Sorbicol

Really? On my current play through I'm convinced someone has taken all the Thin Men to sharpshooter school :-/ Loving it so far but blown two campaigns already. Balance wise it feels a bit all over the place

Apologies if this has already been posted (I did look but the iOS version of the forum isn't the most easily navigatable affair at best) but the Korean ratings board of all people apparently have a listing for XCOM Enemy Within. http://www.eurogamer...n-ratings-board Crap. Can't edit titles in iOS. quite why auto correct didn't pick that up when it picks up loads of stuff I don't really want it to is anyone's guess......

Ah here it is! Like Space Voyager I've been playing this a little with the prettying the same conclusion at the moment - it's still pretty unfinished. It is basically X-COM rather than XCOM, with a few curves thrown in. Primarily amongst those is the cover system in tactical combat, which works moderately well. It also has big changes to the air combat model which still need smoothing out a little - a couple of months in and the larger UFOs that Appear start to eat missiles for breakfast, and with no indicator that this is going to happen if you haven't followed the "optimal" research path then you are in big trouble, because your only source of income is shot down UFOs. The game eschews the arms manufacturing / alien cadaver dealing of the original and tightly controllers how you find your empire. While it automatically sells any recovered alien weapons at the end of each mission, human manufactured weapons and equipment never sell for more than they cost to manufacture. Hence you can't just bank roll your way to victory. That's not a problem but the cost of building new bases, weapons and vehicles is prohibitively expensive and needs rebalancing. Also the original base layout is t get clever and several restricts your ability to expand tech and manufacturing capability, none of which helps. All that said though, if they can rebalance it and get some of the slightly wonky design decisions sorted out, there is much to recommend the game. Night terror missions at exactly that - terrifying - and it's very much got its own feel, and the flavour text for research descriptions is very good indeed. The Cold War setting works perfectly too. Personally if you didn't really want what Firaxis did with XCOM then I would suggest this might be much more to your liking, there is a lot going for it. You might want to wait until after its finished though.

The patch made it better but didn't totally eliminate it. I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to get talked about here (maybe I'm just not looking for it right) but Xenonauts is now available early access on steam. I backed the kick starter and it is the closest remade x-com I've ever played. It's got it's faults to be sure but it's almost a mechanic for mechanic remake of the original (although I'm not completely sold on the "improved" air combat engine) and I would say worth investigating. If I'm allowed to.

I find the bugs in it are more critical when playing ironman - you can't just back and reload. A really shame as ironman is clearly the mode in which the game should be played

What as in more DLC or more patching? The teleporting issue isn't as bad as it was (well, I don't think so) but it seems to be something fundamental with the game mechanics to me. Always going to be a problem. As for DLC - I get the impression that'll be more of an expansion rather than just more DLC.

If you need a battleship, just wait for a UFO to show up and let it go unmolested. When the battleship comes along a few days later to shoot down your satellite, ambush it Once you have researched the blaster launchers, do remember to equip them though!

It's stretching the definition of "strategy" slightly, but the King's Bounty games are tremendous fun if you are looking for something a bit lighter. Turn based seems to undergoing something of a renaissance now that XCOM has been successful so hopefully there will be more options in the future.

That's XCOM baby

Ha don't worry that still gets me on occasion. You can use rockets though if aliens are using them for cover so it works both ways sometimes

There is somewhere a file on alien physiology for the thin men, and it notes the striking similarities between the thin men and reptilian snakes on earth. I think it was a concious decision by Firaxis to replace the snakemen who (to be honest) were always just different coloured Mutons. I'm sure that Jake spoke about it briefly during one of the many many many interviews he did prior to launch. I do hope that the next expansion/DLC/sequel does include some new aliens, but I doubt some revised version of snake men will be there.

The thin men took the place of snake men in the new version.

Quite a few games do cloud saves now, mostly via steam. CiV does off the top of my head, as do a few others.

There will be one mission where it all goes wrong when playing ironman. Seems to happen every campaign - you go round a corner and walk into a concentrated knot of aliens (usually hard ones too like Berserkers with Cyberdisks) or you you try to flank and uncover a pocket of aliens you weren't expecting. The hardest ones to take is when the game warps a bunch of aliens right into the middle of your squad, thanks to the teleportation bug. It's really hard to take but all you can do really is roll with it hope you pull through.

No not playing any second wave options. Survived the Alien base mission, now holding on desperately after an horrific supply barge mission cost me all my best squad. Went round the corner and walked into one sectopod, 4 drones, 2 sectoid commanders and 3 heavy floaters. Next turn 4 mutons, 2 Berserkers, 2 muton elite, 1 cyber disk and 3 more heavy floaters turned up. Unsurprisingly I didn't survive. They really need to sort having the emergency dust area where it should be. It sure as hell wasn't where I started from!

I've been trying to get through a classic Ironman playthrough since last month with minimal success. I've got the second wave DLC and the Slingshot DLC installed and it seems the flavour of the game has changed. It seems to me to be taking much much longer to get things researched? In fact so much so that using an abduction missions for scientists is much more essential, as is stunning some aliens for the research credits to be able to reach the alien base mission before Mutons arrive in numbers and you are rapidly outgunned. The flow of the game certain feels different at any rate. Anyone else noted this? It's taken me 5 attempts to get to the alien base mission (I'm there now) with all basic armour and laser weapons unlocked, and my last 3 missions have been touch and go - I've lost a lot of veterans thanks to very accurate one shot kill fire from Mutons. I don't remember my previous classic play through before Christmas being quite so hard! The Slingshot DLC is a nice addition but not worth £5 I note. I also have a new crash to desktop if more than one soldier takes a reaction fire shot with laser weapons. This is both a blessing and a curse!

You need to think of steam as the gaming version of iTunes to be honest - It delivers exactly what the core of it's customers want, but it takes a massive cut from all the developers it publishes (Majors and indies alike) and help is more or less based on how many people complain about eh same issue,. Pretty much the same as everywhere else I guess, but it never fails to amaze me just how many people will give Valve and Steam a free ride.

Shades? "Major source of inspiration" I believe!

Trust me, if you want to know who's who on the battlefield, bright pink and green are the only way to go!

I'm going to contradict Thorondor there. I have the steam version of the game (pre-ordered) and the Elite Soldier Pack should be incorporated into the main game. If in the soldier customisation screen you can change hairstyles (including the original game's "Guile" hairstyle) or give them helmets, and change the armour style then you have the pack installed and enabled The elite soldier pack is pretty limited to be honest - it's just cosmetic changes to your soldiers and their armour - so it's pretty easy to miss that you have installed and working. Too me a while to work it out too!

I don't. I get on really well with my mother in law!

OK. I need to change my underwear.

It's that bug that stopped me playing ironman on the classic setting.

I could desperately do with a "sleeping baby" DLC pack at the moment 'cos the one I got doesn't want to know

£5.50 (UK price) feels a little steep for this I have to say. I confess that the THQ humble bundle has turned my eye a bit too, I think that for given I could get all those games for the same price I'll be taking a short break from XCOM and either playing some of those games or doing a skyrim rerun with some of the mods, and then get the DLC cheaper in the steam sale. I hope.