Making The Game Harder (EU2012)

This page is intended for players who finish the game frequently on the higher difficulties (Classic/Impossible/Ironman/Second Wave) and would like to keep the challenge alive or to add a little extra spice to their games.

Naturally it is quite easy to handicap yourself while playing the game: using only conventional weaponry, no armor, only pistols, etc. Some of these situations are detailed here, in addition to exploits/cheats/tactics that make the game easier, which you might want to refrain from using.

Feel free to suggest more or try any of these ideas (or all of them!). Some may make the game very hard or even impossible to win. Most of these ideas are based on a similar page for the original game.

Second Wave Settings

Second Wave is designed to enhance the game play experience. Most settings increase the difficulty level but others have a mixed effects after players have mastered them.

Maximum Difficulty

• Damage Roulette - random damage can affect both sides in battle but it limits more the planning of the human player than the AI, specially when playing without enemy HP bars visible (one of the game options). You'll only know if that Plasma Sniper Rifle shot dealt 19 or 1 damage to that still standing Ethereal if you hit it with the next shot...
• More Than Human - a must have. Limits the use of Psionic soldiers to 1 or 2 on each game, instead of bringing a full Psionic squad and walking completely over the aliens. And, with The Greater Good you may also start considering how wise it is to bring your only Psionic soldier to every fight due to the rare chance of finding another one.
• The Greater Good - requires a live alien to research Psionics.
• Red Fog - affects only XCOM soldiers. Makes prolonged fights more difficult due to the loss of stats from injuries in combat.
• Results Driven - funding is affected by panic level. Once full satellite coverage is achieved it becomes less effective.
• Diminishing Returns - satellite cost greatly increases after each one is build (can be double).
• Total Loss - losing a fully equipped soldiers will now also cost greatly in credits and material resources, besides its training.
• War Wariness - funding will drop each month until it reaches zero. Period.
• Alternate Sources - HQ power costs are doubled. More credits and construction space required for Engineering.

Mixed Difficulty

• Marathon - despite doubling or trebling the time required for injury recovery, research, etc., a player actually has more time to train soldiers because Marathon gives more missions with the same type of aliens before the next higher type of alien species or UFO appears.
• New Economy & High Stakes - both the randomization of the countries funding and the mission rewards can work either way, either helping or challenging the player. But unlike in the battlefield it is more easy to correct any mistakes.
• Not Created Equally & Hidden Potential - if you have the credits, you can just sack lower stat rookies and replace them with better ones.
• E-115 - stockpiling Elerium becomes more difficult but at the same time selling it right after UFO recovery brings much needed credits in the early game.
• Absolutely Critical - actually balances the effect of Damage Roulette due to the certainty it provides of the shot inflicting some Critical Damage. The aliens will also benefit from it but it also makes the player to use more deadly flanking maneuvers.

Psionics

Offensive Psionics

• No use of psionic powers allowed.
• Only 1 Psionic soldier capable of using Psionics
• No Mind Control

Defensive Psionics

• No Mind Shields or Psi Armor allowed (with the exception of the Volunteer for the final mission).

Pacifist

• You may never shoot down any UFOs (but you may assault landed ones) and you may never command any of your soldiers to fire their weapon (with the exception of the Arc Thrower since it won't kill the alien). You may however set your soldiers on Overwatch (self-defense) instead of using Firing.

Firepower/Technology

Technophobe

• You may not use or research any alien related items. All artifacts recovered from missions must be sold immediately, with the exception of those required to progress the storyline. This essentially means that you'll be restricted to only conventional weapons to fight, either on air on on the ground. Good luck.
• You may also never accept scientists as mission rewards or build any Labs unless the scientists comes from the satellite coverage bonus.

Conventional Only

• You may only use conventional weapons and/or armor throughout the entire game.

Laser Squad

• You may only deploy Lasers weapons and/or Carapace/Skeleton armor on any combat mission.

Rise Of The Robots

• After getting the Foundry (which should be your 1st priority) you'll use as many SHIVs as possible instead of human soldiers.

Limited Squads

• Don't purchase Squad Size I & II and stick to the 4 soldier squad throughout the entire campaign.

Gunslinger

• Only use pistols throughout the entire game
  • Heavies and several abilities become useless, together with Frag and Alien grenades.
  • On the plus side, you'll never have to reload your weapon or worry about ammo the entire game.
  • On the minus side, most aliens will now require at least the double of shots to eliminate them, even with a fully upgraded Plasma Pistol (and capturing and researching one should be a top priority).
  • The key abilities to have for Pistols are: Rapid Fire and Bring 'Em On (Assault) and Gunslinger and Double Tap (Sniper), which have both effects of allowing a 2nd shot and increasing the pistol's damage. The Foundry's Improved Pistol upgrades are also essential.
  • Headshot, Snap Shot and Disabling Shot are useless for Snipers and Rifle Suppression for Supports.

Top Gun

• Only use Ravens - don't build Firestorms
• Don't research advanced Air to Air weapons and stick to Avalanches

Classes/Abilities

Trying Something New

Don't choose any of these abilities while leveling up soldiers:

• Squad Sight (Sniper)
• Field Medic (Support)
• Rapid Fire (Assault)
• HEAT Ammo (Heavy)

Voluntary Retirement

• Once a soldier reaches Colonel rank it is immediately retired and dismissed from service as a reward for his/her services fighting the alien invasion.
• Or the same as above but dismiss all commissioned officers, which means everyone from Lieutenant upwards.
• Or you could limit your soldiers to a single "tour of duty" comprising a set number of deployments. 10 is a challenge; 20 is close to a normal game.

Valkyrie Squad

• Dismiss all the ugly XY mutts still alive at the Barracks after the 1st mission and only use female soldiers during the entire game.

Single Class

• Use only one class of soldiers during a mission or the entire game.

V.I.P.s

• Near the start of the game select ten soldiers to be your Very Important People. (or V.I.P.s for short)
• Change their armour or names to indicate that they are V.I.P.s.
• You must bring at least one V.I.P. along to every mission.
• If a V.I.P. is killed you may not replace him.
• If all of your V.I.P.s are dead, you must completely abandon the current campaign.
• In the event that all of your remaining V.I.P.s end up in the infirmary and awaiting recovery you may still play until they recover, after that you must again bring at least one V.I.P. to each mission.
• You may also pull a V.I.P. out of a mission if things get hairy.

The Few

Never was so much owed by so many to so few.

• Complete your game without hiring any additional soldiers.
• If all survivors fail the Psi test that's game over.

High Five

• Win the game while only performing 5 missions:
  • 1st Mission/Tutorial
  • Capture Live Alien and an Outsider
  • Alien Base Assault
  • Overseer UFO
  • Final Mission
• Challenges
  • Time is NOT on XCOM's side - panic levels will raise very quickly because the aliens will be left alone to terrorize the Earth and expect whole continents to fall to the alien's influence.
  • The only way to deal with panic levels will be with satellites but landed UFOs will pose a major risk to the satellites since you'll have to pass on these missions.
  • Research and Engineering will take longer - no mission rewards and not much recovered alien artifacts until the Alien Base is hit.
  • Squads will be inexperienced and lacking key abilities and using inferior weapons and armor.
  • The choices are, the longer you wait before taking the key next mission, the bigger the odds of getting better gear for your soldiers but also of more deadlier alien species to appear and 8 countries withdrawing from the Council thus losing the game. Have fun.