only get one satellite coverage to start, so you still might want to place more to lower panic / increase revenue.

Keithustus wrote:

Continent Bonuses: does placing your base automatically give you that continent's bonus or only a one-satellite head start toward unlocking it? I thought the bonus was automatic but from looking at what is and is not highlighted in the Situation Room, it looks like you'll need to put a satellite up over every country even of your home continent to get the bonus. If someone doesn't know for sure, I'll test using South America since their bonus (instant autopsies and interrogations) is easier to acknowledge than the incremental bonuses of the other continents. If placing only your base does give you the continent bonus, does that mean you can get that bonus twice by launching satellites over the rest of the countries in the continent?

You get the bonus for the continent that you start on automatically. You have to work for the rest of them by covering the entire continent with satellites though. So it pays off to start on a bigger continent. Africa gives the best bonus IMHO (+30% income), but Asia is not bad for the upgrade discounts.

I'm pretty sure it's a satellite over each country on the continent. If you highlight any one country, you'll notice a light-colored bracket appear around all of the countries on that continent. So there's a bonus for each country, plus an additional perk if you cover all in the group.

It reminds me of Risk.

EDIT: Sorry, I read right past the "base" part of your question.

Niseg wrote:

Can't you just shoot the car with your assault rifle to make it go boom?

No. There is no free fire mode with your weapons. The only way your assault rifle can damage a car is if you shoot at an alien and the car is in the way. I haven't yet figured out if you can light up a car AND shoot an alien, but generally when you miss an alien and hit a car, it will ignite.

Grenades and rocket launchers on the other hand, are very useful for that. The difference being that grenades only set the car on fire to explode on the next turn, while rockets explode the cars right away. Very useful when

Spoiler:

two Mutons (or even one) are hiding behind a car in the early game.

MoonDragon wrote:
Niseg wrote:

Can't you just shoot the car with your assault rifle to make it go boom?

No. There is no free fire mode with your weapons. The only way your assault rifle can damage a car is if you shoot at an alien and the car is in the way. I haven't yet figured out if you can light up a car AND shoot an alien, but generally when you miss an alien and hit a car, it will ignite.

Grenades and rocket launchers on the other hand, are very useful for that. The difference being that grenades only set the car on fire to explode on the next turn, while rockets explode the cars right away. Very useful when

Spoiler:

two Mutons (or even one) are hiding behind a car in the early game.

I had a mission where two Thin Men were sitting next to two different cars. I had to take them both out, otherwise they were going to kill the civilian I was escorting. Unfortunately, only my Heavy had a turn left and his rocket launcher wouldn't hit both Thin Men. However, I was able to have the rocket launcher hit both the cars the Thin Men were hiding behind, causing them to explode and essentially increase the blast radius of the rocket.

I never played the original Xcom, but manhood issues forced me to jump right in to Classic Ironman. I'm getting my ass handed to me, which is what I expected so I don't mind. I'm not entirely sure why though—I think I don't know enough about squad level tactics to pick out what I'm doing wrong. Or maybe the enemy threat is growing faster than I'm learning, and it's harder to pick out the genuine mistakes when I'm heavily out-gunned.

My question for y'all is: what do you think will help me learn faster? Keep playing on Classic, or switch to Normal for game 2?

Here's something that others might not have realised.

When you get an abduction mission from the map (and presumably other types), you can "back out" of the screen and sell stuff on the gray market, get engineering to make you more weapons/armor (stuff that has 'immediate' as the construction time) and then go back to Mission Control and pick the abduction mission.

This can help if you realise you don't have enough armor/weapons etc. do so the mission.

You may even be able to advance the time with the scan function for a while, though I haven't tried it.

So I had my first few multiplayer rounds with a friend of mine last night, and man was it frustrating. Trying to control floating units in/around buildings is a nightmare. Can't tell if the wall I'm supposedly sitting next to is blown out or not. Is it a window to give me vision? Having a little shadow/dot/etc on the ground where my unit is would be amazing in order to give some sort of context when my character is just floating somewhere.

If inside a building with multiple levels (police station), trying to see what's on the 2nd floor and to move there was very difficult and inconsistent as well. It kept showing me the first floor even though I had scrolled up with my mouse wheel to view the second floor. Given the timelimit of our matches, it turned into who could figure out the trick to move in a building first.

Has anybody else run into similar issues? Is it any easier to navigate multi-level structures and flying characters with the 360 controller? This was all with keyboard/mouse but if using a controller solves the problem I'll have to make the switch.

