DeepOne

I bought a new computer in late 1994, and I got X-COM shortly after that. I was 31.

Recovering USOs will get you money for the items that you recover and sell, so in that way, not recovering them means you will have less money. However, I'm pretty sure that not visiting the crash site will not have any negative effect on your relationship to governments and their funding - except that your "score" will be lower, but that isn't necessarily a problem unless your score is really low (like negative). If you allow USOs to fly around unchecked, then that can certainly affect government funding; however, once you've shot them down, I think you've already dealt with that threat. I think it's virtually unavoidable that you will lose the funding of a number of countries during the course of the game, but I have never had it get to the point where it affected my ability to finish the game.

TFTD is actually more varied than EU, but the tactical maps are larger, so the battles take longer; and I think that makes it more likely to become monotonous after awhile. You don't have to recover every USO that you shoot down. Technology (including captured aliens), money, and experience (for your aquanauts) are the reasons for recovering them. If you don't need any of that, then just leave them. The terror missions (especially the ones on ships) can take a very long time to complete, but you don't really need to do those either. Just make an appearance, and then leave if you don't feel like doing them. If you're doing well enough in other areas of the game, then this won't hurt you. Once you've recovered the Deep Ones and Calcinites required for the research tree, then there isn't anything else in these missions that you really need (you don't actually even need Calcinites to finish the game). When you're powerful enough, you'll be able to shoot down the USOs that trigger these missions before they can do so. Are you aware that the research tree has bugs? If you research certain things in the wrong order, then you'll never be able to get to the Leviathan (the ultimate X-COM craft) which you'll need to finish the game. If you've triggered that bug, then the game will be neverending and will certainly become monotonous. Here is a site devoted to helping people avoid such problems.

I didn't get to see what was at the original link. Was it something like this? Women Know Your Limits

I thought that was a bug, and it survived past beta testing. The first version of TFTD I bought (on floppy disks) had that spawn point (for one of your own units). The Collector's Edition doesn't have it. Edit: Oh, you said Triton. The bug I was thinking of was only for the Leviathan.

Hmmm... I have a GeForce 6800, and I'm using version 77.77 of Nvidia's Forceware. I have a ViewSonic monitor. I have it connected to the card's DVI output if that matters. I installed drivers for it which i downloaded from the manufacturer's website. Have you done that for your monitor?

I think the LCD monitor is part of the problem. Go to Control Panel / Display / Settings / Advanced. Select the tab for your video card, and open the Additional Properties (if they aren't already open). Select the Digital Flat Panel Settings. I have four options here, and I think "Display adapter scaling" is the one that works best for X-COM 1&2. The image ends up slightly stretched vertically, but I don't really notice it except when viewing the geoscape while zoomed out (the earth is sort of egg shaped). I usually use "Fixed aspect ratio scaling", but I think the X-COM games give me the problem you describe when I use that.

Muslims tend to want Sharia Law.

He started the war in 1990 when he invaded Kuwait. The war paused in 1991 with a ceasefire agreement. Over the next 12 years, Saddam continually violated the terms of that agreement (see UN Resolution 1441). Saddam supported Islamic jihad (which was the impetus behind 9/11). Bush laid out the reasons for taking out Saddam in his 2003 State of the Union Address (scroll down about 3/4 on that page).

I think the premise of your questions is flawed. You seem to be presuming that threats and/or violence are always wrong. Circumstances can create the aforementioned "shades of grey". Just as a police officer shooting an armed robber is not the same as the armed robber shooting his victims, so is forcefully opposing a brutal dictator not the same as becoming one. It can be better to forcefully oppose evil than it is to appease and, therefore, enable it. Or do you lament that the world is not ruled by Nazis now?

Cause that seperates the just from the beasts. It enables and perpetuates the beasts. I think that is the opposite of "just".

Why should dictators be treated any better than they treat the people over whom they rule?

That doesn't make sense. Bush cut off the oil because the U.S. had intelligence that North Korea had a nuclear weapons program and had, therefore, already violated the agreement. When confronted with the evidence, North Korea admitted that they had been working on developing nuclear weapons for years (since the mid-to-late 90's apparently). Bush didn't cause the problem; he exposed it. And it wasn't the change in policy which created the problem; it was the original policy itself which was ridiculously naive. History has repeatedly shown that appeasing dictators does not work. Instead of negotiating we'll give you a bunch of stuff if you just promise to behave yourself , we should simply be telling them if you don't behave yourself, we'll make you wish you had.

