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Yeah the more I think about it, the Item Limit is one of the most frustrating things about XCOM 2012. So in that sense they have remained true to the original, ha ha. :-) It's very annoying that you can't give everyone a medkit and a SCOPE, or a medkit and a grenade, or two grenades. Frankly it's just a game mechanic and not one that conveys any sense of realism. So it makes the game like playing chess or Yahtzee - just working within its arbitrary rules and mechanics, rather than a sense of realism about a special forces operation vs aliens. It's like the lack of night vision gear in the original game (though we have proposed various rationalisations to work around that). I would be comfortable if each soldier had say 4 Backpack slots, even if a Medikit took up 2 or 4 slots and a SCOPE took up 2 or 4 slots (maybe the SCOPE has a big battery pack and computer etc). But it's ridiculous that wearing a Nano-Vest means I can't even carry the one standard grenade. That kind of 'unrealism' (I know, I know, it's science fiction/fantasy, but still there is basic physics right?) really bugs me and detracts from the game play experience. I wonder if the play testers objected to this item limit? I realise it's a game-balancing exercise, but I would rather have grenades be almost useless against aliens, for some 'science fiction' reason, than have them be effective but only be allowed to carry one of them for some unexplained and stupid reason. For example, make grenades ineffective, only HE Packs are effective, then it makes sense why we can only carry one HE Pack. (Even then multiple grenades would be useful for remodelling the terrain... grr!). And why do you have to be a bloody Major to carry even one reload for your rocket launcher.... grrr. Like, after the first mission you could have a dialog that says "we've determined that almost all of our standard weapons are ineffective against the aliens, so we will be restricted to very heavy explosive packs (no grenades), specialised firearms, and single use very heavy rockets". Like maybe the Rocket is a TOW or something huge like that. I get the impression it's more like a LAW or an Armbrust, so why couldn't someone carry a spare, even if it isn't the Heavy who carries the spare? A bloody rookie could carry the spare and if necessary that rookie could forgo their grenade, though from what we can tell the Heavy carries their rocket using the carrying capacity equivalent to a pistol. So yeah a rookie could forgo their pistol (or their grenade) to carry a spare rocket for the Heavy. Grrr. Don't like it. It frustrates me. I do appreciate it was cool to get rid of / streamline the tactical inventory management vs the original game, and I appreciate that we don't have to do ammo inventory management for firearms any more, but I think they have gone too far in the other direction, and using it as a game balancing mechanism is a poor excuse, in my opinion.

