Xintrosi

I love Eclipse. I play it with my friends about twice a week, when we have a chance. It mixes a worker management game with a puzzle (ship-upgrades and their counters. So many options!). The main negatives of any game like it are too much good/bad luck. One instance of bad luck won't screw you if you're adaptable, but if the game screws you at every turn (never find a good system with explores AND roll all 1s on every combat) you're going to lose. However, like most board games, looking like you're losing is actually a good thing, assuming your friends are like mine and always back stab the obvious leader. The tech-draw from the bag is nice, even if it can give you some bummer games (no plasma cannon til turn 7 on a 4 player game?! grrrr...) because the tech tree can't be fully planned for and it requires improvisation and flexibility instead. Maybe you passed first hopeful for a great tech draw but got nothing. Do you use your extra money to take extra actions this turn or do you try to pass first to get first crack at techs again? On topic: haven't played the game mentioned in the OP, but Gal Civ 3 is in the works! Gal Civ 2 was my favorite 4x for the longest time, and I must admit despite owning SOTS2, Endless Space, and Armada Gold 2526 I don't think I've played them more than 10 hours combined. It might be the intuitiveness of GalCiv 2's interface or something, but SOTS2 was very confusing until I gave up. It looked like it could be fun, if I figured it out, though.

I have yet to decide what to do with most of my cards, but I sell the repeats I get in order to make getting a full set easier. I like what other people have said previously: sell cards from games you don't like to get a badge for a game you do. The only problem I see with that is that it takes play time to earn cards; if I don't like a game I'm unlikely to put in the time required to earn cards.

My favorite quote: "It’s good looking, but the aerial combat mode is just one more way for you to get your people killed." The lack of faith in my air-command acumen is highly appropriate (and amusing!) Grats on the excellent score! I've been recommending the game to my friends all the time. Unfortunately, they're just not strategic thinkers that like this kind of game :-(

You can cancel fleeing combat by re-targeting/re-engaging the hostile ships, then giving new orders after that. Also, your foxtrot may have been trying to reach the point exactly where you clicked; they orbit destination points as clicked.

The AI currently prioritizes whichever plane you chose first (ends up on top of your ship list during combat). This can allow you to have a foxtrot that merely launches its torps then baits the rest of the enemy ships.

Luckily, if you're making that much money and don't need to train your troops, you can just let the crashed UFO despawn. IIRC, despawned crashes do not have a negative impact on country morale. What's your early game strategy and what are those bases comprised of? I would like to buy into your get rich quick scheme!

In desperate situations I've found that a single condor can take out a full wing of 3 fighters (but not reliably). The fighters are stupid and launch at the first object to come into their radar without any staggering of their launches at all; this allows you to dodge the missiles at the same time. 1. Fly toward the center fighter. 2. While staying on course select either the left or right fighter to die to your missiles 3. Launch missiles as Dranak stated to destroy the targeted ship. 4. Dodge return fire (At some point your lateral dodging will get both fighters in your cannon cone simultaneously) 5. Fire the cannon. If this works, you'll kill both fighters at about the same time. Unfortunately, your condor will not come out of the engagement unscathed, and you can easily lose it with bad dodge timing/direction (the latter of which I don't think you can control), so you should only attempt it when you just can't afford to direct another ship to that engagement. Using two is always the choice I'd prefer to make, because then you can win without loss. Before fighters stopped dodging cannon-fire this worked every time without my condor taking any damage because the dodging fighters would invariably bunch up. Against an escorted ship, I use 1 Foxtrot and 2 condors (with upgraded cannons). The condors use missiles to take out the fighters (or cannons, if you want to make sure to get as much damage on the larger vessel as possible), while the foxtrot launches torps at the large target then kites it around the battlefield. The condors can easily get to the vulnerable backside of a ship while it's chasing the much faster foxtrot.

I like to have my Foxtrots launch missiles at max range and then kite the enemy for my condors to get into position. The superior speed of the foxtrot can guarantee that it won't be over taken in this task, and the superior range of their torps means that they're out of ammo anyway, so might as well get more use out of them. Just don't cut the corner too short, or you'll dip into range long enough to get shot at and there's no dodge option.

