would all recruits start as rookies, or could you hire (for more cost) more expeienced personel, maybe for example if you have high favour/funding with some of the bigger countries they could allow you to recruit some of their expeienced troops (maybe as a event or diplomance function?)
also i was thinking about ground combat during terror missions, about the presence of freindly troops (local police/military trying to save the situation), at the start they would be a asset, but once the region takes hits (from ufo action) they wouldn't be present anymore due to disorginization and damage to the countries military, and of course as the game progresses the standard weaponry would become inadiquit and thed turn the defence entirely over to the player.
On a totally unrelated point: alien bases would they become operational imediatly, or could you catch them during construction to try and prevent them becoming operational?
and any options later with research to *soften* up a alien base with missiles? maybe making the base damaged before the troops arive... (maybe researchable/buildable icbm missile silos?)
would base missions be just the troops entering the base or multi part battles where they have to gain acess to the way in by killing the defenders (and maybe base defences) on the surface?