XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012)

[keith.lamothe]

which makes it absolutely devastating to have the RNG give you the finger sometimes

Interesting, I don't think I've ever seen a game where that happens

[Mánagarmr]

Interesting, I don't think I've ever seen a game where that happens

...my sarcasm detector just broke.

[Coppermantis]

I know that I'm probably the last person on these forums to get this game and that everyone seems to have moved on to Xenonauts now, but I got this during the Summer Sale and it's been administering a healthy dose of butt-kicking accompanied by myriad rude gestures.

Basically, what I want to know, is how the Hell am I supposed to do Terror missions? It started out alright. My first game on Classic Ironman was a humbling experience, but eventually I got over it and decided that there's no shame in starting on the easiest difficulty and working from there. For some time, it seemed to work. I was considering moving up to normal because Easy was, well, easy. And then came the Terror mission.

I have no idea how I was supposed to prepare for this. The Chyrsalids have substantially more health than any enemy up to that point, and I had only just begun research on more advanced weaponry, having put most of the time into autopsies, interrogations, and other assorted tech. They could kill my soldiers in one hit, two if I was lucky. But I thought I had it under control with minor losses. Over half the civvies were rescued or still alive, and only one Chrysalid was up, and he was weakened. But, while I was bogged down dealing with the zombies, he was free to go back and make more, which, to my surprise and horror, naturally morphed into more of the damnable bugs. At that point, everything went to hell and I made it out with only one soldier who only survived because she, as a sniper, was positioned further back towards the dropship. Annoyingly, when I got her out and retreated, it said that I rescued 0 civilians, even though I'd already had 7 run back to the ship, which I thought meant that they were, you know, on it when it left. Meh.

How is one supposed to deal with these missions? I can only assume that they get harder from here on out. I'd read this thread before and someone recommended sending in the "A-Team," so I did, with three sergeants, a Lieutenant, and a rookie, my best non-injured troops at the time. Two assaults, one support, and the sniper. Mostly, how do I best kill the Chrysalids? I assume that I need to take them down quickly, but what's the best equipment (or research to do) for that job? Is it better to put research investment early on into armor, weapons, or support stuff, and is it wise to always prioritize autopsies and interrogations?

Also, on a vaguely related note, how am I supposed to keep panic under control? I had half the world nearing critical state by this point, and losing the Terror started pushing them over the edge. You'd think that since X-Com can buy fighter planes, they can buy a second dropship to make use of the fact that I've got at least another squad's worth of soldiers sitting in the barracks literally doing f*** all. I'd heard recommendations to get good satellite coverage, but what does this actually do?

[Mick]

Normal is a good difficulty to start with, easy is a joke. Classic is a huge leap from normal (there should really be a difficulty in between).

I find weapon research to be quite important early. Best defense is a good offense and all that.

The thing about the zombies is simply a matter of experience, now you know they are a top priority target.

The first terror mission can be tough, the game actually gets kinda easier as you play though, the opening moves are really where you make or break it.

Panic is about managing what countries you lose, on higher difficulties, you just have to accept that some countries will be lost before you get full coverage up. There is a mission about halfway through the story that gives a full panic reduction. Also getting full coverage up means you will get fewer abductions in the covered locations, so covering a continent locks it down. Good nations to give up are others within your starting continent, since you already have that bonus.

Do you have the expansion? If so, get two MEC units to act as tanks, they rock.

Favor workshops over labs. Researching fast is pointless if you can't even buy what you discover. In fact, ignore labs entirely.

Another thing, have at least two interceptors on every continent you put a satellite, if you leave then unprotected and one gets shot down, that's hard to recover from.

[Histidine]

Adding more details:

You probably want a few laser weapons and some Carapace Armor by the time of your first terror mission. Captured alien interrogations should be done ASAP since they give permanent research boosts in a specific area (though you may want to cheat a bit and check wiki to see if you'll need that particular bonus in the near future); autopsies can be put off for a bit usually.

Each satellite gives money every month. Sweet, sweet money. That's why you want as many as you can as soon as you can. They also reduce panic by two upon deployment and prevent alien abductions on that country, which is useful.

Panic is really screwy yeah; as Mick said it's mostly a matter of deciding what you can afford to write off (I make it a point of covering Africa; I usually throw South America to the wolves). Council missions, EXALT missions (in Enemy Within) and (ironically) successful terror missions can help, and the worldwide panic reduction from the alien base is good as a one-time emergency measure.

Melee attacks ignore cover, so against things like Chrysalids don't be afraid to leave cover if it gets you a better shot.

If you need more info on anything, the XCOM wiki is pretty good.

[madcow]

I'm far and away from an expert at XCOM. But I found the following are pretty crucial for early game XCOM (all my ironman games made me pretty good at early game, heh).

1.  Satellite coverage, satellite coverage, satellite coverage. You need those satellites up and early game basically all money should go towards getting them up. Do missions for engineers so you can get satellites cheaper.

2.  I forget what the tech is called, but it's one of the first available options. Get the body armor accessory. That extra one hit damage absorption is pretty much essential, early game especially I try to equip everybody with this.

3.  Keep your team alive. You need high level characters to handle the chrysalids, hopefully if you did part 2, your guys won't be one-shot so you have a better chance at leveling them up.  Double shooting heavies and snipers are pretty much key to taking out chrysalids.

If your guys are leveled up enough (I'm actually not sure if I get laser weapons by then or not to be honest), and if you keep them grouped up enough you might just be able to pull it off. Good luck!

Also it's worth noting the zombies have incredibly damage resistance, it's best to ignore them and go after the Chrysalids, especially because the damage doesn't carry over when the Chrysalids burst out of the zombies. I'll be honest the way these guys can cascade - if you have a sizable group coming at you at once from offscreen killed civvies, it might just be GG.

[Aklyon]

Do you have the expansion? If so, get two MEC units to act as tanks, they rock.

MECs also can get the kinetic strike module, which is a melee attack that starts at 12 damage and can upgrade to 18. Very handy for punching out chryssalids. Or most aliens for that matter, although it does require running into melee range. (cyberdisks won't explode right next to you if punched, but sectopods will.)

[Coppermantis]

I'd read that satellites are useful, but wow. That's pretty freaking good. And yeah, I generally go for armor pretty early, since I did find that it's saved my troops' lives many a time. Never bothered with weapons until I started seeing tougher stuff than sectoids and thinmen, but in retrospect it would have been better to preempt that. I haven't got the expansion, so no MECs (I'm assuming that those are those big exo-suit looking things that I've seen screenshots of). Avoiding labs seems counter-intuitive but you guys have more experience than I do. I feel like it would be worth putting down a few with something like the African +30% funding since that would help alleviate some of the cost of having scientists over more engineers, but perhaps not.

[Aklyon]

Labs can help eventually. But for lab to do so, you need resources. And to get resources, you need to survive. Which means workshops first, so you can build your researched gear with numerous engineers and meet the engy requirements to build more structures earlier.

[madcow]

Honestly. I'm not sure early game you can afford to build either. I tend towards taking the missions with engineer rewards, but building another satellite uplink nexus and more satellites is just so important I forego workshops. Once there's a more steady money flow that can change.

[Aklyon]

I'm not sure how you're doing that with just rewards. You need too many engineers to build buildings to not build any workshops at all until later.

[madcow]

Been awhile since I've played to recall absolute details. But I'm not sure if I've ever had the spare cash for engineering workshops before the first terror missions.

[Aklyon]

Workshops plural, no, I haven't either. I'd meant one, for the extra engineers.