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X-Com: Enemy Unknown Ironman Challenge [On Again For 2012]

A

archnemesis

Member
What is X-Com: Enemy Unknown?
X-Com is a turn-based tactics game (or SRPG depending on whom you ask) where you defend Earth against an alien invasion. In order to stop the ever-increasing alien threat you'll have to command your soldiers in close-combat battles, research and manufacture alien technology, and carefully manage your resources.

Where can I get this?
PC
rCkpe.jpg
2kOrm.jpg

Steam: $14.99 (14.99€) for the Complete Pack or $4.99 (4.99€) for each game.
Direct2Drive: $14.95 (14.95€) for the Complete Pack or $4.95 (4.95€) for each game.
GamersGate: 14.95 (14.95€) for the Complete Pack or $5.95-5.99 (4.99€) for each game.

Playstation, Amiga500, Amiga1200, or Amiga CD32.
t6a4L.jpg

eBay

What is ironman mode (a.k.a. hardcore mode)?
No reloading when you mess up. If a soldier gets killed, or a base is lost then you just have to deal with it and try to continue without going back to an earlier save game. It doesn't matter which of the five difficulty levels you choose.
35FBw.jpg


What if I don't want to play in ironman mode?
That's fine. You're welcome to use this thread as a LTTP or RTTP for any X-Com game instead.

Screenshots
oBs8c.jpg
33iuM.jpg
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1VVMT.jpg


Visit UFOpaedia.org for more detailed information about strategy and tactics. Here's a beginner's guide to get you started.

Useful Links
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
Best difficulty setting to play this? i am looking for a balanced setting that isn't too easy or too hard, veteran maybe?
 
A

archnemesis

Member
Gexecuter said:
Best difficulty setting to play this? i am looking for a balanced setting that isn't too easy or too hard, veteran maybe?
Click to expand...
Have you played it before? The game can be relentless at times. I've never tried playing it in ironman mode before, so I started a game on Experienced. I'll restart from the beginning if it turns out to be too easy.
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
archnemesis said:
Have you played it before? The game can be relentless at times. I've never tried playing in ironman mode before, so I started a game on Experienced. I'll restart from the beginning if it turns out to be too easy.
Click to expand...

Yep i have played before and even finished the game but i think that was in the easiest difficulty because i found the whole thing rather easy :lol
 
R

randomwab

Member
I tried to jump into this a month or so ago, and had no idea what to do. I'll give it another shot later using that beginners guide.
 
M

More Fun To Compute

Member
There is a difficulty bug in versions other than the PS1 and later PC reissues, I think, where the difficulty resets to beginner on save. There are game mechanisms that dynamically add challenge but the way to fix the difficulty on the DOS version is with a tool called XcomUtil.
 
A

archnemesis

Member
Gexecuter said:
Yep i have played before and even finished the game but i think that was in the easiest difficulty because i found the whole thing rather easy :lol
Click to expand...
I've beaten the game on Veteran, but the higher difficulties is way beyond my league. If you're already familiar with the mechanics then it's probably the right difficulty level for you.
randomwab said:
I tried to jump into this a month or so ago, and had no idea what to do. I'll give it another shot later using that beginners guide.
Click to expand...
Don't be afraid to ask GAF for advice if you get stuck. I'm sure the user interface is a bit overwhelming for someone who didn't play the game when it was released back in 1994.
 
M

Mindlog

Member
More Fun To Compute said:
There is a difficulty bug in versions other than the PS1 and later PC reissues, I think, where the difficulty resets to beginner on save. There are game mechanisms that dynamically add challenge but the way to fix the difficulty on the DOS version is with a tool called XcomUtil.
Click to expand...

That's the name I was looking for.

I use XcomUtil as well.

and Music Patch

Did I even use extender?

Hrm. Turbo is still my preferred speed control method. I believe™
 
R

RiggenBlaque

Member
X-Com 2 was seriously fucking hard. Jesus christ that game was hard

I drew this awhile ago

2djo4dh.jpg


X-Com 1, not so much. Great game though.
 
A

archnemesis

Member
My first attempt started out alright. The first mission went great until I stumbled upon three angry sectoids aiming their plasma guns at me.
2pqjoyf.jpg
oaxb41.jpg


It didn't take long before the game took a turn for the worse. On my second mission I lost two soldiers as soon as they stepped outside the transport. Another two got killed by an alien who jumped down from a roof and ambushed my men from behind.
waklj5.jpg


On the last day of the first month I detect a large alien ship. It didn't look all that tough, but it killed one of my two Interceptors in two shots. It then continued to terrorize an American city. I can't afford to lose the support of the largest funding nation, so I rush there to defend the civilians. Not only do the sectoids have two Cyberdiscs on their side, but they also employ nasty psyonic attacks causing my poor soldiers to panic.
dm8yad.jpg
14muvef.jpg


It's been a few years since my last playthrough and I obviously underestimated the aliens. I'll restart on the same difficulty and try to be less aggressive this time around.
 
