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What Is Your Average Soldier Loss Rate?


Deimos

What is your average soldier loss rate?  

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I stick by my statement that playing a entire game on superhuman with ironman* rules means it would be very tricky to win the game with less than 100 deaths.

 

Depends on how quickly you nab a sectoid leader (ideally your first terror mission, at the expense of a few rookies--requires both luck and planning) and rush to psionics.

 

* I do cheat and reload right before a base assault to do spring cleaning.

 

It takes a masochist to stoically accept the 80-item storage loadout when your depot base gets invaded.

 

... just wait a turn or two until they've moved to a more favourable position. Depending on the situation, patience can sometimes be more effective them blowing them away the moment they're spotted.

 

I waited 100 turns and it wouldn't come out of it's hidey hole. :( I also find they tend to stay put inside terror ships if they are on the second floor.

 

I have encountered this same tactic. They find a cubby they like and just sit there while the rest of the aliens move forward. Fortunately in most cases so far I have been able to circumvent the disks and form a pincer (including in my own hangars as well as terror ships and sectoid bases). This sometimes does involve intentionally exposing troops to lethal fire, moving enough at once that they can still take shots in the same turn if one or two goes down.

 

A 4-man fire team (or what is left of your whole squad after killing everything else) can usually split into twos and perform a pincer with 25% or less casualties.

 

Law of Combat: If the enemy can't get in, you can't get out. There was only one passage and he had that covered. After waiting 100 turns I realized the aliens were going to starve me out.

 

 

A 4-5 man team can do it, but it may end up killing them all. They need to be armed right, which is why I advise killing the rest of the aliens elsewhere and then reorganizing a team specifically for this (which I assume you did). They should be mostly rookies armed with laser or plasma and explosives, use smoke if they have it, and file down the hallway rookies first ready to die. The result for me has been that the disk peeps out, uses up some TUs, kills a guy or two, and then goes to cyberdisk he11 by the end of the next round, possibly taking someone else out with it. I ain't saying it's pretty but it's a solution if you don't have the right indirect weapon to blast it down the hallway.

 

I know this can work because I have run into it once or twice in base assaults. As best as I can recall, I basically advanced on them and sprayed lasers until they went boom. Not usually my style, but I know what you mean about them lurking like that. I definitely lost a couple of rookies that way but I can't say from memory how bad the casualties were. They don't always peep out, which is why you need plenty of meat for the grinder when you actually run under it or whatever to attack it. You have to soak up its TUs; overwhelm its reaction fire, which means the whole squad (whoever is left) has to move at once, saving TUs to react if it does peep out, then group together the round before attacking (just out of its line of fire), then spring on it at once, with almost all of their TUs available to fire on it. Of course you are still moving one at a time on that turn, so you (usually) only risk as many as it takes to kill it when it explodes.

 

Note: You can throw bombs farther in tunnels when kneeling. Sometimes you can get a better angle on something like a Terror Ship murder hole as well. I have taken out more than a few disks I couldn't see with Hi-X.

 

Your only hope here would be to have launcher carriers and missile carriers, and hope that you get a couple of guys free long enough to toss someone a loaded launcher and kill some of those b1tches. Obviously don't keep a loaded launcher in hand when ending your turn.

 

I tried this. I never got anyone unpanicked. In fact, after about 100 turns of constant panick, I aborted.

 

I must admit that I don't even mess with Ethereals when I don't know who my psi-strong are. I touch down and dust off from Ethereal missions until then, but usually I have psi before they appear if I am playing with it enabled. They seldom raid your base unless you have been attacking their missions.

 

Leaving the smoke behind was a choice for me on this mission. My supply chain is in good shape. I had done the same mission, with the same loadout successfully several times. It just turns out there is one particularly brutal starting setup for a supply ship in the desert with a sky ranger that I hadn't seen before. I have since changed my tactics to keep at least two smokes on the ranger at all times. Smoke is a no brainer for terror missions.

 

Law of Combat: The exception proves the rule, and destroys the battle plan.

 

And there's this one on the Murphy's Laws site:

"If you think you don't need something for your combat load for an OP PLAN, you'll probably wish you had it after the sh1t hits the fan in combat."

 

Others pertinent to this discussion:

 

If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.

There is no such thing as a perfect plan.

Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing.

Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.

The important things are always simple; the simple are always hard.

