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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Ufo2000 Strategy Guide


Hobbes

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I think a general strategy guide is quite an ambitious project. It seems to me that strategy is highly dependent on, well, practically everything in your table of contents and then some.

 

I think something that should be covered that may not have an obvious place in your guide is memorizing things such as your opponents last sighted position and the number of time units they have. For example, did they just use 3 auto shots with a plasma pistol? If so, then they aren't going to be moving far and you should be able to take them out by firing at thier last sighted position, or even better, you may be able to approach them without fear of reaction fire. This is something that has proven terribly useful against certain players who gamble and take that last auto shot instead of seeking cover for their unit.

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I think a general strategy guide is quite an ambitious project.  It seems to me that strategy is highly dependent on, well, practically everything in your table of contents and then some. 

 

I think something that should be covered that may not have an obvious place in your guide is memorizing things such as your opponents last sighted position and the number of time units they have.  For example, did they just use 3 auto shots with a plasma pistol? If so, then they aren't going to be moving far and you should be able to take them out by firing at thier last sighted position, or even better, you may be able to approach them without fear of reaction fire.  This is something that has proven terribly useful against certain players who gamble and take that last auto shot instead of seeking cover for their unit.

 

The idea is not to present a winning strategy for UFO2000 games. The way I have it thought out, especially concerning squads, battlefields and tactics is to show basic guidelines, which can work or not depending on a lot of factors. When I looked at the manuals above I saw a lot of things that players do naturally in UFO2000. The idea is to pick those tactics and try to explain how they work: there are bad and good things above them, it will be up to the player to find out more of how they really work.

 

Excellent point. One of the things that it should include is the importance of cover. I have written most of the Psy-Warfare bit today and the importance of noticing how much TUs a unit has left should be included to the stuff I have already written on the subchapter of Intelligence. I am going to add also another section concerning Cover/Scouts/Smoke. I got some basic info like the range of a soldier's sight, which is different from the front (17 squares) to its sides (13 to 15). I know more information like that but I am not sure I should include it all though because too much and it spoils the game.

Edited by Hobbes
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  • 3 weeks later...

I've attached to the end of this post what I've written so far. As you can still it is still a long way to be completed since there's a lot of empty sections but the introduction section for new players is almost complete...

 

 

EDIT: I've done an edit of the guide, added more material and bumped it to the beginning of this thread for easier reach and also to keep an updated table of contents.

Edited by Hobbes
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  • 1 month later...

Phew, I've worked quite a bit on the guide tonight and I posted a new version.

 

Here's a list of changes:

- Nearly completed section 6 concerning squads.

- Added stuff above smoke/sighting

- Started the defensive tactics section.

- Nearly completed the section regarding Reactions.

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Great work!

Though there are some little inaccuracies:

2.2.1.1 beta: irrelevant.

4.2.2 both versions: stamina is always restored by 33% of maximum.

4.2.8 beta: currently morale affects the accuracy.

4.3.2 both versions: penalty is not 3 TUs per one over-weight unit; TUs for over-weighted units are caclulated as MaxTUs * Strength / Weight

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Thanks for the corrections. :)

 

I had thought about it last night and I decided I am going to write the guide taking the current betas into account, instead of using features on the current stable that have already changed (like exploding objects, etc.).

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  • 2 weeks later...
Version 1.06 has been uploaded.

 

It would be nice to have some feedback *hint*

 

Hi Hobbes,

 

Some minor points.

 

General comment, I think you've confused the words pROpose and pURpose :)

 

Section 2.2.1

I haven't played the most recent beta, but last I remember your opponents equipment list is no longer displayed in the mission planner, so it may not be possible to know your opponents weapons until they've been fired at you.

 

Section 3.6.1

I'm not sure that it is helpful to use the terminology (server) and (client) when referring to first and second player. It could be potentially confusing and doesn't really clear anything up.

 

This guide is excellent in my opinion, and I'm eagerly awaiting the details for your offensive tactics section. :)

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 5 months later...
Version 1.08 released. Run a spell checker and further subdivided the table of contents. Added several bits of information on all sections and started to conform the data with the changes brought by the 974 beta.