OK I finally completed the first Impossible mission, though with 2 killed / 2 survivors. Both survivors were promoted (they had 4 and 3 kills each vs the 8 Sectoids) but one is gravely wounded for 9 days. I can see the next problem, after the first problem of completing the first mission with only rookies, is going to be how to build up the squad so they specialise (Sniper/Assault/Support/Heavy) and their stats improve. At this point I'm going to lose them faster than I can promote them. :-( The key to winning the first mission I think is - liberal use of grenades, even though you can't get a kill with them. (this is actually a 'silver lining' because you won't destroy the corpse and equipment I guess). Use grenades sooner rather than later and don't be afraid to use a grenade against a single target. In particular, if you can use a grenade first against a single target in cover, damage it and destroy the cover, allowing other units to finish the kill with weapon fire. - an aggressive phase at the beginning of contact to thin out enemy numbers, followed by a very defensive phase to slowly take out the rest - avoid any exchanges of fire between you in high cover and them in high cover. They will win that exchange as their weapons are more deadly (and they are more accurate?). In that situation retreat out of LOS, reload, then move back into LOS (but not tracing any movement through their LOS that would trigger Overwatch reaction fire). -very defensive means not just behind high cover but with adjacent high cover you can move behind to be totally out of LOS while you reload. If you go out of LOS, the aliens will often move into exposed positions or at least into low cover. - unfortunately their weapons will destroy your hard cover, whereas your weapons (except grenades) will break glass at best. - try to get 'dual use' out of your grenades - damage an alien and destroy cover useful to that alien / other aliens One of the real problems with the first mission in Impossible is that you can't even exploit aliens in exposed positions because your chance of even one kill is so low. So even if you have 4 guys on an exposed target and one has a grenade, you can't risk rushing in to flank or get close-range bonuses because it's entirely likely that 3 guys in a row will miss or fail to kill the target, and your exposed guys will almost definitely die in the return fire plasma pistol shots. So all the tactics that are written up for XCOM 2012 really don't apply for the First Mission on Impossible. You have no snipers, no perks, lousy chance to hit, basic weapons, a total of 4 grenades (that can't kill anything), lousy hit points. Even behind high cover you are far from secure and if you trade shots with the enemy in high cover, you will lose and you will die. The advice to hunker down behind cover, even, I don't think applies here. It's debatable. I have hit and even killed aliens with Overwatch. But more to the point I think Overwatch keeps them pinned down tactically. Then again maybe it's better to avoid Overwatch so that they are free to move out of high cover, then fire at them. The problem is that whenever you take an opportunity to fire, you can't then Hunker Down, so best case you take incoming fire in High Cover, with a fairly high risk of dying. Particularly if there is more than one alien firing, because it's quite likely the plasma weapons will destroy your High Cover and before you have a chance to move to new cover, the second alien takes a shot at you out of cover (and therefore also 'flanking' right?) and you probably die. If Science and Engineering between the two of them could come up with some scientific/technical breakthrough that would allow soldiers to carry, I dunno, two grenades - I know, it's sounds just scientifically impossible - that would be more useful to XCOM than laser weapons or medkits or probably anything short of Carapace Armour. :-/ Yeah it kind of busts my balls that you can't carry multiple grenades (as you could in original XCOM and you of course can in real life). If I was the survivor of the First Mission, even if I aborted and evac'd out, I would be right up in the face of the Commander demanding multiple grenades per soldier as the only solution to beat the aliens in the short term. The soldiers seem to be carrying about 20 rifle magazines each (and by God they need them!), how about ditching some of those mags, or ditching the pistols, for extra grenades. I would happily swap a pistol for an extra grenade on these missions and it would not even be that hard to program in the game. I wonder if that's a feasible Mod? But more to the point each soldier has a 'Backpack' and rattling around in that huge backpack is the grand total of just one grenade. Hmm. No doubt in my mind that from Mission 2 onward, XCOM Soldiers would be carrying grenades chock-a-block, at least until some more effective weapons came along. Also, for that matter, how about starting Impossible with the New Guy perk already turned on? There's no justification really why you don't have rockets, LMG, shotguns and Sniper from the get-go. It would make the First Impossible Mission a damn sight easier, that's for sure! :-)

OMG this is hard. Two more failures. On the last attempt I actually managed to kill more Sectoids than I lost soldiers, but as they outnumbered me at least 2:1 they still won the war of attrition and ground me down. I guess that's why they call it Impossible!

OK I am going to turn off the 2nd Wave option for damage affecting stats during battle, and in fact turn off all 2nd Wave options. And try a fourth time to win the first mission. :-)

Crap. Three times in a row failed on the first mission of Impossible. Being more cautious each time. Basically the Sectoids are far tougher and more dangerous than your Rookies, man for man, and they also outnumber you. So you need to tackle them one pod at a time, so you have 4 on 2 or 4 on 3 odds, and you more or less have to fight from good cover and fight defensively. Even then it's a numbers game and they grind you down. You frag any alien that's down to 3 HP and within range, but they generally stay out of grenade range and avoid bunching up. But you need to use the grenades early on, to even up the odds, any time you don't get a kill with rifle fire, which is most of the time, even when you are concentrating all fire on one target, the easiest target. Is it true that the game lies about hit probability and in Impossible the real value is lower than what is shown on screen? I think that's really, really cheap and terrible game design. Whether it's understating or overstating the hit probability, it would be better just not to state it.

