XCOM: Enemy Within (DLC)

[PZ]

You're hooked!

Your prior experience sure has paid off on the new difficulty level  :-X

[Art Blade]

yes. As the description states, "for experienced players" -- I'm no fool nor do I take pleasure in starting a game that I don't know on high or highest difficulty levels. Not my type of challenge. But now I'm curious whether I can do it on the next level :)

By the way, at this level, a tiny enemy such as a sectoid (first enemy) can already kill you with one shot.

[Art Blade]

From Normal to Classic

Making the transition from one difficulty level to the other can prove to be tough. The main differences to watch out for on Classic are:

1)   The +10 Aim bonus to the Aliens - suddenly Sectoids can be a lot more lethal.
2)    Soldiers have -1 HP than on Classic <sic> [Normal]
       - crucially this means Light Plasma Rifles can one-shot soldiers with basic armor.
3)   Thin Men/Outsiders now have 4/5 health - Assault Rifles are not much useful against them anymore.
4)   No OTS at the beginning - stuck to 4 soldier squads for a while until you get a Sergeant promoted and the OTS built.
      (With the Slingshot DLC, you can get Zhang fairly early in the first month to satisfy this condition)
5)   Panic now spreads throughout countries - all the world seems to be turning redder and redder.
6)   No extra satellite at the beginning - and less funding/base power/etc making resources scarce due to all of the
      requirements (OTS, satellite, research, engineering, etc.)

source: http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Survival_Guide_%28EU2012%29#From_Normal_to_Classic

OTS = Officer Training School, a facility you need in order to buy tactical perks, such as increasing your squad size from four to five to six soldiers or more XP gained from kills and so forth.

[Art Blade]

What is bugging me a bit is that EW is more difficult than EU already, that I haven't played EW on normal but easy so this is a jump from Easy to Classic, that I now have all DLCs including Slingshot and Progeny missions switched on (they're tricky on easy and challenging on normal and probably bloody lethal on Classic), that there's EXALT going to mess with me, that there are those Seeker and Mectoid enemies that don't exist in EU, and that there's going to be a retaliation for raiding the enemy base (they'll raid mine in return). And that I have a lot less funding and all that. This is really going to be interesting, to put it mildly.

I'm starting to freak out slowly and then I'll jump into full panic mode I guess  :-D

[PZ]

I'd never be able to play on the classic mode  ???

[Art Blade]

yes, you are. The question is, for how long.  :-D Same goes for me  8-X

[Art Blade]

I survived the first month, bought and launched a satellite, built a workshop and a satellite uplink for the next three satellites, built a power plant and excavated a little so I'd have room for new facilities. I had to sell alien stuff to be able to finance all that. And now, with my new month's income of April I was barely able to buy three new satellites. Now I'm broke, but kept all countries and soldiers :)

Out of curiosity I decided to test a reckless move right into a little sectoid's field of view without taking cover. That ba$t@rd aimed, shot, and killed my soldier. Just like that. The body of the soldier was lying on the ground and beneath it, a puddle of blood started to spread out, and in the end it was a really huge red puddle. Looked horrible. I don't want that to happen, if possible, not at all. So I went one step back to the original game and made my careful step, as usual. My guys survived.

This is really a tough game now. I am SO thankful every time an alien enemy decides to shoot at my guys and misses, you wouldn't believe how thankful you are for those misses. And how scared you are when your own guys miss. Quite nerve-wrecking  :-D

[Art Blade]

I'm always out of money and it seems that every mission has two sides: the obvious one is the success and panic reduction but the other one is a panic increase about everywhere else. I'm in mid-April now (you always start in March 2015) and already two countries are on full panic which means they will leave if I can't launch a satellite before the end of the month. One more country is nearly on full panic, 4 out of 5 panic points already, which means they're about to turn red, too, so I'll likely need yet another satellite for that one. I had anticipated that so I took precautions as in building a satellite uplink and ordering three satellites which will be ready before the end of the month. All that cost me all the money I had, including some other stuff absolutely necessary such as excavations (you can't just build a facility anywhere you want, you need to have an access elevator reaching that level and an empty cave to place the facility in or you'll have to excavate first which, of course, costs money, and facilities need power so you need to build power plants that require excavations which, of course, drains more money than you really have so you sell stuff that is originally intended for research which will now be delayed..)

