How Do I Win Battles Properly With Strategies?

[stuartSan]

Hi. I've just reinstalled X-COM 1 and I'm glad there are still so many people playing it.

 

Problem is, even after years of playing, I still can't win a battle properly without save-loading. I can't accept a loss of my officers and I somehow always have casualties. I've been through numerous strategy guides but still always get whacked by aliens hiding behind corners and stuff.

 

I also dislike how I have to recon a whole new map, and bam, I get killed just as I'm about to cross the street.

 

Everyone's talking about Superhuman and all, while I'm still having difficulties at Beginner! Any tips? Thanks in advance.

[[Blehm 98]]

well, here are possible strategies:

1. Until you are just moving your guys to a place, always keep at least half and preferably 2/3 of your TUs. This not only encourages reaction fire your own troops, but discourages enemy reaction fire, as higher TUs means higher reaction defense.

2. always move your troops in groups of 2 or 3. One scout, and the others fire, moving in leapfrog movements.

3. Autofire is always more accurate than snap shot (the fact that all three shots are independant of each other results in a higher chance of hitting than the single shot of a snap shot), but aimed shot is always the most accurate.

4. Research laser pistols and rifles ASAP. Sell your pistols and replace them with rifles first thing, and once you get laser pistols start phasing out the rifles in favor of laser pistols. Once you get laser rifles phase out all rifles, and keep 2 or 3 laser pistols.

5. Human grenades are pathetic, weak, and have horrible range. You will use them very little, so you'd be better off keeping primarily a heavy explosive on your stronger soldiers and getting alien grenades ASAP

6. Heavy laser is a good sniper weapon because it has a big punch, but only keep a maximum of two per team.

7. Don't research medkit until you get personal armor, as your soldiers rarely if ever surive a direct hit when they're in kevlar underwear. Motion detector is next to worthless (in my opinion), so just research all the laser weapons before you bother researching anything else

8. Radars don't stack. A large radar's effects combine with a small radar's effects, but two large radars have just as much detection ability as one large radar. They still cost as much to build and maintain as two

9. Reapers are pathetic, but cyberdisks are evil. If you see reapers, just kill them before they get close, but if you get into terror mission with sectoids and cyberdisks, you better hope that you brought your HEs and large rockets, because they have the firepower to kill a personal armored soldier or HWP in 2-3 shots, and they have very high reactions as well.

 

i guess those are just a few, but i follow them so you should too

[testarossa]

Put rookies out on the front lines so that your "officers" don't get shot. I use the rename feature to make people with undesirable stats have an SC at the end of their name, meaning scout, with an accuracy level of 60 or below. Mid range soldiers I put a RF, accuracy 60+. For my really accurate soldiers, and high ranking soldiers I put an SS, accuracy 70+, signifying sharp shooter and I rarely move them far from the ship. By fanning out rookies across the map you lower the risk of losing high ranking soldiers greatly.

 

If a scout spots an alien I never use him to shoot it, instead use someone out of the range of sight of the alien to shoot it (one of your soldiers with 60+ accuracy) this way you don't risk a reaction shot.

 

Also go slow! Moving across the map using all your TU's every turn is sure to get you killed. Use cover and leave TU's for reaction shots.

 

My advice though is just play often and you'll improve, and then you can try TFTD on superhuman which makes EU seem like child's play .

[[NKF]]

I love these sort of threads. They let you rediscover the game all over again - even if you don't play it much, if at all.

 

Right, let's see. First bit of advice is to be flexible and to try different things if what you're doing doesn't seem to be working.

 

I'd actually recommend sticking to the pistols - and not just because I'm biased towards them. They're better than the rifles for mid-range attacks with their snapshots on account of their identical accuracy and their faster speed, ignoring the -4 damage. But this is entirely up to you. I'd still move up to the laser pistol then using the laser rifle as a total replacement for the rifle. Use a mix of the other weapons for variety. Rocket launchers with heavy rockets are a must to combat cyberdiscs. High explosives work well too, but remember that their throwing range is half that of your other grenades, as it's twice as heavy.

 

Now on to the juicy stuff. Some of it's mentioned already, but I'll reiterate anyway. It's all good stuff worth repeating.

• Go slow. It's all about your reactions and your remaining TUs. Reactions control how well you can defend against an enemy's reaction shot (i.e. stop them from uding it) and how well you can take a reaction shot when you end your turn. See, the more TUs you use, the less effective your reactions are. So, it makes sense that the more TUs you have when you have when you end the turn, the better your reactions. Of course, that doesn't mean you should end your turn with 100% TUs all the time. Do that mainly when you're ambushing aliens that are leaving the UFO.
  
• Kneel when firing. It adds 15% more accuracy, excellent for long range sniping or when using low accuracy snapshots that you don't really think will work. It's amazing how that extra 15% can change the odds.
  
