Good times and bad times

[Sorbicol]

Terror mission in Mumbai, got swamped by chryssalids and Zombies. Then 2 cyberdisks show up. Despite it all and only saving 6 citizens my only casualty is a squaddie assault. Just as I think I'm finished I run my heavy up to the last civilian, and pop 3 more chryssalids I lose 3 more soldiers, included 3 of my most senior and my remaining sniper and support run for the sky ranger and abort. Indian leave the council.

 

I get no recovery time before I'm off on an abduction mission. That goes really well however and I pull through with a low ranked squad. Now I'm doing the alien base mission and , so far, I'm still alive. Used up all my rockets though on chryssalids, but no cyberdisks yet. Almost there........

[Hobbes]

I had a Classic Ironman where the first terror site went incredibly well until there was only 1 Chryssalid left. First it zombified my Assault. Then all the 3 other soldiers fired and missed. Then it zombifies the Sniper. The Support and the Heavy fire at it but fail to kill it. It zombifies the Support and the Heavy tries to reach the LZ. Guess what happened next.

[silencer_pl]

On one of terror mission for my AAR (if anyone of you are watching) on one alien turn 3 groups of mutons with berserkers, sectopod and chrysalids were activated. Will not tell how it ended but I was pretty scared

[Sorbicol]

Alien base assault mission. I take my best men, loaded with carapace Armour and Laser weapons. I proceed through the base with extreme caution and it pays off. Chrysalids are taken down by combination of rocket fire and assault scatter lasers. With this resulting in available cover being blown to smithereens the assault run&gun ability is crucial as spotter for my godlike squadsight sniper to lay waste to the Mutons holding back. Drones swoop in from the flanks and fall to reaction fire, I freeze waiting for the cyberdisks to follow them up, hopefully into the teeth of my HEAT wielding heavies, but they never come. In the end we make it to the final chamber with not one injury between the 6 squad members. They have become legends. The sectoid commander narrow avoids capture thanks to a fortuitous panic fire shot from the junior support soldier he has just mind swatted, just as my support Major was closing in with the arc thrower. Annoying but we take the base with no loss of life and one minor injury.

 

Next mission is a Abductor UFO mission. I give the legends the night off and send in squad B of slightly lower ranked soldiers. Rather than assault through the UFO I decide to flank down the side before assaulting the bridge through the power source rooms. Alas an encounter with a group of Chryssalids leaves one rookie zombified, but my squaddie sniper cooly takes down both the Chryssalid and the zombie next turn, why my heavies rocket fire mops up the rest.

 

Them the game plays silly buggers. A group of Mutons, thin men and a Berserker all clip through the UFO wall and rush my squad. With no rockets left fire is concentrated on the Berserker, but to no avail. With 1 HP left it picks up my squaddie assault and kills him fast. A Muton leave my senior support with 3 HP and thing are not looking good. However I some how pull it out of the bag and nail the thin men with a grenade, the Muton with sniper fire, and the berserker with a pistol (damn reloads) all 4 remaining squad members are hurtin but still alive. They slowly creep to the bridge and get set up, weapons at the ready.

 

The door opens, there are 2 Sectoid Commanders. My remaining assault rushes in and flanks. 89% to hit you say? Misses. The heavy with bullet storm has 70% to hit. He fires. Misses. He fires again. And misses again. The support major darts in and flanks again, 73% to hit. Guess what. Misses again. Finally the sniper, slightly out of position fires with 51% to hit. And misses.

 

Alien turn the assault is mind controlled and the support panicked. She shoots the heavy who has 2 HP left. He panics, shoots the assault (mind controlled) and leave him with 1HP. One Sectoid then takes out the heavy while the other retreats to cover and mind panics the sniper. Unable to use ly panicking squad the aliens immediately have another turn. The mind controlled assault takes out the support, while the sniper cowers. Need I say more?

 

If the Berserker / mutons / thin men had not clipped through the UFO wall I think I might have been in much better shape at the end, but you can't account for that many missed shots at relatively high percentages. Do I use that as justification to restart the mission? Or just accept "that's XCOM baby!" ?

[Hobbes]

If the Berserker / mutons / thin men had not clipped through the UFO wall I think I might have been in much better shape at the end, but you can't account for that many missed shots at relatively high percentages. Do I use that as justification to restart the mission? Or just accept "that's XCOM baby!" ?

 

If you're playing Ironman just take the losses or restart. I quit playing without Ironman because it takes away the pressure of those decisions - just lost 1 Colonel, should I retreat or press on? It's a completely different mindset from Normal - you always have the 'safety' of a save to go back so you should be more willing to take more risks during a mission, while on Ironman you'll pay for any mistakes or things just going south at the wrong time. Your whole campaign can lie on the balance so it's different.

