[X-Com] War Stories

[Mortimer]

I suppose it's escaped no ones notice that we are all on abit of an X-Com craze around here, I thought we could share those defining moments of our games.

So, I descovered a Terror Ship making it's way into the heart of Russia, my interceptor with it's newly developed plasma cannons went in, sending it down blazing into the country side of the mother country. My Squad soon followed and cleared the surrounding farmland of Snakemen and Chrysallids, as I completed the last sweep of the map I ended my turn .... I smiled at the sweet irony as several messages popped up during the Alien's turn informing me of most of they're numbers hauled up inside the Terror Ship where panicing and going berserk.

[MadCow]

I can't really recall my old escapades in detail, but two things were memorable for me:

1) It was SOP for my team to use a blaster bomb to breach the hull of large UFOs and enter that way instead of using the main entrance. As everyone on the team was flying, it looked like spectacular starship boarding action.

2) After getting the psi-amp, I love chryssalids and their awesome TUs. Control one, have it run around the map... found another one! Mind-controlled. And another! Mind control! Eventually I have a large group of aliens under my thrall, group them in one section of the map and drop a single blaster bomb to win the mission.

[Speaker-to-Dreamworlds]

So, my mostly Power-Suited team is storming a mostly-intact Snakeman Large Scout. I've done the map sweep and cleaned up the two-three snakemen who were wandering around in the wheatfields, but (and this is important) no aliens have yet shown up with blaster launchers, so obviously I haven't managed to capture one to research, so I have to go through the front door.

I hate having to go through the front door on a Large Scout: that v-shaped front room just sucks to get stuck in, but at this point I have no choice.

So, I put a couple guys with Heavy Plasma on overwatch and assemble the rest of the team for a door-breach operation, which I have an SOP for, meanwhile sniping a Snakeman who wanders out into my field of fire. Now, my SOP for door breaches involves at least three troopers, each one square away from the door, ready to fire, and facing inwards. This way, the guy directly in front of the door has most of his APs left when the door opens, and as long as he gets out of the way of the door, (or dies in it) the other two or more guys have good fire lanes without having to move.

It's a practiced drill by this point, but it does have a drawback, which is about to be demonstrated as a Snake comes out the door, directly into the line of fire of three plasmas, turns before anyone can notice him, and shoots one of my Auxillary troopers (lower experience, hence in Personal Armor instead of a Power suit) in the chest at Point-Blank range ...

Which she responds to by calmly drawing her Stunrod and zapping him with it twice, thereby laying him on the floor.

Then, as if that wasn't enough drama for one episode, as most of the rest of the team is doing the rest of the door entry drill, plasmaing down the next snakeman in the big room, and lining up to cover the doors leading out of it, on the next alien turn, what turns out to be the Last Friggin Alien jumps out the left-hand door in a blaze of glory levelling a full burst of plasma rifle fire into the chest of the Power-suited marine in front of him ... for no damage at all, and a single, accurate return Heavy Plasma round for the Snakeman-Death-Screeech, and the scenario.

And that, my brothers and sisters, is why I love X-Com.

[Pax]

^_^

No stories per se (certianly not to follow up on Speaker's nifty one!), but my favorite old game fo X-Com was one in which I decided NOT to stop the Alien Invasion.

Instead, I FARMED it, for profit. Y'see, REALLY near my primary base, the aliens dropped THEIR first base. Which meant, I was able to intercept their Supply ships with ludicrous ease.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And ... well, you get the point.

Two hundred Snakemen-crewed Supply Ships later (and about two billion dollars of gear later), I had finished ... well ... EVERYthign else. I had enough of an Elerium inflow to fuel full-on Avengers, i PAIRS, at all EIGHT bases, worldwide. Armed with Blaster launchers. Aith hundreds of stored rounds of ammunition.

Battleship? Eh, send four or five Avengers, and reduce it to glowing shrapnel, by the second salvo, at the latest.

Seriously; two- and three-engine ships, captured FULLY INTACT, about once a week? TONNES of the wonderful alien energy-stuff. ROLLING in it, is what I was doing.

Fun times. ^_^

[ulmont]

I suppose it's escaped no ones notice that we are all on abit of an X-Com craze around here, I thought we could share those defining moments of our games.Storming an alien base with 14 uniformed rookies with laser rifles. 12 bit the dust (one to a chrysalid, for bonus pain, and another to the hail of fire towards the chrysalid and the zombie).

I was watching all the troops die and thinking that when the survivors go for their inevitable (if proably futile) therapy, THAT MISSION would be the one they kept going back to...

[valen]

I had a squaddie in Powered Armor survive FOUR, yes FOUR, blaster launcher hits. Without taking a single wound. Later she tracked down the sucker with the blaster launcher and killed him. She was forever known as Barb-who-could-not-be-hurt-by-mortal-weapons.

Somebody find the old post about "Snoop dog does not tolerate failure" from the last Xcom craze. That one was awesome.

[Fade]

There was the one rookie who, sent out of the Skyranger with nothing but a live grenade and a smile, managed to kill an alien with the grenade, take his gun, and kill three more aliens over the course of the mission. He got promoted straight to power armor after that one.

[Afterburner]

So there I was, guiding my squad through the ruins of an old wooden shipwreck, playing hide-and-seek among the rotten decks and masts. My usual tactic is to send out 2-man fireteams in a fan pattern with the Coleocanth playing scout, spreading out through the area and clearing the terrain first before assaulting the ship. While no 2-man fireteam is ever very far from another 2-man fireteam, after a few turns my guys are pretty well spread out.

A couple of my fireteams run across a pack of aliens and dash for cover. And then begin plinking away at the horrors from the ocean deeps.

And missing. At relatively short range.

Damn rookies.

In a desperate measure to save these rookies, I call upon Krug Alvaredis, the Greek Giant, who is almost completely on the other side of the map. He unlimbers his Hydro Cannon and launches an aimed AP round in the general direction of the aliens.

Guided by the inescapable might of Greek myth, the bullet flies straight and true, conks a gill man in the back of the head, and drops him like a sack of potatoes.

And the scene repeats itself for two more turns, as the rookies barely manage to shoot the water, while Krug ganks the aliens from the next continent over.

Krug's nickname was "Babysitter" after that.

[Kwyndig]

You've seen it happen, that most unfortunate of occurances... The aliens found one of my bases. Actually, to be honest, the aliens found three of my bases, but I'll talk about the one I set up in Europe.

Due to budget cutbacks and high casualty rates on missions (for some reason my men had the worst luck with enemy ambushes that month) I found myself down to a mere four soldiers and a laser HWP over at good old EuroCOM (est. March 1999). The enemy? A sectoid battleship, and once again, due to budget cutbacks, no static defences.

So, with my base underrmanned against the sectoid threat, I examined the inventory on site. I had... a bunch of heavy plasma guns and ammo (quite a bit of ammo, actually) and... four blaster launchers. Every soldier immediately shouted with glee at the opportunity to have a launcher of their very own. This was a mistake.

I outfitted the squad (more of a fire team) with their blasters and enough ammo for three shots apiece, gave them all heavy plasma as backup, and started the mission. First order of business is, of course, securing the hangar, so we fire a shot off into it to blast those nice fuel drums in the corner. A series of explosions later, and the cyberdiscs are down for good, as well as about four or five sectoids.

The squad moves out into the hallway towards the access lift as the explosions fill the air, and nervously wait for the alien reply. The first contact begins with a reaction shot from another squaddie's launcher (until then I wasn't aware you could reaction a Blaster, or maybe it was a strange bug), and the aliens retaliate with a launcher shot of their own, vaporizing half of the hallway and taking down half the fireteam.

The thunderous boom of blaster launcher shots filled the air for another dozen rounds as both sides tried to flush out the other. In the end, only one squaddie survived, out of launcher ammo (having scavenged every scrap of it he could find from his own dead comrades) but triumphant as he shot the last sectoid, execution style with his heavy plasma.

He was immediately promoted to sergeant, but spent the next two weeks out of action from launcher sustained injuries... Apparently unarmored men aren't supposed to stand at ground zero.

[Simon Marks]

My last mission went bad...

Real bad.

We were doing fine, until a small unit of 5 Squaddies (all vertrans of at least 8 missions) came face to face with a Cryssalid.

No problem, I thought, and unleashed a huge salvo of plasma fire on it.
When the smoke cleared, the warehouse we were in was trashed and the Cryssalid was ... fine.

Uh-oh.

2 Turns later at the remaining 3 operatives are fleeing for their life from the 6 Cryssalids now chasing us. Only one managed to climb on board, the other 2 where cut down in their prime.

I wouldn't go to Vancouver if I were you...

[Breogan]

I can't really recall my old escapades in detail, but two things were memorable for me:

1) It was SOP for my team to use a blaster bomb to breach the hull of large UFOs and enter that way instead of using the main entrance. As everyone on the team was flying, it looked like spectacular starship boarding action.


Yep. Start the cake from the top.

So you bunch of fuckers though I was going to crawl all the way through the death corridors? Everybody, get flying to the borders of the big hole in the roof and blast those suckers.

