What do you call your soldiers?

[franconbean]

once, when i was playing, i had a guy survive 3 shots from a heavy plasma, only recieving 2 fatal wounds and losing less than half health. The soldier survived the encounter and because i was so impressed, i named him "Man of Steel" (He happened to be russian, you see).

So i was wondering, do you also give soldiers cool nicknames and/or callsigns?

[Hobbes]

once, when i was playing, i had a guy survive 3 shots from a heavy plasma, only recieving 2 fatal wounds and losing less than half health. The soldier survived the encounter and because i was so impressed, i named him "Man of Steel" (He happened to be russian, you see).

So i was wondering, do you also give soldiers cool nicknames and/or callsigns?

 

I used to give them all nicknames: Satan's Kitten, Ghost Rider, Bugs Bunny and so on.

 

Nowadays I simply give them callsigns: Omega Leader, Alpha Rifleman, Beta Scout and so on

[Civilian]

In my current campaign I have one guy called "Legend"and his 5 robot assistants. I gave those the names of people from this forum that helped me during the brainstorming for the campaign

 

https://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/Legend-t7826.html

 

Btw, there is one of "Murphy's Laws" active in Xcom: If you give a soldier a name of a person you like, or maybe even your own name, it is doomed to die in the most terrible or humiliating way

[franconbean]

In my current campaign I have one guy called "Legend"and his 5 robot assistants. I gave those the names of people from this forum that helped me during the brainstorming for the campaign

 

https://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/Legend-t7826.html

 

Btw, there is one of "Murphy's Laws" active in Xcom: If you give a soldier a name of a person you like, or maybe even your own name, it is doomed to die in the most terrible or humiliating way

 

 

Oh yeah, i read about your "I am legend" idea, good luck with that . And you are so right about characters you like dying. I was just starting to like a guy i had named "Noob" (for coming on 4 missions, experiencing combat and still being the only surviving team member still at rookie), although his death was far more heroic, getting in the way of two shots meant for the captain. He was the only death that mission D:

[Evil Beejeebers]

I call my soldiers things like scout, sniper, grenadier, heavy weapons and medic so that they have no personality and when they die I just get on with killing aliens. and spend no time weeping that Sigourney Mitchell or Rachel Harrison have died after surviving since day one though to September.

[Jman4117]

I leave them with the original names, however, I add on letters to the end to show how their stats are. Lowercase for decent, capital for really good:

 

B-Bravery

R-Reactions

S-Firing Accuracy

G-Throwing Accuracy

H-Stength

*-All of the above

P-Psi

[NKF]

The only thing I do these days is tack a symbol on the end of the name in the event they succumb to a psi attack of any sort. Just getting them ready for the sack, once the replacements arrive or they've completed their term in the psi lab.

 

Beyond that, I stick with the names given. You get attached to the random names after a while.

 

I haven't had the need to do so, but I think I would have to intervene in the event there are any duplicates at the same base.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

I usually add stat strings to my soldiers early on much like Jman does. It's only for training purposes though. Once my soldiers are quite high in all areas the strings come off and the normal soldier name is back. Except for that, I don't touch the stock names except in rare instances. It's more fun that way.

 

No, I don't rename my soldiers to match anyone I know on the forums or in personal life. Sorry everyone.

 

- Zombie

[Pete]

When me and my brother were younger we'd tend to name characters after folks we knew in games like Pool of Radiance.

 

Of course, in POR it's rare your people die and stay dead because it's a fantasy game, so when we started playing X-COM we stopped doing the whole renaming thing after a while as on Supehuman you go through soldiers as quick as bullets and it was a little disheartening seeing your mates drop like flies

[Bomb Bloke]

Heh, such as Cakewalk naming a single trooper after myself, and promptly getting him killed... with an explosive, no less.

 

Back in the day (when I abused the save/load buttons), I will admit I named troopers after my RL friends - for my first playthrough. Never did it again.