[Sorbicol]

I turned off ironman because there are too many bugs in the game that can cripple you through no fault of your own. Restarted an instead of the UFO assault mission I got a terror mission instead. I needed those alloys :-/

[Fishfins]

The 'percent to hit' system sometimes makes me groan; get up to hugging distance with a cryssalid, 94% chance of hit, miss, sniper with 70% chance of hit misses too, spout verbal abuse at computer. It used to bug me.

 

But it does work both ways; had lucky moments where mutons across the map were blasted with alloy cannons, had another awesome moment today where my best sniper was saved from two cryssalids by newbie supports both scoring hits that only had a 20% chance. When I crunched the numbers, I couldn't believe it. Hooray for random numbers!

[Hobbes]

I turned off ironman because there are too many bugs in the game that can cripple you through no fault of your own. Restarted an instead of the UFO assault mission I got a terror mission instead. I needed those alloys :-/

 

Since the game is always saving I haven't got any major problems with bugs - if it hangs, it's simply a matter of reloading and you'll start 1 turn earlier if in a mission - it can be actually a bonus to have a crash since you'll know in advance the location of any aliens revealed on that turn.

 

 

The 'percent to hit' system sometimes makes me groan; get up to hugging distance with a cryssalid, 94% chance of hit, miss, sniper with 70% chance of hit misses too, spout verbal abuse at computer. It used to bug me.

 

I couldn't win Classic Ironman until I stopped letting it affect me. S*** happens

[silencer_pl]

Just had so much irritating moment with random seed.... I'm playing on impossible (thank god not ironman). I'm in the grocer shop and I have 2 thin man. One with 2 HP left second full. My heavy is out of ammo, my sniper has 1 shot 35% with sniper and a grenade. My support of course has assault rifle. The 2HP Thin man I want to stun... but the seed prevents me to do so because I need to do something else so the 80% chance will succeed. I think I spent 30 minutes and 50 loads to figure out the best situation of hit and misses.

 

For those who want to achieve same thing as I did:

 

https://www.mediafire.com/?958fk55ftz0zgrd

 

Hope the seed is also stored.

 

Oh there is a secotid and floater nearby.

 

I turned off ironman because there are too many bugs in the game that can cripple you through no fault of your own. Restarted an instead of the UFO assault mission I got a terror mission instead. I needed those alloys :-/

 

If you know those bugs use them to your advantage. I have finished Classic Ironman so it is beatable with all those annoyances.

[JellyfishGreen]

In the end it was anti-climactic. There was only one sectoid commander left, my snipers were up high, he stopped directly beneath one, and he had a really big head.

[Sorbicol]

I had a council mission last night that threw 18 thin men at me. At one point I think 10 were in play at the same time. Due to that rather painful terror mission I was fielding 3 rookies, a SHIV and 2 veterans. I had only 1 grenade and all my heavies were in the med bay. It was very painful, I lost the SHIV and the rookies (despite them all getting at least 2 kills) and the two veterans are going to be in the med bay for some time.

 

Got plasma rifles now though, rapidly researching Titan armour. 2 labs and 1 workshop being built, satellites on all countries except Australia and Argentina. I think I'm going to be OK.

[Space Voyager]

and he had a really big head.

 

HE HE HE, continuing the sentence would be unnecessary.

[Hobbes]

I had a council mission last night that threw 18 thin men at me. At one point I think 10 were in play at the same time. Due to that rather painful terror mission I was fielding 3 rookies, a SHIV and 2 veterans. I had only 1 grenade and all my heavies were in the med bay. It was very painful, I lost the SHIV and the rookies (despite them all getting at least 2 kills) and the two veterans are going to be in the med bay for some time.

 

Got plasma rifles now though, rapidly researching Titan armour. 2 labs and 1 workshop being built, satellites on all countries except Australia and Argentina. I think I'm going to be OK.

 

On Classic 18 Thin Men is usually what you'll get after the early part of the game in most Council Missions. You'll face 4 groups really close to one another (really hard not to activate more while fighting one) and after the bomb deactivation or reaching the person it will drop 6 more aliens on the map. After you play all of them you know where they'll drop on the map at the end so it's usually a matter of leaving your soldiers on Overwatch right after the bomb is deactivated.

 

Frag Grenades and Assault Rifles are too unreliable against Thin Men. You need to have weapons that can kill them with 1 shot, like Laser Rifles or only bring Snipers/Assault/Heavies because of their weapon power.

[Sorbicol]

I had light plasma rifles just too many of the feckers and the lack of explosives meant missing really hurt. Could have use the rockets to take down more than one at a time.