Vargen wrote:

I never played the original Xcom, but manhood issues forced me to jump right in to Classic Ironman. I'm getting my ass handed to me, which is what I expected so I don't mind. I'm not entirely sure why though—I think I don't know enough about squad level tactics to pick out what I'm doing wrong. Or maybe the enemy threat is growing faster than I'm learning, and it's harder to pick out the genuine mistakes when I'm heavily out-gunned.

My question for y'all is: what do you think will help me learn faster? Keep playing on Classic, or switch to Normal for game 2?

Normal. Classic is completely unforgiving.

My first Normal game I ran into a stone wall after trying one particular mission (

Spoiler:

Assault the Alien Base

) where I lost my entire top squad and from there just couldn't keep up with the missions and eventually had no soldiers left.

On the second game, I now understand much better the resourcing and researching and I'm *much* more conservative in the tactical combat. (Everyone moves one move, goes into overwatch, keep overlapping fields of fire etc.).

Also get up to size six squad as quickly as you can. That allows you to bring along one or two rookies on every mission to build up your bench.

You can also save money/resources by only making six suits of armor. You can only send six guys, and can't resell the armour so just make what you need. Same is true for weapons. It's a bit annoying to have to try and track down the armor/weapons on guys you're not taking (EQUIPMENT LOCKER PLEASE), but saves money.

Also pay attention to the rewards from the various Abduction Missions and also the Difficulty. When they say "Very Difficult", they mean "VERY Difficult".

Vargen wrote:

I never played the original Xcom, but manhood issues forced me to jump right in to Classic Ironman. I'm getting my ass handed to me, which is what I expected so I don't mind. I'm not entirely sure why though—I think I don't know enough about squad level tactics to pick out what I'm doing wrong. Or maybe the enemy threat is growing faster than I'm learning, and it's harder to pick out the genuine mistakes when I'm heavily out-gunned.

My question for y'all is: what do you think will help me learn faster? Keep playing on Classic, or switch to Normal for game 2?

It took me a few runs through Classic to really get my bearings and not wipe my team in the first few missions. Here is one big tip that helped me out a bunch.

Divvy up your team's movements. Move one character so they have 1 action left. Then switch and move another character, saving their 2nd action. Repeat until 1st movements are done. This is so if you do happen to walk up on some baddies, your characters can still react accordingly. You can shoot, throw smoke, suppress, etc with your whole team instead of who you haven't moved yet. Gives you a lot more flexibility as you're exploring the area.

Vargen wrote:

My question for y'all is: what do you think will help me learn faster? Keep playing on Classic, or switch to Normal for game 2?

Normal is significantly easier IMO, but it does still do its fair share of punishing you for any major tactical mistakes. I went for normal and still had my one and only Assault class character (leveled up to Major no less :() get ambushed and completely murdered almost instantly by three Chrysalids. And while I chose not to go with Classic for my first play I did go for Ironman mode, which so far I've found to be a fairly decent compromise, at least for me. You get the permadeath on your characters so there's still plenty of tension when you get a few characters at low health, but it isn't quite so punishing when you make smaller mistakes or when the percentages just don't quite work out in your favor.

What control method are you guys prefering? I can play the game in 8.5 hours and am not sure which I will go with. I prefered the PC controls when playing the demo but a lot of the game media say that the 360 controls are slightly better.

farley3k wrote:
Faceless Clock wrote:
farley3k wrote:
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!

No joke. The store I went to had one, just one, PS3 copy. That's it. And I got it at about 1PM yesterday.

Unfortunately I now can't exchange it because all the stores in that franchise near where I live got one PS3 copy at launch, and they're all sold out. I have to wait for the next shipment.

I hope it's just a disc issue.

Selfishly, me too.

I played through 3-4 missions and had no problems. I hope your next disk works perfectly.

1Dgaf wrote:

One of the devs mentioned they wondered about the swearing, but IIRC that not to have it would be incongruous. it's a game where people get turned inside out by aliens and people panic and shoot their friends.

I kind of get that. Obviously swearing happens in real life but there are a boat load of things that happen in "real life" that the game doesn't include. I am sure we could all list lots; body location damage, diminished movement due to body damage, being able to pick up items from fallen comrades, etc. They don't have those things in the game.

Anyway no kids watching this one which is too bad because I think a little tactical thinking is good for the brain.

Everyone knows you can adjust the difficulty on the fly right?