Yes, both Clinton and Carter are Democrats. Democrats are always liberals although some like to call themselves moderates - meaning moderately liberal, I suppose. But liberals are not always Democrats. There are a handful of Republicans who are liberals. It seems that they will run as Republicans in places where conservatives have no hope of winning (i.e. "blue states" if you're familiar with popular U.S. political jargon). Many conservatives think Bush (and his father) are too liberal on some issues. Because the definition of conservative and liberal can vary greatly depending on context (including time and location), I'll post this link again to provide basic definitions in the U.S. political sense.

It seems that U.S. liberals have had a lot to do with it. In 1994, President Clinton, with apparently unsolicited help from ex-president Carter, made a deal in which North Korea received $4-6 billion to construct a pair of light-water nuclear reactors for generating electricity and 500,000 tons of fuel oil per year. In exchange, North Korea agreed to not build nuclear weapons. Of course, they started to work on developing nuclear weapons almost immediately, and this deal must have greatly improved their ability to do so. Carter later won a Nobel Peace Prize (that Prize is a joke - even Arafat won one). I don't think that North Korea using its nuclear weapons is the primary concern. The problem is that they are heavily into arms trafficking (they're also into counterfeiting and drug trafficking - nice regime over there). They could sell a nuclear device to Iran or some other Islamic jihad supporter. And those people would be quite eager to use it to destroy a city. They don't fear reprisal.

And I find it incredulous that you would find that incredulous. Of course, I don't necessarily believe "every word" that anyone says. I believe much of what Ann Coulter says - not because she says it but because I already knew it to be true or because her arguments are rational (I can tell when to take her literally and when she's being sarcastic or hyperbolic). I believe very little of what Michael Moore says because I have seen how he dishonestly twists things to fit his agenda. If you haven't noticed that for yourself, perhaps you should watch FahrenHYPE 9/11 for some examples. Your Ann Coulter link was entertaining. You do realize that's a liberal (socialist) website; don't you? Of course they're going to hate anyone who effectively ridicules them. When I first mentioned Coulter, I said that she had been thoroughly demonized by the popular liberal media. The interview from which they extracted quotes was more than likely given to a hostile interviewer (some of the questions seem like "quote bait"), and the frequent use of [...] shows that a lot of the interview is missing leaving one to wonder about the full context of what was said. One of the many problems with liberals is that they often can't recognize humor when it hits them in the face. Ann has a very sarcastic (often abrasive) sense of humor, but they take every word she says seriously. I laugh out loud at some of the things she says because I know she's saying it to get a rise out of liberals (and it works every time). The key word in that sentence is "believe". Think about it. You are supposedly promoting "science". Coulter isn't trying to prove Creationism (which can no more be proven than can Darwinism), nor is she trying to disprove Darwinism. Her assertion is that Darwinism is just as much of a "belief" as creationism is. It is not real science. The site you referenced only makes this more apparent.

I take it you haven't read The Communist Manifesto then. It has been more than 25 years since I read it, but certain things have stuck in my mind. Socialism is believed to be the path to communism (their "utopia"). True communism can only be achieved when all opposition to it worldwide has been wiped out (forcibly, if necessary). At that point, we are supposed to believe that the rulers of the socialist world are going to surrender their power in favor of the communist utopia (yeah, like that would happen). Marxist communism is a recipe for forcible world domination. It has that in common with Nazism and Islam. The government is currently giving them money (after taking it from taxpayers). I feel a rant coming on. All this anti-corporation sentiment is really beginning to bother me. Corporations are made up of people; right? Government is also made up of people; right? If a corporation does something wrong, it is some person or people who have made that happen. The same is true when a government does something wrong. When bad things happen, people are the problem. Corporations exist to provide products and services that people want. If people don't want what they provide, then it won't be long before that corporation ceases to exist. Corporations have no real power to force people to do anything. Governments exist to provide certain services that people need which the private sector is not capable of (or not interested in) providing (national defense, law enforcement, etc.). Governments have the power to regulate corporations, but corporations can only hope to influence governments. Corporations are productive. Governments are not. Corporations provide nearly all jobs (except for government jobs) and virtually all of our modern conveniences for which people voluntarily pay (yes, you can argue that some things we pay for are necessities, but governments tend to regulate those things). People can also invest in corporations via the stock market in an effort to improve their personal financial status. Governments, on the other hand, forcibly take money (via taxation) from people under threat of imprisonment. If people don't like their government, they have to pay anyway. Their only way of changing things is to wait until the next election and hope that their vote ends up with the majority (if not, then too bad). Governments are a necessary evil. Corporations are not necessarily evil. Now, if you were an evil person, which would be more appealing to you? Working for a corporation, or being a politician? Government, by nature, has far more power than corporations. Therefore, government is capable of far greater evil than any corporation could ever be. Giving government too much control of corporations - as socialism would do - would be to give far greater power to certain people than what they currently have which would greatly increase the potential for bad things to happen (and as I tried to establish earlier, it is people who do bad things). I could go on about how socialism kills people's incentive to be productive, but I'm getting tired, and I'm afraid I'm rambling. If you can name any public school where this is happening, it would be major news. There was a huge stink recently when the state of Kansas made minor changes to question the certainty of the Darwinian dogma. Darwinism has not been scientifically proven. Please read Ann Coulter's book. She does a wonderful job of completely decimating that notion - using facts rather than anyone's beliefs.

