I am encountering the same thing on Normal. Now granted, this is only on the 'Really Hard' missions, but still. Playing conservative is the only way I have survived some encounters.
Doing that on classic means runnning into alien overwatches and worse, activating other alien groups. More than once I got my squad swarmed and wiped out by sectoids playing normal-style (12 sectoids vs 4 soldiers, ain't happening). This is especially true if going after a landing, as all of the aiens have survived and if you directly assault the ship you'll end up facing the entire crew at once.
So I typically find the nearest heavy cover and sit tight until their patrols come around, then go hunting after I've eliminated 2 or 3.
I am encountering the same thing on Normal. Now granted, this is only on the 'Really Hard' missions, but still. Playing conservative is the only way I have survived some encounters.
I cant seem to keep all the consul together I loose my first country at the first consul meeting on classic (which I seem to like more than normal as its "win mode")
I've found on normal I can usually worm my way out of difficult situations while staying aggressive. I had 2 snipers with squad-sight for most of the game, so with them in commanding positions they'd compensate for a lot.
On classic, I discovered just how many mistakes of mine the AI was overlooking. My position can be 98% secure and it'll find the 2% breach.
In normal, that only happened to me on a downed alien battleship. Slowly made my way into a room: bam. an elite muton pack, 2 muton packs (one had berserker) plus a pack of heavy floaters. My sniper had NO sights on them because they were in a separate room, and no full cover in sight.
Needless to say that wasn't a happy encounter.
Bit the bullet and ordered. Recommend starting on Normal or Classic?
It seems to me the key is to keep your sats in reserve until the end of the month and then launch them to bring down panic levels where needed. It's why there's such an imperative in bringing up sat coverage quickly. You'll have to choose which abduction sites to fight and not every terror mission will go your way. Sats are the only way (that I know of) to directly lower panic without having to beat a mission.
I just finished the game in normal easy peasey lemon squeezy IMO I cant seem to handle classic as easy though fill a few grave yards , loose some country's
Twice I lost a country at my first meeting and Ive three times I deployed a little too agressively and the AI wiped me out in one counter move (admitedly my own guys panicked and killed the guy the AI couldnt have gotten to) good stuff
Yeah, mine is in some sort of a train yard. It is a terror mission and there are three-four separate groups of sectoids plus at least one group of floaters. it is very early days and I have no upgrades yet. Plus most of my troops are rooks.
My sniper had a 71% chance to hit one of the sectoids, and MISSED. Twice in a row before getting taken out by the self same sectoid.
Funny, but even the bridge mission with the timed bomb was easier.
Worse when you run n gun your assault guy next to some guy and MISS with 90% hit. Next turn he gets critted and dies.
I raged so hard. -_-
Just ordered last night and needless to say I was up till 2:30 playing "just one more turn"! Playing at Normal Ironman to get the hang of it before moving up to classic. Spent hundreds of hours playing through the previous games multiple times.
Overall I'm satisfied and the perma-death of Ironman mode is oh so heart-wrenching! Learned the hard way last night that when using cars for cover they can explode! Lost two of my favorite veterans on like the 6th or 7th mission when the car they were hiding behind blew up in a blaze of fiery death! I didn't notice it was on fire until the end of my turn and both guys had used all their movement and didn't think about the fact that it could explode! Painful lesson payed for with the life of my only sniper and best assault class.
In the base I'm finding that I never have enough money! I went a little too all in on science going for the scientists when I had an option which is great, but I don't have many engineers and I seem to blow through my money fast and can never afford many of the new toys my scientists invent for me. Seems like I would have been better served spending early money on a second sat uplink and more sats rather than a laboratory and increasing income early. Lots of base level strategies to figure out and play with.
Yup, now I just use run and gun to setup overwatch instead of trying to use it to take down just that one last guy. I also swapped them over to shotguns, a hell of a lot more accurate up close than plasma rifles.
On a side note, a lot of bad habits came to light once you start playing classic. My missions take much longer now but I'm coming out unscathed in a lot more of them.
But then I haven't run into grenading mutons yet...
we hates them
I ran into grenading cyberdisks. Surprisingly, it wasn't so bad (5 damage to two guys in range). Now the double laser thingy the disk has, well, that's a different story. I've met Mutons, but I can't remember them tossing grenades at me. Do they have different grenades than the cyberdisk?
I ran into grenading cyberdisks. Surprisingly, it wasn't so bad (5 damage to two guys in range). Now the double laser thingy the disk has, well, that's a different story. I've met Mutons, but I can't remember them tossing grenades at me. Do they have different grenades than the cyberdisk?
nope, 5 damage alien grenades. But they seem to be much more ready to use them versus the cyberdisk, which just shoots you for a bajillion damage.
Speaking of which, were sectopods ever this dangerous?? Saw it do its "charge up" animation the other day and I thought it was just on overwatch, so I huddled my guys behind some cover and continued shooting it. The next turn it launches a barrage of missiles for 6-7 damage x 2 each with a freaking huge radius!?!?!?
Then the elite mutons around the corner finish off my team....