XCOM: Enemy Within

Why stop watching with SHIVs? Post expansion they're viable.

I was interested in seeing tactics using a 4 man squad for the entire campaign. Using 2 MECs and 2 SHIVs is like having an 8 man squad, and half of them are disposable. Well, technically all of them are, since you keep the suits if the MEC soldier dies, you just lose the ranks. SHIVs are just easy mode. The first couple of months are the hardest and I've already seen how that streamer handles that. Badly.

Gotcha was thinking it was another case of editing inis to you because of it.

I've watched his pre EW playthrough and the one he started when EW released. He only recently started using shivs, because for some fucking unknown reason his viewers asked for it. He's mainly running at least 2 MEC (which is no surprise).

There's not really any "special" tactics. i/i promotes heavy usage of explosives, I just don't like it - it's feels more like a chore.
While I did finish i/i (no 2nd wave options)... I wont do it again.

Guess recommending watching the stream full time isn't the way to go, it's more like... on a 2nd monitor while doing stuff.

Raes_sl said:

I was interested in seeing tactics using a 4 man squad for the entire campaign. Using 2 MECs and 2 SHIVs is like having an 8 man squad, and half of them are disposable. Well, technically all of them are, since you keep the suits if the MEC soldier dies, you just lose the ranks. SHIVs are just easy mode. The first couple of months are the hardest and I've already seen how that streamer handles that. Badly.

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I thought the suit was lost when the MEC dies?

and yes, SHIV are easy mode. No one really uses them, but see the video I linked. Hover Shivs unlock fairly early and are the only ones that are actually expensive, but they never die due to 40 def + flying target def (another 20) and massive hp, so you just need to get to them without losing the game - which also is fairly trivial since standard shivs with laser cannons already are incredibly powerful (85 base aim, 20 def, auto repair and enough hp to survive all early game attacks)

I realize Classic exalt mission is not exactly hard, I should have recorded the double sectopod terror mission I did before that without any losses because the sectopods were suppressed by one shiv and therefore had -90 aim penalty on every single shiv out there while my shiv had 85% chance to hit. No tactics, just flying in, triggering enemies and shooting them dead.

Heck, I killed a sectopod using basic SHIVs with Laser cannons because it couldn't reliably hit due to permanent suppression

Since you also skip SO MUCH research because you only need to unlock a few key things to max out your shivs you can have these plasma cannon hover shivs probably by the time you have carapace armor, laser rifle troops. Plasma cannon gives them another 10 aim (up to 95) while dealing 10+ damage each hit. 1-hit everything except cyberdisks for two months until muton elite and sectopods show up.


btw, did I mention Shiv ammo is like 10 shots before having to reload?


on an unrelated notice, what I see when watching some normal playthroughs is how amazingly expensive stuff is because you have nothing to sell. On Impossible, you can easily sell 50 sectoid corpses 50 thin man corpses because of the hordes of enemies you get to kill. Money isn't really an issue on impossible.

Vaclav_sl said:

Gotcha was thinking it was another case of editing inis to you because of it.

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There no way anyone who has played I/I can watch ChristopherOdd's vids and not wonder if something is up. He has some skill, sure, but the bad decisions and mistakes that he gets away with are many. I'm not the only one who has noticed and commented on this. It could be as simple as using the mod that removes the aim bonus that sectoids and Thin Men get on Classic and Impossible. Or he could just be very lucky, which I did mention in my previous post. But, even for the most skilled players, I/I often consists of failures in the early game due to bad luck or RNG. Watching him breeze through an entire playthrough on his first try (post expansion) one would expect to see some brilliant tactics. But all I see is a lot of luck.

maybe he just makes a copy of his my games folder and tries every mission until it works out for him. 1 mission a day? that's a lot of time to get it right. He doesn't stream his show, right?

It's recorded, and yeah, he could do that, but he would also have to redo his commentary every time, and I don't think he's faking his surprise when he runs into new stuff etc. He also does Let's Play's for other games.

