The Council (EU2012)

The Council is a collective of the world's 16 most powerful nations responsible for the activation, funding and oversight of the XCOM project and it is related to the United Nations, as revealed during the game by its unidentified representative.

The main interface for the dealings with the Council will be through the Situation Room, although its representative will contact the XCOM Commander directly, either periodically or in exceptional occasions, to inform him/her of of the Council's designs:

At the end of the month, to evaluate XCOM's performance in fighting the aliens and provide funding and additional resources.
During the whole month, to propose additional missions and deliver requests from its nations for specific items.
At any moment, to terminate the XCOM project if a majority of its nations (8 or more) decide to leave the Council.
On the Enemy Within DLC the Council representative will also appear on May to introduce EXALT and order XCOM to end the new human threat.

Council Nations

Council Nations
Africa	Asia	Europe	North America	South America
Egypt Nigeria South Africa	Australia China India Japan	United Kingdom Russia France Germany	Canada Mexico United States	Argentina Brazil

Game Over

Each country will have a panic level from 1 to 5, which can be seen both in the Situation Room and in Mission Control and reflect the general level of apprehension and fear regarding the alien invaders and as result of their hostile actions. A country with a level 5 panic level at the end of the month becomes at risk of leaving the Council, depending on the monthly events that caused the panic raise.

The principal way of controlling panic is by deploying satellites over its territory, which will also make them provide additional monthly credits and scientists or engineers to XCOM. If playing with Second Wave's Results Driven option the country funding's will be reduced by its panic level.

Defections

Once a nation leaves the Council it will never return and it will stop proving any funding or personnel (scientists and engineers) to XCOM, along with the loss of any deployed over its airspace. A defection will also cause the loss of the continental bonus being received by XCOM, if that entire continent was covered with satellites.

Max Number Defections

The maximum number of countries that can defect each month is determined by the difficulty level:

On Easy only 1 country can leave each month.
On Normal, 2 countries.
On Classic, 4 countries.
On Impossible, it's 8 countries.

Country Chance of Defecting

A country with a level 5 panic at the end of the month will have either a 50% or 100% chance of leaving the Council, depending on if it has been marked as 'not helped' by XCOM. 'Not helped' countries with a level 5 panic will automatically leave the Council at the end of the month, if they haven't so already. If they aren't marked as 'not helped' then the chance is 50% that they'll leave the Council.

Abductions and Terror Sites mark a country as 'not helped'.
Losing a satellite over a country will also mark it as 'not helped'.
Shooting down a UFO or launching a satellite over the country will remove it from the 'not helped' list.

Immediate Defections

Some events may also cause the nation to immediately stop supporting XCOM:

Failure to respond to Terror Sites, or to lose the mission, or to save any civilians during it will cause the country to immediately leave the Council.
On the Enemy Within DLC wrongly accusing a country of harboring the EXALT base will cause it also to leave immediately.

Finally, on the EW DLC, a country with a panic level of 5 will not leave the Council at the end of the month if it has a Covert Operative deployed.

Monthly Report

XCOM Project Monthly Report

Each month the Council issues a report that grades XCOM's performance from A to F and details XCOM's activity regarding successes and failures, as well as the current global panic levels.

The grading system is determined by the number of XCOM Activity and is more influenced by the negative factors than the positive. XCOM activity will be described in the number of events that took place during the month. Negative events will contribute to a lower grade received, while Positive events have a minimum influence. Country withdrawals affect the score only in the month they took place.

XCOM Activity
Negative	Positive	Neutral
UFOs Escaped	Abductions Stopped	Techs Researched
Terror Sites Ignored	Terror Thwarted	Satellites Launched
Terror Sites Failed	UFOs Shotdown	UFOs Detected
Abductions Ignored	Alien Base Assaulted	UFO Raids
Failed Abductions	Council Missions Completed
Satellites Lost
Mismanaged Funds¹
Withdrawn Countries
¹ If XCOM has ended the month with negative credits (§). Not listed on the report. Source: XComStrategyGame.upk, XGFundingCouncil class.

