Sepulchral: The Unorthodox XCOM AAR.

[Unorthodox]

Caveat:  I'm playing on a laptop with integrated graphics not officially supported, so things don't look as nice as they should. 

Figured out the screenshots.  Apparantly you have to have the stupid Steam social shtuff turned on to take screens even in single player. 

So, figured I'd start something I'm a bit familiar with for the AAR.  (still no guarantee of victory) Classic Ironman.  Second wave options turned on make my soldiers have random stats both at recruitment and at leveling up.



Placing our base in South America.  It's bonus makes for an extremely aggressive tech push at the cost of being financially handicapped.   



Our initial mission is on a map I'm less familiar with than some of the others...



Checking my soldiers (hate you can't select your initial squad), we got a mix of great and awful. 

Kennedy is a mental midget and can't hit the broad sid of a barn. 



Ruiz, however, shows extreme promise.  Little lacking in will, but great 'offense' (aiming/shot percent).


The other 2 are average to slightly weak. 

I can hear the aliens in the train.  This being the first mission, I KNOW there are  aliens, 2 groups of 3.  (at this difficulty) Later missions that becomes less certain. 



Sure enough, our first group.



Unable to get a good angle for a shot, I put my 2 troops I want to protect back in full cover, and shove Kennedy aka cannon fodder forward hoping they shoot at him, not the ones I care about.



Woods takes a wild reaction shot at a scampering sectoid...



And thanks that full cover for saving her ass.



Couple grenades later, this group is down to 1.  feeling confident this mission is going to go by the book, group 2 scampers out of the darkness.



The Sectoids love to pull this mind meld thing.  It heals the receiver, and improves various stats. 



And those improved stats mortally wound Ruiz.  This playthrough is not starting well.  Luckily her will check kicked in and I have a chance to save her via a med kit (which I don't have) or finishing this mission before she bleeds out in 3 turns. 



yeah...Kennedy...that's THE BEST his % can get, unless we get up close and personal...



Yeah...



The good thing about the mind meld is that if you kill the sender, it also kills the receiver.  So, next turn, Kennedy gets RIGHT up on them.

[Unorthodox]

I've had better missions...Go in thinking Kennedy is the sacrificial lamb, and he's the only one walking away. 



So, the rank up puts us into classes... 

My sniper has a lousy (for a sniper) 67 aim. 



Woods has better as a Heavy.



At least the computer was smart enough to give Kennedy the shotgun class.   



In line with my uber aggressive tech strategy, I start researching Xeno Biology right away so I can start capturing aliens and interrogating them instantly. 

This playthrough gets worse looking at my base, however.  Steam is as far away as possible.  I'll need inefficient power generators instead of thermal power. 

So, I start building a generator and excavating a hole to double the base size, then hire more soldiers with the rest of my cash. 



The stars of my new recruits being:

Powell.



Fischer.



And Garcia. 



They'll make the core supported by whoever else I can scrounge. 

Time to go to work.  Abductions strike 3 places at once.  My decision is mostly based on the fact I need engineers more than money or scientists (the other two rewards this time).



We have a whole team of decen shots now, and while there's that alien close I could kill in 1-2 shots, if I can get the mind meld dude far off, I can kill them both...



Garcia does not disappoint.  2 for 1. 



This mission only ended up having 4 aliens.  No casualties...

Garcia is rewarded as my new sniper.



And Powell becomes a support. 



I get my engineers, but Asia and South America are none too pleased I ignored them...



(Australia is part of Asia according to Xcom)



No time to rest though, this first month plods on...



Shooting down UFO's is much like the old game...



A lot of by-the-book sneaking up to the UFO later, we find the early game alien leaders. 

[Unorthodox]

Garcia becomes a TRUE sniper.  Able to shoot at anything anyone on the squad sees. 



The ufo is a boon to our economy and I sell off most the parts to start building our first satellite and start on an access lift to reach deeper into the base. 

