Countdown to end game?

[thebritwriter]

Xcom had a countdown from the go, you are losing, every ship that flies over a country adds a negative score that plays it's part in getting that nation to pull away its funding so in the scale of things time is not your friend. Yet when I did the research for Cydonia or Bust and was now focusing on strengthening that minor skill set known as 'psi' when I lost a nation the next month and the month after that. Seemingly there seemed to be an acceleration of this.

 

The countries in question weren't infiltrated, to be doubly sure I used a earlier save file and used manufacturing exploit to get some fire storms up and running with the ship transfer exploit. And the results still came, I lost two nations, month after another despite having firestorms and stopped any alien infiltration from landing.

 

So has this happened to anyone where they lost a country despite no infiltration (and you had hyperwave radar in each base) does the game go into countdown after Cydonia research or after a certain month, or is it something else? Something...unknown *DUNDUNDUN*

 

(but seriously though, what is causing countries to drop out like this?)

[silencer_pl]

From what I remember NKF and others said, infiltration does not have to land to succeed. I think there are more topics about infiltration if you take some time to look for them

[Zombie]

You can delay (but not stop) the main infiltration fleet (actually a wave) by shooting down (or assaulting the landed) any of the UFOs that come first. The moment the second battleship appears, the country is automatically successfully infiltrated and an alien base built. This cannot be stopped IIRC. I think the game runs a routine first to determine where and if a pact will be signed, if yes, it cannot be stopped (only delayed) by any actions by the player.

 

The bit about "lost a country despite no infiltration" doesn't make sense to me. You obviously had an infiltration fleet as you built Firestorms to take the UFOs down, and that's infiltration. If you mean signing a pact, then yeah. But you cannot stop the pact once it has been initiated in the code.

 

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Damn, I was certain one was able to prevent the base by shooting down the battleship. Shows my attention to detail.

[magic9mushroom]

Xcom had a countdown from the go, you are losing, every ship that flies over a country adds a negative score that plays it's part in getting that nation to pull away its funding so in the scale of things time is not your friend. Yet when I did the research for Cydonia or Bust and was now focusing on strengthening that minor skill set known as 'psi' when I lost a nation the next month and the month after that. Seemingly there seemed to be an acceleration of this.

 

The countries in question weren't infiltrated, to be doubly sure I used a earlier save file and used manufacturing exploit to get some fire storms up and running with the ship transfer exploit. And the results still came, I lost two nations, month after another despite having firestorms and stopped any alien infiltration from landing.

 

So has this happened to anyone where they lost a country despite no infiltration (and you had hyperwave radar in each base) does the game go into countdown after Cydonia research or after a certain month, or is it something else? Something...unknown *DUNDUNDUN*

 

(but seriously though, what is causing countries to drop out like this?)

As others have said, Alien Infiltration cannot be stopped, only slowed. Eventually every country except Russia will be infiltrated (Russia's in the "Siberia" area, which doesn't get Alien Infiltration missions) and stop funding X-Com. But unlike in nuCom countries dropping out doesn't actually cause progress toward losing the game (though it gives a significant score hit).

 

There are four ways to actually lose in UFO: Enemy Unknown.

 

1) If you have two consecutive "bad" months (below a score of -900 for Beginner, -800 for Experienced, -700 for Veteran, -600 for Genius, -500 for Superhuman) the council of funding nations will disband X-Com. Note that they have to be consecutive; you can get as many "bad" months as you want, as long as you don't have two in a row.

 

2) If you have two months in which your balance after income and maintenance is under -$1,000,000, the council of funding nations will disband X-Com. Since you cannot actively spend more money than you have, this can only happen via maintenance costs being significantly larger than your council income and not having enough cash on hand to cover the difference. Note that these do not have to be consecutive. Also note that there's a bug with the re-initialisation of this flag; if you get the "financial warning" and then reload a save without using "Abandon Game" first, the flag will not be reset and the game will believe you've already been given a warning (so one such month will cause you to lose).

 

3) If X-Com's last base is destroyed by Alien Retaliation, the organisation is obliterated and you lose. Dismantling all your bases is permitted, and even a tiny base with just an access lift will suffice to continue the fight (though if you lose too much infrastructure in the early-game, you may not recover in time to prevent loss by points).

 

4) If you attempt Cydonia and fail, you lose. Game over. As such, it's generally advised to wait until you're ready and/or save before making the attempt.

 

 

TFTD has the same four methods, but losing by points is more plausible since in the mid-to-late-game the aliens have some really big scoring opportunities which require difficult missions to fight off (Artefact Sites and Alien Colonies are approximately as difficult as UFO's Cydonia).