I did it!

[chiasaur11]

First, I know most people have done much better than I have.

 

I mean, all I did was a run at default (IE, easiest) difficulty.

 

And I'll admit, I sometimes checked bases or psi scores through somewhat shady means.

 

But, well, I'm kinda excited. I finally managed a (pretty much) ironman run of X-Com, start to finish.

 

Heck, my first soldier off the Skyranger made it to Cydonia and back alive.

 

I think I'm better at the game than I started, and I owe a lot of it to you guys. Thanks.

 

 

 

(Also, I would like to apologize to the people of Europe, most specifically its X-Com branch. You really got the short end of the stick.)

[Sunflash]

WHOOT! Grats dude! Better than I'll ever be able to pull off.

 

Well done indeed! Now, gritty details. Total casualites? You end up abusing Heavy Plasmas, or did you go for rockets? ? How many tanks? Did your intercepters fill the skies, or did you go with a 'right-place-right-time' tactic?

[NKF]

Excellent - now start a new game on Superhuman. It's like learning to play all over again.

 

Seriously, do give it a shot without ironman rules. Even if it's just get the hang of it rather than do a full campaign, it's a good way to test, improve and adapt your current performance.

 

- NKF

[chiasaur11]

Will try. Last time I clicked that little button, though, I got week after week of base attacks, so... not eager to repeat.

 

As for nitty gritty?

 

Well, don't remember total casualties, but for the first base, Delta Green, it generally wasn't too bad. Four guys survived from first contact to Cydonia, and only one mission cost more than three, maybe four guys. (Although the first Sectoid terror mission was every bit as bad as expected. Lost half the team, one way or another.)

 

Eurocom, though?

 

Heh. Cursed. Tanks lasted maybe two missions. Life was getting in the skyranger, go out, lose some of the team, get moved up, repeat until you were at the front, at which point you were a dead man. Attacked by Snakemen, when they got a fancy hovertank it got busted up in one shot right off the ramp, lost every Captain they got (No panicking, though. Eurocom perfected the stiff upper lip.) Eventually, the base was destroyed by Mutons. Evaced before it went boom, at least. And the only Eurocom vet on Cydonia was the only casualty

 

(When considering how the war musta felt, the American base felt like Easy Company in Sgt. Rock. Eurocom felt like Stalingrad.)

 

Mostly used laser rifles, saving the plasmas for Mutons and base defenses. Blaster Bombs were saved for ensuring a success on Cydonia.

 

The missions that went well?

 

Base defense, Eurocom. Only two dead, despite a really nasty Blaster Bombing.

 

Base attack, Mutons. Nobody dead or wounded.

 

Base attack, Sectoids. Psi core is go. Tanks spot, psychics kill, catch a live commander.

 

Two Snakeman Terror sites. First one, only two dead. Second one, clean. Some civilians survived both. First one was at night.

 

Floater night terror, only one rookie dead.

 

 

 

Overall? Went pretty well. Even accounting for the standard "Great. Every officer I have is a psi liability".

[hatfarm]

I remember my friend tried this and lost the guy in Cydonia. He's a real hardcore guy and refused to reload and try again (though I don't entirely believe he refused to do that the entire game).

 

Very well done. I've really only beaten the game a few times. Never higher than Veteran.

[chiasaur11]

Hey, at toughest, assuming against all odds the steam version fixed the glitch, this was experienced.

 

So, you know, you have Veteran on me.

[Bomb Bloke]

Well done.

 

I always thought the hardest part of ironman mode was resisiting the temptation of the reload button. It gets easier after a while, and then you'll suddenly find it boring to play any other way. Every success your soldiers have means that much more when you know how badly things could have gone. Not so much when success was the only option.

 

The ramps of your dropships are likely the most dangerous areas in the game. Best to wait at least a turn before going down, to give the aliens a chance to unload some TUs first. Consider throwing a smoke grenade in the meantime, especially if it's a night mission.

 

If you can't avoid going to a terror mission at night, don't feel bad if half (or all) of the civilians get killed. So long as you at least turn up, the score lost will be easily offset by your other missions. All that matters is that your score + cash reserves are positive at the end of the month, everything else in the game is largely irrelevant.