It is one of those moments that make you feel avenged for all the pain you had to go through :-P

[Peers]

This goes waaaaay back to my very first game of X-Com. I'd fought the aliens a few times, got a few toys, and has just downed my first (small) UFO. So, I send in the team, sweep the map, and the mission doesn't end. Reasonable assumption: There's one left inside the UFO. So I form up my team outside the craft, and... can't figure out how to get in. Gunfire bounces. Grenades fail to blow through. A freakin' high explosive doesn't work, to my dismay. So, I continue to pass the turns, everyone sitting outside the UFO, having a smoke, hoping the alien pops out so they can shoot at him.

One turn, while re-arranging people for optimum overwatch coverage, my arm slips, and I click... inside the UFO.

Rookie walks up to the UFO, opens the door, sees the alien. I blink, shrug, shoot him, end the mission.

And that's how I learned how to walk through alien doors.

That rookie died the next mission after finding he lacked the time units to run through a farmhouse door to cover.

[Dorchadas]

So, after the end of a long alien campaign against earth, X-Com had finally discovered the source of the alien threat. Twenty-two brave men and women (and one plasma tank) made the journey across the airless void to Cydonia to stop the aliens forever.

It was about when they landed that things started to go sideways. Nine people died just getting to the base, due to a combination of the open terrain, Sectoid mind control (due to unlucky capturing and my own exuberance, I had gone to Cydonia before I ever even researched a Psi-Lab, much less had psychic troops) and a badly placed blaster bomb. The survivors counted themselves lucky to be alive.

They were wrong.

As the four 3-person fire teams (and the tank) spread out, one by one the aliens destroyed them. One was caught in a Muton crossfire, one was half-wiped out by an exploding Cyberdisc and finished off when the last member threw down her weapon and fled, and the third killed each other in an MC-induced frenzy.

Only three members of the original 22 were left. The last fire team advanced down the hall and around the corner, killing the Muton who stood guard outside with a hail of plasma fire. The three of them assumed positions around the corner as one of them went to open the door.

As he did, the Sectoid commanders within turned the full force of their minds on him. In a panic, he threw down his weapon and fled, only to be shot in the back. Now, there were only two.

The two women looked at each other. Then one of them walked forward around the corner and opened the door into the door, dying almost immediately to a barrage of plasma fire. Now, there was only one.

One armed with a blaster launcher. With the door open, she took aim and fired, and the blaster bomb streaked through the door, pasted the Sectoid commanders, up the grav elevator and into the room beyond, impacting on the wall and destroying the alien brain in charge of the invasion.

(What a mission. I think I did everything wrong that I could have done wrong, due to excitement and impatience, but damn did it feel good when that blaster bomb went off.

I like to think that the reception the survivor got on Earth when she came back helped make up for the trauma of the mission.)

[Afterburner]

I like to think that the reception the survivor got on Earth when she came back helped make up for the trauma of the mission.)

Someone didn't read the game-ending flavor text... :D

(Or am I mixing this up with Apocalypse? I know there's at least one X-Com game where you're informed that your squaddies made the SUPREME SACRIFICE. The mission to end the alien threat FOREVER was a one-way mission. Can't remember if it was the mission to Cydonia or the final mission to the alien dimension.)

[Valfader]

A regular small UFO crash site. At day.

Three regular rookies, and a sergeant make their way through the map. Far behind them are a couple of my better troopers searching a building.

The 4 meet a regular sectoid with a plasma rifle. They start withdrawing. The one seeing it retreats, and the next round my better troopers come out of the building, and all of the four get within firing range of the sectoid. And fire they all do. One hit, and it still stands (I use lasrifles). It then proceeds to rapid fire. Just once. All three shots hits and kills a trooper of mine. One of them being one of the veterans far behind, and it retreats. One of the two that're left kills it the next round.

[Dorchadas]

Someone didn't read the game-ending flavor text... :D

(Or am I mixing this up with Apocalypse? I know there's at least one X-Com game where you're informed that your squaddies made the SUPREME SACRIFICE. The mission to end the alien threat FOREVER was a one-way mission. Can't remember if it was the mission to Cydonia or the final mission to the alien dimension.)

I thought that was the one at the end of TFTD? You destroy Cthulth^H^H^H^HThe Great Dreamer, but everyone on the mission dies in the process. I never played Apocalypse, so I don't know what happens there.

The X-Com end game text was the brain saying, "We gave life to your world after Mars died. We are the fathers of your race. We can work together in harmony-" and X-com saying "Fuck you" and opening fire. :p

[Afterburner]

I thought that was the one at the end of TFTD? You destroy Cthulth^H^H^H^HThe Great Dreamer, but everyone on the mission dies in the process. I never played Apocalypse, so I don't know what happens there.

IIRC, the final mission to the alien dimension in Apocalypse tells you straight up front that it's a one-way mission. The goal is to close the dimensional gates that are allowing the aliens to invade in the first place, and once you close those gates, there's no way back home.

[Valfader]

IIRC, the final mission to the alien dimension in Apocalypse tells you straight up front that it's a one-way mission. The goal is to close the dimensional gates that are allowing the aliens to invade in the first place, and once you close those gates, there's no way back home.
Sounds a lot like there's potential for a Doom clone there...

[Dorchadas]

Sounds a lot like there's potential for a Doom clone there...

Maybe a Space Hulk/Doom crossover, in the X-Com universe.

...I'd play it.

[Trilobite]

Somebody find the old post about "Snoop dog does not tolerate failure" from the last Xcom craze. That one was awesome.

Eric used to spend hours in our dorm's computer lab playing X-Com, and when he discovered you could rename your recruits, he started in with the theme naming, generally favoring the names of cheesy '80s musicians like Kip Winger or Ronny James Dio or whatever. It made for better war stories when you could talk about the time that Jon Bon Jovi got blown up by a Cyberdisc, or how Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt caught a Chryssalid in an awesome crossfire and ended a terror mission with no casualties.

At first, he was just messing around, but you know how in most games of X-Com, you have that one soldier who just kicks impossible amounts of ass? Well, for Eric's longest-running and most successful game, that soldier was none other than Snoop Doggy Dogg. No shit, I think the main reason Eric stuck with giving every new batch of recruits themed names was because Snoop ended up being the baddest motherfucker on planet Earth, and that's some seriously positive reinforcement.


My favorite Snoop Doggy Dogg story goes something like this:

It was a daylight mission against a landed Sectoid ship, on some godforsaken farm in North America. Due to some heavy casualties on a previous mission, the Doggfather is forced to roll with a bunch of ignorant rookies. Things progress as expected: Snoop's out there with his heavy plasma gun, taking down those little grey bastards whenever he can see them, but the rookies...well, they're not doing nearly as well. From his lofty vantage point at the keyboard, Eric is cursing and complaining about how goddamn useless these new recruits are.

Then it happened, the thing that was just the absolute last straw. There's a Sectoid standing there in the middle of a field, and two rookies totally have the drop on him. In the first round of shooting, both rookies cleanly miss the Sectoid. The Sectoid...keeps standing there. Round two comes and goes and the rookies still can't connect, even with kneeling and aiming. Eric is livid at this point. Round three, the rookies miss again.

At this point, Eric says "Okay, that's it, fuck these guys," and scrolls across the map. Snoop Doggy Dogg is a ridiculously long way away from this firefight, but he selects him and has him autofire at the Sectoid anyway. His chance of hitting is agonizingly low, but hey, it's Snoop dee-oh-double-gee. He's never failed when the world depended on him, unlike these goddamn worthless rookies.

So Snoop's first shot flies across the map...and blows the Sectoid away. Shot two flies across the map, a little bit to the left...and drops the first incompetent rookie who couldn't hit a sectoid from five squares away. Shot three flies across the map, a little bit to the right...and that kills the other incompetent rookie. It was perfect. Snoop immediately became Eric's agent of battlefield justice: rookies who failed to measure up to the demands of defending the globe from alien invasion were often sent into buildings just ahead of Snoop, and many times fate would oblige with uncannily accurate autofire that eliminated the offending rookie along with the actual target.

--
since the other thread was right there anyway ;)
ryan

[MadCow]

It is one of those moments that make you feel avenged for all the pain you had to go through :-P

Revenge is called Blaster Bomb double-tap: blow a hole in the hull, send in a second blaster bomb through the breach, then the boarding team flies in - all in the same turn. :D

[shodan]

I'm afraid I don't remember any of my good War Stories. It's been a while since I've played X-Com (the original), but I've started playing Apocalypse lately.

Pretty much any war-story I submit would be a "comedy of errors". My last mission in Apocalypse resulted in the accidental-stunning, death, or mind-controlling of my entire team, aside from one guy with the crappiest weapon. "Great, a stun grappler. That'll do a world of good against those huge friggin' worm-things. ... Hm, looks like Alexi Romanov isn't gonna be needing his machinegun anymore... And Albert Smith had that big auto-cannon...."

After scavenging some /actual/ weapons from his fallen comrades, my one single squaddie managed to scare away the alien threat. (Eventually, in the course of time, I ended up winning because the aliens apparently got bored and left the map. I didn't shoot many of them at all.)

I've had some better (that is - more interesting to read about) experiences with the original X-Com, though.

