Squaddie01

Let's see. All time favorites eh? My top pick would still have to be Sid's Civilization series. 1, 2, and 3. The remaining in no specific order: X-Com: UFO Defense Masters of Orion I Wing Commander (I and II) Chris Crawford's Balance of Power (Original and 1990 edition) Warcraft II Warlords Series (II and III) Wizardy I Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series Sim City (1, 2000, and 3000) Shogun Total War

My interceptors pretty much have 1 stingray and 1 avalanche launcher until I get plasma cannons. Then I either go with dual plasmas or I use 1 plasma and 1 avalanche. Avengers are either dual plasma or 1 plasma and 1 fusion ball launcher when I have elerium a plenty.

A couple of quick recommendations, if you are a rookie, avoid night missions. As others have stated, don't mass your troops, but do have soldiers close enough to cover one another. In the early going, I prefer to have my worst soldier(s) statistically on the point. Main reason being, they are more expendable. My best reaction troops generally are close up front while my snipers, those with the best shooting accuracy are in the rear. Always make sure to leave enough time units for your reaction troops up front to get off reaction fire. Move your snipers last on your turn so that their TU's are available for shots if your point units spot aliens. When engaging an alien, best practice is to take shots from soldiers other then the one spotting the alien. These should be your snipers in the rear. This avoids alien reaction fire. My spotters take shots at aliens only as a last resort, when others have exhausted their TUs. Avoid spreading your troops to thin though. One thing I like to do is sweep the map section by section. I'll maintain a defensive line in one area while another area behind me is secured. I prefer to sweep the map entirely before entering a UFO. Use your best reaction troops to guard a UFO entry while others secure the entire map. Hope this helps.

And what is the point of forcing a small scout to crash land? Heck I try only to engage small and medium scouts over water so I don't have to deal with them crash landing. Even large scouts I sometimes don't care to engage on land. I just prefer missions where there are a lot of aliens. (except of course in the first month when you are poorly armed and trained.)

I don't consider it nutty, just cruel, but on a twist to what pumkinhead mentioned, instead of hunting down all the disarmed aliens, I herd them all to one spot, form a firing line, and then let my slow reaction and low accuracy soldiers shoot away. It's a quick and easy way to raise up reaction fire and shooting accuracy.

My preference is the small launcher for Psi weak troops. They can still take out aliens, or a cluster of aliens, but the small launcher has practically no affect on power armor and flying suit troops. And if you do get a guy knocked out, no biggie. Just revive with a medikit.

Nutty thing? Tried doing a grenade relay while inside a skyranger. Problem was it was a primed proximity grenade. I'm sure it's happened to many. Grenade gets tossed and lands next to the intended soldier. Without thinking I move the soldier to pick it up to continue the relay. BOOOM! :o Hmmm. Not many soldiers left in the skyranger.

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.

Wow you actually kept a record of each of your missions? All I know is if I added up all my kills from my current two strike teams not counting kills from deceased soldiers or sacked soldiers, I would have well over a 1000 kills I'm sure. Considering that my Commander has over 120 kills alone. In terms of UFO's downed, I must be at about UFO #270. Some have gotten away. I've probably lost 2-3 Interceptors. I've lost no tanks since I rarely take tanks on a mission. Actually the only two times I took out a tank or two was on a night Ethereal Battleship mission and recently on an Ethereal Base assault.

I also like the, burst into a medium scout, spot three aliens, let loose an auto shot, and kill all three, feeling.

Here's why I don't use Psi weak troops. Although some may have great stats, my feeling is, why waste my time building up these soldiers' abilities when I don't plan to take them to Cydonia or on Ethereal missions of any kind. I would prefer to have statistically weaker troops that have high Psi strength and have them gain all the battlefield experience. This way when I finally do go to Cydonia, I can field a force of high Psi strength soldiers that all have good stats. Generally the way I play, I don't have weak PSI troops in the field by mid game since they generally get weeded out after a few panics and mind controls by Sectoids. After completing a mission where a trooper has gone beserk/paniced or mind controlled, I sack them or reaassign them to a desk job. (Base defense.) There is one fun thing that I like to with mind control. This is pretty much late game, when I know I can take on Cydonia, but just want to have fun. I go out into the field with plenty of troops capable of mind controlling. I end up MCing every single alien, disarm them as I come across them, and then herd them all to one area and line them up. I then arm my troops with lower powered weapons (Laser rifles, pistols etc.) form a couple of firing lines and then next turn, let my soldiers give only reaction fire into the aliens as they try and run away. I repeat until all aliens are dead. Sometime I'm cruel enough to use med kits to revive unconscious aliens so I can shoot again and kill them. Cruel but fun. This also boost your reaction and accuracy stats tremendously. I've had it where on a single turn I had a squad of soldiers dish out 25 or so reaction shots. It's pretty funny to hear all the gun fire that goes off.

Also to clarify on this point:

NKF, That's a pretty detailed list but you missed this one, that the landing gear/ramp can be taken out when in mountain terrain.

As long and as often as I have played X-COM, I've never seen an infiltrated country return. On a funny side note, I have a country that the previous month withdrew its funding. Now in my current month one of their cities has become a terror site. Gee... now what is my incentive to intervene? Maybe I'll go in with Blaster Launchers blazing and level the whole map! Heh heh heh. :devil:

I look at two criterias. Reaction and accuracy. The combination of these two scores must exceed 100. The best of the best recruits can start out as high as 120 give or take a few points. With this criteria, the soldier is either a sniper type or a reaction specialist. Sometimes I get lucky and get a soldier that is good in both. (ie 55/60 or 60/55 or 60/60) The high reaction troops guard the doors and are on the point. The snipers hang back and obviously pick off any targets they can. Strength, moral, time units don't matter to me. On a side note I have one trooper with a moral of 80. Once I have Psi labs, all soldiers on my primary and secondary squads must have a minimum Psi strength of 70. 75 or higher is my preference for Cydonia. Anyone less is removed from the active squad and is left on base defense. All new recruits must meet the 100 requirement for reaction and accuracy and minimum Psi score of 70. If not they get sacked right away. When looking for recruits mid to late game, all my bases have two Psi labs. That way I can train 20 troops per base and quickly find enough suitable troops. At the end of the month those with sub par scores are sacked and the hiring process begins again.