E

epmode

Member
God I love this game.

If there really is a Firaxis turn-based version in the works, it would be nice if they worked in an official Ironman mode for the leaderboards.
 
A

Air Zombie Meat

Member
More Fun To Compute said:
There is a difficulty bug in versions other than the PS1 and later PC reissues, I think, where the difficulty resets to beginner on save. There are game mechanisms that dynamically add challenge but the way to fix the difficulty on the DOS version is with a tool called XcomUtil.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this broke my heart when I found it out fairly recently. All those years of playing it back in the day and I'd only been doing it on beginner. The windows version on Steam has this bug but luckily it also comes with the dos version which is patchable with XComUtil. The Dos version runs a bit too fast and looks a bit uglier but to me its a price worth paying to avoid the difficulty bug. Theres also some nice little interface improvements with XComutil, as well as the ps1 music.
 
M

methane47

Member
I want in on this...

Gotta fire up the ole DOSBOX

Air Zombie Meat said:
Yeah, this broke my heart when I found it out fairly recently. All those years of playing it back in the day and I'd only been doing it on beginner. The windows version on Steam has this bug but luckily it also comes with the dos version which is patchable with XComUtil. The Dos version runs a bit too fast and looks a bit uglier but to me its a price worth paying to avoid the difficulty bug. Theres also some nice little interface improvements with XComutil, as well as the ps1 music.
Click to expand...

Funny thing about it.. Even after I found out about this.. I was like Wow.. because the game is still TOUGH as hell
 
M

More Fun To Compute

Member
Don't know if I will keep this up but here is session one of a new veteran game running XCOMUtil.

First off I started a new base in Germany and spent a fair amount of the starting cash on sundry alien defence necessities. Research was started on Medikits with another project researching Laser Weapons when new scientists were recruited.

geoscape_001.png


Before too long I spotted a very small UFO which I stalked until it was over mainland Europe at which point I engaged only for it to rapidly escape in the direction of the middle east. That was only to be expected really.

I had a spot of luck next, just as my warehouse expansion was completed and all my new recruits arrived a ruddy UFO landed not too far away from my base. Skyranger was loaded and I attacked pretty recklessly.

tactical_000.png


Fortune didn't favour the brave and I ended up losing a few men but they were all green recruits and I got a great haul of alien tech so I'm happy enough. The first successful strike against the alien menace, a day to go down in history, never have so few, st crispin's day, and so on.

geoscape_004.png


Next thing to do is to recruit some new brave defenders of humanity and properly equip them. I also need to re-prioritise research.

geoscape_006.png
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
So does the Steam version has the difficulty bug or not? The reason i am asking because i just started a new game on veteran and got my entire squad kill on my first mission, are you really telling that i am actually playing on beginner? That is just...fuck!
 
R

RyanDG

Member
Gexecuter said:
So does the Steam version has the difficulty bug or not? The reason i am asking because i just started a new game on veteran and got my entire squad kill on my first mission, are you really telling that i am actually playing on beginner? That is just...fuck!
Click to expand...


Unless they've fixed it, the Steam version had the difficulty bug last time I checked.

Welcome to X-Com. ;)
 
M

methane47

Member
Quick question for the IronMan Challenge.....

Can I use a Trainer to reposition my Hanger???? I will use the same exact starting buildings.. but i just wannna... rearrange it alittle!

:)
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
Air Zombie Meat said:
Yeah, this broke my heart when I found it out fairly recently. All those years of playing it back in the day and I'd only been doing it on beginner. The windows version on Steam has this bug but luckily it also comes with the dos version which is patchable with XComUtil. The Dos version runs a bit too fast and looks a bit uglier but to me its a price worth paying to avoid the difficulty bug. Theres also some nice little interface improvements with XComutil, as well as the ps1 music.
Click to expand...

The running uglier/faster is just your DOSBox configured incorrectly. You can definitely download a frontend, and fix those two problems. You can actually create a portable version of the game that will run off a USB stick on any PC, requiring no setup, and allowing you to take the fixed version of the game & your saves anywhere you go.
 