[Agrias oaks]

This is the story of a terror mission, in the first month of my fledgeling X-coms life. I had gathered a remarkably good team, with most people having bravery of 30+ and firing accuracy of 60+. I had 2 laser rifles and gave them to my best shooters, all was well.

Then, 'TERROR SITE: HONG KONG' blares on my screen. I relucantly save, and send out a group of 10 to the site, it was at night. the landing was made in the suburbs. As soon as my first team of 3 went down, they were met by a reaper, though it took a great deal of rifle bullets, he went down. Things were looking good.

Then a series of reaction shots hits 2 of the three, killing them. I sent out one of my better snipers with a laser rifle to explore, seeing a floater in the air, a shot went out and luckily downed him in a single hit. the situation was normal again, and I deplied my squads out at all sides, ready to sweep out for the alien menace.

one of the teams went into an alleyway, where they were bushwacked by 3 floaters. they quickly went down, not killing a single one. another team went in there to deal with the threat, this team had 1 of the snipers with a laser rifle. the aliens were killed, at the cost of the laser sniper, and one other. this is 7 out of ten squaddies killed.

Someone went berzerk, and went down by a floaters attack. the last 2 members went together, one with a laser rifle, the other with an autocannon. they killed 10 aliens by themselves, then the sniper finally died from a floater, the last living member of the team took him down with one shot. Luckily, he still had some ammo, so I went around the site, killing any aliens I could find.

Eventually, I heard no more alien gunfire, and I saw nothing, he wandered around for a while. eventually, I found the last floater, and swiftly took him down, I counted myself lucky that I could survive a terror mission so early.

And then a reaper jumps out of nowhere and kills him, damnit.

[GabrielK]

I remember playing the original...and getting my ass kicked by the alien menace. Then I learned how to harness psychic powers. I had this one agent named Dwight who was a natural. He became frighteningly powerful, and was pretty much the core of every team that he accompanied.

After that the game just became all kinds of fun. The mind control conga line described above was always neat to pull off. And of course the last alien would just wander over to us with a blank look, drop his weapons and turn to face away. And get a shot to the back of the head for his trouble.

Actually Dwight became so bad ass, I would often send him out on missions by himself.

[Nerag]

I think the best bit of X-Com came from not knowing.

I remember on of the first missions involved sending 4 man teams throughout the strangely deserted countryside trying to find... something alien?

Entering one farmhouse my troops were cautiously searching room by room when a grey... thing comes down the stairs. I panic and order open fire full auto. Amazingly for a rookie he hits and it goes down. I send him in to investigate and the grey alien gets back up again.

AAAAAAH!

Full auto fire.

Is it dead? Is it dead? What is it?!

Looking back it might have been another Sectoid that came down the stairs and stood atop the dead one but it was dark and I couldn't tell.

[Packrat]

The ethereal snatch mission, I had not met any ethereals up untill this point, but I had hyperwave decoders, and the large scout my interceptors had just shot down was an ethereal ship. I knew I wanted to capture one for psi research and so readied a team of my best.

Eight men, all in power suits, all sergeants or better and armed with a stun bomb launcher and laser rifle, four mind probes. Every man had 50+ bravery, every man had an accuracy of 65+, 40+ strength and 50+ reaction. Their mission was to stun an ethereal and then get it back onto the skyranger by any means neccessary.

The most elite soldiers of humanity debussed from the aircraft, proceeded by a laser tank that scouted ahead, they took up fire positions in cover while the robotic vehicle explored.

An ethereal! The sinister robed figure was easily downed with the first shot before they then cautiously advanced to 'steal' him. But what is this? Another one! The mind probe revealed this was an ethereal leader, a prime target! A well aimed volley of laser fire cut away all intervening cover before a barrage of blaster bombs knocked it out.

I had exceeded all expectations, two ethereals down, including a leader. My troops now stowed their stun weapons and readied laser rifles as I moved forwards to secure the incapacitated aliens and their weapons.

Then the mind control began, veterans of twenty missions or more panicked and ran around in confusion, weapons were thrown to the ground and abandoned. The team managed to secure the unconcious ethereals and their precious heavy plasma guns but extraction proved.. Difficult.

By the time every soldier had gotten back aboard, complete with the two captives, six out of the eight had been injured by the fire of their mind controled comrades, three laser rifles had been abandoned in the grass, the tank had to be left behind since staying just one more round to allow it to load into the skyranger would doubtless have led to further mind control. That was the first time in a dozen that all of the soldiers had been in control of themselves.

[Yessod]

It was supposed to be a milk run. Those are always the worst, huh?

The Interceptors had brought down a scout over France. We went to investigate the crash, bring back anything the interceptors had skragged, and shoot anything they hadn't. Finding the craft was quick and easy. Most of the walls were gone, the bodies of a couple of the greys lying in the rubble. Two sectoids were standing in the ruins of their craft, stunned from the crash and dazed from smoke inhalation. We dropped them in seconds, no problem. A couple bursts from our new laser rifles and they were down. Command indicated there was probably still one grey left in the area, so we started a sweep.

Things went pear-shaped when we were crossing a field towards a two-story barn. That last damn grey popped over to a window, dropped Clay with a plasma round, then ducked back out of sight. We took up firing positions behind some light cover, and waited. He popped out again and dropped Schaefer with another round, then ducked out of sight as our answering shots hit the side of the barn.

Well, after a little bit we started to get pretty sick of this, so the order went out to clear his cover. We all pop out of cover, and open up on the barn, taking out that entire wall to try to find where he was hiding. Lo and behold, when the smoke cleared, there was one tiny little bit of wall left on that whole damn side, no more than a foot or two wide. Guess where that bastard was hiding?

He pops out from behind it and throws a grenade right into the middle of the squad.

[Afterburner]

So, there I was. Early stages of the invasion. Barracuda shoots down a small scout craft deep in the Pacific. I muster a team to go wrest the debris from the scaly appendages of any surviving aquatoids.

We land and move out with a quickness into our usual pattern: Coelacanth on point, and four 2-man fireteams spreading out in a fan from the Triton. We reached our initial first-turn positions, and I click "Next turn."

And the mission ended.

Seems all the aliens were either dead or unconscious before we got there.

If only my terror missions were that easy.

[weasel fierce]

Yesterday. I have 3 guys moving up towards the UFO door slowly. A sectoid steps out and is promptly blasted by a hail of laser fire.

Next turn, I inch a bit closer. Another guy steps out, and is mown down.

Out of sheer, morbid curiosity, I simply stand still next turn...


In total, 5 little grey dudes get cacked in the same square.

[Thornhammer]

Terror Mission. I think it was in Vatican City.

I held nothing back. Blew up a gas station, put holes in buildings, the whole nine yards. Pulverized the damned place!

As I finally dusted off after killing the last alien, I wondered to myself exactly how they were going to cover all this up. :D

-Thornhammer

[ForceflowX]

Earlier tonight.

Funding is getting cut pretty bad, and the project is in danger of being canned. I need to do something to impress the nations of the world, and get them back on my side.

There's a base I've known about in China for a while. Just the thing, I think. So I load up my Avenger with the 14 best and brightest in the project, armed with laser rifles and heavy lasers, and the command staff wearing flying suits while the others are in decent personal armor. These men and women have been through a lot. I know I can count on them.

So we storm the base, set up killzones in two of the corridors, with 5-6 guys each watching the halls for movement, and then send out a 3-man squad to sweep the room next door. The killzones work beautifully, taking out 3 snakemen and 2 chrysalids with no casualties. The 3-man group is doing pretty well, too, dropping a few snakemen and filling out the map.

Then the snakemen bring out explosives.

I lose 11 men in two turns, as the killzones are turned into abbatoirs. Two of the men from the roaming squad freak out, drop weapons, and stand there like they've been stunned, while the third, in an impressive display of badassery, manages to kill every single snakeman that comes into view with reaction fire.

Eventually, with the sarge covering their asses, the other two come back to their senses and loot nearby snakemen corpses for weapons, and the mission continues, albiet with severly reduced manpower. They continue to sweep the ship, doing fine until the last few rooms, when another explosive takes out two of the group. The last man, a bit nervous, but still responding, manages to kill the two remaining snakemen, and secure the base for the project.

He got promoted to captain real fast after that.

Unfortunately, he died a few weeks later in a night raid against a ship that turned out to be full of reapers. (No flares, mind control, and a squad of striplings is not a good combo.)

Shortly thereafter, the project was dismantled.

Edit: The final mission was a nice reminder of the doom of the first company I had built up, when my orignal team, outfitted with everything they might need, takes a night mission. First turn, guy steps up to throw a flare, and a grenade sails into the Skyranger. Lost everything, had to rebuild with the rookies I left back at base.

[sarellion]

IIRC, the final mission to the alien dimension in Apocalypse tells you straight up front that it's a one-way mission. The goal is to close the dimensional gates that are allowing the aliens to invade in the first place, and once you close those gates, there's no way back home.

Your guys still get back. After destroying the controls your squad runs to the annihilator and flies through the collapsing gate reappearing as a near wreck doing an emergency landing on the street on the earth side of the gates.

[ForceflowX]

Just had another incident occur, with a much happier ending.

