User:Boba

I guess I ought to put up my personal strategy, so here goes:

A lot depends on what kinds of cheating you do, and the difficulty level. If you don't pay your employees, it pays to have more employees. If you like chart-gazing on beginner, the HWD is not as urgent. I personally use the base defence spawn exploit to defend my radar bases, but not my main bases. I don't consider it much of an exploit, more a time-saver. If the game had no bugs, I'm pretty sure I could defend a radar base against Ethereal invasion with 22 rookies. I usually do chart-gazing. The manual tells you to do it, right? It sure makes a lot of money in the early game.

Bases

Because I chart gaze, my first base is in the Canadian Arctic. I can easily intercept to USA, Europe, Canada, Russia, and I can intercept with more difficulty the entire northern hemisphere.

My second base is in Antarctica, closer to South America. This gets me interception coverage for the southern hemisphere. I transfer an interceptor there, and buy it a skyranger. You need two skyrangers to keep up with the base construction fleets starting in late February. The skyrangers ground assault the Supply Ships and Battleship while the interceptors shoot down the scouts.

It goes without saying that you should break ground on base facilities before you need them. But sometimes I forget.

Detection

On superhuman, the first alien base pops up in late February, I think. This messes up the UFO charts, so you need to build alien containment asap, buy stun rods, capture a navigator in late January, research it, research HWD, and build HWDs at all bases, which should start coming online in March and you should have good coverage in April. If you're chart-gazing, it might be a good idea to not build too many radar bases until the HWD comes out. My radar bases are in Colombia, Sudan, China, Indonesia, and sometimes Hawaii. I build the Sudan and Indonesia bases early, before HWD, because Africa and Australasia have low chart resolution, and Australasia in particular is too far to patrol.

Soldiers and Tanks

I don't fire soldiers. Bad soldiers make good scouts. Tanks are too expensive. Tanks cannot walk up to Sectoid Navigators and stun them. On superhuman, tanks die easily. I like to take Launcher Tanks to Cydonia, however. They cannot be psionically attacked and their 8 weak bombs do not count on the 80-item limit.

Craft Weapons

I don't mind using up stringrays in January. Avalanches do too much damage to the little ships in the early game. Plasma Beam is a priority to make money from Terror Ships instead of dealing with civilians and buildings at Terror Sites. I think arming just one gets you better UFO recovery. Does anyone know for sure? In any case, arming one is cheaper than two, and it has never lost me a UFO. I don't intercept battleships. The repairs seem to take longer than manufacturing a new Avenger.

Early Weapons

All of the early weapons have a use.

Pistol: Shoot special aliens at the first two Terror Sites to help stun them. It might be good for reaction training later.
Rifle: Use it at long range when you don't want a big explosion.
Auto-cannon: Auto + HE = artefacts destroyed = bad. Auto + IC = light, but too many explosions will prevent new fires.
Heavy cannon: Versatile. Use it at point-blank to medium range. If it hits, it kills, so there is no reaction fire.
Rocket Launcher: Use it at medium to long range, or close range with a Power Suit. Aim through windows to kill aliens inside with no reaction fire. Create instant smoke on turn 1. Kill aliens even when you miss. Kill or wound multiple aliens. Hit aliens around corners. Did I miss something?
High Explosives: Kill superhuman cyberdiscs. Kill or wound multiple aliens. Hit aliens around corners. Destroy every building, especially stables. If you can't throw it, carry it and bulk up. Have a scout carry a primed HE into a Large Scout.

Researched weapons

Laser Rifle is still a good weapon, but can't kill Snakemen in one hit on superhuman.
Heavy Laser can, but has its own problems. So I don't research lasers on superhuman immediately.
Mind Probe is not only useful for finding navigators and leaders, but also shows alien TUs. If an alien has 20 TUs, but needs all 20 TUs to shoot and is not looking directly at you, you are safe.

Selling

I sell all alien artefacts in the early game to get more money earlier. I only keep Heavy Plasma clips, a few Mind Probes, and a little Alien Alloys and a little Elerium. I sell a lot of Elerium!

Lightning

I like the Lightning. Initial deployment is safer than the Avenger. It is also hard to equip 26 soldiers with the 80-item limit without tanks. But it doesn't matter. The earliest you can get a Lightning is almost the end of the game.

Base Defence

I do not build base defence facilites. If I know it is a retaliation scout over my base, I do not shoot it down. I want the money.

Psionics

A lot of people here seem to love Psionics. I don't get it. You have to capture a Sectoid Leader and research it (ideally after you already researched HWD), research Psi-Lab, build Psi-Labs, wait for the end of the month, wait another month for training. The earliest Psi soldiers will be ready is May, almost the end of the game. There is also Psi-Amp research and manufacturing, but that does not affect the timetable. Psi is a great weapon, but you only get to use it a few times. If you research the complete tech tree, then Psionics and the Lightning are useful.