Okay, spill. What are some of the cheapest and most "unfair" tactics you've used against the buggers?

This 'cheap trick' (but it's for the good of the planet!) has served me well, but it can be a bit maddening to put into play. It's quite simple, really: when I find the blasted alien ship (and this works best on medium scouts), I post oh, about four soldiers with high reactions. All of them face the door and are positioned so that any alien trying to get out is quite dead.

Standard Demolitions: I enjoy seeing Sectiods standing near Cyberdiscs. Less targets to shoot at.

I've also noticed that if you use a grenade on a Cyberdisc, it will NOT explode. However, if it gets shot, it WILL go up.

If the top has been blown off of the smaller UFOs (Large scouts in particular), I sometimes lob a grenade or three in there.

I carry primed alien grenades on all of my soldiers if I'm going into combat against Cryssalids, just in case.

Gee, I love terror ships... especially when I can get my rocket tank in there.

This has only happened once, but have ye ever tired of playing "Hunt the last alien" on a terror mission? Did you have laser weapons? I clear-cut the entire town.
It took forever, but I got the bastard.

lol, send a suicude squad with primed (alien)grenades/detpacks in to the medium scout when 5 aliens are in there, works every time

Best way to take on an ethereal base is to send in either people armed with nothing but balster launchers or a large squad of tanks

Hmm, this might be a little unfair, but I am really fond of the "suicide bomber" trick. Not when I make my own units do it though, just when I control the aliens and make them attack their "allies".

Well my favourite "technique" is the kamikaze scouts. Strap an alien grenade to em, give em a laser pistol and a pointy stick and throw them out of the skyranger when there are aliens hiding.

Cheap trick/tactic?

Well in general, on most of the larger ships, you have a good idea where the aliens hide or start at in the beginning of the mission. Have several soldiers up near the front armed with blaster bombs. After obviously securing your immediate LZ, pop out your blaster squad and let loose a couple of bombs on those areas of the ship containing the most bad guys.

On a battleship for example, have blaster one hit on the roof right above the bridge/command center. Send blaster 2 through the small opening and that's a good 3-4 aliens gone right away. If you have a 3rd and 4th blaster, you can easily send these through the same opening and have the blaster race around the corridors, next thing you know half the aliens are gone already. On a supply ship, same thing, slam a blaster through the side or roof of the 3rd floor by the bridge area and send a 2nd to mop up. One blaster though the opening of a lg scout with no roof pretty much equals most everyone dead inside. This "cheese" tactic works really on any ship.

On a base assault, you can do the same tactic. Spot the command center, pop a few blasters to clear away the walls. Send a blaster up into the command room, and watch the fire works go off. Dust off. Mission accomplished.

For some reason, I feel I must capture the UFOs intact and on the ground.

/me feels the same way...

Anyway, some cheap tactics:

* Alien MC chain: I've seen (in my experience) that when you MC an alien, if you scout a bit with the alien you can see one of his partners, MC him and do the same, I've controlled entire crews that way...

* Put a proxy near the door and hide two or more high-reaction troops. Wait for it to go boom and next turn put that soldiers to guard the door, I usually kill more aliens that way.

* Safer deploy: Drop a smoke grenade just before the stairs (inside the X-COM craft, and another one in the stairs, you can deploy your troops more safely.

* At an alien's base, once you locate the command center use a blaster bomb to open a shortcut to the second floor of the building.

The MC chain is my personal favourite, but here's another one I use;

on the lower level of cydonia, once i find the brain tile, i have my little MC chain, and i use the alien to open the door on the top left side, then i fire a blaster bomb from wherever i start along the shortest possible route, through the door, up one of the elevators, and straight down the middle aisle of the to floor, but i usually hit an ethereal commander on the way, so if i have two guys with blaster bombs, i'll send two... i think i've only seen the alien brain with human eyes once or twice, of all the times i've beaten the game...

I think the dirtiest trick in my book is the blaster bomb surgical strike. You only need a small number of soldiers to wipe out an entire alien base in a few turns. Two soldiers are sufficient (spotter & blaster operator), but a few more blaster launcher operators can make the mission go oh so much faster.

It's just a matter of spotting the command room as quickly as you can, and then making a hole to the lift room (you can save a bomb if you fly it through one of the side windows and then knocking out the outer and inner walls), and then detonating two more blaster bombs into the ceiling of the lift room, particularly the east and west sections (i.e. in between the tables). If you think you've destroyed all 16 sections of the 4 command tables, head back to the entry room and dust off. The base should now be wiped off the map.

You won't get any of the equipment from the base, but you will still get the 500 points for disabling the base and you'll get credited for any aliens you killed.

This is especially useful for snakeman and ethereal bases, since you don't really want to tangle with the chryssalids, ethereals or the sectopods (especially superhuman level sectopods).