So I've finally captured a reaper, interrogated his ass, and built a Psi-Lab. Time to start training everyone.

Now, I have a colonel. This gal's been through everything. 9 missions under her belt, 11 kills. She's invaded bases, defended bases against invaders, daytime missions, nighttime missions, the works. Earned her rank. So, she's one of the first to accept training.

A month goes by, and it comes time to see how the testing results came out.

She has a 99 Psi-Strength.

It brought a tear to my eye.

[Son of Kirk]

This is the story of the bravest sons of bitches to ever serve X-Com, of their lives and their deaths.

These are the words of Billy, last surviving member of the Boom Platoon:

'It all started off in the early missions you see, we didn't have no frickin' idea what was goin' on, and resources, well, they was pretty limited.

So some of us was put on Extreme Forward Recon Duty. They gave us pistols and lots of grenades and our job was to flush out them ET's by hook or by crook.

Man, casualties were high, but the higher ups never changed the tactics. Word was they found the whole idea of a Boom Platoon funny and made the missions go quicker.

I tell you this, and God strike me down right now if I lie, but they still sent us out with pistols and grenades when the rest of the squad were in frickin powered armour and were carrying weapons that could knock a hole through Mount frickin Rushmore.

I don't remember the names no more, we were all just 'Billy' to the higher ups, but I remember the faces, I remember the courage and bravery of the few and I remember the grenade driven death we meted out to every alien fucker unlucky enough to get in our way.....'

[Afterburner]

Squaddie A is carrying a live, primed alien grenade.

Squaddie A is also under heavy MC assault from unseen aliens.

So in order to minimize problems, I move Squaddie A's primed alien grenade into her backpack, and I move Squaddie B over with a stun rod at the ready.

Sure enough, next turn, Squaddie A is placed under molecular control. Squaddie B dutifully zaps her with the stun rod...and forgets about the live alien grenade, which goes off next turn, killing her and him both.

DOH!

[O'Borg]

The war was going well. I had a network of bases covering most of the globe and all the funding countries.
Inital base in the Italian alps, equipped with moderate research and build facilities, running a long range Interceptor and a short range Firestorm, plasma beam & avalance missiles. Euroteam troopers and Skyranger are based here.
Second base in Northern USA, optimal layout, Firestorm and Interceptor, heavy research facilities.
Third base in NE Australia, Interceptor and Skyranger for the Ozteam troopers based here. Good manufacturing facilities.
The rest of my sites are detection facilities with hyperwave decoders and multiple radars, except for one in Central Africa that recently acquired an Interceptor as backup for Europe.

I'd gotten successful to the point that most of the alien missions detected were retaliatory.
Then, towards the end of August, after fighting off a blitz of alien retaliation missions, all my craft were out or refitting, the aliens sneak an infiltrator into China and sign a pact. China pulls out of the project.
September sees another blitz mid-month, but I'm shooting down just about everything and both Euroteam and Ozsquad are running retrieval missions constantly. Meanwhile, I'm building a couple of Psi-Labs and researching better craft.

Then, three days before the end of the month, two Muton battleships appear, one over the Atlantic the other over the Pacific. Both are heading for North America, both are on infiltration missions.
Battleship one is quickly intercepted just off the North California coast by the Firestorm I'd stationed in the US base specifically to deal with infiltrators. The Battleship hits it for 50% damage before it gets close enough to loose off a missile. One missile away and the Firestorm is down to 25%. I have to call it off. Meanwhile, the Firestorm from Europe is fast approaching the Battleship from the Atlantic and catches up close to New York. Two missiles hit but again the Firestorm is heavily damaged and limps back home. I'm left with three Interceptors, one from the US heading towards the Pacific Battleship, and the Europe and Central African ones. Neither of them make the intercepts before the Battleships touch down.
Euroteam and Ozsquad scramble for a night mission with the expectation of heavy casualties, especially from the Ozsquad who still have several inexperienced troopers in personal armour.
I'll never get to find out, as the Mutons lift off before either Skyranger arrives.
Three days later at month end, the USA announces it's signed a secret pact with the Aliens and pulls out of the project. :(

[weasel fierce]

From earlier today... My USA base is attacked, defended only by 10 greenhorns, armed with a batch of laser rifles, just shipped in from the main HQ in Europe.

After a brief exchange of fire, with, luckily, no losses, the sound of a blaster launch is heard, immediately followed by a chain reaction of explosions in one hanger.
Moments later, the same repeats in the second hanger. 12 aliens killed, and I only ever saw 2 :)

[TrapperQ]

A captain and a ship full of rookies are sent out on a mission to hunt down a tiny spaceship. The skyrangers door opens, and there, directly ahead is a tiny craft with a floater standing next to it. The captain says to the rookies; "Watch this" and snipes the alien in the head with a plasma rifle. Mission over and no-one left the ship. The captain didn't even have time to light his cigar.

[Afterburner]

This JUST happened.

Island terror mission. Gill Men and Deep Ones are running amok over a small resort in the Solomon Islands.

My squaddies have spread out. I know, having seen it through a window, that a Deep One is crawling around on the upper floor of the hotel. One of my squaddies crawls up to the 2nd floor via a set of stairs and starts shooting at the wall to make a quick door.

I tell him to autofire into the wall. Three shots from a Gauss Pistol right into the clapboards. The wall is weakened, but holds.

I tell him to autofire again.

The fourth shot destroys the wall's structural integrity.

The fifth shot kills the Deep One in question, who had started to come down the stairs behind the wall, and who had been invisible to my squaddie until he got shot.

The sixth shot...

...kills a civilian in another room. Oops.

But! You can't make an omlette without shooting a few civilians. Or...something.

[Voidnaut]

The fifth shot kills the Deep One in question, who had started to come down the stairs behind the wall, and who had been invisible to my squaddie until he got shot.

The sixth shot...

...kills a civilian in another room. Oops.

But! You can't make an omlette without shooting a few civilians. Or...something.

The way I see it, any civilian not killed by aliens is a victory. :D Hey, you extraterrestrial scum! Only we get to annihilate our own species in stupid wars!

-Voidnaut

[Tuxedo Mask]

It's my first time playing. My first base is getting pretty meaty, and my second is working up, research is coming along, finally got armor which is pretty cool, and then, I get my first big UFO (this is 3 months in).

I decide not to risk taking it down with an intercepter, so I trail it around until it lands and then I pounce on it.

And there's a huge spaceship and loads of aliens all over the place - I clear out the map slowly, with a couple of minor casualties, but I give a hell of a lot better than I get, and I have fun driving around in my brand new tank.

Finally, all that's left is the UFO, which is intact because I attacked a landed one. Unlike all the previous ones, this one has 2 entrances, so I form up my guys into 2 squads, one around each door. While I'm waiting for the last couple of stragglers to arrive, I prep a couple of grenades - I have no idea what's inside, so I'm planning on opening the door and dumping a couple inside.

Then, suddenly, one of my guys goes berzerk, and lays around him with his laser rifle. Amazingly, despite the fact he was right in the middle of about 6 other guys, no-one gets hurt.

I come up with a cunning plan. He's obviously being mind-controlled (never had that happen to me before, but never attacked a UFO this big before either) so I need to take him down! But I don't want to kill my own guys, so I search through the guys near him and find one with a stun baton in his pack, equip it, walk up to him, and zap him.. down he goes.

Yay, thinks I, problem solved. In the same round, my last straggler finally catches up, so I end the turn so I can start my assault next round.

At which point, the primed grenade that had been in the hand of my own soldier that I knocked out goes off, and wipes out the entire squad in a huge explosion.

:(

TM

[Afterburner]

So there I was, in my Okinawa base. My Okinawa base was not yet fully online. Some few rooms had been built, and some personnel had been transferred, as well as a Barracuda and a Triton. But no armaments had been transfered from the main base in Bermuda except for two Heavy Gauss rifles, and a few clips.

However, if the amount of alien activity in the region is any indication, the aliens apparently have a base in the South China Sea, though I have not yet located it. But my Barracuda in Okinawa has been getting quite the workout downing alien subs.

So, not surprisingly, the aliens retaliated by attacking my base. And my brave squaddies only had two Heavy Gauss rifles to defend themelves.

The two weapon-equipped squaddies spread out to the natural chokepoint for the invasion, and surprised a Gill-man. Before he could move, they dispatched him. One of the weaponless squaddies ran over and found...a Thermal Shok Launcher (aka a stun-grenade launcher). He picked it up, along with the three extra stun grenades the Gill-man was carrying, and positioned himself at the chokepoint.

And proceeded to drop 13 of the 19 invading aliens. Including 5 in one shot. His last shot, using his last bit of ammo, involved storming an alien platoon and firing at point blank range, knocking out himself as well as 3 aliens.

[O'Borg]

Starting from scratch, I was building up my forces and after 3 months had gotten as far as Heavy Lasers and Laser Cannons but no plasma weaponry.
A few days before the end of March, three 'very large' alien ships touchdown in the US, along with a couple of small scouts. I shoot down one of the scouts and interecept the other on the ground.
End of the month, the US signs a pact with alien forces and I lost 50% of my funding :(

[Spook]

and interecept the other on the ground.
End of the month, the US signs a pact with alien forces and I lost 50% of my funding :(


yeah that pisses me off. You have to shoot the fuckers running Infiltration missions down, taking them out in ground missions does not work.

