I hate the fact that you can not use Heavy Floaters in the same way. Or Muton Elite as Mutons.

Indeed - that is frustrating. Fortunately in my game even though I'm right at the end it seems that a few basic Floaters and Mutons will appear if you do enough missions - just has 12 normal Mutons on a Council mission and a couple of normal Floaters in the last terror site.

Well I can confirm that baiting a battleship to appear by letting a UFO go free does work. Unfortunately in the ensuing mission to raid said battleship I got a beating and lost 3 Colonels, two of them pyschics Now spending a frustrated month or two getting some of my other squaddies levelled up. The blaster launchers are tremendous fun though!

The blaster launchers are tremendous fun though!

 

Heavy + Heavy Plasma + Blaster Launcher + HEAT Ammo + Mayhem + Suppression = Dead Sectopod in 2 turns

I find my heavies always miss, and the mutons always hit. Got to 31 missions with a few good squad members. Now time for another restart. Still never found another support guy. Wish you could pick the recruits class all I seem to get are hvys. In my last missions I dont even have a sniper to put in the field.

Is it worth getting "sqaddie" perk early?

Problem is, you still can't choose their class. I suppose it does mean you can screen your recruits, but it's still a costly endeavour.

 

 

Heavy + Heavy Plasma + Blaster Launcher + HEAT Ammo + Mayhem + Suppression = Dead Sectopod in 2 turns

It can be killed with a single shredder rocket and plasma sniper headshot. That felt really good. Otherwise I lost two plasma hovers to sectopods. Now, with ghost armour, things are much more relaxed.

If you're getting lots of heavies - just put up with them. Throw a SCOPE on them, get in close for attacks, use combinations of bullet swarm with at least one armed with holo targeting, and go nuts with the rockets and shredders. Hunker down if you need to get a Heavy in position to safely fire the launcher. Their accuracy isn't that bad in mid to close quarters - just put a bit of faith in them or try to get in close (or get them to come closer to you). Early on, wear Skeleton Suits too - the extra move points are extremely useful.

 

Speaking of hunker down, having already made lots of attempts at Classic (8 tries so far, which I admit isn't a large number but I've played each a month or two in), I'm using this skill a lot more than on normal. It's probably just me, but it seems to be that if I shut my eyes, the bad guys can't see me. At least, the inactive groups that just so happen to wander into visual range while I'm hunkering down. I've had several occasions where one of my chaps would get up at the start of the turn and suddenly there's a group of inactive aliens within a rocket-shot away. Needless to say, I like these moments very much.

 

- NKF

My guys were happily shot at while hunkering down, so they are definitely not invisible. No critical damage is nice though.

 

It could be that their visibility is lowered though and that they are seen at closer range than normal.

Problem is, you still can't choose their class. I suppose it does mean you can screen your recruits, but it's still a costly endeavour.

 

Late game when you are swimming cash I get round this by recruiting and dismissing soldier classes I don't need (with the squaddie unlock). It can take a few turns, but you'll get there eventually. Keeping them alive though, that's another matter :-/

Same here. Also it is a great help with finding psy-gifted individuals. As every advancement brings will increase, you get the first one instantly and you can pick the squaddies with highest will. Those are sent into missions, get addtional will increases and are locked into psy-gim later on.

Gamespot's Yearly "Best of" 2012 has awarded XCOM Enemy Unknown Strategy Game of the Year. The Nominees? Check it out.

 

-NoX

I'm finishing my second play-through. The more I think about this game, the less of it is only positive. Not to start too negative - I like the game and I will surely play it again. At some point. But right now, I don't feel any incentive to go at it again, not even the fact that I have Slingshot installed and would be able to go through it the next game.

 

This will probably look pretty weird as it is coming from a guy who played the original(s) to no end and stuck by my brother doing the same. And I'm also the one who voted better on a X-COM - XCOM compare poll here. That hasn't changed, yet I feel I have aged as a person (a fact) and have become a lot more demanding as a gamer.

 

When X-COMs arrived there were simply no better games which would have the tension of the battlefield and strategy, research etc. etc. Yet when I look at them and the new arriver, I see little in terms of strategic decisions and even less in terms of game variation. The challenges you face are always the same, the research path is always the same, the weapons and tactics you field are always the same, frankly all play-throughs are always the same. The new XCOM is even more limiting in most regards.

 

Strategy games have shown that this needs not be the case and that players can be forced into decisions that alter the course of the game and make it a lot different from the previous one. XCOM has no such decisions, so strategy is limited to which country gets the satellite now and which one will be next, and which facility to build right now and which will be next. In terms of strategy, the game is not a challenge past difficulty levels.

Heavy + Heavy Plasma + Blaster Launcher + HEAT Ammo + Mayhem + Suppression = Dead Sectopod in 2 turns

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

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

 

You haven't seen Impossible yet...

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