 

Base defense missions just mean you get lots of loot to sell without risking your Interceptors. They're also one of the easier ways to get high-ranking aliens. Seriously, who's idea was it to send alien Commanders right into the player's base?!

 

Hovertanks, as well as armour for your soldiers, aren't worth making until you can afford to mass produce them. A difference with ironman is that you find yourself using personal armour nearly the whole game, instead of switching to flying suits as soon as they become available.

[chiasaur11]

Ah, that probably is a bunch of good ideas.

 

Lost a lot of power suits. Could have been avoided.

 

Although, and this is probably the craziest thing, I didn't use smoke grenades. Didn't wait as often as I should. Sometimes went out without a tank, although I tried not to.

 

And yet, in the face of all that?

 

Lyudmila Andianov, X-Com's first recruit, first in attack, last in retreat, veteran of every major operation, front of the dang Skyranger?

 

She not only survived. She made Commander. And was a major part of task force Cydonia, despite a mediocre psi score.

[Space Voyager]

Seriously, who's idea was it to send alien Commanders right into the player's base?!

Star Trek influence.

[Sunflash]

Star Trek influence.

 

 

"Are you SURE this is a good idea, supreme boo-bah? Risking our sub-commanders with this?"

 

"Research suggests that as long as our soldiers arn't wearing red shirts, they will not be killed. They'll be fine!"

[chiasaur11]

Star Trek influence.

 

Hey, it could be second hand Trek influence, considering X-Com does the same thing, generally.

[Bomb Bloke]

Hrm. That's a good point. Though I suppose our rookies know as much valuable information as our Commander units do.

 

Come to think about it, that brings up the question as to why Alien Navigators can't point you straight at Cydonia...

[NKF]

Hmm. I suppose it might be because they can steer their UFOs very well, but don't necessarily know where they are from, where they are or where they are going. They could be employed for their skill, not their knowledge.

 

- NKF

[Space Voyager]

IMO the ranks in X-COM are honorary. And perhaps it shows in the pay-cheque.

 

An X-COM commander doesn't really play any bigger role than a rookie. Jan-Luc Picard on the other hand...

[Bomb Bloke]

There's no extra paycheck, but the extra ranks apply some morale bonuses (or perhaps penalties) during battles.

 

Long story short, the presence of higher ranking units in your squad decreases the morale hit if (when) one of your units dies.

 

On the other hand, if the unit that fell over had a high rank, then the penalty inflicted will be higher.

 

So yeah, "honorary" is probably a fair description, as it's all in the soldier's minds. Though the same rules work for aliens - kill the leadership, and the lower ranks all panic.

 

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Morale#Officers

[chiasaur11]

Thinking, though...

 

For Sectoids and Ethereals, it kinda makes sense. Leadership seems influenced by psychic powers, and for a big push, you want to be able to crush your enemy's mind like a bug. Might be worth the trade off.

 

If it's risk the leadership, but in exchange control X-Com's blaster bomb guy or keep the leaders and be on the receiving end of some really nasty explosions, choice gets a little more reasonable.

[Pete]

Yup, I remember on those large alien craft learning that as soon as you get Blaster Launchers, make a hole in the roof and blow up the higher ranking aliens in turn one before they get a chance to do too much poking around in your brain.

 

I must admit I have had more fun with UFO in recent years not reloading whilst playing SuperHuman. I do enjoy the challenge. I will admit to not being completely Ironman though, as I recall stupid bugs in the CE version where blaster bombs would all inexplicably head off in one direction after a few waypoints and generally that direction was to the front of the Skyranger, so on some missions the bloody thing would hit the third waypoint out the back of the craft (sometimes I unwisely tried to naigate it around people who shouldn't be standing in the way at all ) and without fail it would then skip all other waypoints and smack into the rest of the guys on the Skyranger. T'was a silly bug and occurred far too often for me to consider it intentional, especially as it never seemed to happen in the DOS version.

 

Other reloads in my earlier SuperHuman games included my stupiditiy at leaving smaller listening posts completely unmanned. Never a good idea. It's much harder when you think you have to pay for 8-10 soldiers for each base and arm them well just to be on the safe side even if, like me, you might only ever send quads out from one or two bases maximum throughout the whole game.