When both sides are convinced they're about to lose, they're both right.

Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

 

I've dealt with a lot of the same stuff man. I only play on Superhuman these days, and those bastids have a lot of TUs, Accuracy, Reactions, and HPs. I'm mostly meta-thinking these days when it comes to strategy, using principles of martial philosophy and a lot of research on modern warfare. It turns out a lot of it applies to X-Com, as you are no doubt aware.

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A 4-5 man team can do it, but it may end up killing them all.

 

Due to mind control and my bases well designed choke point, I had only 4 effectives. No way I was going to throw any of them away on this. :)

 

I was able to beat it in a reload by sacrifing the tank/cannon and moving the tank/launcher into position to soak it with indirect fire.

 

In this game I have not been able to get Psionics or Hyperwave decoder started and it's July. So I am shooting down UFO's not knowing what they are up to. Which is what lead to an ethereal invasion on my base.

 

I was ruling the roost on Veteran, so moving up to Super Human has really been a challenge. I thought I had this little old game all figured out. Happy to say I was wrong.

 

-D

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I was able to beat it in a reload by sacrifing the tank/cannon and moving the tank/launcher into position to soak it with indirect fire.

hm, yea, HWPs. That's what I would have done, but I didn't think you had em at that point for some reason. To me the HWP is a much better unit to sacrifice.

 

In this game I have not been able to get Psionics or Hyperwave decoder started and it's July. So I am shooting down UFO's not knowing what they are up to. Which is what lead to an ethereal invasion on my base.

Again this is after the fact, but the best place to get psionics early in the game is a sectoid supply ship. Use anti-psionic soldiers, that's all you'll need for medium sectoid ships if you have at least personal armor (making sure they have stun rods of course). The leader usually stays on the bridge with a buddy or two, and if you wipe out the map before you approach the bridge he will often be panicked. Anti-psi troopers can be safely mind controlled, and I have even stunned the leader on the bridge with a mind controlled guy who got free while standing right next to him.

 

The earliest you can get them is at your first terror site, but this is much more difficult since you have to deal with cyberdiscs. You may also have to rush the leader (if you can even identify him...mind probe is useful here) and risk a few rookies, but getting psi this early in the game is worth it. The heroic rookies may not agree, but those who follow will appreciate all the lives saved.

 

I was ruling the roost on Veteran, so moving up to Super Human has really been a challenge. I thought I had this little old game all figured out. Happy to say I was wrong.

 

-D

 

I was still reloading for a while in my first superhuman game. Basically weaned myself off of that, but also consciously made the decision once I decided a Time Travel Resurrection Clause wasn't in the X-Com employment contract.

 

Just as a note, I use every method I can to reduce casualties. I do not support or promote strategies which intentionally sacrifice soldiers, except in extreme cases and desperate measures. Nor do I like the loophole argument that all combat is desperate. Sacrificing soldiers reduces the unit's effectiveness, at the very least. These arguments consider the fact that the entire unit is about to be wiped out or the mission may become impossible to complete. Also, psionics cause tremendous casualties, which agents should be well drilled on, and prepared to take a leader alive at all costs, in order to prevent.

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I was still reloading for a while in my first superhuman game. Basically weaned myself off of that, but also consciously made the decision once I decided a Time Travel Resurrection Clause wasn't in the X-Com employment contract.

 

Just as a note, I use every method I can to reduce casualties. I do not support or promote strategies which intentionally sacrifice soldiers, except in extreme cases and desperate measures. Nor do I like the loophole argument that all combat is desperate. Sacrificing soldiers reduces the unit's effectiveness, at the very least. These arguments consider the fact that the entire unit is about to be wiped out or the mission may become impossible to complete. Also, psionics cause tremendous casualties, which agents should be well drilled on, and prepared to take a leader alive at all costs, in order to prevent.

 

I started my first Super Human game with Ironman rules and I am sticking to it. Even if wave after wave of my own men have to die.

 

Strategically, getting a psionic alien is an important goal. However, I still lack HWD(!) and I don't know of any sectoid bases on earth. Also an important goal. The engineers so far have been remarkable suicidal. To the point of dropping grenades on thier own feet a couple of time.

 

So when I go on a mission, I have no way of knowing what alien race it will be. I also don't know which of my troopers is psionically weak or strong. After the last couple of disasters I have 1 Commander (wounded) 2 Colonels (wounded) and about 50 brand new rookies.

