MoonDragn

Against Martians the easiest thing to do is to equip all your soldiers with Laser Cannons/rifles. They are weak to lasers and go down quite fast in 2-3 hits. I don't take damage when fighting them because its easy to take out the martians at long range and avoid those plasma bolts.

Ok, heres my list of advice. When you first start out, grab one resource of each type, then train all of the techs with driving, planetary, survey etc, so they can do their jobs faster. Even though the game tells you not to hesitate sending out rookies, your best bet is to keep the same set of soldiers throughout most of the game. Their experience will really win fights. Do capture missions as soon as you get them. They are needed for the research to advance in certain areas. Train your researchers in areas that applies to your current research. This will speed up the process. When offered a trade with the reticulans, avoid the trades that asks for a resource, you won't have alot towards the beginning of the game. Pay attention to what type of weapons work on what type of aliens. Each has its own weakness that can be exploited. Don't wipe out one faction too early, they fight each other which can help you keep up with them. Keep up with the ammo production, nothing worse than running out of ammo in the middle of a fight. If your soldiers can't carry enough ammo, remember you can load up stuff in the UFO to retreive during the fight. Theres alot of different ways tactically to fight. Don't be set on standing in one place and shoot them. In one game I played cat and mouse with the overwelming odds and won. Save often. It helps when you make big mistakes that costs you the battle. If you can manage your resources properly, this game becomes very easy. It will take some time to learn it, but it is great that this game offers so many different strategies.

I wish they allowed us to drag our guys away, it would have helped in some of those desperate missions. In one of those kill beastman missions I was simply outgunned, but I managed to kill the target but most of my guys were unconcious. I could not devise a strategy to win without some of the guys going unconcious. So I brought the fight to the front of the UFO. When our guys dropped, they were still at the right location so it finished the mission.

I found another way to capture them, if you mind control the victim he will trigger the captured thing too. However the minute he breaks out of the mind control he'll be loose again even if you have a person next to him. One way I do it, is to mind control him, drop all his weapons and trap him between my big suit guys so he can't run anywhere, then I take a weapon that won't kill him in one shot and drop him unconcious and revive him with a medic.

Is there any way to make reticulan battle armor during the game? The expedition has never offered me that trade even though I am allied with them. My Rets are still running around with basic armor. At least I got to keep one of my rebel rets and he can wear the battlesuit. The problem is those battle suits are still pretty weak against projectiles and no help against the beastmen. However they are great against martians and matriarchs with plasma weapons.

Strange. First the rebel reticulans should have refused to fight the reticulans to the south and when you do attack, they should leave. Maybe you're running some kind of mod? There is a bug in the game though, I got to keep my scientist rebel reticulan because he was in a science vehicle at the time when I attacked them. I got to keep him even when the vehicle came back to base.

Reticulans are pretty easy for me right now. I can take 1 person with 2 projectile pistols and do the missions. I have run up to 5 reticulans alone and killed one with every shot the character makes. All 5 dead in 1 round. They never get a shot off.

I think the beastmen increase in strength depending on the amount of territory and resources they have, just like you do. In the two games I've played, I've noticed the same captains and chiefs show up no matter how well or bad I was doing.

<br /><br /><br /> which aliens did you attack? If you attacked the expedition the Rebels will stay with you.

Were the Aftermath soldiers really that good? I never played Aftermath, only Aftershock and Afterlight. I may have to get aftermath to see how that game stacks up to the other two. I also would like to see those transport vehicles, and some tanks that your soldiers can drive and maybe some air support which is strangely lacking in all 3 games. Thats what I loved about X-com because you had flying battlesuits so the battles became 3 dimensional. Another thing I would like to see is a little better done research system. The current system is very confusing and while it preserves the mystery of what you can get, it gets very confusing which research does what. A little more explaination each time you research something would help, as well as a clear indication as to what that research brought you. A possible outcome description would be neat too on some of the research text to help you make better decisions. The personnel system needs to be rethought out. In the two UFO games I've played, losing players can be total game breakers. I liked X-com's expendable soldiers. I like to fight through losses instead of having to win every battle. A better system of recruitment could be developed, or a way to compensate for lost soldiers.

The best way to ally yourself with the expedition is to break alliance with the rebels if you have one, and then attack one of the rebel territories. This will immediately allow you to make peace with the expedition and remove all of their forces from your lands. Then if you attack another rebel territory, you can go right into an alliance with the expedition. Be careful when you are trading in diplomacy not to trade away your valuable resources. They can make or break this game.

