I Give Up

[jimwinsor]

I putting this game on the shelf.

It's too hard. I got past the robots, barely. Then I ran into the Fire Bastards.

Thats my name for them. I don't know what their real name is, because no matter how cautious or careful my tactics, I'll lose my whole squad every time. And hence, I'll never research it.

So, I'm stymied. And it's just to frustrating now to proceed.

There needs to be a level below easy in this game.

[dbt1949_slith]

Two words...........gas(acid)grenades
and patience.

and if you can get close enough the chemogun.

[GalacticOrigins]

Better yet, TAKE TECHNOLOGY SLOWER! If you build the advanced lab and tech like crazy, the aliens will respond by bringing harder-n-faster. For example, in my game, I am in the 25th month, January 2110, and am still fighting era 1 and era 2 aliens (no fire monsters, although they are on the horizon.)

Also, some missions are easier if you bring your weakest and less experienced soldiers on a mission. SO mix some of the young'ins in! Note, in my game, no trooper is below Sergeant First Class, and only a few below SSG. Does not matter, the game recognizes the lower ranking individuals on your squad and does NOT try to cream them with mega-tough monsters.

Consider: Say, for example, you are on a mission and lose the whole mission and most of your experienced troopers. This game will relax a bit since you now have to raise a bunch of raw rookies up in experience. Of course it does, I have seen it time and again. Therefore, some missions you get grey chasers and floaters or even brown hallies. Nice break from the mega-machines.

Therefore, mix a few less experienced in from time to time.

Also, if you constantly use and level up certain soldiers too much, they will get taken down for a while (hospitalized). This is on a month-by-month basis.

by the way (also known as btw), I have like 6 troopers who are warrant officers, er, no, 1 is a lt. That means many soldiers with 1000+ experieince. I take tech slow. Needless to say, but I will state it anyway, by going slower with technology I can level up many warriors. Most have 70-90 health, 80-90+ shooting, at least 80 AP, 60-70 strength, etc.


Give it another try. You will do better. Some missions are tougher, and winning against the odds is the way to go. Once it gets easy, tougher aliens show up and one has to rely on the basics yet again.

[Zalandar]

Keep trying,this is a great game.

Try sending a tank out in front of your team.Send it out a ways and then pull it back--that way your troops can see the Fire terrors{ Inquisitors} sooner and maybe get in a reaction shot and slow it down some and quite often the blaste blue eyes have run out of movement points and don't have a chance to shoot u first.

P.S.

sometimes it works and some it don't. Good luck

[jimwinsor]

No. Tried acid gas, aggressive scouting, nothing works. I'll kill a few if I'm lucky, but they'll wipe me out.
 
They can shoot at me, completely unseen (even with terrain scouted) 2-3 times with fire, if it hits it kills practically every time.
 
If I'm behind a wall they'll simply blow the wall up, then blow me up.
 
They are unbeatable.  And it really does not matter how experienced your trooper is before triggering these things; if the enemy can shoot and kill you without you even seeing it before you die (blowing through walls if need be), then reaction ability, accuracy, etc. is irrelevant.
 
I think the real key strategy is to simply get everyone left alive back on the shuttle and abort mission once you realize they are in the enemy force mix.  Period, end of story.
 
And keep in mind I'm a veteran of XCOM 1 and 2.  And still, I think these things are absolutely ridiculous.

[Jetau]

Aw, it's not that bad. What armour do your troops have? (They should be up to Beekeeper).

You need to get Ion tech, which you can get after killing the Destroyers for the first time. You can also try the flamethrower or chemogun, but I've had mixed results with those. Get Ion tech and they'll start going down in 3/4 shots. When you get particle tech, it'll be more like 1/2 shots.[:)]

[Wiz33]

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

I putting this game on the shelf.

It's too hard. I got past the robots, barely. Then I ran into the Fire Bastards.

Thats my name for them. I don't know what their real name is, because no matter how cautious or careful my tactics, I'll lose my whole squad every time. And hence, I'll never research it.

So, I'm stymied. And it's just to frustrating now to proceed.

There needs to be a level below easy in this game.

Research research and research! By the time the machines shows up, I am already at Plasma rifles. I took some casualties on the first encounter and then I research Ion tech and all my troops switched over to Ion rifles and they are no longer a problem. Then comes Preacher and they are a pain. I spread my troops out a bit so 1 shot will never hit 2 guys and I set up a defensive perimeter and wait for them to come to me. as long as no more than 2 makes contact in a turn I can usually hold my own. I think my research effort saved me since I'm in Desert Viper armor and have advanced Medkit for all troops.

