The Firaxis XCOM Series

Quoth Imca:

Which is probably why those were nerfed.

edited 15th May '16 11:16:35 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I've fought each leader on timed missions. Hasn't been an issue. I seem to run into them usually after I spot the objective or achieve it.

Don't need repeaters to kill them, though they are amusing whenever they proc.

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Ya know, I don't get why steam reviews are complaining about alien leaders making things too hard .-.

I mean, if you have story mission enabled, you can just delay their appearance until you are ready for them. I did that unintentionally and took care of viper king rather easily and while Berserker queen almost killed party, I chased her away without casualties

Man, 2 snipers lost to rulers so far. I truly dislike the Beserker Queen.

More things why rulers aren't BS(even though their abilities are):

Concealed units don't trigger ruler reactions.

Stasis makes them out for whole turn, they don't get to take ruler reactions. Yeah you can't attack them, but you can position yourself better/mop up other aliens in that time.

Archon king keeps using and interrupting icarus drop if he is burning/poisoned/acid burning.

On other hand what IS BS: I lost base defense because at end of turn my psionic died to chrysalid poison(I didn't have medikit and I didn't know that happens). This is after almost killing archon king, having everyone but colonel ranger with ionic axe and boltgun running to evac and being only one out of it after destroying spike thingy. Thankfully you can restart base defense even on ironman <_< But yeah, it sucks because I did awesome on this one, I even almost killed archon king... Good thing I didn't because I would be more salty if chrysalid poison cost me that xD

Also BS: Sectopods on extract mission. I did do mistakes(and I did wipe out the sectopod), but sectopod + codexes + mutons were able to wipe party out that had high level ranger, especially since I had most of people on roof and then mutons grenaded them. one colonel specialist and major specialist. At least I didn't have any unique items equiped on that one just in case. To add insult to injury, my medic specialist died on final chance to get the bleeding out hacker specialist to evac.

Speaking of which, this is my best best commander ironman playthrough so far ._.; Well besides that one total wipe out I just mentioned and one time when Berserker Queen killed rookie(I only had three rookies and grenadier and sharpshooter) on final turn before he was able to hack console. Well at least queen died. Anyway, yeah, those are only mission failures I can remember right now. I do have had a lot of losses, but for example, I managed to complete first blacksite with two units desperately running to evac. A lot of epic memories in this one.

edited 16th May '16 3:27:45 AM by SpookyMask

Ah, good, I had assumed the rulers to be immune to status effects.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

@spooky: Bluescreen Protocol weapons trounce mech so hard it isn't even funny. Stasis will freeze tough enemies until your next turn.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

Welp, I can't play XCOM 2 anymore, I caught the disappearing buttons bug and checking the local files didn't correct it. Now I can't go to the guerrilla op...

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I'm kinda baffled that they put so much effort into giving those rulers such a ridiculous amount of firepower, then letting them get shut down by status effects and Repeaters like that. Counterplay is counterplay, I guess, though I can't help but shake my head and wonder what kind of screwed-up design philosophy Firaxis is following.

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

It ended up working again after I disabled both of my mods (good thing I only use UI mods).

I'm a bit disappointed that the dialogue about rulers spoiled stuff I was supposed to learn in their introductory mission; had I known, I wouldn't have enabled Alien Hunters mid-playthrough. On the other hand, it allowed me to familiarize myself a bit with some of the rulers (I have so far encountered the Berserker Queen once and the Viper King twice, killing the latter) as well as experiment on what will, or won't, prevent their escape (Stasis is useless because the portal stays open; but I bet a frost bomb will do the trick) for the Achievement of killing a ruler in a single mission.

Edit: Stasis is awesome for everything else. Especially for making sure to skulljack a Codex as the first action of a new turn.

edited 16th May '16 10:42:44 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Discovered the Beserker queen's AI breaks if you collapse a roof from under her. she just stands there and does nothing.

Didn't happen to me when I dropped her from a roof. She just climbed back up (and then I dropped her again). Maybe it was just that one map?

Yea I didn't expect Stasis to hold alien rulers for a whole turn since all other status effects effectively count using their turns. Really just mandates that you use psionics I guess. Setting them on fire and poisoning them is still fun though. All the DO Ts.

I enjoy how every interaction with the alien rulers involves Tygan basically going "WTF Vahlen."

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@Aceofscarabs: I know that, I do have beaten game before without ironman, problem was that I didn't have those yet and my psionic was in sick bay during that mission

^On other hand, the frost bomb freezers rulers for three actions instead of one like with everyone else. So yeah, I was surprised by it, but it does make sense

edited 16th May '16 12:13:45 PM by SpookyMask

One part of my brain demands an explanation about what Vahlen has to do with anything. Another part of my brain warns me, that some delicious, delicious surprise would be spoiled if I read more about that.