First game on Impossible. Hah, I totally got my ass kicked. Classic did not prepare me for this. Mission one failed, XCOM Project terminated! :-) But this is how it should be right?. 'Mere' Sectoids should be scary and harder to kill than XCOM soldiers. Which is what happens in Impossible.

I will try some of the 2nd Wave options. Yes I could see that you have got a lot of replay value out of it. I can see that the high challenge level of Impossible would be quite motivating. Randomising damage would be good. Randomising stats would probably just lead to 'stats farming' and a squad of superheroes surely? I really like Ironman but I am so nervous. On my regular, saveable games I very often have grisly rocket accidents due to just a slip of the keyboard or mousepad (if you hit the rocket shortcut key twice by mistake it overrides the friendly fire warning). I agree with you that the maps and spawnpoints are starting to get familiar to me after only about 100 hrs of play. At the very least I feel I know the *types* of places on the map to watch out for spawn points.

Yes I did try changing the order of actions that I take and sometimes that works.

Yeah probably I am confusing it with Allen Base Assault. Missions are ridiculously easy now I finally have a six man squad. Mainly because I am holding off doing Allen Base until I need the Panic reduction or the loot. I am awash with loot at the moment, and Panic is fine. I'm getting bored though so I think I need to do Allen Base just to increase the challenge. I am building up a large (and useless) collection of Outsider Shards. :-) I am starting to understand why you guys were not hugely impressed by 2012 and in particular it doesn't feel like it has the same replay value or the same epic scale as the original. It is a well-made game however, in many ways not only more polished than the original, but better balanced.

I'm sure when I played Gangplank on Normal with a 6 man squad there were two Cyberdisks. On Classic with a 4 man squad there was only one. Does the game increase the number of aliens for a larger squad??

Well wow! I beat Gangplank on Classic with one Sniper Captain and 3 rookies. No one died, two rookies wounded but not too badly. The kill distribution was pretty even, 4 or 5 each to the rookies out of 19 kills. Unfortunately two out of the three rookies got promoted to Sniper - what's up with that?

Well I'm going to attempt Gangplank with one vet Sniper (conventional sniper rifle, Squadsight/GoodGroun/Opportunist), and three rookies with laser rifles and SCOPEs. All in paper-bag body armour. Wish me luck!

Seems to be a bug where, if you use a Medkit to heal a soldier with Poisoning, all soldiers with Poisoning have the Poisoned state cleared, not just the one who was healed. Unless Poisoning just stops by itself sometimes and this was a random coincidence?

Grr. I now have Gangplank (airborne Battleship assault) to do as well as Alien Base Assault. And Gangplank only stays available for about 24 hours. If I wait until the end of the month my 'A' team will be healed and able to do the Alien Base Assault, but they will not be ready in 1-2 days (more like 15 each) and there is no way I can beat Gangplank with 1 vet and 3 rookies with laser rifles. :-( I am going to have to repeat Confounding Light (transponder race) and this time come out without any wounds, let alone any critical wounds. And I may have to repeat the medium scout UFO where I took a critical to my vet Assault trooper while stunning the Outsider. All things considered I may take the advice offered elsewhere on this forum which is to deliberately NOT advance the plot until I've had time to build up my strength. So, two counterintuitive and unattractive things about XCOM 2012: Advancing the plot is a bad idea and just makes life worse for you. It is better to stall and delay the plot. :-( Advancing on the ground is a bad idea and just makes life worse for you. It is better to move very slowly and avoid entering new map areas. :-(

To be honest for 2 Engineers I wouldn't have bothered. Only because I know it leads to the Battleship mission.

Fair enough, that was on Normal. And I also did have Mayhem.