My last game I lost all of Europe except for Spain that way. Even though I managed to bag all the aliens on the ground.

[O'Borg]

Another fresh game, mid-Jan my team of 12, half of them still rookies and a few of them with Bravery of 30 (havent gotten decent replacements yet), with conventional weaponry only and no armour wind up on an anti-terror mission to Brasillia. At night.

My elite Skyranger pilot lands us next to a gas station. First guy debusses and breaks left, throwing out an electroflare. Nothing. Second guy debusses right, sees the gas station and a cyberdisk sitting in the middle of it, which hits him for a 3-point fatal wound. Half the team concentrate fire and the thing goes up, taking the gas station with it and leaving a huge cloud of smoke.
The team medic heals 2 points of the fatal wound before running out of time. Point man on the left side advances a few steps and spots a sectoid dead aft of the Skyranger. The left side of the team concentrates fire and takes it out.
Aliens turn, and a grenade lands on the right side of the exit ramp, taking out 3 guys directly including the wounded man and the medic. Unable to see through the smoke from the gas station, the remainder of the team on the right side fall back to consolidate postition, the left and aft troopers turn to give supporting fire. Another cyberdisk appears on the edge of the gas station and takes out two of the aft squad. I'm down to seven troopers, and decide to bug out. The withdrawing troopers pause to grab the gear off their fallen comrades as the remainder of the left & aft fireteams try to give covering fire. Another sectoid appears on the right side and takes out another trooper. Panic sets in, two troopers go beserk, one panics and runs straight at the sectoid, who plasma fries him at the start of the next round. I manage to get one trooper up the ramp and dumps the gear he's carrying, while the other three panic, and two are picked off the next round. The last trooper outside the Skyranger gets a plasma bolt in the back as she struggles up the ramp. I dust off, one wounded trooper on board, the rest KIA.

I replay the mission from the Geo-Save made just after the Skyranger lifted off from Europe, this time directing the Skyranger to a waypoint just outside Brasillia to wait for daybreak. The aliens liftoff when I'm halfway across the Atlantic.
Every. Single. Time.
Only way I can reach the terror site in time is if I set course directly, if I specify a waypoint, the aliens liftoff long before I get close.

[Mortimer]

Only way I can reach the terror site in time is if I set course directly, if I specify a waypoint, the aliens liftoff long before I get close.

Set a direct course and just before it reaches the terror site divert it slightly off course? But than they may still take off before daybreak.

[shodan]

(Side note: This is Apocalypse).

I had just deployed inside an industrial factory complex, in response to a terror mission alert. My squad was fragmented; three guys were deployed way over *there* on the factory floor, another three guys were near the top level on a catwalk, and two more were halfway across the map in a basement hallway.

It was going to take me forever to get everyone reunited again.

So, I start exploring. I break up the squad of two guys, going in opposite directions down the hallway. The three guys on the factory floor fanned out, floating a square or two above the floor for greater visibility.

I switched to my final squad (the guys on the catwalk) and started positioning them. Lo and behold, when I rotated one of them 90 degrees, he saw /all/ of the aliens. Five Anthropods, a couple of Multiworms, a few Skeletoids, a collection of Spitters, and two Brainsuckers, all clustered together in one huge bunch. Apparently, the aliens "deploy" much the same way my squaddies do.

So I do what comes naturally - I fire off a guided rocket from my minilauncher. Forgetting, obviously, that I'm standing on the same catwalk structure as the aliens.

The explosion goes off, causing a large number of pipes (and other debris) to fall from the ceiling onto the aliens, at which point, the entire catwalk collapses, and the whole mess (chunks of metal and aliens) falls to the floor. Which turns out to be another catwalk, which collapses, and plummets down another couple levels, landing on *another* catwalk, which collapses.... Needless to say, all the aliens died. Since my guys all had Marsec armor, they did the Peter Pan thing and just floated in the air when the floor collapsed. Otherwise, they would've been a pink stain on the lowest floor.

(I didn't win the mission at that point, as there was still one alien left. Took forever to find him, too, nearly a dozen turns. I know it was a Brainsucker, but I forget his eventual fate. I think he just escaped off the map.)

But seriously. How often does something like that happen?

(Incidently, the sheer amount of accidental property damage got the owners of the factory pissed at me. But hey, can't make an omelette without breaking a few thousand eggs. And besides, I could always not respond the next time they see an alien wandering around their building....) :)

[Afterburner]

Set a direct course and just before it reaches the terror site divert it slightly off course? But than they may still take off before daybreak.

Still won't work. Once you change target from "Terror Site" to "Waypoint," the Terror Site disappears.

[Spectrum]

Still won't work. Once you change target from "Terror Site" to "Waypoint," the Terror Site disappears.
Use an Interceptor, target the Terror Site. The Int will go to the site, then head back. Right before it gets there, send a second one out to the site. Right before the first comes back, send it back to the site. Repeat until daybreak, then send your Skyranger over.

Done properly, the Site should still be there, so long as it's targeted by at least one craft.

[bliksem_engel]

Ah X-com How I love thee.

ok I'm sure we have all had the following stuation happen. These are from my first "run through"

1. I've had a good month takeing down aliens and am starting to get cocky. I've just "happened" upon a landed scout. my first action is of course to get the rocket tack out of the way. So I send it down and hear the tall tail fire of plasma. The tank takes the hit and returnes fire in kind. this calls a shot from the oppeset diraction. the tank dies. I think to myself that I'll wait the turn for them to come to me. I hit the turn button big mistake. You see up till this point I've never seen an alien grenade go off. Sectoid runs up the ramp and throws a grenade into my squad. next turn boom no more squad. I was shocked.

2. some time later. I was getting real good. and was begining the thick big of my self again. I land near a large ship. (note the I lost an intercepter trying to shot it down.)
first turn I deploy succesfully, wiping out the snakemen near my ship. I end my turn. I then hear this funny nouse I'd never heared before and then I see this strange purple (american) football shaped object flying across the map. BOOOOM!!! Three troop (ironicly those in the very middle of the blast, something I've never seen again) lived and procceded to cause holy hell upon the aliens. sadly they did all die...but that wasn't till the next mission. Poor guys.

[Speaker-to-Dreamworlds]

So, it's been a productive month.

I had an unforseen temporal anomaly (read: I hit the button to land at the terror site, and the game crashed), as a result of which Denver does not get terrorized this month after all; the first shot down supply ship (not counting the Harvester, the Large Scout, the other supply ship, or the Battleship or Supply Ship I captured intact) has been cleaned out of the Amazon Jungle; and since the Terror Ship is now decorating a wheat field somewhere near chicago, I can afford to send Team Prime to clean up the supply ship that got shot down in the Sahara, rather than send it to save Denver, and leave picking off the Terror ship crash to Team NORAM as soon as their Lightning gets out of the body and fender shop.

This means that I can send some High-Psi rookies along in Prime Skyraider, in order to get them enough experiance that they may qualify as Squaddies and recieve their Personal Armor soon. (I have a Policy, see.)

I have a capaple Psi-Sergeant to season a bit more, also, in the hope that she may actually learn to shoot sometime this year, and thus qualify for Commando status, and her own Powersuit.

So the Skyraider lands, and the Plasma Tank floats around, and I MC a couple of snakemen who are wandering around in a daze (a much easier start than the other Supply Ship I just cleared up, where the Tank wandered out into a five-way fire sack and baaaarely survived ( 1 HP left)) and secure the area.

Then I make a Momentous Decision. See, the real purpose of this little exercise is to toughen up the lesser lights. I've only got two full Agents along, and they're really just here to hold the lesser beings hands. Now, normally, I would peel a supply ship by blowing a hole in the Control room roof, and sending the Flying Armor squad in to decapitate the Bug's command structure. In this case, however, I decide that "seasoning" implies a certain amount of risk-taking on the rookies' part, and concurrently, less risk taking on the part of the Real People on the team.

So I move Commander of Agents and Agent- Emm over to the top of the ship, have Agent- Enn unload the Blaster launcher and prepare to attempt Mind Control instead (Enn and Emm aren't up to MCing anything hard yet, but these are just Snakemen, who are nearly as stupid as Mutons, and Gee and CoA will back them up if necessary, soo ...), and move the boyz up to breach the UFO doors.

Now there is one real difficulty with my plan: which is that there are always three-four Aliens on a Supply ship who hang around the control room, and lurk about with full APs, waiting for anyone to attempt to go down the two Death Trap corridors on either side of the SS's top floor. Winkling them out might kill off a rookie or two, but I figure ... seasoning requires risk.

And then I get a break: Agent Gee flies over from the Sky-raider's opposite wing, and Just So Happens to fly into a clipping error, and LOS on a Snakeman hanging around outside the Bridge door.

Three Mind Control Operations, one HPlas shot and a few discreet Inventory modifications later and the Alien Command Structure is reduced to a pair of Leaders with no Guns, ammo or Grenades, making things much simpler.