Rather than smart, I'd prefer to be wise. It would let me be silly more often.

Huh? When I tried freezing the Archon King (and his whopping FOUR LIFEBARS, while my best damage-dealer — my ranger with high-crit shotgun, rapid-fire, rupture and the axes — was out of range), I only got him frozen for a single attack (unlike Stasis, which lasts the whole turn but because doesn't allow you to damage him).

On top of that, I had to reload once because my first attempt to freeze him had him in midair, which requires pixel-perfect clicking on a moving target, and I misclicked. This guy is pure bullshit.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Not sure if freeze duration is different for each ruler or if the bomb itself has variable freeze times. I do remember archon king getting frozen for only 1 turn while other rulers were frozen longer.

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Did the new DLC fuck up how the game records stats? Coz since I've had it, it makes no sense. I'll end missions with "Attack accuracy: —-" instead of a number. Other times I get Accuracy 100%, when I know I've missed attacks. One of my dead soldier has "Attacks Made 2" "Damage Dealt: 86"

Clearly he must've hit like a truck. It's amazing the berserker queen took him out.

^^^Huh weird ._. Viper King was frozen for three actions. I guess it might be ruler dependent?

Anyway, so more on my really awesome ironman run I'm not actually losing after first few missions:

I really hope there would be timer for when missions get expired. I had my first landed ufo mission, but I went to sell stuff to buy colonel from hq and then went back to sell more stuff because colonel was more expensive than I remembered and then went to mission only to realize I lost my medikit in last retaliation mission and then went back to sells tuff to build one and in that time it expired... Caused a big facepalm for me.

Anyway, yeah, by now I have had my first "Oh shit, not enough units available, skipping all guerilla missions" moment and "Okay, gatekeepers are wrecking my shit, I should bail at this point, at least I evaced serpent suit guy, but I just need one more civilian..."... Well thats how I lost my newest specialist colonel that had the medikit xD Thats the problem with B squad :'D

My current situation is that I have all of ruler armors, all third tier weapons besides plasma lance(and third thier grenade launcher if that existed, can't remember) but I have none of third tier ruler armor. So that ufo landing mission would have been god send in terms of elerium... Ah well, I'd probably have just squad wiped in it and lost campaign if I had went there with my best troops :'D At least thats how I make myself feel better about it. At least avatar counter is at halfway and I've destroyed all facilities

Anyway, final stats for rulers: Viper King killed 2 soldiers, Berserker Queen one rookie and Archon King: after final base mission restart(he didn't kill anyone on first one either though), none.

edited 16th May '16 9:53:36 PM by SpookyMask

Note that "successful shot percentage" does not include Overwatch shots.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

So, umm oops.

So I've reached the point where I have researched everything, bought all items and upgrades and was just trying to figure out which heavy weapon I hadn't killed enemy with yet and grinding elerium cores to get all experimental stuff <_< I was kinda like "Now I can take leasure pace on making contacts everywhere" at avatar point ticker 8. Then in rapid succession facility and normal avatar ticker gets added and I didn't have made contact with facility region xD And even if I had facility lead, it wouldn't work out because there is too little time left on timer.

So yeah, finale is coming faster than I expected :'D Should have made contact with facility region while I had chance, didn't realize this could happen. Ah well, I'm going to do one more guerilla mission for 100 intel reward so I can buy all intel bonuses on sneak radio tower mission. 4 days should be enough time for that. Sending everyone who isn't colonel yet on that guerilla mission..

...Its amusing what type of stuff you learn when you are playing on ironman and not just save scumming :'D On my first playthrough with tutorial, I had no trouble making contacts and radio towers in every region, probably because I realized to go for facilities right away while this time I kinda avoided them since if I get sloppy its not fun to lose favourite soldiers.

Well from what I've learned of the doom counters, it's best to keep one facility around, so the "breakthrough" dark events can be reversed.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Yeah, but that requires for you to plan ahead and have facility left just in case :'D

Anyhoo, commander ironman beaten. No losses on final mission.

I wonder if alien hunters are alive by end of the game, can they appear in Operation Leviathan?

Well seeing as they are your soldiers you can send them there, sure.

Watching aliens panic due to the hunters' armor in the last room of Leviathan is hilarious.

Oops, typo, meant to write alien rulers.

Like, is there anything preventing three avatars and all three rulers spawning at same time in final mission for epic cluster death?

Well AFAIK you can only have one ruler at a time active. The others don't show till you've beaten the currently active one