 

Ironically, I still have that original game save, and use it for most of my tests (as it has the full tech tree unlocked and more resources then I'll ever need). So I mostly end up seeing custom names, despite only ever entering a total of about ten over the course of all these years...

 

In all campaigns since then I just let the names come and go. Sometimes I consider adding a note against troopers with high psi-stats, but most of them don't survive through screening and those that do I can remember without such prompting. You get fairly familiar with a troop in a month, assuming they're doing field work and not just sitting at the base.

 

Really my entire opinion of a trooper hinges on what happens throughout their career, not on their stats/name/appearance whatever. For example, "Boris Yakubik" sounds awesome to me, because in my brain that name is associated with the phrase "took a disruptor pulse to the face and kept fighting" - but if ever another trooper manages that, they'll get their own unique slot in my memory.

[Zalewa]

XComUtil log for my final missons for my two last playthroughs:

First playthrough (difficulty middle):

   # Unit Name			   Ht St.FW  R.C.L  Right/Left Weapons

		0 Man-God SN			  60   0.0 01.11.1 Laser_Rifle/None
		1 The Professional SN	  0   0.0 18.45.3 Laser_Rifle/None
		2 Cabron SN			   51   0.0 06.12.0 Laser_Rifle/None
		3 The Horsewoman		  40   0.0 24.12.0 Blaster_Launcher/Blaster_Bomb
		4 Martian Man			 39   0.0 24.14.1 Laser_Rifle/None
		5 Cameron Phillips		60   0.0 01.11.0 Laser_Rifle/None
		6 Hans					48   0.0 04.14.1 Heavy_Laser/None
		7 Kawasaki HW			 60   0.0 24.16.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
		8 Farmer Girl			 49   0.0 26.12.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
		9 Tusk					55   0.0 24.14.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   10 Vodka Power III		 33   0.0 04.14.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   11 Lincoln Burrows		 32   0.0 22.16.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   12 Fernando Sucre		  25   0.0 04.12.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   13 Nazi Sniper			 40   0.0 21.11.1 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   14 INI					 41   0.0 02.14.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   15 Seven of Nine		   34   0.0 02.16.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   16 Fred					 1   6.2 25.33.1 None/None
	   17 Kung Lao				 0   0.0 41.30.3 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   18 Sonya Blade			  0   0.0 26.32.3 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   19 Kyle Reese			  22   3.0 06.14.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   20 Jax					 25   0.0 04.16.0 Heavy_Plasma/None
	   21 J.F.K.				  40   0.0 06.16.0 Blaster_Launcher/Blaster_Bomb

Second playthrough (difficulty genius):

 0 Wesley				  58   0.0 00.00.1 Blaster_Launcher/None
	  1 Cameron Phillips 2.0	60   0.0 13.02.1 Laser_Rifle/None
	  2 Friday				  47   0.0 42.25.1 Laser_Rifle/None
	  3 SHOGO					0   0.0 12.42.3 Laser_Rifle/None
	  4 Brandi				  45   0.0 05.02.1 Laser_Rifle/None
	  5 Motorhead			   32   0.0 43.28.1 Heavy_Laser/None
	  6 Ellen Ripley HW		 61   0.0 04.02.1 Heavy_Laser/None
	  7 Mr. Murch			   47   0.0 41.32.0 Heavy_Laser/None
	  8 John Connor			 53   0.0 39.33.1 Heavy_Laser/Proximity_Grenade
	  9 Catherine Weaver		57   0.0 03.02.1 Heavy_Laser/None
	 10 S.H.A.D.O.			  39   0.0 01.00.1 Blaster_Launcher/Blaster_Bomb
	 11 Christine			   43   0.0 41.30.1 Heavy_Plasma/None
	 12 Chryssalid			   0   8.0 11.10.1 None/None // Someone here died horribly :)
	 13 Exception			   48   0.0 11.11.1 Heavy_Plasma/None
	 14 Zero					39   0.0 41.44.1 Heavy_Plasma/High_Explosive
	 15 Duke Nukem			  27   3.2 38.35.1 Heavy_Plasma/None
	 16 Kintaro				  0   0.0 35.20.3 Heavy_Plasma/None
	 17 Altair				   0   3.1 14.37.3 Heavy_Plasma/Electro-Flare
	 18 Otto					 0   0.0 20.39.3 Heavy_Plasma/None
	 19 Lora					 0   0.0 35.33.1 Heavy_Plasma/None
	 20 Rasputin				47   0.0 04.06.0 None/None
	 21 Wolfen SS				0   0.0 17.30.3 Heavy_Plasma/None
	 22 Qwerty				  34   0.0 02.06.0 None/None
	 23 Jason				   37   0.0 47.34.0 None/None
	 24 Toshiro				 35   0.0 46.36.0 None/None
	 25 Randall Flagg		   31   0.0 44.36.0 None/None

