XCOM SG Signup and Rule discussion?

[antisocialmunky]

Well its interesting. On one had I know what Petra Arkanian felt like when she lost that battle group but on the other, I can't afford a tank so I'm hiring replacement meat bags and rearming with lasers. Researching medkits. I'll try and get the situation together and hopefully win an engagement before I pass it off.

[antisocialmunky]

I'm fairly sure we need need to start reusing names.

I ended up encountering another landed 'small ufo' which was actually the medium scout. Having not recovered from the near party wipe of the terror mission, I went into it equipped with whatever guns I could dig up. 2 men had only grenades. Had to negotiate a door trap that led to 2 almost needless deaths (needed to see which set of doors the aliens were camping since there are 2 doors leading into the control room).

So the total casualties of my turn pretty much eclipse whatever casualties we sustained in our early skirmishes:
Terror Mission - Everyone but Amelia dead ( 8 ) and the loss of 90% of our equipment for a paltry 5 kills(a person with a primed grenade died and blew up in the middle of everyone).
'Small' Medium Scout - 7 Poorly Armed Recruits, we hardly knew yee.

Good news is that we have medkits and laser rifles and our funding nations are mostly pleased (except Egypt but the African states are one of the poorer funders anyway)

Full report to follow.


Mission 4

I'm terrible at this game. I hope you guys weren't too attached to anyone. Also, something was up with the screen capture. The DOSBox stopped capturing a few turns in on both missions I did.


In retrospect, I should have not taken the Terror Mission. Egypt isn't a huge funding nation to XCOM. For those who haven't played XCOM...

...you have a group of funding states that gives you money at the end of every month based on your performance of defending the territory of that state. Funding also get adjusted at that time upwards or downwards.

If you do well, they give you more money. Different states give you different amount of money with the Members of NATO and East Asia giving the most. Thus most times, unless you're doing a variant, you want to found your first base either in or near Canada to cover the US or Western Europe.

If a funding state gets too fed up with you, it will cut funding and may even make an alliance with the aliens. Later on, aliens will launch missions to infiltrate the government of the funding nations leading those nations to make secret alliances with the aliens and cut funding to XCOM. This is hard to prevents you until really late game since the infiltration missions are done with Battleships and you can't touch those things. Though, at that point funding doesn't matter too much since you'll be making far too much money selling (alien) corpses and technology.

So I could have just let the aliens blow up the Pyramids or whatever they do. These missions on higher difficulties are actually quite hard to do if you are down a man, have only the basic weapons, and no armor of any sort. But I thought we could get by... We had 9 soldiers with decent weapons and stats and a tank that came in not long after I start playing.

So off we went, not knowing our horrible fates.



T1...

The SkyRanger Deployed us by a two story building. The tank went out to scout first. This was the only part of the plan that went according to plan.

It moved around and saw a floater looking right into the SkyRanger from a narrow alley. The Tank didn't have enough for a shot though.

Seifer and Selrahc were by the door. Seifer threw a smoke grenade while Selrahc took one step onto the ramp.(The alien was slightly off center so it couldn't be seen from inside the SkyRanger). Selrahc shot a burst and missed. However there was a scream and by the time I had scrolled back, Selrahc was no more. I forgot you could be shot diagonally from straight down while on the first step of the ramp. While you can't shoot or see something from that direction, aliens on the ground can just see the legs of your guys...

I hit end turn. The smoke exploded and 5 minutes of black screen and screaming ensued. There were a lot of civilians that were dying and a lot of aliens moving round. It was going to be one of those missions... Atleast there were screams so no Chryssalids.

T2...

So with one person dead, Seifer jumped down and hid behind the landing gear, he looked directly down and saw the Floater who killed Selrahc and dispatched it with a quick burst:





The mission was looking up.

Dantski then disembarked on the ramp. The smoke was thick and no alien was in sight. The tank remained in position as they can get reaction shots too. Uberfish moves to the door.

I end the turn.

A even longer wait between turns with even more civilians getting massacred. The floater that was at the base of the ramp wandered forward and uberfish shot it in the back as it fled.



2 for 1 so far.

Another shot came form the house above the newly dead floater, killing a civilian.



T3...

The tank moved forward towards the house and a shot grazes it revealing the floater within.



The tank is not amused and blows up the whole house.



3 for 1 so far.

Seifer turns to the SW and sees another floater:


He fires a burst but only one shot connects, wounding the floater.

And now... it goes down hill.

Dantski moves around the corner of the building near the and is immediately shot to death. Uberfish, who is right next to this situation darts around the corner and sees 2! floaters. One floater is floating above the other in a bizarre formation. Uberfish primes a grenade, drops it on the ground. Ug exists the SkyRanger to pick up the grenade. He does pick up the grenade but is immediately killed leaving the live grenade there.