A second abduction wave hits.  Bit unusual for the first month.  Little choice here, have to defend Asia lest India and Australia leave the council.  More money isn't bad either, but Africa was offering a trained soldier and that was mighty tempting. 



God I hate this map...guess I'll save and look at it with fresher eyes later.

[Buster's Uncle]

 

[Unorthodox]

The reason I hate this map is because of where you start.  Down in a hole, and normally with at least one alien group ready to blow your heads off.  If I manage to climb out of the hole, it usually goes fine. 



Good screen describing the combat system.  Soldier's Aim and any bonuses - enemy defense and bonuses.  I can't see the enemy abilities until an autopsy, though. 



Continually on the low ground is a hard climb up to kill these bastards and Fischer takes some plasma burns to the face.



But, Powell is rewarded after with one of the better abilities available a support.  3 extra tiles of movement is HUGE. 



I sell a bunch of alien bodies piling up in storage and start construction on an alien containment and workshop. 



And soon after, the arc thrower is researched, so, it's time to start abusing that starting bonus I got for choosing south america. 



Our first council mission.  Slingshot is the DLC.  It's a tough series of 3 council missions over 2 months that has the potential of rocketing your research well beyond the normal pace.  We'll just be playing the original game for now. 



We draw an escort mission.  With Fischer recovering, Kennedy is back in. 



I LOATHE Thin Men.  Basically this game's snake men replacement.



They carry light plasma rifles, which bear an inherent aim bonus making them most deadly.  And what's worst they spit poison if you get bunched up or are just in heavy enough cover they have a bad % to hit, and they explode into a cloud of poison when you kill them.  They are easily responsible for most of my early game deaths.  To top that off, they have 4 health, so unlike sectoids grenades will not kill them, only wound, and my standard rifle is dicey as well, often requiring 2 shots. 

Oh yeah, council missions love to have them drop from the sky as reinforcements. 

Kennedy getting the drop on one. 


The resultant cloud.



Woods gets a rare 4 kills for one shot opportunity.  Both these sectoids have mind melded others, perfect time for the rocket launcher.



But, all the poison flying around took it's toll.  Fortunately we got more promotions and unlocked the officer training school.



Heather "Tectonic" Woods (love the game's random nicknames) got a key ability, a second rocket that strips armor.  Most useful later, but for now, just the second shot is huge.   



But, the wounded are piling up...


Overall not bad for the first month.

[Green1]

X-COM is one of those type games I think is sorely missing in wargaming: tactical level squad combat.

It is very appealing in a lot of ways, having cut my teeth on early stuff like Final Fantasy Tactics.

There are games that do mix tactics and strategic 4x, but they are even fewer:

Age of Wonders series
Fallen Enchantress

Sad, too.

For a minute I considered pushing for a mod to Fallen Enchatress that was a conversion of Alpha Centauri. Imagine having to take cities on a tactical map with impact troopers and leaders like Miriam armed with her laser in defense of New Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, this generation of FE's Kumquat engine does not support line of site, which I think is a major failing of FE's tactics system. The strategic map would not support terraforming/ terrain raise and level stuff SMAX is famous for. A realistic way of handling air would be a pain, too.

We need more tactic squad based/ character building stuff in 4x. In some of my editorials (3rd part not written), I try to get at this. XCOM has one of those ingrediants we really need for the perfect 4x game, if not only one of the ingrediants.

Anyways. Good read. Carry on I read these things. 80 percent of lurkers do too and will never tell you. Yes, continue even though I know doing AARs are slow and a pain and can distract from enjoyment sometimes because you have to stop and explain every little thing.

[Unorthodox]

I have not tried out Fallen Enchantress, having heard some mixed reviews, but have long been a sucker for turn based tactical games. 

[Green1]

I have not tried out Fallen Enchantress, having heard some mixed reviews, but have long been a sucker for turn based tactical games. 

It is a solid game.

The 4X community is not without it's "bitter vets" that would find fault with Jesus himself.

