Ouchies.

[EtherImp]

After beating the game on "Experienced" with several reloads, just to get the feel of the game again, I decided to actually challenge myself by playing on "Veteren" and not reloading when soldiers (or entire missions) are lost to the aliens.

 

Lets just say I didn't make it past the first month.. I was doing fine until aliens attacked my base (with no defenses and no chokepoints) about half way through the month. I had approximately 15-20 soldiers in my base, 1 autocannon, 1 rocket launcher, several rockets, about 18 rifles and 4 pistols.. I was in the process of manufacturing Laser pistols but I think I was at my 80 item limit already, because my medi-kits didn't show up either.

 

Basically, what happened, is I spawned, 3 soldiers died by the first round.. Reaction shots from hangers got them the second they moved into a hallway.. I was up against sectiods and Cyberdisk. In the following rounds I steadily killed aliens, but as I did, I had several of my units being MC'd.. Got a Blaster Bomb down one of the hallways to kill only 1 of my guys.. I grenaded 2-3 sectiods standing together.. Landed a large rocket on a Cyberdisk.. Kept trudging along, confident I could take them out if I could gain some kind of map control. Fact is, it was impossible.. Rifles and rocket launchers and AC's can't mix it up against Plasma, Stun bombs, Blaster bombs, and Psionics. Within I'd say 8 rounds, my entire crew was dead or mind controlled and I had killed approximately 10 aliens.

 

Now, here's a question:

 

What game attributes does the difficulty level adjust?

 

Alien stats?

Alien numbers?

Alien intelligence?

Alien aggression?

The earliest you battle more advanced aliens?

 

I am honestly just guessing.. Could anybody shed some light on the major changes between each difficulty level?

[Admiral Harkov]

For what I've read in other threads it's matter of more aliens and better stats and more aggression. It seems either that the more advanced races appear earlier and the most powerful equipment does it earlier, too.

In beginner I don't see any blaster until I've fought against ethereals used by them and later by floaters, but now in experienced I saw it in hands of sectoids and still haven't fought anything more than sectoids and floaters.

And trying one fix in another XCOM folder I started a superhuman and did one recover very small ufo. The sectoid took eight rifle shots without dying and he shooted my soldiers five shots (five kills) out of five attempts.

[[NKF]]

Just wait till you get to superhuman! Rocket tanks need 3 - 4 rockets to down cyberdiscs alone. You can still use 1 - 2 large rockets or high explosives against them though, which is good! Rifles are practically useless, unless you're willing to empty a few magazines into the cyberdisc.

 

By the way: Firepower (of which the aliens have plenty) is good, but don't forget that firepower alone is not what wins battles.

 

As for difficulty adjustments... hmm. Let's see.

 

From what I understand it affects:

 

Battlescape

Alien squad sizes.

Alien physical/mental stats and armour.

The ability for aliens to remember where your soldiers are after a few turns. (psi aliens)

Standard issue gear progression from pistols to rifle to heavy plasma appears to go a lot faster. In fact, the pistol and rifle become very scarce very quickly on the harder levels. The blaster launcher also appears a lot earlier on harder difficulty levels.

No change in what types of aliens appear.

 

 

Geoscape

UFO aggression (the chance that they send out retaliation squads if you shoot UFOs down close to your base gets higher and higher)

UFO appear to disengage a lot faster on higher difficulty levels - making it almost impossible to use cannons or laser cannons.

The negative score threshold where the UN determines whether or not to shut you down. The higher the level, the smaller it gets. (I think)

 

Can't think of what else it does at the moment. But I'm sure others will be able to fill in the gaps.

 

- NKF

Edited August 22, 2004 by NKF

[Chris StarShade]

How much money into debt you can go before they decide to shut you down is also a factor.

 

 

Almost all stats for the aliens go up with difficulty level. For a particular difficulty, every alien of a particular species and rank has exactly the same stats. (that's why they clone 'em, they bred the perfect alien so they'll be damned if they use anything less).

 

You will note that the aliens have a higher probability of hunting for your bases on the higher difficulty levels.

 

In fact, on superhuman difficulty, it's almost worth putting up missile defenses.

 

To avoid the trouble of defending your base, I am not sure of this, but I think the alien AI won't think to search for your base if you wait for the UFOs to land and do ground assault.

[Paladin]

Yep, the higher difficulty affects ALL of these aspects

Suffice it to say, I thought the game was easy even on Veteran, since the difficulty reset bug fix was nonexistent 10 years ago ::

 

And now I've discovered the *joy* of REAL superhuman :o

Second month, Sectoids attack my base... All the cool heavy plasmas in the Skyranger/further down the 80 items... At least I had 2-3 laser rifles and half Personnal armors, and luckily I had managed to get the lift as only choke point, cyberdisks reaction shots were a pain, but their self-destruct helped mightily... but destroyed all the cool Blaster launchers :crying: Well, I still had the blaster bombs to study... *sigh*

But finding teh last damn soldier HIDDEN in the radar room was a pain... That and the fact that there were SIX cyberdisks... :o

Seems pretty standard in Superhuman...

[[Blehm 98]]

I play on veteran, and for me, cyberdisks are the only alien terror weapons other than Sectopods that give me any trouble. Also, maybe it helps to research laser rifles ASAP, and to then research alien alloy and Personal armor. YOu should always have 40 scientists and 20 engineers by the end of the first couple of weeks, if not days

[Paladin]

Yep, Cyberdisks and Sectopods are some of the worst... Until a Chrysalid terror (without flying suits) or your first Psi encounter (of the third kind) :o

[EtherImp]

It's necessary you build a second living quarters before you get any extra scientist/engineers... I had just got a second living quarters completed when they attacked me. :\