One of the things that had me turn away from XCom all those years ago was that after I beat the game a couple times it stopped being as challenging. To combat that this time around, I've set up a different gameplay style for each of the available save spots. My latest is perhaps the weirdest yet when it comes to extravagant differences in levels from one category to the next. For instance I'm already researching Avenger and yet I still only have the starting 3 plane weapons, still haven't even gotten laser rifles much less anything bigger, hell I still haven't even researched medikits yet.

Anyway thought I'd share with everyone this incredibly weird setup just so y'all can get as much of a laugh out of it as I am. Oh, and excuse please the endless irrelevant and boring data.. I decided to stick it all at once to give a better feel for how the game is like...

My current capabilities are:

Craft max: Avenger - Just completed it before finishing this post
Craft weap max: Cannon, Stingray, or Avalanche (Game Start)
Soldier weap max: Laser Pistol
HWP max: Cannon or Rocket (Game Start)
Defense max: Missile Launcher (Game Start)

Researching: Sectoid Navigator - 50 scientists - Excellent

Available unstarted projects: Motion Scanner, Medikit, Laser Rifle, Grav Shield, Power Suit, Sectoid Engineer, Sectoid Navigator, Sectoid Leader, Reaper Terrorist, plus corpses (Sectoid, Floater, Reaper, Cyberdisk - actually managed to take away four from a single terror site somehow) and various things dropped by anything that is either a sectoid or a floater.

Current monthly country contributions: 8,648,000
Current monthly profit (Laser Pistol): 3,036,000 - It's scary how big my production line in Antartica has gotten *shivers*
Avg monthly profit plunder: 14,396,020

Total monthly increase prior to expenses: 26,080,020
Total maintenance/rentals/salaries expenses per month: 7,235,000
Building expenses this month: 21,097,000 (I included building costs for the lightning1 since it deducted the money from my account upon starting manufacturing, also includes base facility construction and new base opening fees.)
Total month expenditures: 28,332,000
Budget change for the month: - 2,251,980
Budget enterring the month: 11,326,026
Budget now: 9,074,046

Craft in use: Sky1 - Europe, Int1 - N. America, Int2 - East Asia, Int3 - Australia, Int4 - Africa, Int5 - S. America, Fire1 - Europe
Craft being built: Light1 - Europe (9 days, 2 hours)
Total crafts: 7
Total troops: 11 (No deaths as yet either.. only one injury this game even w/out reloads!)
Best overall soldier: 75 Time Units, 84 Stamina, 44 Health, 60 Bravery, 59 Reactions, 65 Firing Accuracy, 80 Throwing Accuracy, 49 Strength (Total: 516 from 8 categories - 64.5 avg) Missions: 11 - Kills: 13 - Rank: Captain
Total HWPs: 1 (Only one destroyed through 14 missions - really hate alien reaction fire with instant-tank-killer weaps that hits you after you move one square onto your exit ramp!)
Total bases: 7 (Europe - 1, N. America - 2, Antartica - 3 (production modules only base (living area, workshop, general storage) except for the 1 large radar), East Asia - 4, Australia - 5, Africa - 6, S. America - 7
Elerium stored: 346
Navigation: 8
Power Source: 2
Alien Alloys: 3 (For some really strange reason I've been having more problems with running out of alloy than anything else... had to actually manufacture an additional 70 to finish Fire1, and an additional 21 for the Light1 I'm currently building, and I am going to need more if I ever get around to building that avenger - geeze!)

Current Game time: Apr 28, 1999

Research order to date: Laser Weaponry, Laser Pistol, Alien Alloys, Personal Armor, Navigation, Power Source, E-115, UFO Construction, New Fighter Craft (Fire), New Fighter/Transport (Light), New Ultimate Craft (Aven), Sectoid Navigator

- Man, I am so behind in most things in this particular game, yet I think I may have built the fire1 prior to ever building a new craft in any game I've ever played before (I built Fire1 before March was even half over I think...)

When I went thorugh on superhuman (lost in the end, only one troop made it down into the second area of cydonia and she spent here first turns there shooting walls), I spent most of the game not producing weapons of any sort, just alloys. Alloys, alloys, alloys...

And why did you need so much alloys? :dontgetit:

I guess he used them to make money. Fairly good profit and it's something you will likely need.