 

This would be beautiful if it had wordwrap. Having to keep scrolling to the right really slows down the read. Since I've only played TftD, this guide will be very handy for me.

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This would be beautiful if it had wordwrap. Having to keep scrolling to the right really slows down the read. Since I've only played TftD, this guide will be very handy for me.

 

I'll see if I can start working on the html version or even maybe a wiki because right now it has nearly 40 pages on word format.

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  • 1 month later...

Ok, since I've seen a lot of talk about a strategy guide for newbies, now I will make one. I'm not the best player around, but I have seen the strategies of better players, and I think I have the ability to get some newbies a few steps up. It's about my experience and learning so far. First let me fill you in on some terms:

 

Sniper: soldier with optimal accuracy, sometimes high strength if he's holding heavy weapons. Always toting a powerfull weapon with 100% accuracy or more.

 

Grenadier: soldier with optimal strength, and often throwing accuracy and TUs.

 

Assaulter: full TUs, and a difficult trade off between accuracy and stamina. Packing a rifle with autoshot, sometimes explosive rounds, maybe a grenade on the belt, and if there are extra points to spare, a knife doesn't hurt, but rarely helps.

 

Sniper-spotter: using a spotter scout to reveal the location of enemy units and a sniper to kill it from a safe distance. Sometimes the sniper will be carrying grenades rather than a snifle. Rocket launchers also work, but due to their expense, use is much more limited.

 

Storming: charging the enemy, quickly, but hiding to avoid detection. The optimal scenario being that you sneak by the enemy's tough forward troops and hitting where it hurts, the unarmoured snipers.

 

Flanking: Usually one player's forward troops clash with the others' and chance decides where one player breaks through, and where the other does. Also the player who uses his resources and advantages more efficiently will be more successful. This means that strategic movement will be parallel to your starting lines. Flanking involves disbalancing your forces to pach a stronger punch in one specific area.

 

Hyperflanking: Packing a strong punch in more than one area, this strongly seeps your forces in other areas, so be careful unless you know what you're doing. Something fun to try if you know your opponent is much worse than you and you don't care if you lose to a newbie.

 

Suicide bombing: A sectoid with two high explosives walking up to a fully armoured and well-equipped human, then priming a grenade and putting it on the floor. Don't pre-prime, because if the feeble sectoid gets shot...

 

Supermine: A high explosive on top of a mine. Sometimes even veteran players can't resist picking up a HE and throwing it back. OH CRAP! The HE doesn't have to be on the same tile as the mine, 1 tile away is fine too. This works wonder with hiding mines behind walls and HE diagonally one square away, so stepping on the HE sets off the mine, which sets off the HE.

 

REMEMBER! THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER STRATEGIES! THESE ARE THE FOUR THAT I CAME TO MY MIND FIRST! Be inventive and learn from your enemies.

 

----------------------

 

First fight. Well, I hadn't played ufo2000 for a long long time, and I had forgotten everything I ever knew about the weapon set in the newer betas. So I decided to play a hotseat game with myself, to try out all of them. The XAAS 12 Gauge really stood out for me especially the autoshot. I also noticed that my floater, with his plasma snifle, couldn't hit a thing.

 

So, next I created a team, all ethereals, two squads, one assaulter with a laser rifle, one XAAS HE support trooper, and one grenadier, all withperfectly tuned stats. Also there were two laser snipers and one rocket sniper, for support. The idea was that the two squads would move forward on each edge, except the grenadier. Those two guys would provide support to the squads form behind, but also bombard any soldiers that went through the center since I had nothing there. Since I had extra soldiers I made two more laser snipers, two guys toting shotguns, and two mass destruction troops with multi missile launchers. I would throw some of these guys in if the game was more than 15K points.

 

First online fight. I'm playing whom I presume to be a complete newbie, since he's got the default team. So I position my three teams just like planned. The game goes in my favor, big surprise, but one of my squads got obliderated. Besides that, I noticed that the rocket launcher rocked, and that the other guy had a few more players than me.

