XCOM EU Is it at all possible to play through the game with full council?

[Cornflower]

I've played this game again and again but there's no way I can find a tactic that actually keeps my council intact.

 

Either I suck, or the game is designed to work like this. I'd like to know which is which... I'm thinking that whatever tactic I use, I can't get enough satellite coverage to make sure that I intercept UFO:s in time to stop the panic from spreading. Or does someone have a decent tactic that actually works?

 

I'm confused... :-(

[devilon]

I've played this game again and again but there's no way I can find a tactic that actually keeps my council intact.

 

Either I suck, or the game is designed to work like this. I'd like to know which is which... I'm thinking that whatever tactic I use, I can't get enough satellite coverage to make sure that I intercept UFO:s in time to stop the panic from spreading. Or does someone have a decent tactic that actually works?

 

I'm confused... :-(

 

I played through the entire game on 'Normal / Iron man' and never lost a council member. Matter fact, I think normal is too easy ;(

working on Classic / Iron man now and the combat is kinda ridiculous, at least the accuracy and critical hit rate of the aliens is silly high.

[Cornflower]

I've played this game again and again but there's no way I can find a tactic that actually keeps my council intact.

 

Either I suck, or the game is designed to work like this. I'd like to know which is which... I'm thinking that whatever tactic I use, I can't get enough satellite coverage to make sure that I intercept UFO:s in time to stop the panic from spreading. Or does someone have a decent tactic that actually works?

 

I'm confused... :-(

 

I played through the entire game on 'Normal / Iron man' and never lost a council member. Matter fact, I think normal is too easy ;(

working on Classic / Iron man now and the combat is kinda ridiculous, at least the accuracy and critical hit rate of the aliens is silly high.

 

So, basically, I suck. That being established, what now? What am I missing? Do you have a brief summary of your strategy?

I'm running through all missions without any causalties. I am still using the original 12 soldiers, so I have no problem with the shooting. It's the building and researching that baffles me...

[Perraine]

You have to use a bit of strategy ... Don't just go crazy placing satellites everywhere as there are a couple of variables and strategies to consider ...

 

When you place a satellite you get a large "one time only" reduction in panic, that's it, so don't waste it! However having at least 1 satellite over a "continent" will decrease panic overall at the end of the month.

 

Placing a satellite over an individual location will decrease panic over that "country" by a large amount and over the whole "continent" by a smaller amount so choose carefully.

 

Timing is also important, as the game will automatically decrease panic over the whole "continent" each time a "council report" comes through, provided that the "continent" has at least one satellite, and you've had successful missions during that month (i.e. an "A" or "B" rating) so don't waste a second or third satellite placement if you're nearing the end of the month ( look at the "upcoming events" list, if your only 2 days away from a "council report" hold off sending up the satellite until later)

 

Successfully shooting down an alien ship will decrease panic over that "country" and by a lesser amount over the whole "continent" However the reverse is also true if you fail to shoot it down **

 

When choosing "abduction sites" it's tempting to go for the one with cash or engineers, but look for the one that has the highest level of panic, as successfully defeating a downed UFO or clearing an abduction site, will decrease panic across the whole "continent"

(the difficulty levels listed are pretty much superfluous, as "easy" or "very hard" missions seem to be fairly similar, just basically whether you get insectoids/thinmen/floaters (easy) or "heavies" like mutons/cyberdiscs (dificult) type of thing. So if you're smart about how you play through and what squad/loadouts to take they are all pretty much the same)

 

** You can send more than one interceptor after each UFO, although only 1 can engage at a time, if your interceptor gets too damaged, click the "abort" button then quickly select the UFO again in the geoscape (Mission Control) and send up a second interceptor, the damage will stack, so normally a second (or even third) interceptor will be able to down even a large UFO

[Cornflower]

OK, that seems simple enough, in theory... I tried to be a bit more structured in the placing of satellites, I guess that's where I went wrong. I'll try this strategy and see how it works. Thank you!

[liv2dieat8]

Thanks for this post. Helped a lot since I am new to Xcom

[Farlington]

To add to this. You also have to be quite lucky/unlucky with where the abduction missions happen. I've had a few games where I had no choice other than to leave countries to their fate. If you get two regions getting hit continuously, eventually, no matter how you juggle satellites and missions, you end up with countries that panic that you can't do anything about.

 

I'm a seasoned player from the original games. I know what I'm doing. Sometimes luck just goes against you. One of the reason I like this game so much. :)

[Rhodryn]

Yeah luck can play a huge difference. I had one game where I had lost 4 nations by the end of the month. And that was on normal! o_O

[Beaviz81]

Piece of cake on normal actually. You generally go for producing a lot of satellites (try going for the bonuses in Africa first), getting laser and skeleton early, advancing people to around captain, invade the base when panic is widespread. Then you go in guns blazing and with four heavies and two medics (too few crew members for Assault and Sniper as to be of any use for me). The biggest challenge for me was getting that second battleship to show up (I let a supply-ship get away, then it showed up and was shut down by my Firestorm, and I entered the Temple Ship with six colonels and five psykers.

[Hawk07]

Thanks for the tips, some of them were not too obvious to me so I got some priorities straight now. :)