[jimwinsor]

Oh yeah, I'm up to Beekeeper/Ion. One guy even has a newfangled AAEW or whatever it called rifle. But again, IMO it does not seem to help much; one fireball hit is enough to either instantly kill/unconcious, or (rarely, if you are lucky) seriously wound. And remember being wounded affects stats such as APs, and accuracy.  And on top of that, the wounded guy must crawl out of the new flame zone else take more fire damage, using up APs, further hampering any counter-attack...so, how's he supposed to search for the enemy, shoot back, and hit with an Ion gun 3-4 times??? 
 
It feels like I'm battling Panthers with Shermans in Normandy. OK, its maybe not as bad as a 1-5 loss ratio, but it seems like it's conservatively in the 1-1 or 1-2 ratio.  To me, in this game, where experienced troops are all important, this mandates retreat. Every time.
 
More I ponder this, more I'm convinced the reboard and abort strategy is the way to go. At least at this Beekeeper/Ion level.  I may take a funding hit running yellow from a few terror missions like this, but this is peanuts compared to the veterans I lose trying to win these missions.

[Wiz33]

Getting Desert Viper will help your troops survive the fire. One other thing that will balance things out is to change the sight range in the consts file so human and alien is the same and save a lot of AP for oppotunity fire.

[jimwinsor]

ORIGINAL: Wiz33

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

I putting this game on the shelf.

It's too hard. I got past the robots, barely. Then I ran into the Fire Bastards.

Thats my name for them. I don't know what their real name is, because no matter how cautious or careful my tactics, I'll lose my whole squad every time. And hence, I'll never research it.

So, I'm stymied. And it's just to frustrating now to proceed.

There needs to be a level below easy in this game.

Research research and research! By the time the machines shows up, I am already at Plasma rifles. I took some casualties on the first encounter and then I research Ion tech and all my troops switched over to Ion rifles and they are no longer a problem. Then comes Phatoms and they are a pain. I spread my troops out a bit so 1 shot will never hit 2 guys and I set up a defensive perimeter and wait for them to come to me. as long as no more than 2 makes contact in a turn I can usually hold my own. I think my research effort saved me since I'm in Desert Viper armor and have advanced Medkit for all troops.

LOL, someone else above advised trying NOT to research so much. [:)]

Actually, what you describe above is EXACLY my preferred game tactic. Spread my guys out, scout out the black curtain so I can see them soon enough, and then reaction fire them when they come into view. Ie, try to draw the aliens into ambush.

These tactics work ok in general vs all critters...except these. For some reason, they get to see my ambushers and shoot first (usually with fatal results) every time. Half the time they don't even reveal themselves in the process; all I see is the red tracer from some direction out in front. Then BOOM.

[jimwinsor]

ORIGINAL: Wiz33

Getting Desert Viper will help your troops survive the fire. One other thing that will balance things out is to change the sight range in the consts file so human and alien is the same and save a lot of AP for oppotunity fire.

Yeah thats true, I did finally research Desert Viper last night, and saw it's a bit better vs flames. Thing is, with a needed strength of 60 (right?) the suits are not for everyone. At least not yet. And I haven't had the time to test 'em out in any case, as you have to build them first of course.

I get the feeling the second option, as cheats go, is a big one...are most players doing this?

[dbt1949_slith]

I always scout with my mech a little ways then back off a bit. Keeping my troops a ways behind it. Sooner or later the Preachers/Priests/Phantoms etc take a shot at my mech or I see them before they can react. Then I use my troops at long range to pepper the aliens. Also sneaking up to use gas grenades which work well with Preachers but not Phantoms.
Chemoguns will usually kill with one shot but sometimes take two or at least another troopers rifle shot.
BTW if you carry your heavy weapons in your backpack you don't get penalized any movement. So leave them in your backpack and carry a rifle or pistol of some sort and when you need it pull it out of your backpack. It costs no APs to do this.
Also there are ten slots for save games for a reason.[;)]

[dbt1949_slith]

Also the have a walkthru over at www.Gamefaqs.com that might help.

[jimwinsor]

You know, after further pondering...
 
