Love the game - only a few complaints

[Alandroid]

1st let me say that I think Goldhawk did a wonderful job and as a person who has played the original X-Com when it came out and plenty times after, this is a great remake and likeness. I love the little things added to Xenonauts like troops and aliens becoming suppressed and the geoscape battles are more fun than on X-Com. But on that note comes the only minor complaint that I have so far... I started off playing Veteran difficulty and I always play Ironman mode btw. That definitely proved too hard for me and I consider myself pretty good at tactical games. The problem wasn't with the ground battles which were very challenging at times, but with the geoscape which has proven to be very hard to me. So I then switched to normal mode and I am still finding it very difficult to keep countries happy and am always losing funds over time. It seems to me that there is too much alien activity going on all the time which lowers your relationship with countries. And seemingly no matter how good I do and how many interceptors I have I still can't keep up.

Wish there was a little more balance and maybe some toning back on country relations making it a little more forgiving as far as the goescape is concerned....

just my 2 cents - but great game!

[Grotesque]

1st let me say that I think Goldhawk did a wonderful job and as a person who has played the original X-Com when it came out and plenty times after, this is a great remake and likeness. I love the little things added to Xenonauts like troops and aliens becoming suppressed and the geoscape battles are more fun than on X-Com. But on that note comes the only minor complaint that I have so far... I started off playing Veteran difficulty and I always play Ironman mode btw. That definitely proved too hard for me and I consider myself pretty good at tactical games. The problem wasn't with the ground battles which were very challenging at times, but with the geoscape which has proven to be very hard to me. So I then switched to normal mode and I am still finding it very difficult to keep countries happy and am always losing funds over time. It seems to me that there is too much alien activity going on all the time which lowers your relationship with countries. And seemingly no matter how good I do and how many interceptors I have I still can't keep up.

Wish there was a little more balance and maybe some toning back on country relations making it a little more forgiving as far as the goescape is concerned....

just my 2 cents - but great game!

start producing equipment and sell it on the market to keep up

oh wait...

[ViewThePhenom]

Losing funding due to alien activity should be expected in the first few months. Losing funding and even one or two nations doesn't mean you're playing poorly imo, and I think this needs to be emphasized. In fact, looking at funding lost over a month, the required minimum before you lose a nation and deciding how to update your global coverage is a part of the geoscape strategy. Even deciding to cut off certain areas (like Australia) in order to maximize funding and coverage in other areas (like the Western Hemisphere) is a part of it.

Once again, losing funding is to be expected; that's my experience, at least. What really matters is losing enough to fall behind financially and being able to adapt accordingly.

[Alandroid]

thanks Phenom... makes sense with what you were saying. I think I was thinking the old X-Com way where you would be able to sustain positive funding from countries each month fairly easily. Xenonauts may be just structured differently in this regard and minimizing funding loss and finding other ways to make money I guess is key in Xenonauts. I'm in I think my 3rd month and i'm still hanging in there though its getting pretty rough financially. But maybe if I lose a country or 2 I can better protect the others. I have 2 bases and another on the way so I guess i'm not totally financially broke lol.

[BuzuBuzu]

I find (from only one partial playthrough mind you) that once you get three bases with enough aircraft, your funding really skyrockets back up because you can intercept UFOs anywhere in the world. I also got really jittery in the beginning with funding cuts month after month but once I researched the missile upgrades, downing every UFO in a wave became common place and funding countries came back around.

This got me thinking that the difficulty curve is kind of backwards. If you play really well and down all the UFOs before they complete their missions you keep the Alien Ticker advancing super slowly even though you're probably in a position to have more difficult UFOs start showing up. Meanwhile if you're having trouble and can't handle more than one UFO per wave, the Alien Ticker advances really quickly and your difficulties start to snowball as more advanced UFOs start showing up before you can even handle their predecessors.

THAT got me thinking that either there is a razor thin margin of error in the beginning that you have to be very mindful because otherwise problems snowball, OR the difficult beginning is a bit of an illusion and you can afford to really take your time before getting three bases up and being able to cover the world. Has anyone just ran the game in fast forward without intercepting anything to see how long it takes for GAME OVER. How many months of total inaction before landing ships, cruisers, and carriers start popping up? How many months before funding drops below your maintenance costs?

[junker154]

I noticed that this game has a lot more going for it in the geoscape section. There is tons of activity and things to consider, aliens react much more properly in the geoscape than in the older Xcom titles.

I suggest building at least 4 hangars and a second base, try to get a good mix of different planes and try to shoot as many aliens downs at possible. Split up your jets and try to get a maximum of them.

Building a second base in a different continent will also help tremendously, just picking off ufos and airstriking the crashsites (if you don't have the soldiers) helps out a lot.

[kabill]

This got me thinking that the difficulty curve is kind of backwards. If you play really well and down all the UFOs before they complete their missions you keep the Alien Ticker advancing super slowly even though you're probably in a position to have more difficult UFOs start showing up. Meanwhile if you're having trouble and can't handle more than one UFO per wave, the Alien Ticker advances really quickly and your difficulties start to snowball as more advanced UFOs start showing up before you can even handle their predecessors.

It's worth noting that the alien ticker is actually unaffected by alien activity. There's stuff in the game files to make this happen, but it's not used in the game (probably because of the points you make about it).

THAT got me thinking that either there is a razor thin margin of error in the beginning that you have to be very mindful because otherwise problems snowball, OR the difficult beginning is a bit of an illusion and you can afford to really take your time before getting three bases up and being able to cover the world. Has anyone just ran the game in fast forward without intercepting anything to see how long it takes for GAME OVER. How many months of total inaction before landing ships, cruisers, and carriers start popping up? How many months before funding drops below your maintenance costs?

I've done this several times when testing things. I've never lost a region in the first two months of the game doing this; I think losing some by the end of the third is assured though. Not sure if I've had enough for game over by that point, though.