I do so love that Aliens can't, apparantly, look down and pick up the Heavy Plasma lying right at their feet.

Just another proof of the fundamental Human superiority over the Godless Alien Menace, I suppose.

Yours in shadenfreude, Speaker. ;)

[weasel fierce]

.

I do so love that Aliens can't, apparantly, look down and pick up the Heavy Plasma lying right at their feet.

Just another proof of the fundamental Human superiority over the Godless Alien Menace, I suppose.

Yours in shadenfreude, Speaker. ;)

Its because they are COMMUNISTS

[Drexel]

Gah! My second terror mission. Well, technically my first as I didn't feel up to doing the first one :D

I land at the edge of town and my rocket tank rolls down the ramp.... and is instantly turned to slag. My brave scout skips out and make it to the ground. A sectoid just ahead of her. She guns it down with her laser rifle.... and is shot in the back.

The second scout slips out in the other direction and is confronted by...1 sectoid and TWO cyberdisks, both parked just at the edge of the ramp. She never made it back in before the rest of the team lifted off. :(

[O'Borg]

I then hear this funny nouse I'd never heared before and then I see this strange purple (american) football shaped object flying across the map. BOOOOM!!!

Ah, blaster bombs, deadly in the hands of the aliens, even worse in the hands of X-Com.
I haven't lost more than 2 troopers at once from blaster bombs yet, but I do recall a mission versus a landed Sectoid Battleship where, just as I'm preparing for my rookie team to dust off without risking the carnage of Rookies on a UFO, I hear a boom, several death squeals and my flying suited sniper doing overwatch from the tailfin of the Skyranger reports smoke rising from the control room of the Battleship.
Bravery gets the better of me and I assault the UFO with all troopers, the demoralized Sectoids falling like dominoes before the laser rifles of my squad.
I get to the blast area and find several dead sectoids, a hole in the roof and an unloaded blaster launcher. Looks like the Sectoid Leader tried to fire off a blaster bomb and forgot to get someone to open the doors first :D

[Voidnaut]

Ah, blaster bombs, deadly in the hands of the aliens, even worse in the hands of X-Com.
I haven't lost more than 2 troopers at once from blaster bombs yet, but I do recall a mission versus a landed Sectoid Battleship where, just as I'm preparing for my rookie team to dust off without risking the carnage of Rookies on a UFO, I hear a boom, several death squeals and my flying suited sniper doing overwatch from the tailfin of the Skyranger reports smoke rising from the control room of the Battleship.
Bravery gets the better of me and I assault the UFO with all troopers, the demoralized Sectoids falling like dominoes before the laser rifles of my squad.
I get to the blast area and find several dead sectoids, a hole in the roof and an unloaded blaster launcher. Looks like the Sectoid Leader tried to fire off a blaster bomb and forgot to get someone to open the doors first :D

This made me laugh out loud, partly because I find Sectoids just so darn funny.

They're little grey men, with guns that are far too big for them! They make me giggle.

-Voidnaut

[Xenon_Wulf]

I had been playing for a while, and had lost every single game until then despite numerous saves and restores. Getting fed up, I decided to restart the game.

I got a Terror mission, my first one in that game, about a month or two after starting. I sent in the troops, hoping I'd be able to pull it off. My squad got squared against sectoids. Near the end of the mission, one of the sectoids hidden in an alley and armed with a stun launcher shoots at one of my trooper and misses, hitting the wall instead and knocking himself out. I laugh at his incompetence and mop up the rest of his buddies. Mission ends, stuff gets tallied, and I have one live sectoid, my first for the game.

I open the research screen and learn that the sectoid was a navigator, who gave me the path for wave decoder within the first three months of the game.

My scientists research it, along with the stun launcher, and on the next enounter with sectoids, one of my squaddies is equipped with a stun launcher and knocks a pair of them out. Mission ends, check out research screen and I find out I got a leader - unlocking MC within the first six months of game time.

With such a stroke of incredible luck, X-Com was able to shut down the martian brain within a year and a half of game time. To this day, I have never been able to repeat the feat of finishing the game so quickly.

But it also had its downsides: I have missed out on two aliens (the floating hart things, which I only managed to find one dead specimen, and the crawling mass, which I had never seen until Mars), along with the most fun part of the game, the Launchers (I had no idea such a weapon even existed until I saw one of the martian Ethereals use one).

[O'Borg]

Bloody hellfire :mad:

End of February, first year and Russia complains XCom isnt doing enough, and reduces funding. Start of March and the Aliens terrorise Navoribisk (sp? Its in Russia). I take down the Floaters & reaper terrorists with one KIA and one WIA from my troopers.
There's then some highly successful missions versus Floater Abductor UFOs, in mid March, and on the 24th Japanese Radar site detects a large UFO, heading West.
My first Interceptor meets it over West Siberia, ID's it as a Terror ship and sticks 3 Avalanches into it before being badly damaged when attempting to get in cannon range. Second interceptor is scrambled but is armed with Stingrays. The pilot gets one Stingray hit before the Interceptor is completely destroyed. The Alien ship then touches down just after sunset and terrorises - Navoribisk.

This game has it in for me.
(Normally I find 3 avalanches send a terror ship down in flames too!)

[Jaakko]

I just took out a landed Very Large UFO crewed by Mutons, using only three guys in personal armour, laser rifles and a few human and alien grenades.

I did have a 5-man team in the beginning (they had just fought a Snakeman terror mission), but the first two men out died immediately to plasma fire. I lasgunned the sniper down with the survivors, then advanced to the UFO. I grenaded two alien scum outside the exit doors, and set up a perimeter on the second floor of the UFO. At that point, the Mutons decided to walk into my sights one or two at a time, only killing one for a loss of about 6 aliens. After that, some incompetent Muton decided to fire a blaster launcher indoors, hitting wall and taking out not only himself, but every single of those gelatinous blobs aboard the ship. The last alien promptly panicked and ran behind my two soldiers to hide in a room, where he was shot in the back.

[O'Borg]

...on the 24th Japanese Radar site detects a large UFO, heading West.
My first Interceptor meets it over West Siberia, ID's it as a Terror ship and sticks 3 Avalanches into it before being badly damaged when attempting to get in cannon range....

Sunuffa hairy beech!!
I must have forgot to save game and I had to replay from 4 days previously.
Exactly the same damn thing happens - 24th of the month, Terror ship appears over Siberia, shoots down the interceptor I send against it and terrorises Navoribisk.

Guess the best I can do is prep for a nighttime anti-terror mission :(

[Pax]

First order of business for setting up X-Com: SELL THE USELESS DAMNED CANNONS.

I go with an all-Avalanche armament, myself. Even then, with six of 'em, a Terror ship isn't a guaranteed "splash".

(In TFTD, it's all DUP-head.)

[O'Borg]

First order of business for setting up X-Com: SELL THE USELESS DAMNED CANNONS.

I go with an all-Avalanche armament, myself. Even then, with six of 'em, a Terror ship isn't a guaranteed "splash".


*Blinks*
And this is where I feel slightly dumb, as I only have cannons (cept plasma cannons) to deal with the Scoutships and I have one Interceptor armed with Stingray missiles for just such a mission. Theres no point having a laser cannon on the Interceptor I send against the biggies.
In fact, when I first played the game I had fighters with dual avalanche or dual fusion-ball armament to take down the big ships.

[Spectrum]

It depends how desperate you are to capture the smaller ships mostly intact. Plasma cannon and avalance missiles have a tendency to mostly blow up the smaller craft, so some people have taken to keeping around stingrays for just such an occasion. Personally, I don't even bother, as they rarely have anything worthwhile to salvage anyway.

[Grogs]

I personally go dual avalanches right out of the gate, then switch to dual plasmas as soon as I'm able. I find the fusion ball launchers pretty worthless since both the plasma and the fusion ball launchers can outrange everything but a battleship. Since you've got 100 shots with the plasma and don't have to build ammo (using 4 units of Elerium-115) I find it superior in every way.

I don't sweat destroying the small craft. It's usually not worth the time to go after the small scout and its one alien. Medium and large scouts give a much better return for the amount of time spent securing them and even a squad full of rookies should be able to manage it without too much trouble.

EDIT: I should also add that early game when my interceptors are carrying avalanches, I tend to leave the large UFO's alone and intercept them on the ground if possible. Not always an option (terror ships) but it's a real pain when you send both interceptors out, launch 12 avalanches, get one of the interceptors badly damaged, and STILL don't shoot down the #$%#$ UFO.

[O'Borg]

Bloody hellfire :mad:
...Start of March and the Aliens terrorise Navoribisk (sp? Its in Russia).
...on the 24th (March) Japanese Radar site detects a large UFO, heading West....The Alien ship then touches down just after sunset and terrorises - Navoribisk.


Unbesmegginglivably, the aliens terrorise Navoribisk again towards the end of April.
3 times in two months. I've seen a city (Lima, Brazil IIRC) get hit twice during a year of game time, but 3 times in 2 months??

[Fade]

Ordinary cannons are completely useless in every way. Laser Cannons are a bit decent, but mainly useful for selling. Plasma Cannons are long ranged, powerful, never need reloading and don't require all that much elerium to build - I equip all my craft with them as soon as possible. Sometimes in the late game I have one craft armed with Fusion Ball Launchers for Battleship duty.