This is definitely a problem, but using the hotkeys will solve it. F1-F3 select planes 1-3 and F4 selects all planes as a group. Note that if you use F4, that the planes will move in formation (desinations all evenly spaced from each other) unless you select an enemy target to converge on.

When a Base Defense mission is triggered, it mentions the aliens having entered our "Maintenance Tunnels" (triggered one last night just to see. Turns out having my people at base with an intentional loadout of nothing could be disastrous someday). From this I infer that we are underground. It also seems that aleins can spawn at any "edge" room of the base (that's what I saw, but I can't prove they actually spawned there, or if they did that they were forced to). I wonder if anyone has a lop-sided base they can test whether aliens can start right on/next to the command center? EDIT: or it may be completely random per previous posts

I can't comment on whether I can beat the game with my strategy (I've only gotten to seeing Strike Cruisers flit about before updates destroyed the save), but it's sutainable to that point to have 3 bases if I'm very careful. I do the same thing as Tobbzn, where my second base in Cancun is a focused Laboratory and functional sortie base (though it gets the cast-offs and hand-me-downs of equipment and personnel... much like Xenonauts!)and Base 3 is in the Phillipines to cover most of Australasia and Indochina. Base 3 is interceptor only. Unfortunately, if you try to cover both Americas by basing in Central America you're detecting over huge bodies of water. A vast majority of the time I end up shooting UFOs down over the ocean just to prevent them from completing their mission with no intention to salvage the wreck. Where do you guys place your bases in the western hemisphere? (if that's not considered too far off-topic)

While we're at it, what about strafing? I use Shielded combat scouts, and I'd love for them to move without exposing their flank to the enemy. At least the corner thing is easier, because you can drop smoke and then get oriented properly before poking one's nose through the other side.

Enjoyed your video. I've always preferred Foxtrots over condors, but this video shows how 19 Stable makes that silly, and the condors slow down the foxtrots during patrol anyhow. Next game I'll have to save myself the 50k per plane and just go Condor heavy until Marauder.

I usually use a "Combat Scout" class that is equipped with a shield/pistol combo with plenty of grenades on hand. He even carries a second shield in his pack in case the first one is too trashed to continue. 2 Combat Scouts, 1 Heavy, 1 Rocketeer, 2 Snipers and 2 Riflemen. Riflemen get a bunch of grenades and c4 (to be lobbed as grenades). All classes except rocketeer get some grenades, and as it currently stands I'm considering turning the rocketeer into another rifleman for more grenade action.

Do you wait until you have corsairs or marauders to patrol? The flight range of condors is so limited and I don't like sending foxtrots out solo, so I've never bothered to send out aircraft without a known contact. I figure there's not much need to patrol unless I see a marked drop in funding level from one of the funding blocs that isn't explained by the alien activity scroll.

I have noticed this happen multiple times. It's very annoying when I know more than one alien is incoming but everyone blows saved TU on the first (already dead) enemy.

Last time I was in a Sebillian base, either the AI broke somehow, or their reflexes didn't make a saving throw because I was able to rush with 3 guys without smoke and stun both the commander and the last guard without reaction fire. In my craptastic November I let 2 Terror missions go unanswered. That was really stupid, because they are a LOT easier than even small base assaults. Jackal/ballistic works for terror missions. Not with alien bases. Definitely learning to use better tactics as the game punishes my gimmicks. Also, Andron bases suck. I want my suppression, dammit!

