amjh

With tech advancement, I only meant what was in original x-com and possibly what comes from expanding that, going from basic weapons that barely work against the weakest enemies to the weapons and other equipment that work against anything you'll face. A lot of the idea relies on the player advancement, and the fact that what success means changes with progress; where you might get a minor victory at one point, you should get a major one at another.

When fighting battles above your level, you'd need to fight defensively, and you'd only need to fight the part of the enemies that target you, the exact amount depending on how the AI is configured. That would achieve okay performance. Once you advance in tech, you can take more offensive approach, and face all off the enemies on the map, giving you a bonus in the final score if successful. As new types of enemies come, what is above your level and what is not changes. In the end, we would have both current offensive terror missions and new more defensive ones. The game would need to be balanced to work with that, but balancing takes work even without it. If everything is configured correctly, playing defensively would be easier, but would only work in short term.

I suggested adapting the AI to force combat in such situations; in the situation I'd imagine that the organization is in the beginning of the game, some dead enemies around the site of attack would be a lot better than just waiting and giving up. From gameplay perspective, the point of the idea is to introduce more varied tactics.

I always got the impression that the original X-com, and xenonauts as a successor, were about a desperate fight and eventual success against a supposedly superior enemy. To me, it just doesn't seem plausible to expect that you'd just steamroll all opposition from the start in such conflict. In such situation, every encounter would be considered a potential loss, and proving that resistance is possible would be the first milestone. For that, getting there and killing a few enemies would be a lot better that hiding and waiting until they go away. If there's technical reasons why it wouldn't work from a gameplay perspective, I'd accept that.

Why do you think the idea wouldn't work? The fact you need to prove yourself to the funding nations shows that they don't have infinite faith in you. Going into the middle of the worst attacks with inferior technology, you couldn't expect to just defeat the enemies, but fighting them would be the only way to prove it's possible. If you were deciding on the funding, would you trust more an ally that sits and does nothing when you suffer, or one that doesn't win every fight but shows progress?

I didn't mean it would end in losing your troops, either you would be allowed to leave eventually, or the enemies would leave as they have done enough damage. The idea would be that you'd need to hold the ground in the early game, and once you got the technology to properly fight back you'd be able to achieve more complete victory. Just being there would only be enough to prove you're not just sitting on the money the funding nations are giving you. Defeating enough enemies would either be enough for a complete victory, or prevent the rest from leaving if a time limit on the mission is used.

Maybe terror missions could be reinvented with secondary objectives? The main objective would be to survive on site for some time as a proof of effort, with the enemy AI adjusted to send soldiers towards the landing site. Actually defeating all the enemies and protecting civilians would be changed into secondary objectives with high rewards. The story explanation would be that you're proving the enemies can be fought in a situation you can't win yet.

One question is, how much they will act as a group? Will others react when one of them sees your soldiers? If so, will all of them react, or will it be based on distance?

Some things that could be added after the release, if it's succesful enough, are additional maps or graphics. One example would be graphics for female soldiers, that many people here are asking for. Also, some of the better modded content could be later put into an official update, if their creators agree.

If the official release of the game succeeds, what happens after that? If it makes enough money, is it possible that some of the wanted features that had to be cut out will be added later, either as free updates or paid expansions?

Perks would be a bad idea, they would require too much micromanagement and add too many too artificial limits. Why should learning one type of combat somehow make the soldier unable or less able to learn anything else?