I restarted the game once and had THREE steam vents on my base. Of course my entire team was then wiped out by sectoids.

Picked up my copy after work here in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday afternoon (day before listed release).
Hadn't planned on playing it until tomorrow as I have the day off, making it a three day weekend which looks like it will be pretty much XCOM.
Three hours in and I'm absolutely loving it. Playing on PS3 and though at first I was worried I had the audio glitching bug mentioned earlier it seems all good now.
I've not seen anyone else admit to this yet, but I've never played any of the XCOM series before, not UFO, not anything, so I may have the benefit of little expectation aside from the glowing reports in the month lead up. So far it's hit right on for I wanted in this game, can't wait to dive in for more.

Not sure when I'll get around to Walking Dead episode four, which I was champing at the bit for. I now have it downloaded but Clementine is going to have to wait, I've got a planet to protect.

Edit: Just saw Vargen above me on this page Wayne has never played XCOM, so I'm not alone.

I decided to start over when I realized how you could get a continent's bonuses with full satellite coverage. My first game, I had spent way too much money on the foundry, officer training, and building things other than satellites. Seeing as how satellites also reduce panic and get you more money, scientists, and engineers, they're always my #1 priority now. I'm thinking base in Europe or Asia, and then dropping 3 sats ASAP on North America or Africa for another bonus.

So what are everyone's favorite skills? (This might be spoilerish if you want to discover the skill trees on your own.) I should also note that I'm playing on Normal, so results may vary with alien hitpoints and the tech level of your weapons.

For me, I have to have Squadsight and Double Tap on my sniper. If it's an open map, I'll start dashing the rest of the squat out as far as possible until someone spots an alien, then immediately kill two of them with headshots.

For my heavies, I like Supression and Holo-targeting. Lets me keep a target pinned down, while at the same time, giving bonuses to the next guy to take a shot at the same target. Along with Danger Zone and Mayhem, it makes Supression very useful.

For support, I start with Sprinter and Field Medic. I usually also get Rifle Supression and Dense Smoke, although I'm not completely sold on those yet.

For assault, I always go with Lightning Reflexes. Along with Rapid Fire, he can Run and Gun right up to a target in overwatch and take it out. I've also come to love Close Combat Specialist. I've had one assault soldier survive 2 chrysalids rushing him in the same turn by blowing their faces off when they tried to close in on him.

Also, the game has been completely stable for me, aside from the occasional flashing-multilevel-view bug. Until last night. I don't know what it was, but there was one tactical mission where the game would lock up in odd ways. Often, the game would lock up completely, except for some background noises. A few times, the keyboard would be completely unresponsive, and while I could move the mouse around and click on a few icons, none of them would do anything. Once, everything became unselectable, and when I tried to bring up the menu to save, I got a message saying that it wasn't possible to save in the middle of a turn. I kept having to close the game and restart. It didn't seem to matter what sort of move I was trying to make. It would lock up during the aliens' turn as well. I had to try to save after every single move and it often locked up multiple times during the same turn. I finally finished it, and everything including subsequent tactical missions has been fine again.

Vargen wrote:

I'm getting my ass handed to me, which is what I expected so I don't mind. I'm not entirely sure why though—I think I don't know enough about squad level tactics to pick out what I'm doing wrong. Or maybe the enemy threat is growing faster than I'm learning, and it's harder to pick out the genuine mistakes when I'm heavily out-gunned.

First, I would definitely suggest against Ironman. You can always not reload after Major Asskicker dies. But if you have Ironman on, you cannot reload if you accidentally click mouse3 instead of mouse2 and instead of selecting next unit, Major Asskicker just casually dashes into a Muton nest half way across the map.

Second, restart at Normal. Until you learn the ins and outs, there is no reason to suffer severe punishment. The game does ramp up really quickly. You need to spread the xp around the squad, but you also need to bring up a few superstars. And quick!

For my current game, I made a mistake of taking a little too much time to research an arc thrower, and the game ramped up the difficulty too quickly, so now I can no longer capture a live sectoid. To be fair, the time was spent researching laser rifles, so my team could handle the ramped up difficulty.

Minor unit spoiler here... so stop reading if you don't want to read about some later enemies.

Spoiler:

Is anybody else having issues with Berserkers? Whenever I shoot them on my turn and they charge me, my game starts to severely chug. Like it's insanely CPU overloaded. Then when he finally stops, and the game recovers, my camera does not snap back to the next person but remains on the Berserker.

Chrysalids....god I hate chrysalids.