So, I've had hundreds of hours of enjoyment playing this game. I think the presentation is awesome, it's the only turn-based game I've played that doesn't feel turn based. But, I've been in denial about something. I sometimes watch Let's Play vids looking for tips on tactics that would help me more consistently be able to survive the early months on I/I. What I've had to admit to myself though, is that there is zero strategy or tactics required to play this game, other than "Stay in cover, shoot da aliens."

Everything is too RNG based. The early months are hard, yeah. Only because your soldiers have such low starting aim that every shot is basically a coinflip. So, surviving the early game just requires you to be lucky with your dice rolls. Once your soldiers have ranked up a bit to improve their aim, along with scopes and now medals, the RNG factor is marginalized and the game becomes faceroll.

In order to illustrate this fact I just did a C/I playthrough using only conventional weapons. No lasers or plasma except on my Interceptors/Firestorms. I did get the alien grenade upgrade, but it doesn't make that much of a difference, and typically I only use grenades on my single MEC. I just finished the Overseer ship mission. So far I've had zero deaths and only one critical wound. All that is left is the EXALT base assault, and the final mothership mission. Probably not going to bother. Still trying to decide if I want to give it a try on I/I, but the extra HP on the aliens could drag out battles a little too long, so I dunno.

Here's hoping that we'll get a sequel or some clones that look/feel as good as Xcom does, but has some AI that can really bring a challenge.

The main mechanic that makes the game easy, and forces you to play cheese strategies, is that the aliens lose a turn if they reveal themselves on their turn. They should walk into range and then get a chance to attack just like you do. Instead you just sit back and let them move into range of your perfectly positioned soldiers and get free overwatch shots on them, then you get a whole turn to kill them before they even attack.

the main issue really is that wide flanks are just too risky because you might run into another group that is clearly in LOS with the first group, yet doesn't give a shit that group has engaged the xcom squad in combat and just sits there, looking at the green corpse.

That, to me, was the biggest design flaw of the game.

Dashivax_sl said:

The main mechanic that makes the game easy, and forces you to play cheese strategies, is that the aliens lose a turn if they reveal themselves on their turn. They should walk into range and then get a chance to attack just like you do. Instead you just sit back and let them move into range of your perfectly positioned soldiers and get free overwatch shots on them, then you get a whole turn to kill them before they even attack.

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In the early game, Overwatch tends to miss the vast majority of the time. Playing on I/I and relying on Overwatch, instead of hunkering down or breaking LoS will often result in plasma to the face. Also, they added a Second Wave option that does let the enemy attack when they are discovered.

@Quineloe Larger maps would help with that a bit, they are all pretty small, and some are really cramped. It's even worse on Impossible, because there tends to be one or two more packs per map.

That second wave option only lets enemies shoot that go into overwatch when discovered, such as mectoids and cyberdisks, iirc.

Also at what point will they shoot? While the soldier still runs? Or when he's in position?

If it's the latter, it's a -40 accuracy shot due to full cover as opposed to a -20 accuracy shot with overwatch penalty on it. That would actually be preferable to the enemy going into overwatch.

Finally got a decent c/i run started, although my steam placement is pretty shitty.

What's the general verdict on mech armor, kinetic strike or flamethrower? Kinetic strike generally seems a little better, since it comes with a mobility bonus. If the mobility bonus came with flamethrower I think it would be a no-brainer.

Flamethrower only good if you go early game MEC since you can one-shot all of the typical pods of Floaters/Sectoid/Thinmen. Late game it devalues pretty badly with higher HP pods and all of the robotics are immune to it.

I prefer the flamethrower on my first MEC. 6 (and later 9) damage in a huge area, plus panic (usually) is great. Sectopods aren't an issue. I typically run with 2 snapshot snipers, and disabling shot lets me deal with Sectos at my leisure. I recently did a couple I/I runs with ballistic weapons only and the only time I had a bit of a problem with Sectopods was when I had to deal with two of them at once.

Here is a big ol' copy and paste from Grimy on MECs:

I deeply regret picking training roulette for my first c/i playthrough rofl

Low Profile on non-snipers makes for some comedy when combined with Memetic Skin. But then you roll up the improved medkits bullshit on your Heavy and you get a bit irritated.