It has its areas it needs improvements on, I gave it 7/10. I am also VERY critical of any game I get because having fanboy tendencies is just not me. But.. it is tactics and pretty damn deep for what it is. It is a "one more turn" sort of deal where your time goes into some black hole. My daughter is addicted to it. I do not even see her anymore.

... and my god the AI. You know the issues we have in SMAX with the unit workshop and the AI not building stuff that the players build it can benefit from without altering the .txt? The AI is an adaptive AI that analyzes your workshop builds then uses it against you.

But, anyways.... back to X-Com. We can pray for the marriage of tactics and strategics at some other time Do not want to hijack you.

[sisko]

so, you managed to solve the screenshots issue after all.. 
good reading so far, keep it coming!

[Unorthodox]

With our funding in, it was time to look to our base. 

The officer training school being the most important early building, and running low on power, so a generator was needed as well.  Then, we gotta dig...


No sooner was that done than we spied a UFO on the ground. 



With the alien containment done, it's time to start turning the tables and capturing some aliens.   

I had cleared the forest and the ship, and was rushing in to capture what I believed to be the last alien, when 3 thin men popped out of the darkness...(note the yellow alien head in the corner being the one I was after, the 3 reds being new contacts.)



That being my last move of the turn, I just had pray to the RNG gods.  The entire squad swiftly got poisoned.  3 turns later, we achieved "victory".



Oh, god, I hope nothing happens in the next 2 weeks...

But, we walked away with 2 captives.



Would that I were so lucky. 



The global situation makes for some tough choices.  Europe can wait, but Africa or Asia are going to drive someone into the red, meaning a very likely possibility they leave the council at the next meeting. 



My plan is simple.  I need to keep Africa for the continent bonus to make up for my poor finances.  Asia would take so long to completely cover for the bonus that I would only get about half the use out of it, so Asia is expendable. 



However, it's definitely going to be the "B" team. 



This is exactly why these soldiers didn't make the A team.  2 rookies panic, and swiftly die horrible deaths. 



Kennedy's last heroics...what we thought was the last alien pair...before a third one snuck up and took his head off.



Operation Fading Skull.  Fitting. 

[Unorthodox]

With the money from selling UFO components, we saw fit to focus on more base building. 



And, the Officer Training school finishes...things are looking up.



Time to make a bull rush on the sciences...

Sectoid interrogation gives us 1/2 time for laser weapons.



Thin Men do the same for UFO components.


Autopsies to let us view abilities and have better HUD info...


With our bonuses, weapon fragment research completes in a day.



And, we set in to bypass lasers all together, and go straight for plasma.  43 days is atrocious, but hopefully I can get some scientists or capture a Muton before then. 



Aw crap....

Terror mission. 



And I was SOOO close to getting the A team back...



In preparation, I purchase the squad size upgrade, and "wet work", which increases xp so lets rookies rank up quicker.



If there is any experienced Xcom players watching, a collective moan goes up on seeing this map. 



So, time for another break.  Attack it fresh. 

[Unorthodox]

The trouble with "the base" map is all those tanks make for destructible cover, and very hap-hazard line of sight at the front of the base. 

There's 2 means of approaching this map, one being to rush forward to save as many civilians as possible, the other is to hole up and let the aliens come to you.  Terror missions can be failed if you fail to save any civilians, and give increasing panic reductions in the country/continent they happen in depending on how many you save. 

Finding no aliens at the entrance, and a couple civilians, we poise to enter the base proper. 



Zombie...that means there are Crsyssalids.  Zombies work differently than the old game.  Instead of a Cryssalid popping out when they die, they pop out if you don't kill the zombie quick enough.  Zombies also have more health, but are slower than Cryssalids. 

Note the counter above.  11 civilians alive, 3 saved, 4 killed. 



We found the warehouse at the back of the base crawling with nasties, so I just set up a firing line well back, and picked them off as they emerged.  Not heroic, but stable for these rookies.



Remember Chazan, the sniper I ridiculed for having a low aim.  She is making me eat my words this level, the RNG delivering headshot after headshot, turning what would be 3 shot kills into 2 shot kills. 