Yes, but like the heavy plasmas and their respective clips, it's not a piece of alien technology that you'll ever want to actively build (unless you're churning out personal armour or hybrid ships). I mean, you often collect far more alloys than you'll ever need to finish the campaign after a month or so of recovery missions.

---

It's amazing what you can do with just 50 scientists and a clear plan of what exactly you want them to achieve - and luck. Lots, and lots of luck.

You could, and I dare say it is possible, get the information you need to launch the Cydonia mission within a few weeks. This requires capturing a random live alien, a commander and a leader. The only places I can think of getting a commander that early would be in a base attack. I actually HAD a sectoid commander on my second base defense mission. There was only one remaining sectoid left, and it 'panicked', which also revealed its rank.

Unfortunately, I was forced to restart the campaign since this was my only base and I'd run completely out of ammunition. My stun-rods were still in delivery too. All I had left was a set of smoke bombs that weren't potent enough to knock out the commander who was at full health. Blast. I might have had the cydonia research done within the week!

If you are fortunate enough to get 'Cydonia or Bust', and if you quickly get an Avenger built, well, hey, you'll be on your way to Mars with pretty much your starting troops and gear. The worst you'll face on Mars can either by avoided (Sectopods), or blown to smithereens with high explosives or large rockets. The aliens probably won't even have cranked out their blasters yet either.

Oh, were that I could get another chance like that again - only this time with a stun rod...

- NKF

I had something very similar happen to me in TFTD. I got my base attacked on the end of January. I successfully defended it (losing all but 2 of my men in the process), but I bagged a commander from the attack. I learned that they rarely go about with weapons, so if I spotted an unarmed alien, I'd charge and stun it. Two times I was right, the last time I got rewarded with a sonic blaster. Oops.

In TFTD the aliens that seem to carry no weapon in fact carry a lot of pulsers (say 4 or 5) and some HTH weapon. But sometimes they don't carry anything. I've noticed different types of aliens: leaders, medics and even technicians to behave such strangely with no apparent reason.

Maybe they've forgotten their weapons somewhere? ::

There's probably a good excuse for that. It's so that psi-endowed aliens (usually the higher ranking buggers) use up all their TUs on psi attacks. A bit nasty of the programmers, if I do say so myself.

On the other hand, it makes them easier to capture.

By the way, ever notice that the alien don't ever use the HTH weapons? (not counting the lobstermen, who all have a built in attack) I think that they they are given twice the usual amount of pulsers for a very good reason.

- NKF

Agreed on the not using HTH weaps. I found a neat trick to surviving the Sectoid and Eths later in the game is to have my guys kill all the non-psi's then drop their guns & thrown stuff completely and just hang onto a stun rod each. Then I go bum-rush the psi leader and since 99/100 he's so busy psi-ing I can get him without any casualties from it.

Of course that 1 time... oi... at times like that you almost envy the reload freaks.

Yes, but in TFTD the aliens are a bit smarter, so they won't use them, if your soldier is close enough (unless they are panicking or going berserk but even then I don't think they will use pulsers). So it may be good to get near them and do whatever you like with them

Hey, the AI has been smart with regards to grenades since UFO.

Often, the safest place to be when facing an alien with a grenade (assuming it panicked and dropped its gun), or an alien toting a blaster, is to stand right next to it.

There's a lot to be said about the simplistic AI used in UFO and TFTD. They got smarts. In Apocalypse, the alien's, despite the slightly better AI, will merrily dump their most powerful explosive at their feet, or even in the middle of a crowd of their own comrades if it would mean harming one of your units.

- NKF

Personally I think the Apocalypse AI is more realistic of the two though. I mean a human dies and it takes 18 years to grow a new one to repopulate the world, an alien dies and a good ten minute vat bath will have your invasion force back up to full roster... it's sort of like the Allies vs the Axis in WWII... a war of attrition. The difference being that the player's forces are given an edge in these games that allows them to overcome attrition wars.

Hey, if you DO go to Cydonia with all your starting equipment, don't your guys gasp and die in the unbreathable Martian atmosphere when they land? I mean, they're wearing (as my friend put it when he got the game) pajaymas, not even the body armour of proper soldiers (no helmets?!?) so what would stop them suffocating?

Oh, and of course the player needs an advantage in these games. What I'd like to see is a game where the player has the numbers but is against few and powerful foes. Or is that what UFO AFTERMATH is like?