Grading System
Grade	Events Required	Description
A	0 Negative	The Council is extremely impressed with your performance. Keep up the good work.
B	1 Negative	The Council is generally happy with your performance, but we must remain vigilant.
C	2 Negative	The Council is generally satisfied with your performance. There is obvious room for improvement. Be careful, commander.
D	4 Negative or +2 Negative, 1 Positive	The Council is unhappy with your performance. We expect immediate improvement.
F	+6 Negative or +1 Negative, 0 Positive	The Council is extremely disappointed with your performance. If we don't see immediate improvement, this project could be terminated.
Losing 2 countries from the Council will also downgrade the grade by one level, and losing 4 or more countries will further downgrade it 1 extra level. Source: XComStrategyGame.upk, XGFundingCouncil class.

Council Rewards

As described above, each nation will give monthly amounts of credits (§) and additional Scientists and/or Engineers, based on the presence of an XCOM satellite covering its airspace. Completely covering a continent with satellites will also provide additional bonuses.

Country and Continent Bonuses per Month (Easy/Normal)
Satellites	Africa	Asia	Europe	North America	South America
1	+1 engineer	+2 engineers	+2 scientists	+1 scientist +1 engineer	+1 scientist
2	+1 scientist +2 engineers	+3 engineers	+3 scientists	+2 scientists +2 engineers	+2 scientists +2 engineers
3	+2 scientists +3 engineers	+6 engineers	+6 scientists	+4 scientists +4 engineers
4		+8 engineers	+8 scientists

Country and Continent Bonuses per Month (Classic/Impossible)
Satellites	Africa	Asia	Europe	North America	South America
1	+1 engineer	+1 engineer	+1 scientist	+1 scientist	+1 scientist
2	+1 scientist +1 engineer	+2 engineers	+2 scientists	+1 scientist +1 engineer	+1 scientist +1 engineer
3	+1 scientist +2 engineers	+3 engineers	+3 scientists	+2 scientists +1 engineer
4		+4 engineers	+4 scientists

Council Missions

Council Mission

Each month the Council may propose to XCOM additional missions, offering in exchange a mission reward. The rewards can be in the form of trained soldiers, scientists, engineers, credits (§), panic reduction, or even Elerium. There are 18 specific Council missions, and each has a predetermined reward.

On EU the Council mission frequency is of 1 mission per month before the Alien Base is assaulted, and up to 2 possible missions per month after it is assaulted. On EW this was changed and missions/requests appearance is now combined together. There are 2 monthly windows where either a mission or a request can be generated, with a 50% chance of a mission being generated. However, there will only be 1 mission generated per month.

Council missions are prioritized to take place in countries with a level 2 or more of panic (source: XGStrategyGame.upk, XGSXGFundingCouncil.GetAvailableMissionCountries function).

There are several types of Council missions, which are divided into 2 groups, regular and special:

Regular Council Missions

When selecting a mission, the game will create a lists of possible types available for each Council mission. When a type of mission is played it will eliminate that type from the list, to prevent the same type of mission being placed twice in a row. Once all types have been chosen and eliminated, the game will repopulate the list.

Special Council Missions

Slingshot campaign
Progeny campaign
Meld Tutorial

These maps will only be chosen if they have been activated on the Start options or at certain stages in the game and are chosen instead of the regular Council missions.

The Meld Tutorial will happen on the first Council window for Missions/Requests. It can only happen once per game.
The Slingshot/Progeny campaigns are 2 sets of 3 missions and are activated at specific times during the game. They will take place during the first available Council window for Requests/Missions. They can only happen once per game and after those campaigns are completed, only regular Council missions will be generated afterwards.
Site Recon is always the first Council mission after the 1st Terror mission on the first playthrough of Enemy Within DLC. Afterwards it becomes a regular mission that can be chosen randomly by the game when selecting a new Council mission.

A detailed breakdown of the numbers of aliens present on each mission can be found at Alien Deployment.

Panic/Score

Council missions may be ignored without any effect on your monthly score but it will still affect panic. However, if you accept any mission, its results will affect the Council's score.

The majority of failed/ignored Council missions will raise panic by 1 or 2 points. The panic raise will only happen in the targeted country, on the Easy, Normal and Classic difficulties. On Impossible level mission failure will also raise panic on neighbouring countries. There are several missions that can be ignored without any panic increase: here are 6 Council missions that don't raise any panic: the Industrial, Pier and Truckstop Assault missions, and the Pier Extraction (Sgt. Carlock), Boulevard Rescue (Anna Sing) and the Commercial Extraction (William Thorne) missions.

