My take on Apocalypse

[orodreth]

I have just finished Apocalypse, playing on Medium, with no reloading, in TB. This was my second playthrough of the game, but a first with no reloading. Here are some of my thoughts on the game, particularly as it compares to TFTD, which is the X-Com game I've played the most (I only played EU once through):

 

1. Environment is in my opinion better in Apocalypse - much more varied, much more destructible, with consequences for the destruction both on the tactical map (explosions) and strategically (organization relations). A big step up from the predecessor.

 

2. Diplomacy is much better, since it was practically non-existent in TFTD; being able to raid other organizations is particularly cool. From what I understand, had Apocalypse been actually completed as planned, with abductions of organization personnel etc., this aspect would have been fleshed out even more - too bad this didn't happen.

 

3. Ship combat on the tactical map is also much, much better - there is actually a big challenge to it now. Especially with no reloads, if you keep that Hawk or Valkyrie in combat too long and it gets destroyed, that's a big hit, especially financially. Sometimes you just need to keep your nose down. There is one extremely annoying part, though - the fact that one stray shot can kill EVERYONE at your base. Luckily, this did not happen to me in this game, otherwise I might have reloaded.

 

4. Now, the meat - tactical combat vs. the aliens. Here I must say in my opinion Apocalypse, at least in TB, took a giant step back from its predecessors. There are some positives here - I like the fact that aliens also seem to move around in "squads" and try to support one another. This is much better than individual aliens hiding out in rock crevices or dark corners hoping to get a pot shot at you. However, I have often found that aliens, for some reason, refuse to actually fire at you. On countless occasions I would finish my turn with several aliens visible to my crew (and vice versa), expecting those aliens to lob grenades/fire at my guys, but the aliens either withdrew or just stood around. Similarly, aliens would sometimes clearly surprise my guys, popping out from an elevator or from behind a corner, and then proceed to... run straight in between my guys without firing a single shot (and without, e.g., arming an explosive to go off when the alien dies - sort of like suicide bombers). Actually, the most dangerous aliens, by far (they caused probably 70-80% of deaths on my squads) were the brainsuckers, since these guys would just charge (incidentally, I have also had my soldiers survive sometimes two or three brainsucker attacks in a row, but I don't know how). The second most dangerous aliens were the hyperworms - once they commit to attack, especially in a group, they can be deadly to anyone. By contrast, the humanoid aliens seemed to be too "tactical" for their own good - I'm sure they were following some complex AI, but it just never resulted in them actually hurting me much. Defensively, the aliens fared no better - I can probably count on the fingers of my two hands the number of times I was hit by reaction fire - during the entire campaign. Aliens would mostly just stand around while my guys ran circles around them. Once toxic guns come into play, the game becomes slaughter.

 

Incidentally, I think a lot of this may be down to TB play - I tried, as a test, to play the final battle of the game in RT, and it was mutual slaughter - I lost about 1/3 of my guys (in RT the aliens got a grand total of 1 shot against me - most succumbed to toxic guns in the first turn, without any reaction fire). However, from what I understand, RT play makes brainsuckers far LESS dangerous - and given that they are the only reliable threat the aliens have...

 

A side topic on tactical combat - Psi warfare. Here, I have no qualms. Much better than TFTD. The requirement of visual contact improves the game makes it more risky. Taking over aliens remained a tough proposition throughout the game.

 

5. Equipment - I actually really like the equipment in the game, with one sole exception - toxic pistols. They are fairly accurate, have long range, and can be fired very quickly. This leads to crazy play - see above. To me, toxic pistols unbalance the game even more than no-LOS Psi attacks did for TFTD.

 

So, on the whole, I think that Apocalypse is basically a huge improvement over TFTD, with one, glaring, obvious weakness - tactical combat against aliens. Whereas TFTD really put "terror" into that type of combat, with aliens that were absolutely deadly and ruthless, in Apocalypse the aliens seemed to have lost their edge. Since the tactical game is really the heart and soul of X-Com, I guess if I could have a game that combined the cut-throat tactics of TFTD with pretty much all the other aspects of Apocalypse, I'd be in X-Com heaven.

 

I'd love to read other folks' thoughts on my assessment, so feel free to let me know what you think.

[NKF]

I think that's a fair enough assessment. I don't really find the AI to be that great in either mode either - it's almost erratic at times. However they do have the advantage of numbers and greater firepower, and depending on luck, can still overwhelm you. Unfortunately, unlike their predecessors, they don't appear to have any sense of self preservation when it comes to using explosives.

 

One difference I might add is your agent inventory. I find, it is too large and allows far too much freedom. You had much less storage room in UFO/TFTD, and often had to manage what you could carry. In Apocalypse, you can carry dozens of grenades and still have enough ammo for a small army on each person on top of various useful gadgets.

 

Real time combat doesn't really make the brainsuckers any less dangerous. It is certainly easier to react to them as you can can do a counterattack while they're in the middle of their attack, allowing you to shoot them before they do any harm. Or even shoot them off when they're latched onto their victim's head. However, carelessness, neglect or just losing control of the situation can result in some very-very nasty surprises. Moreso with the poppers, who are practically in their element in real time combat.

 

Toxiguns are a game breaker. The low ammo count (relatively speaking, considering it's like a machine gun) may have been included to balance it, but all of its pros outweigh that. In real-time, the teleporter is another game breaker - but then again that's a late game reward for following through the research all the way to the end.