 

I noticed that ethereals cost a lot, and sectoids cost the least. So to make a full 15 team with optimal weaponry I set up a giand homogenous squad of 10 sectoids armed to the teeth with mines and alien grenades. And 5 with plasma blasters. Big mistake, these were the guys who did NOTHING. 1 kill in 3 games by the blaster guys. I won the first two, but the guys I was facing hadn't had too much experience.

 

First losing fight. This was the impotrant one, I lost miserably, being overdependent on my mines, and getting owned by floaters who don't step on the floor. The strategy my veteran opponent was using was a spin off the original spotter-sniper strategy. The floaters, armed with harmless pistols and a grenade. A few steps behind them were sectoids, toting all kinds of explosive devices, and with 40 strength, they could toss pretty far. 2 kills for me, 15 deaths.

 

So I made a replica of that team. 5 floaters, with a plasma pistol and an alien grenade. 5 sectoids to back them up, 1 high explosive and 2 alien grenades each. Also 2 sectoid rocket snipers and 3 laser pistol sectoids to make holes in the walls for them. This also worked well for three games, and on the fourth one I was obliderated by armoured humans. With only six soldiers left my veteran opponent eliminated my men one-by one, even though my numbers doubled his. Allowing me to flank him was part of his strategy, as it allowed him to concentrate on one side of the map, and then allow my tired troops to come in form the other, one by one.

 

So came my most recent important fight. I hadn't altered my team, since my last loss was not the team's fault but my own, strategic mistakes. Finally someone challenged me to a no-explosives fight. So since I had been so dependent on explosives, rarely ever using plasma pistols as backup weapons, I had to default to the only gun-based strategy I know, the sniper-spotter system. The point of sniper rifles is getting one-shot kills, so I had to take the Plasma snifles, being the most powerful. My setup was very simple, 5 groups, 1 muton spotter, full TUs and health with a plasma pistol. Each of these guys was followed by two sectoids with full TUs and firing accuracy. Edit: crap, just realized I didn't finish this paragraph. Anyway. My muton souts did awfull well. The adversary attempted to storm me, and then use snipers to really mess things up. Unfortunatly for him, my strategy proved rather more effective. He got two lucky breaks: I associated "no explosives" with "no smoke" and left my smoke grenades at home, and he killed one of my snipers because I walked right past a building with one of his men hiding on the 2nd floor. That man then spotted a sniper, and it didn't take much to pick off a sectoid. 3 deaths total for me, one muton spotter, one sectoid sniper, and one friendly fire victim (the aim line went right next to his neck, I decided to chance it...) Other than that it was a perfect game. I only shot with the spotters if it was to destroy obstructions. Snipers simply advanced, crouched and fired. Remember kids, even a crouching 80 accuracy soldier with a snifle has bad chances of hitting anything from too far, the closer the better.

Edited by Brick-To-Face
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This also worked well for three games, and on the fourth one I was obliderated by armoured humans. With only six soldiers left my veteran opponent eliminated my men one-by one, even though my numbers doubled his. Allowing me to flank him was part of his strategy, as it allowed him to concentrate on one side of the map, and then allow my tired troops to come in form the other, one by one.

 

That game sounds awfully familiar...were you playing against Omega Inc.?

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That game sounds awfully familiar...were you playing against Omega Inc.?

Ahh, we meet again. YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME WHEN YOU HAD THE CHANCE!

 

 

...

 

 

Oh wait, you did :(

 

Edit: We just played again, good game, my flaw was lack of variety, both in weapons and in strategy.

Edited by Brick-To-Face
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Assaulter: full TUs, and a difficult trade off between accuracy and stamina. Packing a rifle with autoshot, sometimes explosive rounds, maybe a grenade on the belt, and if there are extra points to spare, a knife doesn't hurt, but rarely helps.
I'd replace the knife with a primed proximity grenade. When someone checks the body for weapons, ammo, etc. Boom! :D

 

Ahh, we meet again. YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME WHEN YOU HAD THE CHANCE!
Do you think that Hobbes is Omega Inc.? If so, I think you are wrong because Hobbes uses the same name on the ufo2000 server as here.
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Do you think that Hobbes is Omega Inc.? If so, I think you are wrong because Hobbes uses the same name on the ufo2000 server as here.

 

Not all the time..... B)

Edited by Hobbes
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