Difficulty (EU2012)

Starting Funds

Difficulty	North America	South America	Europe	Africa	Asia
Easy	§465		§315		§315
Normal
Classic	§300		§190	§242
Impossible	§275				§165

Achievements

	You Win	Gain all trophies
File:No Looking Back.jpg	No Looking Back	Beat the game in Ironman on Classic or Impossible Difficulty
	??????	Hidden trophy (for the moment)
	???????	Hidden trophy (for the moment)
File:Humanity's Savior.jpg	Humanity's Savior	Beat the game on any difficulty
File:Earth First.jpg	Earth First	Beat the game on Classic difficulty
File:Our Finest Hour.jpg	Our Finest Hour	Complete the game on Impossible difficulty
	Lone Wolf	Clear a UFO Crash Site with one soldier on Classic or Impossible difficulty
	Bada Boom	Kill 50 aliens with explosive weapons
	Welcoming Committee	Kill 150 aliens
	Pale Horse	Kill 500 aliens
	Shooting Stars	Shoot down 40 UFOs
	Ain't No Cavalry Comin'	Have a soldier survive every mission in a full game
	As a scalpel	Earn the "Excellent" rating in every performance category on a terror mission
	Edison	In a single game, complete every research project
	Angel of Death	Kill an alien while flying. Single Player only
	All Employees Must Wash Hands	In a single game, complete every autopsy
	Beyond the Veil	Find a soldier with the Gift
	Prisoner of War	Capture a live alien
	The Gate keeper	Capture an outsider
	X Marks the Spot	Uncover the alien base's location
	See All, Know All	Build the Hyperwave Relay
	On the Shoulders of Giants	Build the Gollop Chamber
	Ride the Lightning	Build a Firestorm
	Eye in the Sky	Launch a Satellite
	All Together Now	Get satellite coverage over every country in one continent
	Hunter/Killer	In a single game, shoot down one of each alien craft
	Man No More	Build a suit of powered armor
	??????	Hidden Trophy (for the moment)
	We Happy Few	Complete a mission without losing a soldier
	The Hardest Road	Advance on soldier to Colonel rank
	Worth Every Penny	Acquire 1000 credits in one month
	Oppenheimer	Staff the research labs with 80 scientists
	One Gun at a Time	Staff the engineering department with 80 engineers
	Skunkworks	In a single game, complete every Foundry project
	You Have 5 Seconds to Comply	Build a S.H.I.V
	Theory...	Build a laboratory
	...and Practice	Build a workshop
	Wet Work	Complete a Very Difficult abduction mission in five turns or less on Classic or Impossible
	A Continental Fellow	Win a game from each of the 5 starting locations
	What Wonders Await	Complete a research project
	Up and Running	Build a base facility
	Combat Ready	Build an item
	Drums in the Deep	Gain access to the lowest level in your base
	Happy to Oblige	Fulfil a Council request
	And Hell's Coming With Me	Successfully assault an overseer UFO
	Off My Planet	Recover a Hyperwave Beacon
	Tables Turned	Shoot down a UFO
	And So It Begins...	Complete the tutorial mission
	The Volunteer	Make contact with the Ethereal hive mind
	??????	Hidden trophy (for the moment)

Easy

• 150% of monthly funds income
• Base global panic starts at 0
• A free satellite from start
• Most alien activity only raises panic by 1 if left unchecked
• Aliens use the Easy/Normal AI package, and aren't as numerous.
• No more than 5 Aliens at a time may engage the player in tactical mission
• XCOM soldiers have +1 bonus HP, starting with 6 instead of 5
• Soldiers cost $10
• XCOM HQ starts 42 units of power.
• XCOM HQ starts with an Officer Training School.
• Sectoids have their health reduced by 1 compared to Normal
• Thin Man aliens' damage is reduced by 2, and their HP is reduced by 1 compared to Normal
• Aliens hesitate to use special abilities and throw grenades

Normal

• 100% of monthly funds income
• Base global panic starts at 0
• Most minor alien activity raises panic by 1 in left unchecked with some events doing up to 3
• No more than 5 Aliens at a time may engage the player in tactical mission
• Alien AI is limited (aliens can skip their turn, run away or take suboptimal moves for no reason)
• Soldiers have standard 5 hitpoints
• Soldiers cost $10
• XCOM HQ has 35 units of starting power.
• XCOM HQ starts with an Officer Training School.