I think a big issue here is I'm playing with a mod...specifically, Bmans mod which allows death. In the vanilla game as originally designed, getting most of your squad burned to a crisp isn't quite so calamitous...it meant there would be a spell where most your men were in the hospital, but at least they come back (eventually).
 
So, I guess the problem is maybe not so much the Preachers are overpowered, but instead, that we all playing with a death mod have voluntarily UNDERpowered ourselves, perhaps to a too great extent...?
 

[Texashawk]

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

You know, after further pondering...

I think a big issue here is I'm playing with a mod...specifically, Bmans mod which allows death. In the vanilla game as originally designed, getting most of your squad burned to a crisp isn't quite so calamitous...it meant there would be a spell where most your men were in the hospital, but at least they come back (eventually).

So, I guess the problem is maybe not so much the Preachers are overpowered, but instead, that we all playing with a death mod have voluntarily UNDERpowered ourselves, perhaps to a too great extent...?

Yes.

Vanilla vs. BMan with full AI is like pre-60's Disney compared to Rob Zombie.

It is designed for people who have to have their booties kicked halfway across the Geosphere.

In other words, it's not exactly the best starter kit.

That said, you can disable a lot of the things that make BMan tough (Advanced AI, death, sight ranges, AP for switching weapons, etc) and still get a lot of the improvements in the interface/camera.

THawk

[Wiz33]

As for sight range, I don't consider it a cheat, I just don't think there is anyone that can convince me that we have worst sighting target quipment in the future than we do today.

[DiscoJer]

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

You know, after further pondering...

I think a big issue here is I'm playing with a mod...specifically, Bmans mod which allows death. In the vanilla game as originally designed, getting most of your squad burned to a crisp isn't quite so calamitous...it meant there would be a spell where most your men were in the hospital, but at least they come back (eventually).

So, I guess the problem is maybe not so much the Preachers are overpowered, but instead, that we all playing with a death mod have voluntarily UNDERpowered ourselves, perhaps to a too great extent...?

Well, yeah. I mean, no offense to BMAN, but all he basically wanted was "X-com", and rushed to un-do all the obvious changes CC made in the formula of the game, but even with those, this still isn't X-com. At the end of the game, a lot of the aliens are much, much, much tougher than the ones in X-com. If you add permanent death and have the aliens throwing grenades, too, then yeah, you're going to struggle.

If you play it normally, by the time you face preachers and up, you'll have a lot of soldiers who are quite competent. You'll probably lose 2-3 a mission, but if you have a surgery bulding, usually they recover a lot quicker, so you always have a full squad.

Also, you probably don't want to rush through the research tree. What you research triggers the newer types of aliens appearing. If you research before you are ready, logisitically for the new wave of aliens, it can be hard.

[GalacticOrigins]

I agree for Bmans mod, it can be tougher, so some settings should be turned off. For instance, I do not use the permanent death since in this X-com version the sight range is horrible, there is no mini-map or radar, and there are at least twice as many foes to fight in each battle. Also, in my current game I have AI set to 'improved' and on Hard difficulty that is enough 'fun'. Thing is, since I have researched slower, I was able to play for 25 months before these things arrived. Most of my 20 soldiers have 500+ experience, and 6-7 are well over 1100. Therefore, my average Health is at least 80, and my strength is at least 60-70 on most soldiers. I don't have too much of a problem against the flamers, unless a soldier gets hit twice in the same turn they usually survive.
 
I actually find the hovers more of a problem right now since I need better weapons as they take many hits, which will take less than 15 days for my 1 old lab to churn out the 2 needed techs (eeew or something).

[DiscoJer]

ORIGINAL: Wiz33

As for sight range, I don't consider it a cheat, I just don't think there is anyone that can convince me that we have worst sighting target quipment in the future than we do today.

While yeah, it obviously doesn't reflect reality (very few games do), it's still a cheat. A big part of the game is spotting, and using scout units (either tanks or fast soldiers) to find the aliens before they find you. Giving a larger view is cheating, even if it is more realistic.

[jimwinsor]

ORIGINAL: Wiz33

As for sight range, I don't consider it a cheat, I just don't think there is anyone that can convince me that we have worst sighting target quipment in the future than we do today.

I'm actually warming to the idea of equalizing sight ranges, as a way of re-balancing the game if you play with death.

Another way would be to lower the strength requirements of weapons and armor, so that if you have to keep bringing in rookies to replace death losses, as least they can be decently equipped with the latest stuff.

I think I may try starting a non-death game too, and see how that plays.