• Again, as mentioned, the soldier that sees the alien shouldn't be the one to shoot the alien. The less the spotter has to do, you'll receive less reaction fire.
  
• Don't be afraid to use gratuitous violence against the aliens. They won't hesitate to do so against you, so why should you go easy on them? Grenades are by far the best way to do this. Alien grenades and high explosives can easily turn a good part of the map into a scorched wasteland - and no one minds. Feel free to blow up a barn with a single high explosive pack just to flush out any floaters you think might be hiding upstairs. Or if you see a flying unit hovering near a roof, drop a high explosive on the roof just to get the flying unit is perfectly fine.
  
• In UFO, explosives do not stack, so don't waste your time piling several explosives on top of each other. They'll just blow up each other. In TFTD, this is different and you can stack grenades as long as you prime each of them.
  
• When using grenades and if you're on your own, try to prime the grenade in a secure area and then wait for the next turn before you move out. Otherwise, when in teams, use the grenade relay to get the grenade where you want it.
  
• Speaking of the grenade relay, it involves having a chain of soldiers that toss a live grenade from each other until it gets to its destination. Since the person at the far end of the chain is in a safe area, this soldier can readily spend his or her TUs to prime the grenade. This takes more TUs than a simple prime and throw, but it means that the person who eventually drops the grenade on the target will not need to spend 75% + grenade move cost for the entire action.
  
• Pre-prime your grenades and store them in your shoulder slots before you move out. This can be totally disasterous if the soldier is killed, but it does allow you to pull out a grenade at the cost of 3TUs and throw it right away. don't do this all the time - just when you're absolutely sure you're going to be using some grenades.
  
• Be patient. Don't rush out, and most importantly, do not get into the lemmings syndrome where you keep sending soldiers in when you know he or she will be killed straight away.
  
• Use everything at your disposal to evade, understand or locate the aliens. Smoke grenades, incendiary rounds, motion sensors, mind probes, etc. They may only be optional tools, but they can certainly help when used right.
  
• The smoke grenade is a tricky item to use, and it cuts both ways. Contrary to what you see, the smoke grenade actually works best when it's a small tight and compact cloud. Once it spreads out, it weakens. Be sure to place it between you and the aliens rather than on the aliens or on yourself. This actually halves the distance the aliens need to see through the cloud.
  
• If you have the money (selling a few heavy plasma's will do), buy a HWP. It doesn't matter what type. They're great throw-away units. Try not to attack with them unless absolutely necessary, because their reaction levels are completely atrocious, making them reaction fire magnets. However, they have more armour and health than your average soldier until you can get some better armour. Even once you have veterans and powerful armour, they still make awesome throw-away scouts. Expensive, mind, so don't go using them too much unless you can afford them.
  
• Learn some dirty tricks. Like blasting 'special' walls, like the corners or all the walls along the north or west edge of the Ufo (or from outside, the south and east facing walls). Explosives that land exactly in these tiles (be they rockets or grenades) will go right through the wall and into the other side. In addition, you can 'throw' grenades up through any ceiling right above you. Also, firing missiles (not grenades) right up at the ceiling will kill anything above you. To me, the first two do seem like outright cheating though - the last one is less so, but again it's your call. The last suggestion is by far the best way of knocking off aliens in multi-level UFOs when you know they're right above you.
  
• Get to know your weapons very well. Take some time to examine them in the UFOpaedia and learn their stats. But stats are not everything. Try and get the feel of them in actual battle. The laser pistol for example looks terrible stat-wise, but once you hand it to a veteran soldier and then capitalise on its amazing speed you'll find that it's quite a good weapon, even if it's not the be-all and end-all of weapons. That's the heavy plasma's job. Even then, the plasma rifle is the better sniper weapon on account of its 86% snapshot. There aren't too many weapons, but you've still got plenty of options.
  
• Incendiary weapons work completely differently from high explosive weapons. It's quite hard to explain, so I'll just point you to the X-Com Wiki's Incendiary article. Quite a crazy and quirky weapon damage type, but useful even if you don't exploit its weirder effects.
  
• Get into the habit of using lots of soldiers and rotating your troops so that they all get some experience. Don't pay too much attention to the ranks. Just make sure everyone manages to hit or react against an alien at least once (preferably 11 times - use a weak weapon, just make do with as many as you can get) during the battle and they'll get a good stat boost at the end of the mission. The more you spread the experience, the less reliant you are on any one soldier. Super soldiers are great, and should be treasured. But at the same time get into the habit of mastering combat with a bunch of average nobodies. Have at least twice as many soldiers than you intend to send out in combat. This helps you swap them out (or just get a second ship), and it gives you immediate access to soldiers should you lose a few in battle and need replacements.
  

These were just a few random suggestions that came to mind.