In other words, more than ever, the base management is most important and on top of the list, to do everything possible to ensure satellite covering. Whatever else you want is of no importance, even if you need it, because without satellites there will be no funding which aside from money includes getting scientists needed for research leading to technology progress and getting engineers needed for constructing hardware such as weapons and armour. So, losing countries leads to losing the game and we don't want that, do we :) It is also important not to forget to ensure finances for building and maintaining interceptors (air craft) that are needed to protect satellites and to shoot down UFOs detected by said satellites.

You may get the picture already, all this plus fighting battles (missions) against enemies that are always a step or three ahead of you. They have better weapons and more often than not their health is too high for a one-shot kill so they require two soldiers' turns and that may lead to a shortcoming of turns which gives the enemy a subsequent extra turn which may prove lethal for my own soldiers. That's when luck and bad luck comes into play..

Apart from having to know what to do when, luck or randomness is a factor that plays a very big role at this level of difficulty.

It's really hard :)

[Art Blade]

Looking surprisingly good so far, nearing the end of the month of April and I did as best as I possibly could to keep things running as smoothly as the situation allowed. Got another satellite ordered and even started another satellite uplink allowing for three more launches and I should be able to finance the next two satellites. Unfortunately, it takes nearly a month (21 days) for a satellite to be ready for launch so if you can't order them within the first 10 days, you cannot launch them by the end of the month when countries may be on full panic and therefore leave for good. Also, satellite uplinks take 14 days until they are operational so that even if you have got enough satellites, you cannot use them without sufficient uplink capacity.

I have to mention that this is how I prefer to play, getting as many satellites up and running within the first three months, because I want to keep all countries and get a massive funding out of satellite coverage while still trying to buy one or three little fun things like perhaps a scope for better aim to improve my combat chances. That's the other thing how I play, I want to keep all of my soldiers and win every battle so I have to make sure to minimise the risks. Missing a target because the aim hadn't been improved with a scope or some such and then get clobbered in return? No thanks. I like to see the enemy dead as soon as I see them, within one turn that is, if possible even killing them during their turn (that's what's called "overwatch" -- react on enemy moves while they move) and finishing them off after their turn, leaving them exactly zero chances. :-() Doesn't always w@&k but hey, I can still try  :-D

With the funding bit as in having spare money, I have to wait until the first EXALT cell has revealed itself. They tend to knock on your screen and say thank you for half of your money they just nicked off you and that, my friends, is something I really don't want to happen. So I spend money on stuff and leave as little as possible in cash until EXALT has shown up. If they take 1 of 2 coins, fine, but if they take 200 out of 400, that's a massive blow. With about next to no money, they may still pop up with "hi, we just sabotaged your current research project" which costs time that I don't have but hey, there will be something happening, no matter what. Might as well try to make the best of my miserable options  :-D

[Art Blade]

I'll show you something about a strategy challenge I'm currently facing.

You already know, I'll be able to deploy three satellites by the end of the month. So I am very interested that no more than three countries turn red on full panic because I can only reduce panic by deploying satellites and that means it will turn red countries back to something less dramatic and make them stay on the council. Currently I have two countries on full panic, so I am really hoping to keep the other countries' panic levels down and can only afford one more country to turn red.

[smg id=6749 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW 2ndPT abduction strategy 01"]

Now comes an abduction mission. It offers three locations, of course they are on different continents which means I can only go on one mission to reduce panic in that country and the other two countries will jump into the red and orange zones because I left them alone with their alien abduction problem. I can only do one, can't change that. But which one?

[smg id=6750 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW 2ndPT abduction strategy 02"]

There's North America, Europe, and Asia. Tempting to go for the Russian offer in Europe because that country is already on four points and one more panic point will turn it red. The other two countries in North America and Asia don't seem to be that problematic. What will be the outcome if I take the Russian job, should I take it?

Here is the result if you take it.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, that causes four countries to turn red and you only have three satellites. You will lose one country by the end of the month unless a miracle happens.
[smg id=6751 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW 2ndPT abduction strategy 03"]

What choice would have prevented it? Check if you're right:

Spoiler

I took the Canadian job in North America and only got three red countries which I will be able to save, unless something really bad is going to surprise me.

[smg id=6752 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW 2ndPT abduction strategy 04"]

Of course, if something else happens until the end of the month, it may turn into a game changer and I may still lose a country. Also, something could happen in one of the red countries and I could be fortunate and win a mission there which might come with the benefit of panic reduction. You'll never know until the month is turning over, so that is why you DON'T deploy satellites before the last day of the month :)

Let's see what is going to happen.