Well I think the two that you are talking about are the twins that join you at some time. I'm not sure of the requirements of them joining but I've had them join in one game early in the first game I played but so far they haven't shown up in this new game I'm playing. I think they only show up if you are losing too much. I did however get a new Tech/scientist, which was interesting, I dunno what the criteria for her showing up either but maybe it was because my workshop was empty for a few turns while I was training my workshop people. As for the Reticulans, when the expedition showed up and I allied myself with them, I lost one of my rebel Reticulan soldiers and gained 3 expedition ones. Strangely enough, I didn't lose the Rebel Soldier/Scientist, because he's still out on that buggy terraforming the planet. I wonder if I'll lose him the minute he comes back to base.

Last night the Martians showed up, and in the first try in fighting them, one martian took down half of my team. I had to restart over after I figured out that those guys resist lasers and projectiles. I loaded up all of my guys with rockets and dropped them off by my reticulan soldier. He just kept firing rocket after rocket at the martians and took them all out. Was alot of fun. I'm still waiting for my heavy armor to be produced so some of my guys can wear it. The medium armor is almost finished research too and pretty soon my guys will actually be able to withstand more hits without having to rely on heavy artillery and fast scouts with pistols. Its a shame there was no tanks in this game and I haven't made a single mech yet to see how tough they can be.

Well I finally restarted over and figured out what my problem was. I let the aliens take important territories early on the last game and that proved to be my downfall. This time around I dominated the map and went out to get every single territory that was available which resulted in my technology to be on pace. Still missing a few key technologies but I own most of the world right now. I absolutely steamrolled the rebel Reticulans after the expedition showed up. They are pushovers for my team, I have two guys in a heavy suit that shrugs off their rocket attacks and even my scout gets up after being knocked unconcious by the rockets and kills a few more of them. In fact she's my best soldier right now. Armed with two projectile pistols, she racks up most of the kills in every fight. She even managed to go one on one with a matriach and took down 1/2 of its health before getting rocked. Back to the reticulans, they have a hard time controlling my team cause I have two soldiers with Major Leadership. They usually go down in one hit by our soldiers and I don't even bother to use grenades or explosives on them. Beastmen are still a problem but now only when I'm overwelmed by a whole mass of those grenade chucking guys. The warp cannons takes out the captains and the chiefs nicely given me a chance to win. Now that I'm fighting reticulans I have no shortage of ammo for my reticulan rifles/rocket launchers either. Overall the game was just so much better this time around. Now I need to go train all my workshop people cause its taking way too long to build anything.

I'm getting that now! The pathetic thing is I don't have enough resources so I haven't been able to build any extra buildings like the shooting range or the advanced foundry etc. I am stuck on fighting these super beastmen with my generic projectile weapons. The care package from the Laputians helped slightly with the two warp cannons but I'm still barely winning battles. Each fight always ends up with half of my crew unconcious. I just finally got one robot built but he falls like a tinker toy to those captains or alchemists. One shot and he goes down. The biggest problem is the lack of personell. I don't have barely enough people to man one lab, the science/tech bays and production lines. No extra people around to train in the schools or do building projects. I only ever got 2 reticulans from my alliance and one died. Only within the last day or so I got these 2 twin kids join my soldier group, but I still lack the other pieces. Diplomacy with any group can't seem to get me extra troops, so I am forced to go to most battles with only 4 or 5 soldiers. I'm regreting not trading with the reticulans for those reticulan rocket launchers now.

I wouldn't mind seeing an X-com type game with some Stargate SG1 elements thrown in. Hyperdimensional gates that lead to other worlds where you can put bases and gain resources. A chance to meet infinite amount of challenges and unknown alien technology etc. Instead of a war against the Goul'd you'll be fighting some other alien race but the premise is similar. Search the universe for anything you can use to fight the seemingly all powerful aliens at your doorstep.

I am playing the game on normal difficulty and it still wasn't that easy. I had to bump and scrape every step of the way so far on my first try. Most of my soldiers have lived through every battle except for the little reticulan named tabby that got wiped on my first encounter with a BM Chief. I think my problem was not researching any of the weapon trees early on. I had only the stock weapons and what I traded with the reticulans. As a result, I ran out of ammo during one point of the game and had to use the scientific laser for a few battles til I could research the projectile weapons. Right now my guys are still rocked by the alchemists every time they show up, chiefs and captains are still tough but at least I have the warp cannon to slow them down. However, theres no mission where I don't come out with at least one unconcious soldier. It would help if I could build a shooting range but because of shortages, I can't build anything. I have a rather large territory but too much fuel and metal and not enough of anything else. How do I get more energy? Every day I get invaded by the BM and I lost one territory so far, an important chemical mine that further messed up my supplies. I only have 2 mines. The threat level of the taken over territory is 7 day 8 night so the chance of taking it back over with my pathetic force is slim to none. I'm just going to have to find other mines and territories til I can build up enough forces to fight them.