 

Come to think of it, we should get a sticky thread like this to point new players or players that want a refresher to.

 

- NKF

[stuartSan]

Wow! Great tips! Thanks guys, especially NKF for a real long post! I don't really get the TU/Reaction point though. Does my Reaction stats matter? Or is it mostly based on TUs?

 

Also, if my scout sees someone, and my sniper misses, does the scout take the shot or just run away? I usually have teams of 3 hopscotching so I actually don't have snipers during missions, heh.

 

Keep the good tips coming!

[Dover]

If your spotter sees something, only he can reaction-fire at it. This isn't the case during your turn, where you can have your uber-sniper from accross the map take a potshot at whatver your spotter finds. However, as far as reaction fire is concerned, only the guy who sees the alien can react to it.

 

Reaction stats definately matter, but then agtain so do TUs. If you have really high reaction stats, but 0 TUs left, you're just as screwed as if you had really low reaction stats.

 

What helps for me is imagining how the scenario would look in real-time. If I used up all my TUs every turn, my soldiers would be sprinting around the map top-speed. Not very professional, and it's just an invitation to get a nice big bolt of plasma to the face. Move slow, save your TUs for reaction fire, use HWPs to spot, and avoid Superhuman Sectopods.

 

 

Before I forget, it's okay to call a dust-off when you're faced with insurmountable odds. A retreat isn't nessessarily a loss. I do so regularly on my first encounter with ethereals. I simply stun one, grab his semi-lifeless body, and bail out of there. While the game claims I lost the battle, I feel like I've won in the greater scheme of things because I get psi tech. Understand what I mean?

[[NKF]]

Very briefly, reactions and time units work like this. It's a bit more than your average player will want to know, but it makes you appreciate the reaction and TU stats a lot more.

 

There are two modes in which it works. Defensively (when you're moving) and offensively (when the other side is moving).

 

Every unit in the game has a reaction level. This level is simply your reaction stat multiplied by the percent of your remaining TUs. For example, if you had 60 reactions and 32 of 64 TUs (which translates to 50%), your reaction level is really 30 (from 60 * 32 / 64). The same goes for the aliens. So you can see why it's always good to move slowly, as once you hit 0 TUs, your reaction level will be 0 as well. (Also a good reason to avoid the TU bleed button in TFTD)

 

Now, as long as your reaction level is higher than the level of any alien that can see you, you can move without taking on reaction fire. Once your reaction level is less than the alien's, and if the alien can see you (or is alerted) and it has enough TUs to shoot, it will.

 

When you end the turn, your positions are reversed and the aliens get to move and you get to react.

 

- NKF

[stuartSan]

Thanks again guys. Gee.. all this while I thought TUs had nothing to do with reaction fire. And I swear I read the manual when I still had it ten years ago too!

 

Anyway, my question regarding the sniper was what would you guys do if he missed during your turn? Would you reposition your scout or use him to take a shot? Also, do you change to pistols upon approaching UFOs (or unchecked buildings for that matter) in case anyone comes out?

 

Lastly, how many soldiers do you guys actually use per mission? Sometimes when I bring eight, I usually end up using three.. weird habit.

[testarossa]

Thanks again guys. Gee.. all this while I thought TUs had nothing to do with reaction fire. And I swear I read the manual when I still had it ten years ago too!

 

Anyway, my question regarding the sniper was what would you guys do if he missed during your turn? Would you reposition your scout or use him to take a shot? Also, do you change to pistols upon approaching UFOs (or unchecked buildings for that matter) in case anyone comes out?

 

Lastly, how many soldiers do you guys actually use per mission? Sometimes when I bring eight, I usually end up using three.. weird habit.

 

Well usually I'll leave my scouts with some TU's left, either to run away if all of my snipers are unsuccessful, or for reaction fire at the end of the turn. If you get trapped in the line of sight of an alien with a scout and you only have enough TU's left to shoot him, I would definately recommend a retreat. Your odds are bad especially with a poor soldier.

 

Here's what I bring on a mission when I still have the skyranger.

 

0 tanks, I wait for the Avenger to use tanks because, well I just don't like the basic tanks and they take up room where I could have 4 soldiers. NKF's strategies are very valid though and tanks can be a great substitute or addition for scouts early on.

5 Scouts, with poor accuracy, bravery, etc. Cannon fodder basically

4 Riflemen I call them, 60 - 70 accuracy, all around well balanced soldiers. Their not super soldiers by any means, and in the event of their death I won't lose any sleep. I send them out into the battlefield but always with a scout between them and the aliens.

2 or 3 snipers, with Flying armor who I plant on the skyranger roof and kneel down. These soldiers have 70+ accuracy and equipped with either a plasma rifle, or heavy plasma can easily handle aliens on the other side of the map.

