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Forums - Gaming - XCom tips, please

Somini on 19 January 2014
noname2200 said:
Somini said:
noname2200 said:
I'm using Europe this go around, as I've already done all the other continents save Asia. I've also largely stayed away from upgrading to lasers, and instead relied more on explosives to buy time until researching plasma. I actually find the battles pretty easy now, thanks to a "take it slow" approach, but the damned abduction missions happen at least twice a month, and once the battleship/supply ship UFOs start appearing my crappy interceptors can't shoot it down in one go, so the UFO often gets away before the second interceptor can reach it.

That's just it. You can skip lasers in a normal game and go straight to plasma, but in classic ironman that's just no an option. I have laser weapons and cannons as soon as possible because of this problem. Chryssalids and ufos will overwhelm you otherwise.

I've been getting away with that in Classic Ironman, though. Grenades, alien grenades, and especially rockets soften up Chryssalids and Mutons, and then gunpowder weapons finish the job. It helps that lasers and plasma upgrades are only a few weeks apart, if you prioritize getting plasma (I do). But you may have a point about interceptor's weapons, although I'm worried that the two second lag time in using the Phoenix cannon will doom my interceptors. Should I start buying and using the item that guarantees your ship dodges two attacks? I'm not sure how much more punch the Phoenix cannon has over the Avalanche missles.

kupomogli said:
One strategy you could use it to not use your satellites and then let an area that's one away go max. You don't lose a country until the end of the month, so just launch the satellite before the council meeting at the end of the month to get that country back on your side. If the country already has a satellite though, you don't want it to go all the way red because there's no way to recover it.


Good point. Do you think I should hold off on using my spare satellite at the end of the first month? It'd get me a bit more fudge room, albeit at the considerable expense of early game funding.

I take my sweet time playing on CI and laser cannons have never failed me. I skip plasma actually and go straight to emp after that. I get to emp 2 months later. Grenades are great but you get less funds because of them. I'm more about the scopes than explosives.



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Munkeh111 on 19 January 2014

Good luck....

I'm not bold enough to try on anything harder than classic



Slimebeast on 19 January 2014

What's Long War? I never saw that difficulty option when I played XCOM.



noname2200 on 19 January 2014
Slimebeast said:
What's Long War? I never saw that difficulty option when I played XCOM.

It's one of the Second Wave options you get after beating the game. You unlock more of them as you beat the game more times (I'm not sure if the continent you start with or the difficulty played on impacts which options get unlocked)



kupomogli on 19 January 2014
noname2200 said:

I've been getting away with that in Classic Ironman, though. Grenades, alien grenades, and especially rockets soften up Chryssalids and Mutons, and then gunpowder weapons finish the job. It helps that lasers and plasma upgrades are only a few weeks apart, if you prioritize getting plasma (I do). But you may have a point about interceptor's weapons, although I'm worried that the two second lag time in using the Phoenix cannon will doom my interceptors. Should I start buying and using the item that guarantees your ship dodges two attacks? I'm not sure how much more punch the Phoenix cannon has over the Avalanche missles.


Good point. Do you think I should hold off on using my spare satellite at the end of the first month? It'd get me a bit more fudge room, albeit at the considerable expense of early game funding.

All upgraded weapons do a lot more than avalanche missiles.

It depends on how much you need an additional 100 credits or +2 scientists/engineers.  100 really isn't that much so not really a big deal skipping it's usage.

Another thing.  Are you using the benefits of building the same structures right next to each other?  For example.  Two satellite uplinks will give you +1 satellite, and if you have four in a square, it'll be +4.  Engineer shops not only add more engineers but also give you money back for each item you create, so  technically everything costs less credits.  Laboratories too, and with those next to each other add additional research speed which is effective. 



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Soleron on 19 January 2014

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X0Sd1hje30&t=65s

Do this.



kupomogli on 19 January 2014
Soleron said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X0Sd1hje30&t=65s

Do this.

He should have just aimed at the one controlling the other instead of trying to hit both.  Kill one controlling the other and you kill both.  His other people should have been able to take out the remaining one but who knows.

Or he could have pulled the character back and put him in better cover, taking a bit more time to clear the mission.