If it were practical, I would replace Magna-Blast Grenades with Magna-Pack Explosives. That would shake things up a bit.

Played some more TFTD, this time getting back to another game I had left on hold. I fought a Terror Mission with Lobstermen...and won! I had been smart enough to research Vibro Blades, so my troops were able to kill the Lobsters easily. Five soldiers out of twelve were killed, but as far as I'm concerned, to defeat Lobstermen is a major victory.

And then the game bit me in the ass later on when Tasoths attacked a freighter. I was able to clear the top decks, but I only had three soldiers left, and only one had usable weapons. Said soldier died, the other two were M.C'd shortly after. Epic Fail.

Looking forward to the new X-Com FPS. I can't wait to see what X-Com was like before Enemy Unknown!

Actually, XCOM is completely unrelated to the original X-COM, being in different universe and all.

Or did they changed that again?

The Tasoth seem to be the TFTD version of the Ethereals. Apparently, you would need plenty of Sonic and Gauss weapons to take them down.

I heard that the XCOM game being worked on is a reboot, so it probably doesn't have to be connected to the previous games. On an interesting side note, the reboot has you play as an FBI agent, and funny enough, the original intention for UFO Defense was to have you play as the FBI, but Executive Meddling had it changed to a global-scale organization.

edited 28th Sep '11 12:53:26 PM by TiggersAreGreat

Which make much more sense.

Anyway, the reboot clearly has no relation with the original or whatever. It is set on the 50s instead of late 90s. It can't work as a prequel because you can develop new weapons in there, while in the original you start with shitty rifles and pistols.

Apocalypse turns out to have some big cases of What Could Have Been and Dummied Out features. Here's an interesting bit of information from the Wikipedia of the game:

Originally the game was going to be much larger and be even more in-depth, with political intrigue helping to bring the city of Mega-Primus to life. An unimplemented weapon called the Tracker Gun could be fired at an unsuspecting enemy, attaching some kind of tracer onto his clothes. The person could then be trailed around the city by one or more X-COM agents. All of this political intrigue was cut down to the bare bones due to the aforementioned constraints.

Now that would have been scary! Tangling with not just aliens, but also with groups around the city! By the way, Mega-Primus is apparently supposed to be located in what was Toronto, Ontario. That makes me happy! Why? Because it gives the game a Canadian feel, and I'm convinced that my country Canada Needs More Love!

You do realize that Mega-Primus is the ONLY bastion of human civilization left in Canada at that time? After T'leth blew up, the rest of the world except for cities like Mega-Primus effectively rolled over and died.

The reason those alien weapons were lost, I think, is because they were destroyed to prevent a possible apocalypse brought about by some human faction acquiring said weapons. Makes sense, no?

I realize that. Not only was Mega-Primus the only city left in Canada, but it was also the only city left in the whole wide world! I still feel warm and fuzzy toward Canada, though. By the way, there's that one colony on Mars that everyone seems to treat as not even worth mentioning.

Here's another fun tidbit from the Wikipedia page on Apocalypse:

During the creation of Apocalypse, Mythos created the game but Microprose wanted to create the graphics. Julian Gollop called the relationship "disastrous", and said of the game "It was a disaster area. Apocalypse was quite a sophisticated and ambitious game, but it was a big mistake from our point of view. In retrospect, we should have originally agreed to do a sequel in six months, and spent a year doing it, like they did! It would've been a lot better."

Apparently there is a big dose of Creator Backlash on Apocalypse. I think it's a fun game anyway.

edited 29th Sep '11 6:26:40 AM by TiggersAreGreat

The premise sounds nice, but I really don't like the look of those hovercars. They just look out of place.

Also, if memory serves, Mega-Primus wasn't the only city in the world, but really the first of the new "Metropoli". I'm pretty sure there were other cities like it in other parts of the world.

Yesterday I ran into a major screwup in UFO. Went to recover a Snakeman Terror Ship, which really is a terrible idea in hindsight. I messed up in plotting my strategy, causing me to lose half of my squad to the Chryssalids. I gave up once the mission was declared SNAFU.

Missions involving Snakemen and Chryssalids probably should all be considered That One Level.

Here's a little something I found out about that Snakemen:

Snakemen usually won't show up for at least two or three months into the game. As their name suggests, they are reptilian, resembling snakes with arms, slithering along on their lower bodies. They have noticeably better armor than floaters or Sectoids, and are capable of absorbing significantly more fire than either. Their combat stats are at least comparable to Floaters, possibly slightly better. They seem a little more willing to use grenades than Sectoids or Floaters, too. Their key flaw, however, is low mobility. They are not able to move very quickly, slower even than Sectoids.

However, larger Snakeman missions involving Terror Units can be truly fearsome, with the inclusion of their devastating Chryssalid support units.