 

I suppose I could equip the squads with nothing but smoke granades and stun rods until I find the aliens I need. I don't think the troopers would like that much :). Plus my alien containment would fill up as fast as my morgue.

 

-D

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I suppose I could equip the squads with nothing but smoke granades and stun rods until I find the aliens I need. I don't think the troopers would like that much :). Plus my alien containment would fill up as fast as my morgue.

 

-D

 

Well, the rookies won't like it, but once they nab a sectoid leader and navigator that's a load off your back. The next step would be psi-labs, and screening troops will allow you to equip some of them better against psi.

 

The mission to target specifically for a leader is a Medium Sectoid UFO (any). If you find a sectoid base, pick up all your gear and abort the mission. The next medium UFO to land on that spot will definitely be a sectoid supply ship. Presumably you know the drill on base farming; well, you can use this to snare a sectoid leader, using only troops who can't hurt each other (i.e. invest in armor and use pistols/incendiary/personal or rifles/AC-HE/power/flying).

 

Another option is to designate a squad for Small ship raiding. When you see ethereals, bumrush one (using smoke) with stun rods and flee back to the ship. Throw the stunned ethereal back to the ship if you have to. Until you get psionics, your ship could be specialized for this purpose. Just equip as normal (at least laser rifles) with the stun rod and smoke equipped as well, and drop the extra depending on if it is a psionic mission or not. 10 laser rifles, 10 smoke, and 10 rods leaves 50 other items for other missions (and/or more smoke).

 

Also, personal armor with pistols and incendiary munitions work well against sectoids while keeping agents safe from each other. Pistol agents in personal armor are "men in black" specifically suited for weak but psychic aliens. A pistol shot might do a little damage on a high roll, but it takes at least a few high rolls to kill an agent. Incendiaries are a pain to work with due to bugs, but can still be used with effect and are harmless to personal armor. If you use these a lot you will inevitably run into the fire damage bug, which works to your advantage if you have armor. All AC-I shots will damage any alien in or on fire anywhere on the map, even if you have used up the number of fire/smoke squares, so AC-I can seriously BBQ some sectoids. With power armor, rifles and AC-HE can be used.

 

It's not hard to screen soldiers in the field, but you have to remember them after each fight. Psi-strong don't get mind controlled much but they may panic... and the closer they are to the leader the stronger the attack, so you have to take note. If the guy gets MCed from across the map, he's a weakling. If he makes it into the UFO after 6 MC attempts and then just berzerks, he's pretty tough mentally. Some people sack anyone who gets MCed, but THOSE guys are my "anti-psionic" troopers. They are there to soak up mind attacks and stun aliens if they get lucky. When enough power armor is available, I start handing them AC-HE. Raiding psionic sites becomes FUN at that point.

 

These strats sound like longshots, but if you start using them early in the game they work better. Later in the game they may still help decrease troop turnover and actually start revealing who is psi weak and who is not (among the survivors of course).

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Very frigging high.

 

Even discounting my rookie casualties (I took an habit from TFTD: I classify all my soldiers through stats. If any given soldier doesnt have any good stat, or is dramatically bad at accuracy or bravery, he gets labelled as "EXP". This means that if someone has to heroically put a bomb in the alien base control dying in the attempt, it will be him. I dont even try very hard to make them survive. The only concession I make is reviewing their stats after a few missions to see if they are acceptable. Of course, any of my officers might turn out to be "PSIWEAK", which also labels him as cannonfodder.)

 

And even reloading at times to avoid some very disastrous mission mess-ups.

 

I?m playing on the fourth level of difficulty, and have lost a batch of "to-keep" soldiers. Well, all but four. I had a series of missions which turned into a shooting spree.

 

Now I have a snakemen terror site at night in Pretoria and I don?t know what to do. If

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Land, kill a few aliens if possible then abort. Instead of looking at a -1000 point deduction in score for not showing up, you will only get a max penalty of -480 depending on the number of civilians present. (See, X-COM does care!) :D Plus, by aborting straight off you are guaranteed not to lose a single soldier. ;)

 

- Zombie

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Land, kill a few aliens if possible then abort. Instead of looking at a -1000 point deduction in score for not showing up, you will only get a max penalty of -480 depending on the number of civilians present. (See, X-COM does care!) :D Plus, by aborting straight off you are guaranteed not to lose a single soldier. ;)

 

- Zombie

 

Unless the LZ is hot and you lose people to reaction fire... But still, touch and go for terror sites is a great strategy. I have stemmed the blood flow in the super human game to an acceptable level.