 

 

Cameron Phillips is my beloved character and I always try to keep her alive as long as possible. Even though I try not to abuse the load/save "cheat" I always load my last Geoscape save when Cameron dies. Cameron Phillips 2.0 happened when the first Cameron was the first person to die during the first mission. I'm currently trying the difficulty Superhuman and Cameron is still alive. I have a weak spot for characters from Terminator-verse. As you can see I have both Catherine Weaver and John Connor alieve for my second mission.

 

I started naming my soldiers with cool names when I saw Kikoskia XCom playthrough. Kikoskia is extremely cool and I'd like to do vids like his but with my Polish accent I know it would be rather difficult.

 

My father bought UFO: Enemy Unknown as the first ORIGINAL (ie. not pirated) game for PC. I still remember Norton Commander and the ominous UFO.BAT that meant "your guys are going to die, you 8 year old kid!", heh This is a great game.

 

I had Amiga version also but my Amiga 500 + 1MB RAM couldn't handle the game very well and the aliens did their turn in 30 mins during the terror mission.

 

I've also had Frank Black character (from Chris Carter's MillenniuM) but he always died .

 

XCOM1 is the best.

 

EDIT: Cleaned up the unrelated drunken babbling

[Bomb Bloke]

I see you've got a SHOGO and a S.H.A.D.O. - seems a shame to have them but not SHODAN...

[chiasaur11]

I see you've got a SHOGO and a S.H.A.D.O. - seems a shame to have them but not SHODAN...

 

The files for that soldier... vanished.

 

One tries to avoid thi--i--i--nking about i-i-it.

[Zalewa]

K, I've sobered up.

 

I see you've got a SHOGO and a S.H.A.D.O. - seems a shame to have them but not SHODAN...

 

Well I was running out of names at that point but good call. I'll try to remember to include her in my next game.

[chiasaur11]

K, I've sobered up.

 

 

 

Well I was running out of names at that point but good call. I'll try to remember to include her in my next game.

 

Why not make a team entirely consisting of mad AIs?

 

Hal, Shodan, Durandal, Tycho, GLaDOS, AM, Colossus, Helios...

[Zalewa]

Why not make a team entirely consisting of mad AIs?

 

Hal, Shodan, Durandal, Tycho, GLaDOS, AM, Colossus, Helios...

 

If only the soldiers would survive long enough to make it more than a one mission team. Besides HAL9000 was already murdered

[CapnKill]

I've done them all I think.. I've done the squad from the movie Aliens (haven't we all?), maybe video game characters, back when I first played the game I think I used WWF Wrestling characters, one guy ended up being a math teacher I didn't care for too much, he uhmm... sacrificed himself, enough TUs to prime a heavy explosive, just not enough TUs to get out of its range I guess his calculations where a bit off.

 

Definitely did the action hero thing, like Rambo, John Matrix, J. Conner, Ripley of course, etc..etc...