Oh, dear. Michael Moore. I have seen two of his movies (Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11). He is dishonest, not particulary bright, and cynical to the point of insanity. I read the bonus chapter to which you referred, and he's still at it: "The bottom line: Anyone who would brazenly steal an election and insert themselves into OUR White House with zero mandate from The People is, frankly - sadly - capable of anything... " The election was not stolen. This is the mantra of the grossly ignorant (or perhaps just liars) who never had a clue how their electoral system worked (probably thanks to our wonderful public education system). The man he thinks won didn't get a majority of the vote no matter how you slice it (and they tried to slice it in ways previously unimagined). Bush got a majority of the electoral college votes, and that's ultimately all that has ever mattered. I've not heard of any of this actually happening, but why is that any worse than the government giving them money with its own strings attached? Many schools spend a large amount of money on sports (which is not really necessary to one's education). I think it would be better if a corporation willingly paid for things like stadiums and olympic size swimming pools with the ability to include some degree of advertising (like naming the stadium after the corporation) than it is to forcibly take money (via taxation) from people to pay for such luxuries. I don't agree with your assertion that throwing more money at schools is going to decrease the prison population, but I don't feel inclined to spend time discussing that. You seem to have a serious misconception of what conservative and liberal mean in the U.S. It's difficult to explain quickly, so I'll see if I can find a good link. Here is a pretty good explanation.

In the U.S., "slashing budgets" nearly always means slowing the rate of increase (we have Democratic Party propaganda to thank for that). For example, if the budget for something were set to automatically increase by 10% every year, and conservatives decide that this is excessive, a change in the rate of increase to 5% per year would be characterized by liberals as a "Draconian cut" (or perhaps "declaring war on children"). Real cuts in government spending are, unfortunately, very rare. "Foisting corporate sponsorship onto schools" is a charge that I don't recall hearing before. Do you have any references for that? And why would there necessarily be anything wrong with that? Basic education should actually be very inexpensive. Once a person has learned to read, all he should really need is motivation in order to educate himself to a certain level. Public schools, in general, already have far more money than they should really need. Some children are "home schooled", and they are well known for being far better educated than those in the public schools. Private schools also tend to do a much better job than the public schools. Many teachers are indeed incompetent (I even noticed that when I was in school), but the powerful teachers' unions make it nearly impossible to fire any teacher for incompetence. There is also the problem that liberals have ceased to hold students accountable for not learning. When I was young, if you didn't do well enough in school, you would be held back to repeat what you hadn't learned. It seems that this rarely happens anymore (it might harm the child's self esteem). Students are promoted to the next grade with or without merit. You've probably heard of Ann Coulter, and most who have probably hate her even though they have little real information about her (she has been thoroughly demonized by the popular liberal media, and her sarcastic wit makes it very easy to pull things out of context to make her look bad). I highly recommend her recent book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism . The latter part of the book deals with evolution. She also has much to say on the subject of public education. She calls teachers "the liberal priesthood" which is a pretty good analogy.

Of course, you may. Actually, I have a great many gripes regarding my government (that of the U.S.). However, I still think it is, overall, probably the best system of government in the world today even if it isn't as good as it should be. Propaganda, by the way, is not necessarily false (that's a connotation - not a denotation). I am rather familiar with the core philosophy of communism as I have read The Communist Manifesto (have you?). It is far more (and far worse) than "just a (failed) attempt at fighting social injustice." By the way, wikipedia is not always entirely accurate when it comes to political or religious subjects. And that would sound like communist propaganda (or U.S. Democratic Party propaganda).

There you go again finding implications where none were intended. The reason I asked is that your thoughts seem so alien to what I have always thought were the ideals of western civilization. And I was wondering whether this kind of thinking was something that had only become popular recently (hence, my asking whether your parents thought the same). In the U.S., public schools and most colleges have become liberal (in the U.S. sense) indoctrination centers in recent decades. I thought the same kind of thing might be happening there.