[Hobbes]

I had light plasma rifles just too many of the feckers and the lack of explosives meant missing really hurt. Could have use the rockets to take down more than one at a time.

 

Light Plasma Rifles with SCOPEs are even better because of the +20 Aim

[Space Voyager]

Lost a CI game. Posting because it was a great mix of good and bad times.

 

First I cursed that single steam in the lowest level but decided to go with it.

 

Then I needed to adjust my field tactics to the grinding of classic - scout forward, ready to get back to cover if aliens are triggered, the rest of the squad trigger happy. Lost a squad or two before I caved into this far less exciting play. Almost quit (not ragequit, just to restart with newly gained experience) twice.

 

Finally got on track, but taking on the base mission was necessary if I didn't want to lose three or four council members. Call it echo of those lost missions. So I took the mission, it went flawlessly and I felt pretty good, naturally. The only thing bothering me was lack of alloys, I wasn't able to build weapons, armour, nothing.

 

Finally a small scout comes around, landed. Three vets (B team) and three squaddies. Starting in a middle of a shallow stream, the first move needed to be longer than wished for. Bam, a squad of Muttons is triggered and one of the squaddies is down. The second one panics and shoots the third, who was already wounded. More panicking, but the rest clears Muttons and the map.

 

Than we open the UFO. Three Sectoid commanders, who would not have been there if I didn't take the base mission... Three soldiers mind controlled, team lost.

 

I'll shorten this. It took time and a lot of sacrifice to train new squad. Lack of alloys kept pressing on me, no way to build titan armour and low survivability of rookies. But I did manage to get an elerium generator running and a satellite nexus built. Four satellites will be built before the end of the month, this should do for now, but we're just one country short of defeat.

 

A big UFO lands, A team is scrambled - those who weren't wounded. Things go phenomenal, I see the light, but a Mutton elite squad appears at the end of that tunnel. My only real psycho, who isn't as powerful as one would hope for, fails every attempt of mind control (three in a row, all 75% chance or something), so the agony was dragging for quite a long time. Our soldiers really gave all they had. Muttons one-shot killed most of the squad, and finally even the psycho was gunned down.

 

We should have fled, but things were desperate on a global scale. Now, they were worse.

 

Just before the end of the month I start sending out satellites. Four countries panicking, four satellites. Jut right. Unless... Unless one already has a satellite.

 

Thus ended the agony, Earth is lost this time. But we'll be back.

[silencer_pl]

Saving and loading often ain't shameful

[NKF]

Doesn't work for nutters like me that auto-select Ironman.

 

-NKF

[Space Voyager]

Well, I did finish an ironman on normal. It wasn't "officially" ironman as I didn't know when the game saves progress - and it is just not possible for me to have the save at the end of the mission or something like that. There were numerous missions when I had to quit more than five times before finishing it. Anyway, it was almost too easy. Then I went for Classic Ironman to test and the game saves all the time, which is great - and I went with it.

 

Silencer, I see no shame in saving and loading either, but ironman is ironman... It is a state of mind.

[silencer_pl]

Game in ironman saves every turn during combat. During base it always saves when you enter command room and exit it. It uses 1 save slot. There is also a trick to cheat the ironman mode. But I will not tell what to do.

 

Doesn't work for nutters like me that auto-select Ironman.

 

-NKF

 

I'm not trying ironman till I don't understand every trick the game has to offer.

[Hobbes]

I'm not trying ironman till I don't understand every trick the game has to offer.

 

Oh, but you not will understand every Jedi trick until Ironman you play, young padawan

 

I basically stopped playing anything but Ironman - it's just too addictive

[Space Voyager]

Games like this one are addictive for exactly what ironman gives; a chance to lose fair. If you win, it is a hard earned win.

 

Than again, sometimes it feels REALLY cool to reload and KICK SOME ALIEN BUTT! On fourth try if need be! https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/xtreme.gif

[Sorbicol]

My current classic play through has included more than 1 reload I confess. I'm hoping the patch means I can face an ironman attempt after this one (I have complete satellite coverage, no panic and only lost 2 countries so I'm swimming in cash) but the bugs meant I had to stop using ironman.

[Hobbes]

Started a game today, everything is going as planned, with the objective of completing CI and win a few additional achievements, including the Ain't No Cavalry Coming (1 soldier being on every mission).

 

2nd Terror Attack, but full squad with Skeleton Suits and Lasers, no problem.

 

Wrong.

 

6 Chryssalids, 3 Cyberdisks, 6 Drones and a few Floaters and no LZ.

 

Guess what happened... no more Ain't No Cavalry achievement.

[silencer_pl]

6 Chryssalids, 3 Cyberdisks, 6 Drones and a few Floaters and no LZ.

 

Child's play