K

Keikaku

Member
I got this game from Direct2Drive and it's the DOSBox version. Am I to assume that this means that the difficulty level bug is in there?
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
More Fun To Compute said:
Can't really say. Did you run extract Xcomutil to the right folder and run XCUSETUP?
Click to expand...

XcuSetup.bat needs to be run though a DOSBox:

XcomUtil has always been a DOS program because XCOM has always been a DOS program and XcomUtil must be able to run everywhere that XCOM runs. Therefore, XcomUtil and ApocUtil run equally well under true DOS or in a DOS window.
Click to expand...

Get D-Fend Reloaded, and you can configure the game to be portable to so you never have to do it again, and it will work on any PC you want without needing to set it up.
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
More Fun To Compute said:
Can't really say. Did you run extract Xcomutil to the right folder and run XCUSETUP?
Click to expand...

Running XCUSETUP did the trick, thanks! However i was kinda overwhelmed at the amount of extra options, i think i am gonna go vanilla at least the first time, also i am restarting my game.
 
V

Versipellis

Member
I was going to partecipate, being an old X-Com fanatic, but I don't know if my dos version of UFO has the difficulty bug. I remember playing back in the day and the game looked pretty hard even on Veteran (on my first playthrough). Nothing compared to TftT (maybe I should play that one for a real "Iron Man" experience).

I started on Superhuman and I've done 4 missions (2 Small + 2 Very Small) in two months. There haven't been any Terror Missions, but the Sponsor Nations are not really happy (negative score of -210 and -160), even though I've won all my missions (with only 5 losses against 18). There's a sure way to know if the bug is present?

EDIT: Ah, you can use XcomUtil under Dosbox. Interesting.
 
S

Swifty

Member
LQX said:
After seeing those screens and how tedious it looks I cant believe so many were pissed in that thread. They should be thrilled the game will be re-imagined even if it's a FPS.
Click to expand...
1. You're assuming what the game plays like by just looking at a bunch of screenshots.

2. You're assuming that the scores of people who were disappointed by the recent X-COM announcement in actuality didn't like playing the original X-COM.

3. You're assuming that people, who enjoyed and reveled in the mechanics of a strategy game, should want something completely different.

How did you come up with all these bogus conclusions? :lol
 
D

Dennis

Banned
LQX said:
After seeing those screens and how tedious it looks I cant believe so many were pissed in that thread. They should be thrilled the game will be re-imagined even if it's a FPS.
Click to expand...
That is one shitty post. GTFO.
 
S

Sectus

Member
LQX said:
After seeing those screens and how tedious it looks I cant believe so many were pissed in that thread. They should be thrilled the game will be re-imagined even if it's a FPS.
Click to expand...
Oh please. You can't tell how a game is played by just looking at screenshots. And seriously, you should be smart enough to tell by posts in this thread that people are enjoying the game.
 
A

Acosta

Member
DennisK4 said:
That is one shitty post. GTFO.
Click to expand...

Don't feed the troll, my ignore is worthless if you quote his stupidity.

Anyway, I really wish I had the time for a serious campaign. I may try it anyway but I don't foresee a great future for me, I'm very out of practice and all my ironman tries has ended in disaster, with some screw ups letting me with few men and a lot of pissed countries bailing out and retiring money, making recovery even more difficult.

In any case, great initiative, looking to see your campaigns, if I find the time I hope to contribute something to.
 
Z

ZombieSupaStar

Member
LQX said:
After seeing those screens and how tedious it looks I cant believe so many were pissed in that thread. They should be thrilled the game will be re-imagined even if it's a FPS.
Click to expand...

Why? Are we having a lack of FPS games lately?

Not every game needs to be Bro'd up for the 'natty light crowd nowadays, sometimes people enjoy slower pacing (and no I'm not talking about the "waiting a WHOLE 5 seconds after u hit the "take covah" button to "regenerate health" kind of slower pacing either). Some people like a little more to games then "i jus wan sho shi yo, fa real"





back on topic, im currently using this setup, seems nice dunno if it fixes the beginner bug tho

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Enemy_Unknown_Extended
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
So i started a new game in experienced, first few missions i was doing fine, i was crashing ships and cleaning up what was left with my starting squad until they all got killed....No problem! I can always recruit new people which i did (oh and i bought a new ship too) anyway with the items i got from the crashed site i starting doing some research which lead me to getting new weapons in the form of laser rifles, i also researched allien alloys which lead me to discovering personal armor which i promptly manufactured and equipped on my new squad. So i pimp my squad up and notice aliens are terrorizing a city so i send my team there and what do you know? My team got fucked in the ass in less than 5 turns by a flying saucer and grays, fuck you X-Com! I resisted the temptation of reloading my earlier and instead just saved, then i quit.
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
DennisK4 said:
:lol yeah, thats X-Com alright

Once upon a time, games used to be hard.
Click to expand...

