XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[Unorthodox]

We got this on a black friday sale dirt cheap and wrapped it up for Christmas.

The boys have been playing a lot more than I as they have struggled to make their way through "easy".  While I breezed through "Normal - Ironman", and have had a few failed "Classic - Ironman" games (purposely starting in south america as the weakest starting location, it's inevitably the economy that kills me, but I'm circling in on a winning economic strategy). 

Now they patched in this 'second wave' options which look like a lot of things I will have fun with as well.

Anyone here have this?

Might actually even attempt an AAR.

[gwillybj]

I'm considering it. Is it fairly linear? Do you make choices as to what to research (a tech tree), or they come in a particular order?

[Unorthodox]

I'm considering it. Is it fairly linear? Do you make choices as to what to research (a tech tree), or they come in a particular order?

It's a little bit of a mix. 

There are random missions and story line missions that trigger on certain things.  For instance, to start the game, you'll have a tutorial mission (or a mission based on where you decide to build your base if you turn off the tutorial).  After that, you will get an abduction mission followed by a UFO encounter, a Counsel mission, and a terror mission for your first month (sometimes a random or two mixed in as well), all working as something of a tutorial for how things operate in this game.

From there it's a random mixture of the above possible missions with aliens you encounter and size of UFO's increasing as time goes on.  However, there is also set story missions that unlock when you meet the requirements.  Most these requirements are based on research. 

Research is completely open, though there are "Priority" targets that advance the story (but may not be your personal priority, you're free to choose something else).  Research works a little different than the old game.  You do not capture alien weapons any longer, for insance, as they self destruct when their owner dies.  You analyse these fragments and come up with ways to utilize them.  Capturing aliens alive also yields their weapons, but ironically you still have to research through the fragments. 

Alien Autopsies and interrogations all yield different items or avenues of research as well, so are not just filler info any more.  I made the mistake of putting them off till last my first game. 

Also unlike the first game, there is no means to fund yourself through building a boat load of armaments and selling them off.  (selling off unneeded UFO parts still gains quite a bit of cash, but you can't just endlessly build med kits to sell, for instance) The economy of the game revolves around keeping the member nations happy, and you lose if too many of them get pissed and leave. 

Each soldier now also gets asigned a specific 'class', and each class has it's own little tech tree that you get to choose as they get promoted.  For the default game, all soldiers start with the same stats, and get upgrades partially random with a base increase based on their class.  The Second Wave option has a means to toggle this to be more random, akin to the old game. 

Overall, combat is much better in this game than the old one, but there is no free aiming (other than for explosives) for your weapons, so blasting a wall down with your laser rifle so your partner can get a shot at the alien behind is no longer an option, but using a grenade to blow the wall down is...  Personally, I like the new system better after getting used to it. 

[Unorthodox]

Finished up "Classic Ironman" this morning. 

Interesting thing when you beat the game, you're given your stats vs the world average.  For instance, I have a much higher propensity to use explosives (more than double) than the average player.  I also tend to manufacture a whole lot less (because I prefer to capture aliens to steal their weapons) and delay armor a lot longer than most.  At the same time, my battles end 4 turns faster than average (probably due to explosives) and my shot % is 75% on average where the world only averages 61% (again probably because explosives destroy cover making for easier follow up shots) 

Some of the second wave options make this a lot more like the old game.  Random stats for new soldiers (vanilla game makes all recruits identical) in particular makes sifting through soldiers neccessary again.  Going to try a marathon game next, have to read up on some of the other options. 

[sisko]

Might actually even attempt an AAR.

please do. 

[Unorthodox]

Might actually even attempt an AAR.

please do. 

I tried, I really did. 
I can't get the screenshots to work.