(yeah, 6/18 civilians saved is...not good.)


In the end, EVERYONE ranks up.  Chazan jumps from a 67 aim to 77 with a single level.  Still not great, but approaching respectable. 



Satellite uplink finished, time to build more satellites.



Random request.  Most often these get ignored if I don't have the items on hand. 



Another round of abductions.  US, Africa and Asia targetted.  US can wait and I've prioritized Africa > Asia.  Naturally that means I'm heading to India, theory being I can launch a satellite over Nigeria before the council meeting, so it wouldn't harm my Africa standing any. 



Apparantly India has burger joints and floaters like them. 



Well placed rocket taking out 2 damn thin men.  Note that third...[progeny of unmarried parents] disappears on me after this. 



Fischer finds him too late.  Clear on the other side of the map. 



As per plan, launching to appease Nigeria just before Month 2 report.



With a Satellite on it's way, we also need planes. 



Asia gave us an experienced assault trooper "Socks" for the last mission as well.  Good will, adequate aim.  Not bad. 



No rest. 

[Unorthodox]

Plan for this UFO was just bring both snipers along, scout with the others, and pick stuff off as it pop's it's head. 



Socks showing off her fancy footwork.  Lightning Reflexes makes the first reaction shot on you miss. 



Attempting to soften him up for capture, she gets a rare 4 damage critical with a pistol. 



We need to capture one of these outsiders...



It is that attempt that costs 'Echo', our more senior sniper...the one with the good stats.



Socks moves in for capture, hunkering down, everyone else was out of sight, which normally means they're ignored...



Cooke is not so lucky. 



Captured, the Outsider collapses into a crystal.



Chazan is promoted and dubbed "Ice".



Now running a little thin of acceptable soldiers, we scrounge what money we can and hire more.



The laundry list of activity. 



Mostly to help 'Ice' with her aim, I fabricate a S.C.O.P.E.



As expected, Australia withdraws from the council.

[Unorthodox]

Immediately we get a large UFO.  I have about a 50-50 shot at shooting this down with my 2 interceptors.



They both fail.  This is TERRIBLE news, economically speaking.  A large UFO would have been a great boon, and failure raises panic in Nigeria....and allows for abductions to happen.

In Africa, US, and Asia. 

I've already dedicated to Africa and cannot allow Nigeria to go panic or I will lose them and the satellite.  Asia is already written off, but the US is going to hurt. 



"Ice" donning the SCOPE.  90 aim is not terrible...



The gameplan for this map is to sneak over to the side of the building without drawing attention. 



I make it in and start sweeping the office, wondering where everyone is when the floaters burst in on me. 



I swiftly kill 1 and capture 2 more.  I don't need to interrogate them, but the light plasma rifles will come in handy in the relatively near future.



Setting up to explore further into the office building, we spy some floaters outside had flanked us.



Too few moves left and too far away, I hide in this office hoping to draw them in. 



Works like a charm.  Grenade and a few bullets later, 2 more dead floaters.



Setting up to explore deeper in. 



Oh...

Mutons!  Too bad they only have light plasma...still, I want to capture one of them.  Unfortunately they all disappeared, so I had to hope for the best.



Socks has some kind of guardian angel. 



The plan: Rocket damage 2 mutons, capture one. 



Shot wide, catching Tectonic in the blast, she panics...but otherwise according to plan.



About that 3rd Muton...

Holmes dances around his wild shot.



And gives him the big grenade welcome. 



Setting up Ice to take the shot. 
(the "low cover" here is a misnomer as my character will sidestep around her cover when she takes her shot, thus flanking the Muton, so it's an 80% shot, not 60)


This is how we like missions done.



Socks gets rapid fire, allowing her 2 shots on a target.



Collins promoted to Heavy.



I interrupt our light plasma research to interrogate a few aliens piling up.





That bumps our light plasma down from 14 days to complete to 1...

[testdummy653]

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