XCOM: Enemy Unknown aka the one where Haphazard dies repeatedly

[xenin]

After "autopysing" a sectopod, if you select one via fire and then hit more info, you can read more about its abilities - the main cannon attack can be used twice but only on different targets. Which seems reasonable from a gameplay perspective, because otherwise there'd be a reasonable chance of a titan armor soldier in full cover dying every turn you face a sectopod

[uberfish]

Well done, good use of smoke to rescue a messy situation. I'm surprised the aliens didn't grenade instead of shooting, which could have turned things pretty bad.

[dazedroyalty]

Well done, good use of smoke to rescue a messy situation. I'm surprised the aliens didn't grenade instead of shooting, which could have turned things pretty bad.

Yeah, the Elites usually grenade like it's going out of style--though not quite as much as Heavy Floaters. Honestly, this mission was a great example of some of the improvements needed in the AI. The Elites who basically did nothing but miss 2 shots over the duration of 3 turns??!? I mean, I'm glad we didn't lose troops but that's just ridiculous. It also explains why "Impossible" depends on so many artificial challenges. But now we're just back to the same ol' same ol' AI problem in all games.

[spellman]

Man, in my games if any 2 of my squad are close together in cover, it's frag city from Elites.

[dazedroyalty]

Man, in my games if any 2 of my squad are close together in cover, it's frag city from Elites.

Yeah it was a strange choice. However, I did keep most of my troops out of LoS with the Elites and the ones that were in sight were not bunched together. In addition, I'm not sure how grenade pathing works but I think we might have benefited from the ceiling limiting the range they could have thrown a grenade. Don't quote me on that tho.

[dazedroyalty]

Also, we really are at the point in the game when we can end it pretty much as soon as we want. All we have to do is shoot down the overseer, find/promote a Gifted soldier (not that hard when focused on) and then the final mission. If things go our way, I'll probably only play one more mission.

[uberfish]

I think aliens might just use grenades more often on Impossible, particularly in this sort of situation where they'd be shooting at very high defence (smoke+cover)

[novice]

It seems you guys snowballed quickly to victory here. And from what you say, if you get a bad start with some early casualties, you'll lose quickly as the world panics. Is there a third scenario where you hang on by the fingernails and grind out a victory?

[spellman]

It seems you guys snowballed quickly to victory here. And from what you say, if you get a bad start with some early casualties, you'll lose quickly as the world panics. Is there a third scenario where you hang on by the fingernails and grind out a victory?

There's always Impossible, where even when things go relatively swimmingly you're constantly hanging by fingernails.

[novice]

I'm thinking more, does the game have the capacity to let you almost get wiped out and then rebuild, winning, only much delayed? Or does it only have the ability to pull the rug out from under you even when you think you're winning?