[CodexArcanum]

Unbesmegginglivably, the aliens terrorise Navoribisk again towards the end of April.
3 times in two months. I've seen a city (Lima, Brazil IIRC) get hit twice during a year of game time, but 3 times in 2 months??

It may be that there's an alien base nearby. Might want to peek around for it.

[bastard]

Near the begining (sp? you will see a lot of this...) of a game...

The Agents are still short of hi-tech weapontry...but they still have their auto cannons. Oh yes, the auto cannon...the funnest weapon(due to inferno rounds)...too bad that doesnt stack up against the plasma:( .

Well...I take my team to a medium crash site...but since it is all squadies...they cant hit shit. So clearing out the UFO and the right hand side of the screen. Slowly using up all my ammo I cross to the other side of the screen. In the upper left hand corner is a two story farm house...the one with the open side facing toward the right.

It happens to be in the far corner, while the adjacent (sp?) "blocks" are all open field. Every time I try to advance my soldiers I take fire. I try to return fire...but with sucky marksmenship...I dont hit much. Oh, did I mention this is at night? So, I have used most of my inferno rounds to ignite the wheat fields to provide light.

Running short on ammo, and having at least two greys taking pop shots at me everytime I try to advance. Well my rocket launcher guy is out, but I have some inferno rockets sitting on the Skyranger, so he makes his way back. Of course by the time he is half way there (this must be turn 1000 or so), he pusses out and is too tired. Well, I thought ahead, and a closer soldier is closer, and has picked up the rockets.

Well after some equipement exchanges, and strategic placement of the rocket launcher (aka- getting it onto the second floor of another farm house, along with the rockets, and into the hands of the squadie with the best accuracy), I am ready for the final show down. All during this time, the aliens are trying to take pop shots (not even close to my soldiers), and of course, the x-com agents returned fire (also not even close). I thought I might run the aliens out of ammo...but you never know when the computer is gonna cheat, so I didnt count on that.

Finally, a couple of well placed inferno rockets, and the alien hideout is set ablaze. Almost everyone else is out of ammo, so for a couple of rounds its just Mr. Rocket Launcher vs the two plus aliens. The whole building is up in flames from five rockets (plus two or three hits from I-AC round hit earlier), and the alien screams ensue!

One after another they die a burning, screaming, amusing death. In the end, five aliens die in the blaze. What the hell are five aliens doing in a barn? Thats why they never ran out of ammo!

[O'Borg]

It may be that there's an alien base nearby. Might want to peek around for it.
Reckon you're right on that one, there's a lot of UFO activity over Siberia and the far East, which is just too far from my European base to reliably intercept. I need to put a couple of hangars in my New Zealand construction base ASAP.

I really don't fancy taking on an alien base when my squad are still armed with lasers only and wearing personal armour :(

[O'Borg]

Hmm.

After successfully dealing with an alien terror mission (Snakemen & Chrysallids) including capturing a live Chrysallid, I decided to research Heavy Plasma to suppliment the laser & heavy laser rifles my squad was equipped with.
Damned if the aliens don't suddenly get a lot busier and send in larger, tougher ships!

I think I'm going to rewind a savegame or two and research UFO construction instead.

[Voidnaut]

Thank you, James Alan Gardiner for my new X-Com slogan:

"those boys and girls, they love to deploy." -Faye, Vigilant.

We love to deploy. Genius.

Because I do. I love a good, tight deployment with ample cover and 360 vision. Mm, mm. It gets my socks off so fast they bounce off the wall.

-Voidnaut

[Afterburner]

Thing about TFTD: You have molecular-control powers in TFTD, not mind-control. This is creepy because the molecularly-controlled aliens are FULLY AWARE that they are mere puppets to my MC squaddies.

<The Coelacanth Mark VIII Submersible Weapons Platform scouts along the seabed, looking for hostile aliens. Just as it crests a small rise on the ocean floor, it spots a Lobsterman in the middle distance.>

Rookie: "The fish has spotted another exobiologic."
Lieutenant: "Excellent. Krug? Tanya? Do your thing."

<Two nondescript-looking squaddies peer into a strange alien device. Furrows of concentration appear on their brows.>


MEANWHILE...

Lance-Corporal Dnsquizt peers through its oculars at the cloud of sediment billowing up from the ocean floor just over the hill in the middle distance. Using its powerful tail and pedal extremities, Dnsquizt quickly arrives on the side of the hill and cautiously creeps up to the top. The sight of one of the human mobile weapons platforms surprises Dnsquizt momentarily, but it quickly recovers and prepares to place a few well-aimed sonic bursts in the weak spots of the robot's armor.

Just as Dnsquizt's manual manipulator begins to lightly caress the firing button of the Sonic Cannon, its whole body jerks stiffly into motion. Dnsquizt begins staggering and lurching over the hill and past the robotic weapons platform.

"What is happening to me?"¹ it thinks. "This seems very reminiscent of the molecular control technologies we, the noble creatures of the deeps, use against the Godless human menace. But how can that be possible? The humans are barely intelligent enough to breath unassisted!"

A short time later, Dnsquizt turns a corner past a shale outcropping and spots one of the human submersibles. It staggers haltingly, fighting every inch of the way, but inexorably it approaches the side of the submersible. A voice from inside says "Now watch this..."

Becoming ever more increasingly alarmed, Dnsquizt feels its left manual extremity raising against its will. Moments later, Dnsquizt knocks very sharply against the access hatch of the human submersible.

"Who is it?" comes the voice from inside, accompanied by the strange human vocalization known among them as "laughter". Again against its will, Dnsquizt finds itself vocalizing "Yarealerarearoo!" "Oh! It's you! Come on in!" says the voice.

The hatch opens and Dnsquizt lurches inside. Its eyestalks become fully erect in horror as the ichor-coated exoskeletons of several of Dnsquizt's squadmates crunch ominiously under its pedal extremities.

The hatch closes, followed by the high-pitched whine of sonic weapons.


1. Translated from Godless alien gibberish.

[Afterburner]

Amusingly, if a squaddie kills a mind-controlled alien, that squaddie takes a small morale hit.

[Speaker-to-Dreamworlds]

Yep. So ... War Story time: my Alpha Team has deployed on a landed Sectoid Battleship. Now, normally, I gift my Primary MCers with a Heavy Laser for backup (HLs are fairly accurate, and don't use ammo. Also, Sectopods.)

In this case, however, I'm running ten full Agents, meaning my whole Squad is MC-enabled. So, I gave the Primary MCers the Blaster Launchers, instead.

I park them on the roof of the Avenger in the first couple turns, and ready then to fire as and if needed. Meanwhile, I scout out the area around the Battleship, clear up the Cyberdisk that was popping around being annoying, drive the Sectoid soldiers to the Battleship's Main Lift like cattle, etc.

In the next turn I combine MC from several of my operatives to drive, like seven-eight Sectoids into the Battleship's Upper Lift Room (the one with all the doors), then my Squad Commander puts a Blaster Bomb neatly into the corner of said room, killing the lot of them.

And because of the Morale hit, promptly panics and runs away, and would have fled off the board if that was possible in X-Com.

And that's the story of the Only time Commander of Agents has ever faltered in his duty.

Guess there's still something left of his cold, black heart, after all, eh? ;) :p

[Voidnaut]

You lose morale for killing aliens?

-Voidnaut

[Afterburner]

You lose morale for killing aliens?

You lose morale for killing MC'd aliens, since they are (at the time you kill 'em) kinda-sorta-but-not-really on your side. The morale hit isn't as big as you'd take if you lost a real squaddie, though. But as STDW points out above, the effect can be cumulative.

[O'Borg]

I think I broke something...

As usual, end of the month fast approaching and the Aliens decide to send a couple of battleships into Europe, one from the West which Hyperwave confirms is a Muton Infiltrator, one from the East which is detected beyond Hyperwave range.
My first Avenger is still being built at my tertiary base down in New Zealand, and all I can throw against these behemoths is one Firestorm and one Interceptor, both armed with dual plasmas.
Knowing the Interceptor wont stand a chance I hold it back, hit the savegame key and send off the Firestorm hoping for a miracle.

The Firestorm intercepts the Western infiltrator over the Irish Sea, first pass nets six hits from the dual plasma cannons before my ship takes over 50% damage and the pilot backs off. Nothing to lose, the pilot closes again...zap zap crucnh zap BOOM! Splash one Battleship! The plucky Firestorm is at 60% damage and I decide not to push my luck and order if after the other Battleship.
Instead I scramble the Skyranger with my best crew, loaded with heavy plasma rifles and catch the Battleship just after it touches down in Berlin. I might lose Germany to infiltrators, but I'm gonna make sure the Aliens take a beating in the process.
Suprise suprise its a Muton craft, and I land in a superb tactical positon just to the bottom right of it as the map goes. High hedges seperate me from the craft, and on initial deployment I only spy two Mutons who are rapidly fed plasma bolts by my flying suited snipers, sitting overwatch on the tail of the Skyranger.
I manage to get the rest of my squad in position - the rookies in personal armour throw a couple of proximity mines near the exit doors and stay about 10 squares distant, kneeling and keeping their TUs high to maximize reaction shots. After a quick scout of the perimiter (no more Mutons outside) and a couple of Motion scans on the roof of the ship, there's at least half a dozen aliens inside.