 

I am still losing guys to lucky shots and blaster bombs though. I don't think anyone can win the game in superhuman ironman games without going through a lot of soldiers. Unless you use some super high tech strategy where you don't visit many downed UFOs or bases.

 

-D

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  • 2 months later...

I like keeping statistics of each mission.

 

Last game I played to completion, I lost 50 soldiers. I also killed 584 aliens, captured 25 of them and 24 civilians died. All over a decent campaign on 60 missions. I would have liked to drag that one out longer and soak up more casualties, but the game eventually started crashing at the very same date point each time, making it necessary to finish off the game.

 

Boo!

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I like keeping statistics of each mission.

 

Last game I played to completion, I lost 50 soldiers. I also killed 584 aliens, captured 25 of them and 24 civilians died. All over a decent campaign on 60 missions. I would have liked to drag that one out longer and soak up more casualties, but the game eventually started crashing at the very same date point each time, making it necessary to finish off the game.

 

Boo!

 

Wow, it's probably fair to say that it's way more dangerous to work for X-Com when I'm running things! Then again, I'm playing on superhuman, I'm backing off on psi-abuse, and I don't hand out armor to just anybody, so it's probably expected...

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  • 3 months later...

averagely i would say arround the 20 soldiers.... voting 21-30 though, ethereal + a new soldier which i didnt see how much psy strength = pain!

 

could be the double if i don't reload on muton bases on super human dificulty, seeing 3 (yes 3) mutons with blaster launchers in the same room and especially not enough men to take em out is NOT funny! you can obviously guess wat wil happen after i pressed the end turn button.

Edited by Hellscream
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  • 4 weeks later...
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This topic is old, but sticky so i can release my rage at Mutons. They are friggin little cheaters!!! They cheat even more than Ethereals. Here`s an expample of cheat:what do you think about it?

A muton shot me out of his visual range and killed my best soldier. I reloaded, because:

- It was daytime UFO recovery.

-The soldier had power suit and 52 health

- Muton hit.

- It was my best soldier.

Fortunately, my deaths fits to vote for 21-30 "Those pesky Mutons". I hate them more than the snakemen wanting me in large scout to use psi or to sacrifice the captain with 94 psi strength. (reminds me of medium scout that had 7(!) snakemen cooped inside.

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This topic is old, but sticky so i can release my rage at Mutons. They are friggin little cheaters!!! They cheat even more than Ethereals. Here`s an expample of cheat:what do you think about it?

A muton shot me out of his visual range and killed my best soldier. I reloaded, because:

- It was daytime UFO recovery.

-The soldier had power suit and 52 health

- Muton hit.

- It was my best soldier.

Fortunately, my deaths fits to vote for 21-30 "Those pesky Mutons". I hate them more than the snakemen wanting me in large scout to use psi or to sacrifice the captain with 94 psi strength. (reminds me of medium scout that had 7(!) snakemen cooped inside.

 

Hmmm, well, I don't think any one race cheats more (or less) than the others. Frankly, I think the aliens NEED to cheat, because it makes up a bit for some of the stupid things that they do. Also, is it cheating to KNOW that they cheat? For example, how many of us simply set up a reaction fire ambush just waiting for turn 20 because we know what's going to happen?

 

Just because you have an excellent soldier with great armor and health is no gaurentee of anything. That's one thing I like about this game. The knowledge that all you can do is put your best foot forward and hope for the best. This is "realistic". And so is the wide array of damage than can be dealt by a single weapon. In other words, high damage rolls can be seen as achieving critical hits, while a low roll can be seen as a "glancing" shot.

 

To me, that's part of what makes this war exciting. You decide where and when to risk assets. If you lose an important asset to a lucky shot, well... that's the fortunes of war, my friend. No sense worrying about it. Now the question becomes what do we do from here (because I intend to win)? :)

 

I always play ironman.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

Since my Rookies become Squaddies and one Captain, I did nto accept one death in a mission. The good thing is, that they envolve nicely and they gain so much skill and TU that the game become playable even against Mutons. Now just get the leader and invent the psionic training and things would be reather nice :)

 

Just if there aren't that much bugs, even in the Gold version... <_<

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  • 4 months later...
I voted wrong. I thought I was in the 60+ range, but after closer observation, it's definitely 100+. I probably lose an average of 2 soldier per mission. That's what rookie scouts are for. Yeah, I just run em' out in the field until they get shot at, then direct my fire there from long distance or within a smoke cloud.
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  • 1 month later...