I thought they were out of TUs but I guess not.

Uberfish and Seifer move away from the grenade. Illios is on the ramp without TUs but is fortunately 1 Z level above and escapes the blast. Uberfish is only slightly wounded as I end the turn.

Between Turns, Seifer is shot to death by the floater he saw. There is a lot less screaming as most of the civilians are now dead.

T4...
Well... stupid stuff happens. I think Dantski was the ranking commander because Illios panics and runs down the ramp, getting shot in the process. Uberfish goes berserk and some of the remaining crew panics.

I try and flank that group of three floaters by moving around the house with the tank. Discording is on the ramp covering the corner so hopefully the floaters can't run around the corner and kill Uberfish.. End Turn.

T5...
Discordian panics and is stuck on the ramp. Uberfish panics, runs around the corner and dies. I recall the tank. We are leaving. I move Amelia as far back into the Sky Ranger as possible.

T6...
Floater comes around the corner(the one that was above the other one) and kills Discordian. The tank, nearing the sky ranger, sees the Floater, and kills it with an aimed shot. Atleast we still have the tank despite losing all but 1 person right?

T7...

Floater comes around the corner and kills the tank.

Amelia is sane enough to abort the mission. I don't have the casualty report because I was too wound up but it was 5 aliens dead for 8 of our dead and the tank. There were like 8 or 9 dead civilians. I did snap a shot of our equipment.



Yeah, there's a morale mechanic in this game too.

5th Mission coming up later.

[regoarrarr]

I'm fairly sure we need need to start reusing names.

Sign me up! I have no idea what's going on but it's fun to read

[haphazard1]

Ouch. Very ouch.

(a person with a primed grenade died and blew up in the middle of everyone)

Ick. Carrying primed grenades == just not worth it.

Seriously, I never pre-prime grenades. It is just too dangerous. And if your soldier is carrying the grenade in the off-hand, they get a 20% accuracy penalty (except with pistols, which are classified as 1-hand weapons).

What was our overall score for the month? Net funding change?

[dazedroyalty]

That's a couple of tough battles. Those are the ones that I usually have to take a break after and build up some enthusiasm and optimism again before returning to the task. However, it's also those ones that make the victories so much more satisfying later.

FYI, I can play at home on Monday where I have the Steam version. I'm away till then and only have my wife's mac laptop. I can actually run the old DOS version on the mac with Dosbox for Mac, but I'm not sure if it's compatible.

[zakalwe]

Volunteering for alien encounters!

[plako]

Volunteer cannon fodder . I even have played this years and years ago.

[haphazard1]

Amazing how two disastrous battles in a row with massive XCOM casualties somehow produces more recruits rather than fewer.

Welcome, zakalwe and plako! I am sure you will find yourselves in the front lines, first through a UFO door with nothing but a stun rod in hand, soon enough.

[antisocialmunky]

Ouch. Very ouch.



Ick. Carrying primed grenades == just not worth it.

Seriously, I never pre-prime grenades. It is just too dangerous. And if your soldier is carrying the grenade in the off-hand, they get a 20% accuracy penalty (except with pistols, which are classified as 1-hand weapons).

What was our overall score for the month? Net funding change?

I think we gained 30K. I didn't sell any parts from the UFO so we have around 3 mil to work with.. Everything was intact so we even have Elerium. The grenade was pre-primed and dropped(not enough TUs to toss). Another soldier went to pick it up, picked it up, but was reaction shot while throwing. It only wounded one person but the main thing was that Dantski was killed the previous turn going around a corner (I got to stop doing that) and then everyone either went berserk or paniced.(see above)

I'll post mission 5 later. Mission 5 was not done with polish because recruits are cheap and the ice tileset has no cover. Only smoke grenades and running into alien while going into and leaving smoke. Ironically enough the guys equipped nothing but grenades fared the best with one recruit "Barb Named Ug" killing two aliens with sniper like precision except grenades.

Also sunrise lost his second incarnation Sunrise90. I believe this is the save if anyone wants to sort out this mess.

[Ug the Barbarian]

Ouch. Very ouch.



Ick. Carrying primed grenades == just not worth it.

Seriously, I never pre-prime grenades. It is just too dangerous. And if your soldier is carrying the grenade in the off-hand, they get a 20% accuracy penalty (except with pistols, which are classified as 1-hand weapons).

Carrying pre-primed grenades is a situational thing. Really useful for example if you're first through a door into UFO and get shot - or fighting chrysalids (for the lurkers - you'll love it when we get to them). Not usually good when you're clustered together coming out of the Skyranger (as I've learnt the hard way). Agreed its best done with one handed weapons (e.g laser or plasma pistol).