- NKF

All my bases are designed around a core which is the same for them all (note my avatar). I've noticed that the AI tends to bunch the aliens in one particular spot. So without even looking starting say turn 2 or 3 and every 2 or 3 turns after that I just keep sending the silver footballs into this area "knowing" they'll just be waiting with "kill me" signs on their backs.

But the absolute "dirtiest" trick without question is . . . . .


reload reload reload reload save reload reload reload reload save etc.

Got an even dirtier one:

Use WIN, VIS, and SWP cheats with xcomutil.

In one of my games, I had about 8 guys/gals capable of psiing the enemy is one try. I managed to psi the entire team, stuck them just outside the skyranger, and my commander nuked them with a BB. Very loud screams. Mission won, the end

ooh, another one, is kinda cheap for deployment using the avenger, you can walk units diagonally through the wall, going between the wall on the top left, and the diagonal wall that connects with the rear door of the ship, which can help you get units out of the avenger quicker if you're going for speed...

in UFO (and maybe tftd) i remember playing the game and the game couldnt find ANY map files.

Just wait for the UFO to land, when you go scout it out, it will give you all kinds of error messages, and you will win automatically

You wont get any live aliens, or any alien corpses, but you will get ALL the equipment

At least it used to be this way, havent done it in years

Here is a trick that works very well on Desert maps, works best with avenger. If you have a number of hovertanks (or even 1), you can move them as far up as they will go. now you have an eye in the sky that can provide fire support for your troops

(also works with flying suit, particualrly good if they can drop (proximity)grenades in to alien infested areas )

I have a fun revenge tactic: The Group Hug Of Death

Alien shoots one of my people. I PSI alien, and take his grenade out, prime it, and keep PSIing him and his friends until I get them into a cluster. Next turn... boom.

#1 Rockets through the UFOs- Take a Rocket Launcher and fire it through the diagnal corners from the outside.

#2 Mind Control Chain- Need i say more?

#3 Nade Chain- Hot potato with hand gernades

#4 I CAN SEE YOUR OUTLINE- Use the unit selector in the black areas to find the outline of an alien. (an alien outline will over up parts of the 3D box)

#5 #3 + #4-

#6 Smoke and Fire- Give a flyer 6 Hi explosives. Have another have with smoke nades. Smoke up the UFO entrence and smoke up the roof thats right above the entrence. Put the flyer on the roof. When the smoke guy sees an alien exit get the flyer to drop a Hi Explosive on it then go back on the roof. Smoke keeps the aliens from taking out your men and aliens rarely end a turn looking at the UFO so your flyer can bomb safely.

#7 Suicide Bombers- Rookie + Bomb + UFO full of aliens=bloody mess

Other cheaps exist but i like these the most.

-Psy Guy-

When up against melee-only aliens (chryssalids and reapers), follow them around with a flying suit, raining grenades on them.

The other main use I make of flying suits is to get them straight up in the sky with blaster launchers (usually two of these for ship-cracking operations) and provide an long-distance aerial assault that effectively covers an infantry charge.

This is particularly useful against downed/landed battleships, as you can completely destroy the top two levels of the ship from the air, while the troops clear out the bottom levels. This way yields more elerium and ship parts than trying to fry the entire ship with blasters (can anyone honestly say they haven't done that?) and is a damn sight easier than clearing out the whole ship with ground forces.

well...i'd have to say that the most unfair and brutally funny trick i ever used on the bastards was when i responded to a small craft landing in the desert of africa...
they were sectoids....i guess their lil routine scouting time (and the bastards have to land just a few miles from my base...lucky me) had to come at theat particular time...well....i landed the sky ranger there and moved out five men well armed, and with the heavy demolitions packs....i rarely use these things, but decided that if i could pull this plan off, it'd be worth the laugh....suprizingly no aliens had yet left there craft....(ooohh...even better for me) now usually for this size craft i would only use two men to raid the craft and the tank to scout,recon,and pick off outside aliens....but i needed the five men to have some fun...so i hed the tank sit in front of the alien craft door to lock the little bastards in, while my men got to work , equally priming there det. packs around the craft walls ...about two on each side,except of course the front door....did'nt want to get my tank involved with the fun part....i had my men running their asses off while i pictured them laughing so hard that they could hardly run...(like a bunch of children setting fire works in front of some poor old lady's house and giving her a heart attack)...now a bunch of u would probably say that this is a waste of perfectly good elerium set for capture...but hey...when u have a big stock pile of over 1000 units...u don't need to worry about it....the det. packs exploded after a few skipped turns and running...
five of those big headed creeps were sitting in there wondering what was blocking the way of the door (luckily they did'nt fire on the tank) and if the explosions through the walls did'nt kill them...then the exploding craft core sure did....now if only the game would allow u to see body parts and limbs fly.....BWAHAHAHA!!!

AAAARRRGGG!!!

Mind controlling their weapons off, and then lighting them on fire and watching them run in a fiery terror. I always think of the quote from Saving Private Ryan: "Don't shoot!! Don't shoot!! Let 'em burn"