You can only get 40 soldiers into a base defense mission. If you have more soldiers stationed at the base the max you could lose is 250 if you lost the mission. One time, I did just that (no weapons at a mega Psi training facility). :(

 

- Zombie

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just started playing.. Well, I lost all my soldiers in the first mission. So I reloaded, let's just call it practice, a simulation. Ok, so my soldiers learned something and now they've been all alive for 2 months and 22 days. There has been a few incidents though. One time my sergeant decided to shoot the ground next to him with explosive rounds and hurt himself. Then in another mission some nasty bugger surprised some other soldier. And in some yet another mission, the sergeant decided to be a hero and run at the engineer alien with a stun stick. Now he's wounded for 20 days, was over 30 days total.

 

I'm playing the game so that I don't reload if someone dies, unless I was testing something(like how many time units it will take to do something), there was a bug or if everyone dies.. but I might keep a few favourites alive though. This has certainly made me play the game a bit more cautiously, so I don't put my characters in too much risk. I haven't used any tanks yet, but I plan to build some laser tanks when I get them researched. They'll be expendable, but hopefully not for nothing. Some heavy plasma ambush right away will probably make me do a reload before the mission, so the mission will be different.

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  • 4 months later...

Finally had an ironman run.

 

Not too bad on beginner (not having installed X-Com util yet, it was the only option on the table). For the main base.

 

Only one mission had 50% or greater casualties, 4 survivors from the initial drop team, two alien bases cleaned up textbook without a man lost.

 

Eurocom, though...

 

It sucked to be in Eurocom. Every Captain died. Every first mission soldier died. Every tank died. The base was attacked by Snakemen with blaster bombs. The fancy new hovertank the brain boys at Delta Green sent over took one hit right off the ramp on its first mission and was reduced to so much scrap. Losing the base to Mutons was really a mercy killing.

 

Still, the net dead? 30ish max. And commander Lyudmilla Andianov saw every major mission with a fine killcount, despite being in the legendarily lethal #1 spot, and a near suicidal inability to stay back where it's safe. So, on the whole, a good game.

Edited by chiasaur11
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Probably 11-20 so far. My first proper game in about a decade if not more, so it's only on beginner as well.

 

Lost about 5 in my first terror mission, but I bagged a sectoid leader for my troubles. The rest are usually to random heavy plasma or cyberdiscs.

 

 

Or me using rookies as bait/TU fodder... :P

 

Next game I'll ramp up the difficulty but employ proper tactics, like using smoke grenades and not running across open ground because I'm too impatient to move using cover :D

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Unless I get a rocket in the Skyranger that kills ll my squad I dont reload. At that rate I usually lose between 0 and 3 soldiers. Early on on the first terror mission I lost everybody but 2 soldiers, but one of the guys reaction shot from the cover of the skyranger wounded as sectoids wererushing the skyranger. The only downside was that the sectoid leader which I sacrificed 3 rookies to stun got killed in the crossfire, his body must have been hit or something.

 

But yeah I am atmy 10th mission or so and already have a good 25 casualities. Not including the wounded.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 3 weeks later...
i have lost 0 overall. On superhuman, without saving in battles, and without cheating, and reseaching only lasers, and waiting til year 3000 before stopping. Did i mention that no cuntry had gone bad?

 

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

 

.....It's true!

 

 

Mikker (,u) used to do missions with 1 soldier?

 

 

____

 

0 lost, 3 Month, at beginnerslvl, total of 30 soldiers so Iv all the ranks.

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I'm in September of the first year of war. I've lost 108 soldiers so far vs. 240 aliens dead. Sometimes I wish this game would have a decent AI that would be able to use tactics most of the losses come from random stuff like reaction shots - I'm pretty sure I would be able to cause much higher losses against X-Com.

Some time ago I started to simply destroy UFOs to avoid unnecessary losses.

 

I'm planning to attempt to destroy an alien base again.

Edited by Sorrow
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