Council Mission Rewards

Council Mission Rewards ^[Verify?]
Mission	Aliens¹	Random Cash²	Scientists	Engineers	Soldiers	Elerium	Panic Reduction	Panic Increase^3,4
Helicopter Assault⁵	Muton	100-230					-1	1
Pier Assault	Thin Men	100-230	10
Truck Stop Assault	Sectoids	100-230				40
Industrial Assault	Thin Men	(100-230)*2			Captain or 2nd highest rank		-2
Cemetery Assault	Thin Men	(100-230)/2					-4	1
Research Assault	Thin Men	100-230	10					1
Train Station Bomb	Thin Men	100-230²					-3	2
Cemetery Bomb	Thin Men	100-230	8				-3	2
Slaughterhouse Bomb	Thin Men	100-230²					-3	2
Trainyard Bomb	Thin Men	100-230²					-3	2
Bridge Bomb	Thin Men	100-230²					-3	2
Commercial Extraction	Thin Men				Captain or 2nd highest rank		-2
Pier Extraction	Thin Men	100-230²		5
Street Hurricane Extraction	Thin Men	100-230²		5			-2	2
Highway Rescue	Thin Men	100-230²			Captain or 2nd highest rank		-2	1
Boulevard Rescue (EU only)	Thin Men	100-230²	10				-2
Research Rescue	Thin Men	100-230²	5				-3	1
Site Recon (EW DLC)	Chryssalids Zombies						-2 ⁶
¹ On the 1st month Thin Men missions will also have Sectoids. ² Value range used for ingame calculations (§, with the marked missions having an additional scalar factor. The reward is also reduced on the first 40 days since the beginning of the game, with a 0.5 modifier for the first 20 days and a 0.75 modifier if it's between 20 to 40 days. Finally range value is reduced on Classic (100 to 150) and Impossible (100 to 125) difficulties. ³ If mission is ignored or a failure. ⁴ Panic is applied on the entire continent on Impossible difficulty. ⁵ Mission can only occur after assaulting the Alien Base. ⁶ If Canada has left the Council the panic reduction will be applied to either USA or Mexico. Source: XComStrategyGame.upk, XGFundingCouncil class.

Soldier Rewards

Class of the soldier is determined using Class Assignment, rank is chosen between the listed rank and the 2nd highest rank present in the Barracks, with the soldier assigned with the highest rank.

Council Requests

From time to time an individual Council country may request assistance through the sale of Weapons, Alien Artifacts or even satellites or interceptors. In exchange for supplying the country with the desired item, XCOM will receive in return Credits and/or Scientists/Engineers. The credits offered in exchange are usually 30-50% higher than the values required for building the item or selling it on the Grey Market. This may motivate Commanders to keep a few extra units of items in store or to change their current manufacturing depending on the value of the offered reward.

Requests have a deadline of 20 days to be fulfilled or they will be removed at the end of that period.

A notable particularity is the request for a Satellite Transfer. A country which asks for a satellite can ask you to transfer or to actually launch one to monitor its territory against UFO incursions. But if launched, XCOM retains control of the satellite as well, which means all of the monthly funding, extra scientists and/or engineers, as well as potentially triggering the continent bonus if you have enough coverage. With the request completion reward as well, this makes waiting till towards the end of the month to launch satellites a great idea. Though keep in mind: requests last 20 days, and without Advanced Construction, satellites also take 20 to build. If you try to build one after getting the request, it will expire before the satellite is completed.

Requests Frequency

On EU the game will check for a Request every 20 days + 7 random days. Each request has a tech requirement and if it isn't met, no Request will be generated.

On the Enemy Within DLC, the frequency has been reworked. In the game's scheduling for a month, there are two dates for "Council Events" in place. When one comes around, there is a chance to receive a mission, a request, or nothing at all. If a mission is gotten for the first event, a second mission will not be given for the second, with the exception of Slingshot and Progeny missions.

Items Requested

Artifact Sales

Technology Sales

Satellite Transfer

Satellite

Jet Transfer

Interceptor

Arms Sales