I had a squad full of commanders that I got total party wiped in the end of October. It was a poor strategic decision to go in when I did, without laser weapons or wolf armor. As a result I let the base sit for most of November, so I'm a bit behind now. Do you find offensive power is better than armor? "Best defense is a good offense" and all that? I usually focus wolf just because it's so relatively cheap, but being able to annihilate the enemy before they get shots off would be preferrable. EDIT: The "take cover in the Great Room" idea has one big problem in my games: I tend to blow the hell out of everything in that room and there's not much cover left. @Josip: I agree with everything you said. After that bad party wipe due to not being prepared, I've basically given up on this save, but want to see how well sub-optimal equipment (almost no lasers, basically) can perform with my necessarily inexperienced squads. If I can pull through despite it all, then I'll definitely consider "normal" a forgiving difficulty as intended. Last base assault was almost all privates (kept the veterans home, as they earned some rest) and I only lost 2 of them with ballistic equipment (except precision lasers, because they are usually a one-hit-kill weapon). I would have upgraded to all lasers, but I lost most of November (some other bad strategic decisions) as an income source and I've been throwing most of my money at base expansion/secondary bases/secondary strike squad (possibly also bad strategic decisions).

I am still using ballistic weapons (except for Precision Laser), holding out for plasma research that is just about finished. I've taken out 4 alien bases, and I have suffered near 50% casualties each time, but even having to re-hire and re-train the personnel, it's cheaper to hire new meat for the grinder than to produce full laser equipment. Especially because I make sure that only Privates/Corporals are in danger of dying, so the survivors have managed to last throughout. I figure sending someone in as combat scout is the Xenonaut method of hazing. I've found the command room to actually be the easiest room to take without loss, which seems backward to me.

Yeah, I actually just did a pincer maneuver in my last alien base. I'm getting really tired of these things popping up everywhere.

After I destroy the reactors, how do I get my folks out and make sure the base is truly destroyed? EDIT: I'm not even sure if the stuff I'm killing is the reactor or not... isn't it the huge thing with consoles around it?

I notice they are usually effective early-game, and by the time you meet alien classes that are harder to suppress you should have upgraded to electroshock grenades anyway. I hate Androns, because they're immune to my normal grenade-suppression tactics. I have never purposely left my units enough TUs to take a reaction shot. I prefer to control the movement of battle instead of hoping an alien will move into the right field of vision and that the Xeno will make the shot. All my reaction shots have come from people that were already in position waiting for squad mates to catch up. Apparently they get so bored they just want to kill something because I have yet to see them miss. EDIT: I also use mass flash bangs to capture sebillian and caesan non-combatants before I get stun weapons. every little bit of nation rating helps, imo.

I had an interesting encounter in a Caesan base last night. It was in the third room, past the room with the power generators. I threw out some smoke because I had recently breached the door and I didn't have all my people in cover. The aliens hunkered down and saved TUs for reaction fire. Figuring this was the case, I flashbanged the lot of them and then moved my people to their chosen "final" positions while taking potshots at the more easily seen Caesans. I took out 2 of the 3 I could see, and suppressed the third. I figured the survivor would run for his life, so I hit End Turn. Unsurprisingly, he ran away to save his pusillanimous plasma pushing hide. However, unbeknownst to me, the caesan warrior I never saw had actually entered the smoke on the previous turn! As (bad) luck would have it, this square of smoke was one of the few that didn't dissipate and no one ever looked at it from the correct angle to see him standing there. On his turn he took two Plasma Shotgun shots and blew away two of my xenonauts from one or two tiles away. That alien is my hero. Talk about not going down without a fight! Lesson learned: Smoke works both ways. Don't assume Caesans won't rush you.

Oh, so my aircraft accidentally destroyed three in a row. This is acceptable randomness that makes things entertaining. Thanks for weighing in, Chris!

This is my thought process that I've learned from experience: Know aliens are around the corner? Flashbang. Not sure if aliens are around the corner? Flashbang. Pretty sure aliens aren't around the corner? Don't flashbang, then be surprised when you get reaction-fired to death despite your best intentions. 4 FB/Shock 'nades and 4 smoke on every soldier is how I roll. I rarely use them all, but when I am in a desperate situation I've never regretted having them. As for leaving the dropship and getting insta-gibbed? That's Xenonauts, baby! I got 3 members killed in first contact in an andron base because my first soldier's turn triggered wild reaction fire. I should have dropped smoke, apparently.