Difficulty (EU2012)

Starting Funds

Difficulty	North America	South America	Europa	Africa	Asia
Easy	§465				§315
Normal
Classic	§300
Impossible	§275

Achievements

File:Humanity's Savior.jpg Humanity's Savior - complete the game on any difficulty
File:Earth First.jpg Earth First - complete the game on classic difficulty
File:No Looking Back.jpg No Looking Back - complete the game on classic or impossible difficulty in ironman mode
File:Our Finest Hour.jpg Our Finest Hour - complete the game on impossible difficulty

Easy

• 150% of monthly funds income
• Base global panic starts at 0
• 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 35 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 unoptimal moves for no reason)
• Soldiers have standart 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 (1 per location)
• 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 intendedly)
• 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

Impossible

• 100% of monthly funds income
• Base global panic starts at 16 (2 per location)
• 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 the 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, 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.