Crafty

Kinda reminds me of the most fun I ever had playing this game. First game I played all the way to the end, before I really knew what I was doing. I think it was on intermediate level. The final moment of the game I had exactly four survivors in Cydonia, ready to shoot the alien brain. Everyone else had been killed but these four dudes had been with me from the very start and had seen it all. Good times. So yeah, Ironman all the way.

You're crazy, but I really am interested in how a 3x3 base would look in a base defense mission. If I have twenty soldiers camping out, and a battleship drops by, is there room for everyone to spawn? Will I have ten targets in sight from the opening frame? Could I end an assault in one turn using only alien grenades? I'm so doing this for my next base in my current game. For the sake of science.

Not sure if this is really rookie hall-of-fame material, but a funny moment in the game I just started. Squad of rookies busts into a large scout, drops the two sectoids inside, and then moves to position by the two doors. Once they're in position, I end my turn. Apparently, one of the sectoids was merely unconscious, and gets up, winds his way through the four rooks at the door on the left side, opens the door, and walks on through. They all had plenty of TUs remaining, but not a single reaction shot was fired. I just picture this whole tac squad just sitting there, focused on the door, while a sectoid casually walks right through them, saying, excuse me, pardon me, coming through... It was an epic rookie fail.

My first nominee, Sarah Blake. First ground mission of the game on superhuman, January 8. Medium scout. First half of the troops head out, take out a few sectoids. Blake, carrying a rocket launcher, shuffles up to the door of the Skyranger in a backup role. Next alien turn, a sectoid fires from a nearby building, shoots out a wall, hitting nobody. Blake's response? Reaction fire with a small rocket through the window of the building to kill the bastard. I nominate Sarah Blake for the rookie hall of fame.

Wow, this thread went pretty far afield of what I thought it was going to be about... Anyway, I think it should be an update of the original game, keep the same storyline, but improve the game. Some thoughts: 1. Make it so that any troop can develop psi-defense, but make it very rare for one to be able to master a panic attack, even more rare for one to be able to mind control. Developing psi effectively ends the game unless you swear ahead of time not to abuse it. 2. I'd like a feature on higher levels where the aliens can intercept your transport in flight and shoot it down. Then you're starting a mission shorthanded, with the aliens conducting their own recovery mission. Of course, you could attempt to have escorts for your transport, or have a dogfight with the avenger, but still, another dimension. 3. I think if a funding nation bails, and you have a base in that country, you should have to move everyone out and close down the base. On the flip side, have situations where a funding nation pays you a bonus to put a base in their country, and a monthly bonus to keep it there. 4. Update to include modern real-world weapons. There's no reason our boys shouldn't be able to rock the AA-12, for example. Make it more appealing to just go with what we've got rather than develop new weapons research. 5. In higher levels, have e-115 diminish over time, like it has a half-life. Create some urgency on the player's part, encourage aggressive play. Just a thought.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111801172...d=1236&cs=1 http://www.variety.com/article/VR111800400...d=3628&cs=1 As you may recall, X-Com was based largely on the old British tv series in the 70s, UFO. They're making a movie out of it! Good times. Of course, this is bad news for my own screenplay based on X-Com...

Now that I think about it, I think I did shoot another UFO down on the Norway coast. It was pretty cool, had that weird mountain terrain with caves in it. Look, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I didn't have a few drinks in me.

Playing on superhuman, more than half the time, the first UFO I get is a landing near my base, not a shootdown. I recover it, get some E-115, and head back. Every time this happens, and I do mean every time, I get a base invasion by January 5 or so. I can handle the floaters, but that's too early for sectoids and cyberdiscs, sorry. Of course, if I ignore that first UFO, it's smooth sailing no matter how many UFOs I shoot down. I'm starting to think that having E-115 is some sort of trigger. It's not as simple as shootdowns -> base assault.

Just a thought, but mind control is the most dangerous thing about ethereals, and I don't see how mind control works into a shooter. BUT, ethereals are also telekinetic, so why not have them able to use this to throw objects at the player, or have them able to throw the player himself? That would be uniquely disorienting.

Hola. I was trying to prevent an alien infiltration of South Africa yesterday, shot down a terror ship and a supply ship. Figuring more were on the way, I sent a firestorm from AfriCom to patrol over the country. Thinking the very-small ufo emissary theoretically could head to one of the cities, I parked my firestorm directly-ish over Pretoria. I waited for it to run out of gas, but it didn't. The fuel was at 0%, but it was fine just hanging out. During the patrol time, it detected a new alien base, which I promptly took down. After about 10 days, the month ended, and SA was lost (along with Japan and France, you bastards), so I recalled the firestorm home. Is this unusual? More importantly, is there any utility to parking your fighters out there? I didn't check to see if the firestorm had the juice to intercept a ufo after it was at zero fuel, I'll have to try that...

Well, actually, wouldn't it make more sense that my score was positive and flipped around to an extreme negative? I mean, if I had a negative month, I don't think every nation would have increased funding. Anyway, February was good, score of +2400 or so, so looks like I'm back on track.

I just had the exact opposite occur in January, 1999. Actually it was a pretty solid month, check my post: http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/index...?showtopic=6564 . So, my score was NEGATIVE 268 million and change, but all nations were happy and my funding went up 700k or so. I'm worried that if the glitch happens again next month, I'm fired!

It's the collector's edition for windows.

Actually thought the first month went pretty well. On superhuman, shot down and recovered 3 ufos, won the terror mission (at considerable expense in manpower), researched up to laser rifles, and got the second base started in east asia. Even captured a navigator from a small ufo. My score? Negative 268 million! The nations were happy, upped my funding about 700k, what the hell is this all about?

Update on my superhuman follies. The second effort is going much better, now have five bases up and running, developing some pretty serious psi-types, and nearing blanket global coverage so as to avoid ethereal terror missions. Except for the mission that went down last month. Flew in, thought I'd give it a go with a couple of psi amps and a full avenger crew. Unloaded my weak psi dudes to soak up plasma, and got a couple of kills out the door. Also mc'd an ethereal who was pretty close to the avenger. The alien turn... well, I'm saving some salary at least. 5 dudes got mc'd, two dudes in the avenger go berserk, and after a whole lot of friendly fire I'm flying my ass out of there with 14 of the original 26. Thank god my psi capables didn't get shot. Even if I get to the point where I have a loaded avenger with high-psi soldiers (which in previous games means I'm ready for the final mission), I'm never doing an ethereal terror mission again. It's just too much pain.