Yes, call me pathetic, but I just finished the Cydonia mission and the game since starting June of last year. My first visit to Cydonia ever.

At the end of it all, when the last mind-controlled weaponless Ethereal was executed, a wounded Ellen Ripley set a time delay, chucked a package of C4 high explosive under the alien brain, and walked away.

Playing skill shot up dramatically after spending time on this board, minimizing reaction fire and deaths. Playing on Normal difficulty, launched for Cydonia in November 1999, with $83 million in the coffers. Stopped recovering UFOs in the last two months except as training missions. How's this compare to your experiences?

Not enough Snakemen/Chrysallid missions, though. Too many Floaters. Guess I'll have to play again!

Congratulations, now go beat the game again!

To tell the truth, I've started tons of games but never technically completed them past getting the Avenger and 'Cydonia or Bust'. I've only officially won the game a few times before, not counting reloading the last mission again to watch the credits again (they rolled by too fast at the time).

That last mission was somewhat anticlimatic the first time around, since I watered it down by having a chryssalid fire a blaster bomb off into the unknown, where I thought there were a couple of ethereals hanging out. Didn't expect the game to be over so quickly.

- NKF

Congrats!

Well, for first time win it's quite a good score

You should try harder difficulty levels now, you'll enjoy them

That's cool! I beat it once WWWWAAAAAYYYYY long ago, and to tell you the truth, I don't even remember it! I started playing it again, and I Just got the Avenger. I've had plenty of Chryssy missions, Hvy Plasms r good! Not haivn Elerium 115 isn't!

Congratulations Jellyfish Green. I just beat my first UFO game a few weeks ago and you did better than I (assuming you never reloaded). I didn't attack Cydonia until April 2000. The reason for the late attack was my late discovery of psi and the decision to wait until I had 10 soldiers with 70+ psi strength and 60+ psi skill. With a crew that strong the final mission was very easy, as every single alien got mind controlled and no X-COMmie got hurt (that same old boring super-safe strategy of mine.)

I look forward to doing it all over again, but it'll be a while since I'll play all the sequels first. Playing TFTD at the moment is a bit of a change, having no psi, no armor and only gauss rifles. I just did an island attack in complete darkness and paid dearly for victory.

Cazbol

Could have trained up a psi-squad earlier if I'd known how the psi-labs worked. Next game I'll build them in all the bases earlier.

Reload, me? Unthinkable! Well... one Ethereal farm mission, the aliens had a good bead on the squad, and many talented and heavily armed squaddies went slasher-flick that day. I tried a few times to reload and make miniscule progress in different directions but in the end just backtracked, cut my liabilities by sacking the muppets, and restarted the mission with a reshuffled squad. Not only is reloading abhorrent and unfair to the aliens, but it didn't work either.

So yeah, higher difficulty levels for the next one. Maybe one day I'll track down the guy I loaned TFTD to, and really get my heiney kicked.

Just so you know, you don't need to kill the aliens on the Cydonia mission.
You just have to destroy at least one quarter of the brain and press End Turn.
I know, it sounds simple...but I know there is about 7 Ethereals in the brain room that are shooting on you
but you just have to fight back...

Lol only one quarter? that makes it much more easy. i ahve never really finished the game... only by downloading a cheat editor and maxing all of my men and then crushing the aliens at Cydonia... im really trying to complete the game but its not working. any1 got any hints???

if you don't care about the date in which you complete the game, just stockplie stuff. go to cydonia with a bang.. Honestly I've never looked at the date when I launch to cydonia, but I bet it's ridiculous.

What worked for me:

3 or 4 tanks (laser, laser, plasma, & fusion)
3 Psi-amp operators (Spooky, Maria, & Christel), laser pistol sidearms
2 Blaster launcher operators (Asia & Vin) with 5 bombs each, more could be good
2 flying scouts (Crackshot Yamata and Ellen Ripley)
3 or 4 Riflemen (laser, heavy plasma)
Everyone at least in a power suit with psi strength 40 or better. I ended up with one mind-puppet but he lived and everyone stayed well clear of him.

One rehearsed blaster bomb shot to break open the access-lift pyramid & allow tanks inside.

One lucky blaster bomb shot that knocked out a sectopod, a snakeman, and a hidden chryssalid in one go.

One lucky storming of the final lift with a fast-reaction trooper, when all the ethereals happened to be turned away. Psi troopers were on standby. Psi-controlled them at will.

One package of high explosive: $300
Watching the alien brain sweat as the timer ticked down: worth it

My kit:

1 laser tank (in case the place was swarming with Sectopods)
2 plasma tanks
1 fusion tank
All ten team members with psi amps, 70+ psi strength and 60+ psi skill.
10 of 10 in flying suits
3 of 10 with blaster launchers and 5 bombs.
7 of 10 with heavy plasma.
10 electrical flares
2 motion scanners (essential for base attacks)
about 7 proximity grenades
5 medikits
remaining cargo space filled with alien grenades

The only thing I'd change is to add more motion detectors; probably 2 more. A few more electrical flares could also have come in handy. I'd reduce the number of grenades to compensate.

I landed right next to the pyramid with the access lift, which didn't interest me because I was there to kill every single mofo on the planet. I startet by establishing a perimeter around the Avenger, using the pyramids as cover. The aliens started shooting at me out of the dark where I couldn't see them so I spread flares around the outer part of the perimeter and used tanks to scout the area until I found them. Immediately and effortlessly mind controllled everything I saw, including parts of the cyberdiscs which then killed themselves. Cleared every pyramid and every inch using prisoners as scouts. Three sectoids in a pyramid put up a surprisingly well organised defense making good use of cover but were soon controlled. Having taken control of all surface troops they were gathered in a groop and disarmed. The useful part of their equipment was distributed among my troopers and the prisoners then executed.

Getting down to the base, I found out to my frustration that the two motion scanners wound up at the same access lift, meaning the team at the other lift couldn't see if an enemy was approaching. After a long wait where no aliens where to be seen. One trooper was therefore tasked with making his way to the other access lift with the much needed motion scanner. On the way she runs into a celatid. One mind control later the celatid spots another alien *zing* and another *zing*. In about 5 turns every single alien is mind controlled except for one Sectopod with gets blown up.

My commander gets the honour of greeting the brain and presenting it with a gift to symbolise how much X-COM values alien products. One alien grenade placed before the brain. The brain was not too grateful but soon stopped complaining.

And there was much rejoicing.

Cazbol