Then I give the aliens a taste of their own medicine as one of the rookies fires off a Blaster Bomb and blows a hole in the roof, right outside the South facing door to the central lift shaft. The echos have barely died away when my assault team swarms in, two guarding the corridor each way and three more going into the central lift shaft.
Two Mutons and a Celatid try to get out the bottom and are killed by the rookies. Another three are killed upstairs and two more in the lift shaft. The remaining Muton Navigator panics. By two's and using proxy mines as cover, my upstairs assault team starts to search the ship.
For a Muton that was supposed to have paniced, he was still lugging his heavy plasma rifle as he Sergeant Ludmilla, a veteran of 30 missions and nearly as many kills, turned the corner and pushed the twin of his gun into the aliens purple face.
I didn't need prisoners anyway.


Funny thing, after this I've only seen one battleship sent out on a revenge mission, they seem to be using the very small scouts instead :D

Oh, and Germany didn't sign a pact with the Aliens after all! :D

[RampantCoyote]

I wrote this many moons ago:

http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2005/12/game-moment-3-x-com.html

I really do miss X-Com. Never got into the sequels so much. Apocalypse was just... weird. There's an indie game called Task Force that tried to recapture some of the gameplay of X-Com, but it wasn't just the tactical combats - it was the whole package. The strategic side, the base-building, and of course the theme and flavor.

[Smartmonkey]

Ressurected for pure awesomeness.

I remember the very begining of the game that would ultimately be the one that I finally took all the way through Cydonia.

My first terror mission. Sectoids and cyberdisks. My squad is armed with conventional weapons only, blasting their way through the streets of LA - and being slowly, steadily gunned down. I hit an alien, and his buddy shoots me in the face the next turn. I use overwatch, and they counter with grenades. Finally, I'm whittled down to a single rookie guarding the skyranger.

He takes one look at his pistol, runs back onto the ship, and finds... an autocannon. With incendiary rounds. He equips it and loads up, rambo-style, on incendiary reloads... and starts firing, indiscriminately. Whole buildings are gutted. Everything around him is on fire, and, a dozen turns later, every alien on the map is dead.

As is every civillian. I managed to get a negative score, even after slaughtering every alien. The rookie? Promoted to squaddie (cos, well, he was the -only- x-com agent after that mission) and killed while breaching a medium UFO a few months later.

I love that game.

[Epic Cave Slime]

"those boys and girls, they love to deploy." -Faye, Vigilant. "Deploy. Destroy. Enjoy."

- long remembered ad-copy line from a long forgotten wargame (Steel Panthers, perhaps?)

[newbsrus]

i just came accross this lovely site to this direct page and was blown away..reading all these excellent...and quite hillarious recaps of past battles caused me to sign up and share some of my master plans.. :)

when I first started the game, I had NO clue whatsoever as to what i was doing, so after 2 restarts due to lack of funding, I decided to read a manual I found. Needless to say right after that I was mopping up aliens left and right, allthewhile making damn sure that my money didn't run out.

But as with all plans there are things that go good, and things that go really, really bad!

For my best mission I would have to say it was the first time I took on a terror ship; (9 months in) I managed to clear away the first 3 snakemen that were hangin around outside, so i set my guys armed with laser rifles and regulatory grenades, with 2 guys with the stun rods.

I had just gotten my unit divided and ready to enter, (standing a few spots away from the door),when all of a sudden a snakeman opens up the door on the left side, he is cut down by laserfire from 7 troopers, meanwhile all the missed shots, (there were many aplenty) went behind him and knocked out another 2 snakmen and a chryssalid. I wait another turn hopin for a repeat effect, and low and behold, out of the other door 3 chryssalisd come rushing my other group of 7 men, and there reaction wasnt the best.

No, none of them got zombified, but it took an incredible amount of shots, and some heavy praying that they managed to made the 3rd chryssy dive back into the ship for the next round. So i figure since he has to touch to hurt, i open the door to kill him and there is yet another 2 snakemen there facing me with heavy plasma's, Now my guy obiously died, so i had one of my men take out a regular grenade, primed for "impact explosion" and my praying payed off again when I heard some alien screams next turn, and seeing a lovely [Snakeman navigor panicked]. But the mission wasnt done yet, so I stormed the ufo finding nothing, went up the gravlift and there was nothing upstairs whatsoever.

After searching for about 10 minutes i decide to cut my losses and transfer EVERYTHING back to my transport, i getthere and discover the damned snake sitting in my ship waiting for my to take him in for interrogation!

[newbsrus]

My most hated was when I went after my first base, (floaters, 10 months).

I had my skyranger fully equipped, ready to rock and landed. I Managed to make my way thru the entire base while only losing a total of 3 soldiers to blaster bombs, and heavy plasma fire, I get to their command center with all of my remaining soldiers, and anticipating one heavy fortress prepared to do a full frontal assault (I was getting cocky, didnt have heavy plasma/blaster, and was tired from the half hour of alien hunting in the corridors).

I get them all in there, to the grav i see 3 nice looking floaters, all looking in the wrong direction..so I be even more cocky and bring ALL my soldiers to the room and prepare to kill them. I get thru what i think was the leader and an engineer (I didnt realize his importance at the time).

Then having a brainfart, that damned 2nd engineer decided that hearing plasma rifle shots meant he just HAD to shoot his little bomb..needless to say after 30 minustes of scouring a base with minimal losses, and ending up losing all the soldiers I had left to 1 shot. I was tempted to take a Hammer to my montir for that stunt.:mad:

[Pope Nag]

That's terrible luck, newbsrus. Remember, in X-Com, there is no such thing as overkill. If you even halfway suspect there's an alien hiding somewhere, shoot it, throw grenades at it, target it with incendiary rounds and then pop a rocket into the smouldering remains.

I've never had an alien hiding in my ship before, though. That's pretty cool.

[Wulf Corbett]

Maybe someone can help me with my non-war problem... I'm playing my 197th (or thereabouts) X-Com (well, UFO Enemy Unknown, the UK edition of X-Com) campaign, and it's set on Easy - I'm just enjoying the tactical missions, really. Problem is, after hundreds of interceptions and ground missions, and about a dozen alien bases, I have finished off all the available research, without ever being ofered the Psi-Training base construction! My squads are still getting punished by mind control regularly!

Is there some specific action you have to take to get Psi Training? Or is it plain not available on Easy mode (and if so, why do THEY get it :mad: )?

Wulf

[Fade]

To learn the details of psychic technique you need to interrogate a psychic alien. Capture a Sectoid Leader or any Ethereal alive, and research them. Then you can research psionics.

[Wulf Corbett]

To learn the details of psychic technique you need to interrogate a psychic alien. Capture a Sectoid Leader or any Ethereal alive, and research them. Then you can research psionics.
I'm sure we have at some point, I think there's been a glitch... oh, well, I have something like 150 launchers and a few hundred alien stun bombs, so I can collect another if need be :D

Wulf

[newbsrus]

That's terrible luck, newbsrus. Remember, in X-Com, there is no such thing as overkill. If you even halfway suspect there's an alien hiding somewhere, shoot it, throw grenades at it, target it with incendiary rounds and then pop a rocket into the smouldering remains.

I've never had an alien hiding in my ship before, though. That's pretty cool.

yeah, I have learned the hard way there multiple times. But now that I can successfully storm an Ethereal Base with no casualties, (no psi either) I think I have it down. Since then I have played multiple times and I have noticed something. If you ever play the "wimp" style (when storming a base kep all ur guys on the right wall facing the grav, and send down sumone to get their attention.) that casualties seem to happen alot less. (gotta love mass reaction).

And yes, that alien did throw me for a loop when i found him on my ship.

[Sacrosanct]

I was on cloud nine a few months ago when I discovered a free version of X-Com for my Ipaq.


Oh yes, time to kick alien butt again.

[Gamer_Packrat]

I will feign indignation at this thread being in the wrong forum.

[TrapperQ]

i just came accross this lovely site to this direct page and was blown away..reading all these excellent...and quite hillarious recaps of past battles caused me to sign up and share some of my master plans.. :) Welcome to RPGnet. If you dig deep into the Video Games Open forum you'll find about a thousand or so XCOM threads. Happy digging.

[Malachi Constant]

Worst mission ever!

First or second mission in the game Terror site.

First turn, we land with an sectoid right in front of the landing craft. I have a squaddie fire but he misses. The sectoid turns and fires a stun bomb right into the landing craft, whole squad ko'd.


Mission failed, ship lost in all of 5 seconds. It took longer to choose equipment then do the mission.

[Sacrosanct]

There was no mission hard enough to overcome my often saves and re-loads ;)

[newbsrus]

yeah, the ability to save during a mission is a god-send... but no amount of saving can stop a damn country from wihdrawing... or FIVE countries from withdrawing in the same month!!! i musta really pissed those aliens off!