Grr @ the Transponder mission, Confounding Light. Tried with a mix of vets and rookies. We were all wiped out on turn 2. Went back with all vets and maximum caution. We survived, but with 3 gravely wounded and out for 15 days. My 4 man squad can't tolerate that. Not with Alien Base Assault and Airborne Battleship Assault lined up waiting. And it could have been so much worse. All for a lousy 2 Engineer reward??? Still my top sniper one-shotted the Mutons with a conventional sniper rifle. Twice. Two for two. That's pretty cool. :-)

Heavy Volunteer + HEAT Ammo + Rift = 2 dead Sectopods in 1 turn. :-)

I would say it's a bug that the Mind Shield is described in-game as defensive only. Pretty sure it isn't, if equipped by a Psi Operative it increases their Will for offensive purposes as well as defensive. It's actually more useful to a Psi Operative than Psi Armour.

I am also thinking I should have built the OTS instead of my second Sat Uplink. It's an almost impossible, strategic vs tactical choise. But the OTS, specifically Squad Size, is the greatest force multiplier in the game with the possible exception of Psi. Going from 4 to 6 units is much more than just a 50% increase in firepower, it also gives you flexibility and the ability to broaden your talent pool. Training up one or two rookies with 4 or 5 vets is easy. Training up 1 rookie with 3 vets is risky and difficult. This means your pool of soldiers stays small and you are very vulnerable to catastrophe. Also means you can't fully use the tactical flexibility offered by classes and items. Maybe I should have let a couple of Council countries go, in order to get OTS early. And I wonder if, in Classic, Asia is the best starting location choice, so as to get Future Combat.

Yes but getting it down to 1 point health for 90% stun is tricky. I had it down to two health and 80% stun twice, but failed both times, even with multiple stun shots. And it's no use reloading the game as the RNG seed is preserved.

Taking the Outsider alive in Classic with an unimproved Arc Thrower (April 7th) is really tough. It took my whole 4 man team tackling the Outsider, several save scums, and in the end accepting a critical wound on my only Support as the price of capture. In hindsight ideally I needed to go in with conventional pistols, not laser pistols, and set everyone up for non flanking pistol shots before using the two Arc Throwers I brought. I tried using the Flanking / Overwatch AI bug but I couldn't get it to work. I did have one conventional pistol and two laser pistols but I should have brought all conventional pistols.

If the game only allows you a maximum of 8 friendly units, what happens if you have 5 or 6 Psi operatives with MC, and they all MC an alien, giving you 10-12 friendly units?

I agree the Panic system is unforgiving and managing the Council is much harder than in original XCOM. The pattern of simultaneous Abductions only makes sense as a deliberate strategy by the aliens to undermine Council support for XCOM. For that matter, why don't countries with high Panic give MORE resources to XCOM in exchange for help? The countries aren't behaving rationally. Any of them could afford to pay XCOM to put up a satellite for example. Panic should work in XCOM's favour - like it does with the regular military and security services who have their budgets increased in tines of fear. We don't sack the army when war is looming or sack the police when riots break out. As long as XCOM is resisting the aliens effectively in other parts of the world, it should actually start a bidding war for XCOM protection, not a boycott. Funding should only fall in a country if XCOM intervenes in that country, or maybe that continent, but fails badly. In my opinion. So in my view, Council missions should come primarily from the counties with rising or high Panic, not just the comfortable ones who are greedy for technology.

And wtf is up with save game file management? I can easily spend 15 min trying to find the right save game file, and very easily load the wrong one. No way to name the save file with a helpful description. No way to sort or filter on basic things like Game # or date/time. Files have to be deleted individually and you have to then scroll back through the entire list again each time, it doesn't hold your position in the list. And doesn't allow multiple select for deletion. And if you delete files piecemeal, it becomes even more random to find the right file. And if you archive off game save files into a subfolder, the game kindly and silently deletes them all at next startup. This is really, really poor implementation. And a PITA.