Classic

• 100% of monthly funds income
• Base global panic starts at 8 (8 nations start with 2 panic, other 8 has 1.)
• Unchecked alien activity causes at least 1 panic, but will often cause 2 or 3
• Country with unchecked abduction gets 2 panic, other countries on that continent get 1 panic
• There are more alien packs per mission and bigger chance of a pack having more aliens (up to 3).
• Aliens receive bonuses: Chryssalids and Zombies recieve a +2 damage bonus, Muton berserkers receive a +1 damage bonus, all aliens that use ranged weapons receive a +10 Aim bonus, Mutons, Heavy Floaters, Drones, and Outsiders receive a +2 HP bonus, Sectoid Commanders and Cyberdiscs receive a +4 HP bonus, Sectoid Commanders and Ethereals receive a +25 Will bonus.
• Alien AI is unshackled (aliens can still run away in fear or put themselves in bad position sometimes due to AI not cheating and having to guess where your units are, but will never take an unoptimal move intentionally)
• Soldiers have -1 HP
• Soldiers cost $15
• XCOM HQ has 30 units of starting power
• XCOM HQ has no Office Training School at the start; a soldier must reach Sergeant to unlock the OTS base facility
• You do not start with an extra satellite
• Satellite coverage over continents such as scientists and engineers are smaller

. Eg. Full coverage over Europe grants 4 scientist on classic but on normal it grants 8 for full satellite coverage

Impossible

• 100% of monthly funds income
• Base global panic starts at 16 (all nations start with 2 panic)
• If unchecked alien activity causes at least 2 panic, but will often cause even more
• Country with unchecked abduction gets 3 panic, other countries on that continent get 1 panic
• There are even more aliens per mission and even bigger chance of a pack having more aliens (up to 3)
• Aliens receive bonuses: Many aliens do 2 to 4 bonus damage, all aliens using ranged weapons have +10 Aim except the Outsider and Muton Elite who receive +20 Aim, all aliens have +10 Critical Chance, Outsiders can move 5 more tiles per turn than in Easy, Normal, or Classic, Sectoid Commanders, Ethereals, and the Uber Ethereal receive bonus Will, with the first two getting +35 and the latter getting +10, many aliens receive +10 bonus Defense, and most aliens receive 1 to 5 bonus HP
• Compared to Classic, most notable change is +1 Health and +10 Aim of Sectoids, and +2 Health of Thin Men and Floaters, which provides for a huge difficulty increase on the first months of the game.
• Alien AI is unshackled (aliens can still run away in fear or put themselves in bad position sometimes due to AI not cheating and having to guess where your units are, but will never take an unoptimal move intendedly)
• Aliens use special abilities frequently, and are 40 times more likely to throw grenades compared to Easy and Normal
• Aliens are also not limited in terms of how many "heavy" units they can bring on the mission (like, 3 Sectopods at once is pretty common, unlike on Classic or lower)
• Soldiers have -2 hitpoints
• Soldiers cost $15
• XCOM HQ has 30 units of starting power.
• XCOM HQ starts without an Officer Training School; a soldier must reach Sergeant to unlock the OTS base facility
• You do not start with an extra satellite

Ironman

The Ironman game mode disallows you from saving the game manually.

• This makes the game more difficult since you cannot undo catastrophic mistakes or turns in combat.
• The game saves when:
  • You exit the game
  • Starting with turn 2 of combat, at the beginning of each player turn
  • When you enter mission control
  • When you leave any interface in base view (Mission Control, Situation Room, Research Labs, Engineering...)
• This is independent of the difficulty setting, and may be enabled for any of them.
• This mode can cause problems if you encounter bugs that cause non-progression, since you cannot go back to an earlier, hopefully more functional save state.
• Ironman can arguably 'save you from yourself' if you are the kind of player who would otherwise tend to reload any decision, combat, or turn that did not go well. While you are likely to do better as a result, overall gameplay may not be as fun as simply figuring out how to go on with the consequences.
• You can still easilly "cheat" by making backups of the save files, or closing the game application after something unwanted happens but before your next turn begins in combat, however, this ruins the whole point of playing Ironman. Theese methods can also be considered a perfectly legal way to counter most of the bugs, however, including abilities doing nothing, enemies teleporting on your head, etc.

Miscellaneous information

• You can change difficulty level at any time during the game. It takes effect immediately, but not retroactively. For example, if you change difficulty level in combat from Classic to Impossible, enemies will immediately gain respective health and aim bonuses, however no new enemy packs would be spawned corresponding to the difficulty change.
  • (Unconfirmed information) This can also be used to avoid the rookie HP bug, if player so desires (the bug that makes new recruits arrive with standart 5 health even on harder difficulties). Changing difficulty right before the arrival of new soldiers will (reportedly) make them have correct amount of health.
• The games cheats for you on easy and normal difficulty.
  • On normal with 4 or fewer soldiers, or easy with precisely 4:
    • Chance to hit is 120% of displayed value
    • For hits that have at least a 50% chance of hitting, chance to hit is increased by 15% (absolute) per consecutive miss, with no upper limit
    • Alien chance to hit is reduced by 10% (absolute) for each consecutive hit.
  • On easy AND you are down to 3 or fewer soldiers:
    • Chance to hit is 120% of displayed value
    • Chance to hit is further increased by 15% (absolute) per missing squad member, under 4 (if you only brought 1 soldier, he has +45% chance to hit)
    • For hits that have at least a 50% chance of hitting, you receive another 15% (absolute) chance to hit per consecutive miss (up to 30%)
    • Alien chance to hit is reduced by 10% (absolute) for each consecutive hit.
    • Alien chance to hit is further reduced by 25% (absolute) for each squad member missing under 4