Finished commander ironman, commander tips

[BCool]

Just finished a commander ironman campaign, and I have a few tips if people are interested.

I built my base on the western edge of Asia, where it only costs $1,000,000 for some reason, but has lots of land area and is near 4 regions. I also play the extended game, I think it actually makes the game significantly easier especially on commander. (more loot to sell)

I immediately built a training center, power plant, and a hanger. I would time the build of a lab for the start of the next funding month (and time the build of 3rd lab for the start of the one after that) No workshops until you have 3 fully staffed labs. I skip the hospital until midgame. I just hire about 15 soldiers when possible and swap out the wounded. I also fire the weakest TU soldiers and replace them before the training center comes online. I accepted the reduced training rate due to the extra soldiers. 

I immediately researched the MARS and built one. I also built a 2nd plane asap as well.

Early on the MARS is just so valuable, heavy armor, ballistic cannon with a range finder seems the best. Early on it is probably your best killer, and it can lure out enemies and survive most attacks in the early missions It is just so valuable to have the enemies run out and try to kill it. It makes them much easier to kill. You should still try to get cover for it and even smoke but just make sure it is the easiest target when you are getting overwhelmed by enemies.

Tactical combat early on I go with 2 shields, an assault, a grendier, a sniper, 2 machines guns, and the MARS.

The grenadier is so useful since the weight of the grenades and smoke is significantly less with the launcher. The range is nice too, and the ability to launch 2 grenades a turn is very nice (one grenader can smoke everyone!) 

My philosophy is to make sure every soldier is making a useful attack without leaving them exposed (or a plan to smoke the group with one of the last soldiers to go if they have to leave cover to make an attack or need to advance quickly). If they can't make a useful attack, then they are blowing up walls or cover that might hide enemies that could be attacked by other soldiers. Everyone uses the rebreather, with the possible exception of the grenader and sniper. 

Reaction fire is only used as an absolute last resort. If I know I can't attack an enemy and my only hope to save someone is reaction fire, is almost the only time I use it. Smoking your attackers is almost always better than letting the enemy attack. Even if there are no visible enemies I will smoke my soldier even if they have cover at the end of the round if there is an unexplored building/area near them. Battles with reapers is a possible exception to this rule, but even then I would rather just be more aggressive at destroying all cover possible from range to expose and kill them rather than waiting for them to jump out. 

You can still kill the aliens through a smoke wall especially with machine guns. Targetting a space beyond the alien through smoke will spray the area and still hit the alien more often than not with a 10 bullet burst. 

I ended up eventually getting to 5 hangers at the main base, and building 4 angel interceptors before timing the building of my 2nd base for the start of the 4th? funding period I believe. I set it up with 2 hangers, a radar, a storage space, and 2 missile batteries. I immediately transferred the 2 interceptors there as well as 4 sentry guns if I got really unlucky on a base attack surviving the missile batteries. 

Early on, you have to capture a cleaner agent, the general and as soon as reasonble a clearner soldier alive to get the bonus operation points. Use the points on supporters to reduce tension or get more Operation points (whoever is cheap) ideally the ones that give you either -2 doomsday tension or +2 operation points. Researching the general's interrogation is top priority after the MARS research. Time it and know that the protection status changes every 10 days. After getting all the operation points you can and enough doomsday tension reduction, then I try to go for the region bonuses. I try to the soldier bonuses if I can at reasonable price, high quality soldiers is just so important. If you are playing extended version of the game, then getting the selling bonus is really good after that if you can. Reduce monthly expenses then maybe reduced scientist and engineer salaries if you really can't get the others cheaply. 

Eventually I found it useful to have 2 sets of 3 interceptors to shoot down UFOs. Full missile loads with 3 interceptors especially with alenium missiles and maybe one torpedo for the right fight can take down almost anything, usually with minimal damage. I ended up using 3 upgraded angels and 3 phantom interceptors. Near the end I did build the gemini interceptors, and more bases just because I had so much money. 

Half of my soldiers killed (I think 10 out of 19) were MARS or ARES vehicles. So much better to sacrifice them than a trained soldier. 

 

 

 

[Hapato]

Thank you for your account of your campaign. I have never played on Ironman in a turn based game, however after reading your account this sounds like something I might do in the far far future.