 

I've never been able to amass a large army on Superhuman like I did on easier settings though. I remember on easier games having something like 80 soldiers - on Superhuman you would spend 8 months getting enough cash together to pay their wages whilst all the time foraging for enough material and dropped tech to arm them properly, and then spending inordinate amounts of money and time building them decent armour. It's just not as feasible in a harder game - the small squads and guerilla tactics win through on Superhuman... until you have the tech and psi advantage

[NKF]

Pete: the CE Blaster vertical waypoint bug's the culprit. Any vertical maneuver sends the blaster bomb directly to the south (i.e. the same direction that you enter the Skyranger!) . I think it might be some trigonometry function that's not behaving the same way in CE compared to how it used to in the Dos version. The solution is to always fire the bomb at angles when changing elevations. Takes a bit of getting used to when firing it through small holes in the roof of UFOs, but it will work.

 

Alternately, if the blaster bomb that has flown south manages to clear the edge of the map, if there were more waypoints to clear, it'll reappear at its original destination and travel off to the next. Therefore when getting the bomb to do any fancy flying, get it to fly high.

 

- NKF

[chiasaur11]

Sorry, I have a dumb followup question.

 

So, I loaded up superhuman, did a mission, and managed to pull a win....

 

But I can't remember if the glitch kicks in at the end of the first mission or when you load. I know loading does it, but beyond that I'm not sure.

 

Only reason I'm asking?

 

If it's the "end of first mission" bit, I got a mild humbling. Lost four troopers for a large scout. Not bad, but not terribly great either.

 

If it's upon loading, I got a heck of an ego boost. Took out a Sectoid terror mission with zero casualties.

 

Either way, TFTD kicked my butt on Superhuman. Stupid invisible snipers.

[Bomb Bloke]

The bug kicks in at the end of the first mission, assuming you're playing the DOS version of UFO without XcomUtil (otherwise, it shouldn't happen at all).

 

Difficulty doesn't give the aliens any vision bonuses they didn't have already. Remember, you're only really on an equal footing during the day; at night, smoke can help somewhat.

 

I'm not sure if anyone's tested whether the depth of the mission lowers soldier sight range, but it certainly makes things appear darker to the player.

[chiasaur11]

Right, thanks. Ah well, at least I managed one mission alright. It's something. I've been meaning to download util sometime, so it's good to know. Thanks.

 

And, for what it's worth, depth seemed to absolutely slaughter my soldiers LOS. Aliens could kill them with a whole turn of movement between them and visibility. And yes, I tried obsessive reloading and explosive use, soaking losses, everything.

 

They had snipers up the stairs, and there was no way to see them without being reaction fired to death.

 

So, here I am. Ironman superhuman UFO defense?

 

Maybe sometime.

 

Ever playing TFTD again?

 

Much less likely.

[Pete]

Smoke grenades and electro flares are your saviour in early Superhuman games. And luck, but mostly smoke grenades and electro flares.

[NKF]

Don't let a few failures get you down. I've had many more failures under my belt than I've had wins. It makes the few successes you do have all that much sweeter. TFTD is no different, and it is definitely worth persevering until you get the hang of it.

 

Have you ever tried my solo floater-base assault game? On superhuman. With pistols. Masochism at its finest, but most gratifying for those few occasions where you actually manage to do it.

 

There is a small edit you can do to your game to fix the difficulty bug if you don't want to install XComutil (I recommend creating a separate copy of the game so you can enjoy both). The note I've got mentions that you need to change a value in Geoscape.exe at offset 0x175BC from 0x3c to 0x40. That's assuming Geoscape.exe is 382, 957 bytes in length.

 

If using MS-EDIT in binary mode at 100 line width, that's line 957, row 77. Change the value from 60 to 64. Or just hit @ to enter a 64.

 

- NKF

[chiasaur11]

Thanks. Probably'll just download X-com util, though.

 

As for TFTD, it wasn't losing that bugged me.

 

It was that the enemy was invisible due to really bad map design bits. Now that's the part that would drive me insane.