[Binnatics]

Damn, that's pretty intense. Is there any reason why so many countries turn into panic while serving the Russians? Geopolitic strategies? Or is it just a bit of luck?

Oh, and the EXALT: Is that taxes? Sounds pretty much like it, but the exact translation shows a funny twist to the subject ^-^

Good game man :-X :)

[Art Blade]

Thanks :)

EXALT is basically a human enemy, a group of terrorists that get in your way and try to sabotage your game. You need to detect them by doing sweeps on the world map and if you found one or more cells, send a covert operative to one cell and blow their operation. The extraction of your covert operative is a mission that you take control of your soldiers again and fight a regular battle, only against humans that basically have the same weapons and upgrades as you. In the end, you need to destroy their headquarters which is one of the highlights of EW.

Regarding abduction missions: If you are successful, the countries of the continent you won your mission on won't increase panic but the other continents that had unattended abductions will add one panic point to all of their countries. If you go take a look again now, you'll see how it worked.  :)

[PZ]

I assume that you can't fight the EXALT to prevent them from stealing your money?

Sounds like you need a money cheat  >:D

Too bad about your boy lying in a spreading pool of blood - that would distress me if my boys were hurt or killed

[Art Blade]

The first time you learn about EXALT is because of an act of sabotage. After that, with money, you can have the earth swept with whatever service that might be. Each time you do a sweep, you may or may not reveal EXALT cells in one or more countries. The costs increase with every new sweep until the end of the month and then get reset for the next month. Revealed cells can't do any harm, so that's how you can help it, do frequent sweeps IF you have the money for it. Also, you may send a covert operative to no more than one revealed cell at a time and disable it; that's how those extraction missions occur and how you gather clues where EXALT's HQ is not located until you successfully accuse a country of harbouring their HQ which is when you get that last mission with the goal of eliminating the HQ and EXALT for the rest of the game.

I haven't cheated so far, which is a good sign, which means it is a really good game, actually.

The "boy" you were referring to was just a TEST, you may have misunderstood it. I reverted to my previous savegame so he actually has never died. ;) But yes, it isn't nice to lose your soldiers which is why I try to prevent that.

[fragger]

Early days for me with EW, picked it up on special the other day but haven't had much time to play what with visitors over the Christmas break and all.

Looks good so far, only there's a kind of minor glitch in the main menu. There are two tutorials which can be enabled, a standard one like the one in Enemy Unknown (shows you the basic combat principles) and another one for a new feature in the game, "Meld" technology.

So when I started a new game I disabled the standard tutorial but left the Meld one available to find out what that was all about. That was OK, all it did was enable an initial mission where you can recover two Meld devices (left by aliens) and get an amount of "meld points" from each one. Later in the game, Meld points will let you build MEC Troops and a couple of new base facilities. After doing the Meld tutorial mission, I didn't like the random base layout that was generated. You don't get to see this until completing your first mission, and on this occasion it put two Steam vents right under my Satellite Uplink area, where they would really get in the way later. Steam vents are great for power generation provided they appear in locations where they won't obstruct your placement of other important facilities.

So I restarted the game, still with the Meld tutorial enabled. The tutorial took place on the same battle map again, so this tutorial appears to use the same map each time. Once again I got a base layout I wasn't happy with so I restarted once more.

This time I disabled the Meld tutorial from the main menu. But when I started the new game, it began with the standard tutorial even though I had that disabled. I escaped out (eventually - the tutorial includes an unskippable cut scene which goes on for a couple of minutes), went back to the main menu, and checked - yep, both tutorials disabled. Started a new game - got the bloody tutorial again! WTF? Again I had to sit through the cut scene, then escape.

Turns out that the only way to disable the standard tutorial is to enable both tutorials in the main menu, then immediately disable them both. THEN the game will start correctly. Whew...

Anyway, the game looks good but I can already tell that it will be a bit tougher than the vanilla version. Some of the new maps I've seen have been beautifully detailed.

I'm already wishing though that they'd come up with some other way of getting Meld. A map may or may not have a couple of Meld devices in it - if it does, this is indicated on the map but it doesn't tell you where they are. They'll be off hidden in the fog-of-war somewhere, so you have to go looking for them (a sort of directional indicator appears when you're getting close to one). The thing is, you only have a limited number of turns to get to them before they switch themselves off and you lose them, which means running around in a bit of a reckless manner to find them which is at odds with the way I like to play (I like to advance my squad cautiously, make good use of cover and put them on Overwatch a lot). Accumulating Meld points will allow you to genetically modify troops and build MECs, and you need a good amount of Meld to do either. So I possibly won't ever have a lot of Meld unless I want to risk my guys' skins sprinting all around the map to find devices and possibly running into bad guys unprepared.