The good news is that Snakemen are a medium-level threat by themselves. The bad news is that when they have Chryssalids with them...you should check this out:

The Chryssalid is the dedicated Terror Unit of the Snakeman, and will only be seen accompanying them. One of the most feared enemies of X-COM, these creatures have shiny black exoskeletons, an insect-like look, and a toothy grin. They resemble the art of HR Giger. They have incredible mobility, lightning-fast reflexes, and can absorb large amounts of fire. These abilities allow them to slug it out long enough to deliver their chief threat: their infectious bite, which can penetrate even the thickest armor and can destroy HW Ps.

The ability of a single specimen to turn an entire troop of X-COM operatives into a new population of Chryssalids is the stuff of a Commander's nightmares. Killing Chryssalids should be your top priority whenever they are present. Concentrate fire upon them. Don't be afraid to sacrifice any civilians or X-COM troops nearby— if the Chryssalid doesn't die, they'll probably be infected anyway. Ensure that all Chryssalids that drop are dead, not merely unconscious. Listen for the lack of a death-cry - do not hesitate in blowing up its body to finish the job.

Oh, and because this is connected to the Chryssalid, let's take a look at the Zombie:

Any X-COM trooper or civilian bitten by a Chryssalid will turn into a zombie — a drooling humanoid that walks around at a moderate pace and tries to launch powerful melee attacks against your troops. The creature itself is easily killed. Don't let them stand next to you for long. If you can't burn it and aren't ready to concentrate firepower on the emerging Chryssalid, you should keep your distance. Your soldiers will happily zap them with reaction fire. This can be a worse disaster than just letting the zombie beat a single trooper to death.

Unless zombies are burned to death with an incendiary attack, a Chryssalid will hatch out of its corpse when is it killed. The new Chryssalid is at full strength and has all the abilities of a normal Chryssalid — including the ability to turn more people into zombies and 100% of it's TU's. Yes, this means that a single Chryssalid can turn every human on the map into a Chryssalid.

For obvious reasons, Chryssalids and Zombies are high-level threats. Clearly, you'll have to come loaded for bear, and watch your back with this Demonic Spider. It was a good thing you called off the mission when it went wrong.

I don't really trust the "Threat Level" stats, cause it doesn't count other factors like surprise attacks and such. Then again, those factors can't be measured.

As far as I'm concerned, Snakemen are "Threat Level: High". If memory serves, their firing accuracy rivals that of the Mutons or even the Ethereals.

Well, I'm just quoting from the website Ufopaedia. That doesn't mean it's necessarily true. I'm sure we can agree that the Snakemen are so not pushovers and they are not meant to be taken lightly.

The weird thing about UF Opaedia is how it claims that the aliens in UFO Defense will chuck grenades at you. I find that strange because I have played the game, and I could swear that they never threw any grenades at me. Is this something that happens on higher difficulty levels?

edited 29th Sep '11 3:10:18 PM by TiggersAreGreat

They definitely do throw grenades. Not as much as in TFTD but still.

I agree. Alien grenadiers are very rare in UFO. But to my experiance, the game makes up for that with the aliens armed with Blaster Launchers, who will happily fire deadly Blaster Smart Bombs in close quarters without hesitation.

Got back to playing UFO, and now I'm on a roll! Took down numerous Battleships, Abductors, and a Supply Freighter in the past few months. I successfully raided two Snakeman bases in North America, and defeated a Floater attack on my main base without a single loss. However, two or three nations, including the U.S. and Canada, defected from the organization, and consequently I've lost their funding. Also, possibly because of the defections, my funds always drop to about negative one million at the end of recent months.

My next mission is to eliminate another base, possibly owned by the Snakemen, that I recently discovered in Canada. And while I'm there, I think I'll teach those traitorous Canadians a lesson...

Well, ouch! That should send my ego limping for a while!

Out of curiousity, have you ever managed to build 7 bases? I have not, but I would sure like to one of these days.

The UFO Paedia site has quite a bit to say on where to place your bases. Apparently, placing your first base in the centre of the Balkans, as well as giving it a Large Radar or Hyper-wave Decoder, will allow you to cover UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, part of Russia, Egypt, and at the outer edge, Nigeria. I was able to find out that the Hyper-wave Decoder does not cover the entire world, but it can cover most if not all of Africa if you placed your base in the right location there. A base in North America will cover the US (X-COM's wealthiest sponsor, which would explain the loss of your funding) plus Canada. A base in China will span China, India, Japan, and most of Russia.

A fairly standard base build order might be Europe, North America, China, Africa, South America, Australia, South Pole, and for the final base, either North Pole or Hawaii — covering the major funding areas first and filling in all the remaining landmass at the end.