 

With these 11-12 soldiers I can always get the job done. When I do get the Avenger I just add 2 tanks, and a couple of more soldiers. I never fill the ship up completely however until the final mission.

[Dover]

I try never to have my scouts use up more than 2/3 TUs. It makes for a slower approch, but then again I rarely lose soldiers on the battlefield.

 

My snipers get into position and stay that way, so it's quite unnessessary to have them equip pistols, since they rarely clear out buildings. Like I said above, I try to have them 100+ accuracy on aimed shot. This has it's disadvantages--No real "snipers" early in the game--, but it's so effective once they're I hardly think it matters.

 

I always fill a ship, just in case I suppose. Plus it ends those long missions where the one floater is hiding in the warehouse a lot faster, since I have more searching power. For the first mission I stick to the default 8-man load, but after I purchase a rocket tank I add that and 2 more soldiers in. When I get my Avenger I use 2 tanks and 18 soldiers. When I train my uber fighting force, I scrap the tanks, since they no longer hold a significant advantage over my regualr enlisted personel.

 

My strategies don't really really kick in until late game, when I have power armor and plasma tech with psi and blaster-bombs. My strategy early on is research and staying alive, so I can reach the endgame and pwn.

[Pherdnut]

Yeah, using spotters thing is a big deal.

 

My advice: Don't be afraid to guess where the alien is. Alien grenades and high explosives have a nice blast radius. If you see an alien walk several squares, spot an agent, and then walk several squares back to visual cover, you can guess it's not far from the edge. Sectoids are pretty dangerous until you start getting better gear but they don't have much in the way of armor and a direct hit from a grenade is usually overkill. I've killed a lot of aliens without knowing exactly where they were.

 

Grenades are a great equalizer until your troops start learning to shoot straight and they still come in handy during certain circumstances. High explosives have lousy range until your agents start getting stronger but guys close to str. 40 can still chuck them reasonably far,

 

I personally think the heavy and autocannons are complete crap and never use them. Way too innacurate. Stick with grenades, a rocket launcher or two, and rifles for backup until you get plasma or lasers. Laser rifles can usually be had by the end of the first month.

 

I don't like tanks early on. You hit one surrounded deployment zone and you can kiss your half a mil goodbye. I'd rather spend all that money on better structures or rehiring agents to replace my crappy ones.

 

It helps a lot to start marking your agents at least for firing and thrown accuracies. I mark mine for reactions, accuracy, t. accuracy, and strength. That way I can make easier snap decisions and have a better idea of how much of a gamble it is to let one agent's life on another agent's abilities. I mark my guys with scores 0-4 for the four categories to save space. It also makes equipping less of a hassle as it's easier to get an idea of how likely an agent is to get overloaded or be a threat to others with his heavy rockets coming from an accuracy of 40.

[X-Op. Nicolai]

Hi. I've just reinstalled X-COM 1 and I'm glad there are still so many people playing it.

 

Problem is, even after years of playing, I still can't win a battle properly without save-loading. I can't accept a loss of my officers and I somehow always have casualties. I've been through numerous strategy guides but still always get whacked by aliens hiding behind corners and stuff.

 

I also dislike how I have to recon a whole new map, and bam, I get killed just as I'm about to cross the street.

 

Everyone's talking about Superhuman and all, while I'm still having difficulties at Beginner! Any tips? Thanks in advance.

 

Hahahahaha... yeah it takes time. Some strategy games aint for all players. I seen some people power trip big time cus they just cant adapt to the game or something... its funny. Just give it time man. First off... you need to figure out a stratgey for yourself. Everyone on here has theyre own way of doing things. Like me... Im all out aggressive and very organized. Im not really up for the "Capturing the high ranking Aliens". If I could I would put a bullet in theyre head along with every other non-human thing on the game > "Scortched Earth" Secondly, one thing the game really focuses on though is technology. If you dont stay above the games technology rate at the beginning you will be ok if not... you will get owned. Im talking about the human-made rifles vs Etherals/Mutons and Secopods. Good luck on that one. I seen it done before but the outcome of the battle wasnt too good for meh. xD I try not to worry about the monthly bills even though it bits me in the butt sometime but keep an eye on the income of money and things you buy.

 

And when you cross a street... best thing to do is look both ways first. Keep your guys out of the open and always have them kneeling down behind something. Always have the guys in front facing the direction you think the enemy is. When its the enemies turn to move, they will either return fire if fired upon (if you saved enough TUs for them too) or fire upon the enemy moving. Or just sit there and watch the enemy move around (YOUR FAULT) and most likely will die (YOUR FAULT AGAIN).

[Hidden Sniper]

get High Grown for People With Rockets and snipers this becomes useful like on some of the farm maps 3 floor buildings just have stairs to the roof take a sniper and a rocket launcher person to the roof go through the building rather than fly cause on higher difficulties there uually someone in their