The thing that really pisses me off is that all of my guys died on one hit, ONE HIT EVEN TOUGH THEY WERE WEARING ARMOR. Why do i even bother with armor anyway, ah fuck.
 
C

Chopper Dave

Member
This thread really has me itching to play UFO defense yet again but I think I will hold off. X-Com is such a commitment for me and I have new games I plan on buying in the near future. The Ironman rules do sound fun. The new players might be better off playing more modest difficulty levels but the idea of not using recent saves as retries excites the experienced X-Com fanatic in me.

Let's do this thread with Terror from the Deep in the near future. I have so many glorious memories from the underwater sequel.
 
LabouredSubterfuge

LabouredSubterfuge

Member
LQX said:
After seeing those screens and how tedious it looks I cant believe so many were pissed in that thread. They should be thrilled the game will be re-imagined even if it's a FPS.
Click to expand...

Man, it's like you know the precisely wrong thing to say in every thread you post in. It's like an innate talent of yours.
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
LQX said:
After seeing those screens and how tedious it looks I cant believe so many were pissed in that thread. They should be thrilled the game will be re-imagined even if it's a FPS.
Click to expand...

Trolling a LTTP thread, and a LTTP thread of a game that multiple mods here have fond memories of no less?
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
Gexecuter said:
So i started a new game in experienced, first few missions i was doing fine, i was crashing ships and cleaning up what was left with my starting squad until they all got killed....No problem! I can always recruit new people which i did (oh and i bought a new ship too) anyway with the items i got from the crashed site i starting doing some research which lead me to getting new weapons in the form of laser rifles, i also researched allien alloys which lead me to discovering personal armor which i promptly manufactured and equipped on my new squad. So i pimp my squad up and notice aliens are terrorizing a city so i send my team there and what do you know? My team got fucked in the ass in less than 5 turns by a flying saucer and grays, fuck you X-Com! I resisted the temptation of reloading my earlier and instead just saved, then i quit.
Click to expand...

Good times. My strategy for terror missions is everyone stays close together, and with enough action points for return fire... one guy scouts ahead... once he finds something, the people further back bring it down, but those damned UFOs are a pain. It can easily take every squad member I have to bring a single UFO down due to poor accuracy, if I'm lucky. And then you have to deal with 2 or 3, forget it.

I've skipped night terror missions entirely in the past early on, sucks for your monthly rating, but they can be impossible, even if you are cheap about the battles and load!
 
C

chicken_ramen

Member
So I started up last night, ran XComUtil and fixed some of the bugs, but kept all the same everything else. Original weapons, research, base layout. I put my secet undergroud alien fighting base in eastern Europe then quickly started up some extra rooms in the base and hired as many scientists as I could. Research on Laser Weapons was started immediately.

I was really cautious about fighting anything at night, but this lead to a landed UFO in the UK getting away. My first downed UFO was over Russian farmland, and unfortunately I landed my soldiers just before dawn in an area surrounded by fields. So I couldn't see them but they could see me, and take potshots. It was a massacre. But about halfway through the fight I noticed it getting lighter. Two guys made a successful flanking attack, and killed more than half the aliens. There was a almost successful frontal assault that killed 4 or so before dying to a shot to the chest. My flanking assault found the UFO and killed three aliens with a grenade. The final alien was killed by the pistol guy, huddled alone in the ship, after taking a full blast to the chest. All three survivors brought back a huge load of spoils.

The best part? It turned out the hero flanking team were brothers.

Since then I've developed laser rifles and personal armour, and during one terror mission a brother took a full blast to the chest and is now recuperating. I'm still trying to remember how to get Elerium so I can start making some alien weapons.
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
Nice write up chicken_ramen but

chicken_ramen said:
But about halfway through the fight I noticed it getting lighter.
Click to expand...

Time passes during fights? really? That's pretty cool since i though time paused every time you fight.
 
C

chicken_ramen

Member
Gexecuter said:
Nice write up chicken_ramen but



Time passes during fights? really? That's pretty cool since i though time paused every time you fight.
Click to expand...

It may have just been my imagination, but it really seemed that way.
 
X

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
LQX said:
After seeing those screens and how tedious it looks I cant believe so many were pissed in that thread. They should be thrilled the game will be re-imagined even if it's a FPS.
Click to expand...
jgs5c2.jpg
 
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