One of these days, I'm going to have to try that out, and see how well that works. Now, this is the strategy being laid out for UFO Defense, and I am pretty sure the strategy is very different for Terror From The Deep.

Seven bases?! Dude! My infrastructure is having difficulty supporting just two, including soldiers, Science Team and the engineers.

I've got two bases in my current game: my main base in the U.S. and another one in Central Asia. I plan on setting up another base in North Africa once I finish research on the Hyperwave Decoder, so that I can cover Europe, North and Central Africa and the Middle East. I might also get another one in South America when the Decoder is available. However, until my financial situation has stabilized, I'm holding off on expansion.

There isn't a confirmed list of best Terror from the Deep base sites on the UFOPaedia. But then again, most wiki's aren't so reliable. The only reccommended sites that I've confirmed are the North Atlantic and the South China Sea.

I bet having one or two bases in the Pacific Ocean would be a good idea, considering how huge that ocean is.

Money seems to be the catch of the XCOM games. Maybe the trick to getting enough money for more bases is to make sure you don't lose any sponsoring countries, and to do your best to disrupt Alien activity wherever it pops up. The wiki did say that you could have the bases specialize in a number of things, like research, manufacturing, Psi-training, Interceptors, and so on. Talk about involved strategy!

The only reason I lost the U.S. is because I was unable to stop the UFOs sent to infiltrate the government. There were two Terror Ships and a Battleship, and I only had two Interceptors loaded with Avalanche Missiles. Their combined firepower was only capable of downing one of the Terror Ships.

I wonder why the U.S. and Canada haven't attempted to attack my base yet? Since they're now allies with the Aliens, wouldn't my campaign against them be a threat to their alliance?

Yeah, those Terror Ships and Battleships are hard to take down. You would need Plasma guns for your ships to fight them effectively at least!

That's another thing I noticed, which is how the countries that withdraw from X-COM don't seem to do all that much. In fact, a number of people have pointed out how the aliens will always succeed to getting a country to sign a treaty if you let them. Bizarre? Absolutely! But then, it might be because the aliens are using mind control on the poor saps in charge of the country. You can guarantee 100% success with mind control!

But how would the Snakemen or Floaters handle it? They have no Psionic Powers.

Perhaps they show their Chryssalids or other Terror Units waiting in the wings. I mean, they send frakkin' Terror Ships for Infiltration missions. If anyone else saw them, they would crap bricks!

I forgot about those dudes being part of Alien Infiltration missions! Hmm, it is a good question on how those guys can succeed 100% of the time without Mind Control abilities.

Personally, I like how on You Tube, the comments about the Game Over clips of XCOM point out how the world's governments come off as Too Dumb to Live for cutting off the funding to X-COM, which happens to be their only chance for surviving the alien menace and for trying to negotiate with aliens that have killed civilians For the Evulz. Of course, it doesn't help that you only see the events of the games through X-COM's point of view, and you never really get to see these events through the governments' viewpoint.

Also, was I the only one bothered by the fact that the governments cutting off the funding automatically resulted in a Game Over? I mean, this is a special organization we're talking about here. Surely it could find alternative methods for funding. At least Apocalypse fixed that problem by making it so that the game will keep going, even if the government cuts off its funding. Sure, X-COM will have a hard time getting by without that funding, but it is still possible to do so.

Especially as it's rather easy to make more money selling alien swag than from funding.

But it'd be a crapton harder to get it.

edited 4th Oct '11 4:29:48 AM by DemoralizedAnt

True, but you should check out this article on the profits you can make via manufacturing. Apparently, Fusion Ball Launchers and Laser Cannons will turn up handsome profits.

Also, I heard about how if you have more than one base, you can use a tactic of transferring people and objects between bases just before the end of the month. At the end of every month, not only will countries worldwide evaluate your performance, but money will be spent on the people and objects you have in your bases. There is no need to spend money if the people and objects are not in the bases by the time of evaluation, now is there?

Devastating news...My entire squad was eradicated by a small group of Ethereals...

Those mind-raping bastards cost me my remaining troops and the Skyranger that hauled them to the field. I demand REVENGE!

Ugh, those Ethereals are just nasty! Every single one of them can mind-control you, and so much can go wrong if one of your troopers get mind-controlled. Luckily, I found these articles on Squad Setups and Psionics. I hope the information in these articles will help you get revenge on those Ethereals!

Funny enough, my dad played UFO Defense. He thinks of the game as like a game of Chess. In fact, he has told me that the game would be perfect, if it weren't for all that stuff with mind powers. I'm afraid he has a point. Those mind powers could qualify as a Game-Breaker. That, and it seems to come off as cheating. But then, I guess that's the nature of a Guilt-Free Extermination War...anything goes!