However, if you can eliminate all enemies, you'll still collect any Meld that hasn't expired, so that may be one way of getting it - at least in the early missions where there aren't too many bad guys to deal with.

This dude earned a medal:

[smg id=8381 align=center width=600]

This is a new feature in EW. A medal will actually confer a bonus of some kind on the recipient (you can choose one of two bonuses to associate with each type of medal). This is an additional way of skilling up soldiers. I like it :-X

I'll have a complete read of this topic when I get time (I don't have much even now - visitors on the way). I've had precious little time to myself since getting EW and I didn't want to waste what time I had reading and not playing :-() Obviously there's lots more to learn. This appears to be quite a leap from the vanilla game.

[Art Blade]

nice, fragger, I'm glad you got EW :-X :) So far, knowing that you hate invisible enemies, all I want you to know is that there is some sort of defence against those (more precisely, against strangulation by those) You can augment your soldier to become immune or use some type of protective collar which unfortunately uses up one slot where otherwise you might have put a grenade. If you check my pics you'll often see that collar in a soldier's inventory.

[fragger]

Thanks Art :) And thanks for the tip, I'll probably be fitting my snipers with those collars :-()

[Art Blade]

I think I used it on everyone :-D

[fragger]

 :-D I'll see how it goes...

Enemy Within definitely seems tougher than the vanilla game. I lost a Support trooper in just the third mission. She took a hit from a Sectoid which did a lot of damage, so I pulled her back to what I thought was a safe distance (she'd already used her single Medikit on someone else). But then a dirty rotten Thin Man got on the roof of a nearby building and clobbered her from up there. I could have reloaded the mission but decided to wear the loss. I'm not going to go crazy with trying to pull off a perfect game - I'll be happy if I can just get through it :-()

It is a tough game, and there is a definite luck factor involved. Art mentioned earlier in this topic that sometimes the aliens miss with their shots and what a relief that can be. He's dead right - there have been times when I thought for sure I was going to lose a squad member but they were saved by a badly aimed shot from an enemy and lived to fight another day (after a stint in the base hospital). The opposite is true - sometimes your guys will miss even when they have a good shot at the target, but generally the better the percentage of a hit, the more likely they will hit the target. Even so, very occasionally I've had a miss even when the odds of a hit have been above 90%. Odds are odds. But of course usually a high percentage will result in a hit. Sometimes under the right conditions you can get a 100% chance of a hit. Then you'll definitely know for sure that you won't miss :-()

Various factors determine the hit chance percentage - relative elevations of firer to target, what sort of cover the target has, the angle of the shot in respect to the target (and its cover), and the aim rating of the firing unit. The further onto an enemy's flank you can get, the better the chance of a hit and the more damage you'll do.

I haven't run up against EXALT yet, the enemy human faction. That should be interesting...

Here's the new-look squad:

[smg id=8384 align=center width=600]

It's early days so I can only have four soldiers in the squad at this point. I like how you can choose different colours for your troops' armour in EW. I like to colour-code them in primaries to represent the four different classes they belong to, as seen here, so that they stand out more clearly on the battlefield, but you can colour them according to any criteria that takes your fancy - blue for boys and pink for girls for example, if you're so inclined :-() There are 32 colour choices apart from the default, plenty to choose from. You can also give them different types of caps or helmets (including Fedoras ????) or leave them bare-headed and change the style/colour of their hair, as in the vanilla game. Plenty of choices there, too. And of course you can still customise their heads, skin colours and ethnicities, and in the case of male soldiers, give them different styles of facial hair (or none). I chose this type of helmet as it seems to look better with this early armour style (hey, got to stay fashion-conscious). When I get to upgrade their armour I'll give them helmets that better reflect the higher tech level represented. The squad members don't all have to have the same hat/helmet style, they can be fitted out individually. The style of head covering you choose has no bearing on their defensive strength, it's there purely for the fun of it.

Great game, XCOM. It's very challenging but still winnable, on the easier settings, anyway :-() I hate to think what the highest difficulty level is like - they probably don't call it "impossible" for nothing :-() It's not really impossible, just extremely difficult, and I suspect that if the luck factor isn't often in your favour, it could nigh be impossible.

My fave turn-based strategy game is still Civ V, but XCOM runs a very close second :-X

[Art Blade]

 :-X :-D