Hello everyone, first time posting here. I played the original game way back in 1994 and beat it several times -- I still consider it one of the top-5 best games of all time. Around 10 years ago I discovered the "beginner bug" and that I'd only beat the easy version of the game, so I decided to beat it again on Superhuman with the Collector's Edition. I started several games but always managed to lose after making strategic mistakes. I love how the game requires you to juggle so many urgent priorities -- radar coverage, interceptor coverage, base defense, soldiers, research, engineering -- and by the time you've realized you made a strategic mistake, it's too late to recover -- you have to start over and try balancing things differently. I forget what happened exactly, but some new game or other distraction came along and I never beat the game on Superhuman -- it's still on my "bucket list".
Anyways, I'd like to beat the OpenXCOM version of the game and then maybe play the 2012 remake.
So a big question I tried to rethink when I started playing again 10 years ago, was to come up with optimal locations for 8 equidistant bases. I gravitated towards what I thought was a cool arrangement, starting with my first base... on the north pole! Then I would add three more bases near the Tropic of Cancer (or slightly south), then another three bases near the Tropic of Capricorn (or slightly north), and then another base on the south pole. The idea was the polar locations would be "full" bases with duplicate science, engineering, and elite assault teams responsible for their hemispheres, while the tropical bases would just be "interceptor" bases with radars and interceptors, and a bunch of tanks and ten soldier recruits (in a Psi Lab) for base defense.
The equidistant arrangement and build order I came up with previously was:
1 -- North Pole
2 -- Algeria (Prime Meridian)
3 -- Baja California (West 110 degrees)
4 -- Taiwan (East 120 degrees)
5 -- Argentina (West 60 degrees)
6 -- Fiji (Anti Meridian)
7 -- Madagascar (East 50 degrees)
8 -- South Pole
While many of these bases are not located in the top-funding countries, my thinking is that equidistant bases give the best chance of detecting and intercepting UFO's while they are furthest away from those top-funding countries. The starting base on the north pole, while far from optimal for detecting UFO's by itself, is centrally located in the northern hemisphere for sending interceptors and assault teams, and I recall experimenting with using a Skyranger to patrol beyond my radar range. In any case, in the early game, I'm willing to reload to get some favorable UFO spottings, with the idea that I'll get other radar/interceptor bases online soon.
Edited by Nerva, 03 May 2016 - 12:06 PM.