 

If you haven't, perhaps now is a good time to play through the game in real time mode (or a mixture of RT/TB). Ramp up the difficulty level to increase the number of foes - and for a change in venue.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

I've played a total of two TB battles in Apoc, so I'm not well versed on how the aliens behave there. In RT, they usually lob grenades as soon as they get within range... Assuming they have them. Very early on, you'll be fighting completely unarmed aliens, who will indeed take the "headless chicken" approach to combat. If any equipment is available on the ground, they'll bee-line it and attempt to pick it up.

 

Sometimes you'll be able to take a position where you can see them, but they can't see you. They may also decide to take cover and meet up with other aliens, in order to take on your group with greater force (rather then to allow you to pick them off one at a time).

 

The ability to carry more ammo is fairly important when you consider how high the rate of fire went up. During the early stages of the game I have difficulty keeping my troops equipped with the stuff, and one clip per soldier just doesn't cut it. Not so much an issue in TB mode.

 

I'll never forget once raiding a cultist base, and having one lone idiot surprise my men. I'd completely run out of ammo - the reason I was there was to get some more, as the market place didn't have any. Anyway, this guy came out - nothing I could do, I'd used my last bullet on his friends - and sprayed my guys with machine gun fire. Within a few seconds he'd emptied his clip, at which point he went into panic mode and ran away. He hadn't actually managed to do any significant damage to my group, he'd just deprived my stores of another few precious bullets... I still thought it hilarious.

 

Granted items such as the toxi-gun is somewhat overpowering (once you finally manage to research it's full potential), but the alien's use of personal shields could be considered similar. They have an unlimited store of them, but it's very difficult to keep your soldiers protected the same way (especially on the higher difficulty levels).

[orodreth]

One difference I might add is your agent inventory. I find, it is too large and allows far too much freedom. You had much less storage room in UFO/TFTD, and often had to manage what you could carry. In Apocalypse, you can carry dozens of grenades and still have enough ammo for a small army on each person on top of various useful gadgets.

 

I'd forgotten about the inventory limit - definitely an important difference between the two. However, in my opinion Apocalypse is more realistic here. The TFTD limit is more a "gamey", as if done solely to force the player into some tough choices - I mean, your average Triton ought to be able to hold more than, say, 80 clips for the dart gun.

[(name_here)]

He means soldier inventory. The 80 item limit was a technical limitation related to the size of the item table being capped at a total of 255, including alien items, elerium, and corpses, due to the nature of software at the time.

[karadoc]

The AI for the aliens is pretty weak. As you say, it's not uncommon to see aliens just run around doing nothing when they could be shooting at your dudes. -- But I don't think the AI in the previous games was any good either. I think the main difference is that in the previous games, 'reaction fire' was much faster. eg. In Enemy Unknown, if you just open a door you might get shot at a bunch of times before you can move again, whereas in Apocalypse you can open the door, run up beside the aliens and shoot a couple of them before they even notice you.

 

In some sense it sucks, because it makes the aliens look like a bunch of incompetent fools; but on the other hand, I don't really mind it. I like to imagine that my squad has had tactical military training, whereas the aliens are just naturally strong but with no tactical skills. -- That said, in my mod (which I always play on), I have increased the alien's reflexes (and made things generally harder in other ways too).

 

I find that I use very different tactics in Apocalypse compared to in Enemy Unknown. In Enemy Unknown, I tend to have a bunch of 'sniper' units, who stand well back from the action, but with a line of sight. I use one or two units at the front line, and as soon as I see an alien, I switch to one of the snipers to fire at it -- this is because the aliens won't react to what my snipers are doing; and so I can fire at them without my frontline guys being shot at. -- That kind of strategy isn't very good in Apocalypse because aliens generally take a lot more damage before they die, and it's generally hard to hit anything at long range - and so the would-be snipers just can't kill anything, and the front line guys end up having to just retreat. What does work in Apocalypse though is to end turn on one side of a choke point, and then at the start of the new turn rush in and shoot all the aliens at point-blank. That doesn't work at all in Enemy Unknown, but that's how I win most battles in Apocalypse.

 

I kind of like the Apocalypse style of fighting better. I think it's less realistic, but I like it from a gameplay point of view because I feel like I need to take into account more factors than just distance and line-of-sight. I like to charge into a room with one guy, shoot a few aliens, and then drop a stun grendate at my feet to protect me from any aliens still in the room... It's completely silly that my guy is completely unaffected by the stun grendade but the aliens are all knocked out from trying to shoot / flee; but I think it's fun.

[Bomb Bloke]

In real-time, the tactics are different again; aliens tend to group up and crouch/go prone where they think you're about to go, and wandering into such an ambush will get you slaughtered. You really want to lure them in to such traps of your own.

 

In the early game weapon damage is indeed a bit low, but some of the later weapons are easily one-hit-wonders. Unfortunately the aliens tend to get such weapons before you do, so point-blank battles tend not to end up in your favour.

[Ki-tat Chung]

I find in RT, battles are a hell of a lot more frantic and messy. You end up relying on your soldier's reaction more often than not, whereas in TB you actively choose when to fire. This means ammo is quite hard to manage, as it flies thick and fast. One of the annoyances, as an aside, is freaking friendly fire! If my squad is moving in a tight formation (which they often do), I have to micromanage my units up front to go prone and/or crouch. Having a friendly shoot a devastator into the back of your head is not a fun way to die. =\