Wow. I thought I was being hyperbolic. It seems that moral relativism and elements of socialist/communist ideology have been spreading like a virus. May I ask how old you are (I'm 42)? Do your parents think as you do? The only U.S. or U.K. arms of which I'm aware that might be pointed at us are some stinger missiles which were given to the Afghans to help them fight off the Soviets. Iran still has some U.S. fighter jets which were sold to the Shah, but it is highly unlikely that they are still functional. The U.S. has not had dealings with Iran since the revolution in '79. China and Russia have supplied nearly all of the arms which may be used against us. I think you're having trouble in assigning responsibility. If a person gets drunk, gets in a car, and ends up killing someone, you would be blaming the shop owner who sold him the beer. It is true that "civilised governemnts" have empowered the Islamic jihadists during the 20th century by purchasing oil from Islamic nations. At one time, they could have quite easily taken whatever they wanted by force, but that would have been barbaric rather than civilized. In retrospect, it would have been best to just leave the oil where it was and look elsewhere. But I don't think people understood (and most still don't understand) the ideology of these people.

It wasn't nearly as simple as you make it sound. From what I've read, as far as the U.S. was concerned anyway, it was private (i.e. not the government) corporations which supplied dual-use components (e.g. insecticide) of those weapons. The weapons themselves were then made in Iraq (it seems that nearly all of the weapons Iraq purchased as weapons came from Russia). I suppose that the degree to which the U.S. government was aware of and/or supported this depends largely on how cynical one is. It always amazes me how so many people in the U.S. and U.K. are so quick to accept propaganda which goes against their own governments. Sometimes, it seems as if they think their own countries are the source of all lies and other evil in the world. Remember this guy ? I wish people would see that a great deal of the anti-U.S., anti-U.K., and anti-Israel propaganda to which they are exposed is either blatantly false or otherwise twists facts in a dishonest manner. And I wish people would be more aware that a lot of this distortion is perpetrated or at least accepted by their own media for political purposes. There are a couple of interesting videos on this subject here . A certain amount of cynicism is a healthy thing, but too many times, it seems to be misdirected. I would not disagree with you that the results have not always been stellar, but at least the intentions were good. The involvement in Vietnam and Korea was attempting to stop the violent spread of communism, and Iran is something like the world headquarters of militant Islam which also seeks to spread itself through violence. It's entirely possible that things would have turned out much worse had the U.S. not made these efforts to stop the spread of tyranny. The worst thing you can do when opposing tyranny is to display weakness; if they see that, they'll walk all over you. And negotiation, while it can be an honorable goal, is not always a legitimate option. For negotiation to work, both sides must be honest and reasonable. Mind you, I don't think the U.S. has been right in absolutely every military action throughout its history (I can think of at least one case where the U.S. may have been helping the wrong side). But for some reason, people seem to demand absolute perfection from the U.S. - anything less is portrayed as absolute failure. And yet they seemingly ignore (or don't care about) regularly occurring atrocities in other nations. Iran's president has announced that he wants Israel wiped off the map, and still many people seem more concerned about ascribing ulterior motives to Bush, Blair, and others who stand against that sort of thing.

Implied? I don't think so. But if that's your opinion, then I doubt that anything could convince you otherwise. Implication is often in the eye of the beholder. I don't think the reasons were fuzzy at all. Bush laid them out clearly in his 2003 State of the Union Address . And by the way, Iraq is part of a World War (fundamental Islam vs. the rest of the world). You could argue that it wasn't at first, but it certainly seems to have become the main front. I don't know about you, but I would rather have the main front be in Iraq than in someplace like the U.S. or the U.K. Lies? A lie requires knowledge that what one is saying is false. Are you able to read Bush's mind to know that this was the case? The entire world (including Saddam's generals) believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (because he most certainly did at one time) and that he was seeking more. Some (sarin gas, if I remember correctly) were found, but not in the expected quantities. They could still be hidden somewhere, or they might have been shipped off to someplace like Syria. Saddam was supposed to provide verification that he had destroyed what he was known to have, but he never did anything of the sort.

So I suppose it was wrong for the U.S. to get involved in European affairs during World War II because the aggressors in Europe had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor? You are supporting a straw man argument. I don't think Bush (or anyone else) said that the reason for the war in Iraq was that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, and I saw no evidence to the contrary from the link you provided. However, 9/11 was the wakeup call which made the U.S. realize that it could not continue to virtually ignore the threat posed by openly hostile regimes - especially those which support Islamic jihad (which is a connection to 9/11 after all). Iraq had been an ongoing issue for about 12 years before the U.S. and U.K. (with the support of quite a few other countries) finally decided to remove Saddam who had been violating the terms of the 1991 ceasefire agreement for years.