Making the Game Harder

This page is intended for players who finish the game frequently on the highest difficulty and would like to keep the challenge alive.

Naturally it is quite easy to handicap yourself while playing the game: using only conventional weaponry, no armor, fighting only on night missions, etc. However, the idea here is not to go those extremes but to identify a number of exploits/cheats/tactics that make the game easier.

Feel free to try any of these ideas (or all of them!). Some may make the game very hard but not impossible to win.

Don't use game exploits

All strategy guides for UFO have plenty of mentions to Exploits. Their influence on Battlescape/Geoscape varies, here's a list of those that you should avoid and their consequences.

Alien Inventory Screen

Although you are not supposed to be able to access an alien's inventory screen when you mind control it, there is a way to do so. This allows for nasty things like priming grenades and dropping them at the feet of the alien. Another thing to consider is to stop using Psionics all together (see below).

Faulty Collision Detection

A full description can be found on here. This exploit allows you to bypass map chokepoints (such as UFO doors) which can be used by the aliens to ambush your soldiers.

Free Wages/Manufacturing/Fuel

These exploits are commonly used to prevent your finances from going negative at the end of the month or to keep your planes flying for free. The Free Wages avoids having to pay your scientists/engineers/soldiers' salaries. Most of your monthly expenses are made of those, so having to pay for your 250 scientists makes financial matters more hard to deal with.

Excessive Firepower

Heavy Plasmas

Don't equip the majority of your squad with Heavy Plasmas.

Blaster Launchers

To put it simply: the weapons are too powerful and thus the temptation to overuse them too great. Completely destroying a map is fun at start but butchering the aliens gets boring after a while. Either do not use the weapons or only bring 1 on each mission.

Enlarged Squads

Restrict your squad regarding soldiers and tanks. Never use more than 14 plane slots to bring units into a battlefield (the capacity of a Skyranger). The logic behind this is that you can easily outnumber the aliens, especially if you are facing small UFOs thus assuring victory. Also, smaller squads allow for quicker play (you don't have to move 26 units each turn) and they make your soldiers more memorable, since you'll remember more their heroic achievements (or stupid deaths).

No Psionics

Psi-Amps completely unbalance the game towards the human player. Even 1 Psi-Amp is bad enough for the aliens, but to bring a squad full of psi-trained soldiers will mean that all the aliens will be mind controlled during the first turn (including even Cyberdisks or Sectopods. Once you start, the uncertainty and the risk will go down, and so will the fun.

The same applies to Mind Probes since those devices can be used to screen aliens for their rank or to check if they will reaction fire.

Finally, the use of Psi Labs should be restricted to screening troops but not training them, since they can't use Mind Probes or Psi Amps. A harder setting would be not to use them at all and only find out during a fight who are the psi weaklings.

XComUtil's Features

XcomUtil is a game enhancer that was actually designed to make the game harder, although many of its features can be used the other way around. There are 2 ways to use XComUtil, both of which can be used to increase the difficulty, the XcuSetup installation program and the XComUtil command.

XcuSetup configuration

When you run XcuSetup to install XComUtil a number of queries will be asked regarding which features you'll want to implement.

• Do you want to use the improved starting base? (No)

With the improved starting base you start with an Alien Containment already built, your radar is upgraded and you'll start with additional scientists and engineers. It will also be designed to maximize defense.

• Do you want to use the alternate starting base? (No)

This retains the optimal defensive layout but doesn't add the extra facilities/personnel.

• Do you want to use the improved Tanks/Weapons? (No to both)

• Do you want to use the new laser weapons? (Yes)

With this option chosen your lasers will require Elerium to be built (supposedly to act as power cells). This also prevents you from building plasma weapons (but not clips), thus preventing you from selling Plasma Pistols and Plasma Rifles since the aliens will stop using those. It also makes Laser Cannons and Fusion Launchers a lot less attractive to sell because of the time required to build them and the Elerium/Alien Alloys necessary for their construction. Be prepared for the blow on your finances...

• Do you want research help from captured aliens? (Yes! Yes! Yes!)

To make the game REALLY hard try this feature. First, it will increase the research times of most items tenfold or more, especially regarding the alien technologies. Instead of having to wait days or a week for a certain technology the time will increase to months. With a little bad luck you will be stuck to lasers and no armor when the Mutons and Ethereals start showing up. Second, the only way to speed research (other than having 250 scientists on all bases) is to capture live aliens, forcing you to bring a few Stun Rods for all missions. It is not required to have an Alien Containment present to receive the research help but remember it only reduces the time of the research being done at your starting base.

Financing solely by funding nations

Do not sell any alien equipment, corpses or UFO components. Do not sell manufactured Equipment. Only genuine earth technology (like rifles or avalance launchers) or researched aircraft (since they don't bring in money) may be sold. This not only adds some realism to the game (seriously, who would pay 334,000$ for some metal ball that lets you know the stats of your wife? And which government on earth would allow the possession of plasma weapons to other nations, or even civilians?), it also makes it significantly harder. In february for example you have around 6,000,000$ to cover base maintenance, wages, crafts, manufacturing and losses on the battlefield. This leaves not very much! Building new bases, hiring more engineers or just building a second laboratory is almost impossible. But it is definitely more fun than having worldwide radar coverage and 16 interceptors by the end of march.