Survival Guide (EU2012)

Miscellaneous Tips

Promoting Soldiers

Rotate lower ranked soldiers to use as "cannon fodder" while leveling up your higher ranks. Once your higher rank has reached the highest, leave him in base and continue to level up more promising ones. Don't bother hiring new soldiers unless they're needed.

This all changes after you research Iron Will and New Guy in Foundry research. At this point, you should have enough credits to hire soldiers by the bundle, and throw out the low Will ones. Your core team of high ranking officers are now your "cannon fodder" while you level up the new squaddies. You may also consider Psi screening them before choosing which new recruits to keep and promote.

Suggestion for Promotions

If you have no idea of what Abilities to choose during the first promotions, these are solid choices for the entire game:

• Assault - Lightning Reflexes. Forces a miss on the first reaction shot fired at the unit. Can be used to trigger (and miss) alien Overwatch shots. This ability is essentially a life-saver for your soldiers when advancing against aliens on Overwatch, specially Sectopods.
• Heavy - HEAT Ammo. After you first encounter a Cyberdisk without this ability, you'll know why. It also applies to the Rocket/Blaster Launcher besides the Heavy's primary weapon and you are almost sure to face Cyberdisks/Sectopods on most UFO or Abduction/Terror missions.
• Sniper - Squad Sight. Snap Shot also has its uses but it requires Squad Sight to perform the classic 'Scout and Snipe' tactic of the original game, where your Sniper can just pick a spot where it covers the battlefield and drop any aliens seen by your squad.
• Support - Field Medic. Never go to a battle without a Medikit. And never risk your only Medic getting killed or worse, critically wounded (and watch him/her die from the wound unless you are able to finish the fight first).

Simplified and Granulized Encounter System

Aliens now come in groups of around 2-4. Some of these groups may patrol around the map by teleporting to random points around the map, but are tactically dormant (i.e. they will not open fire or take cover) until you "wake them up". Note that once awoken, aliens can act fully even when outside your visual range.

Similar to massive-multiplayer online game instances, "waking-up" multiple groups of enemies is just plain stupid. The best strategy is to wake-up and deal with one group at a time. When scouting for enemies, don't move too far ahead, especially with a 2-move dash. When a group is activated, it may be prudent to then back up and get into defensive positions to greet the enemy.

For behind the door situations, gather your soldiers in front of the door, around the corner or in a spot across the room facing the door. Next open the door to wake up the aliens inside. If no aliens are seen, have a soldier (preferably your assault with Run&Gun) move in. After the aliens run for cover, charge in and open fire at optimum ranges. If there are multiple entrances into the same room, split your team so that you can potentially get a flank bonus on some of the enemies. Depending on the situation, you also have the option of waking up an enemy behind a door, and then back out of sight to encourage the alien to run out and into a flurry of reaction fire.

For most outdoor situations and in large rooms, set up your snipers in the right place before waking up the aliens with one soldier. Use only one action point to wake them up, kill most/all the aliens with your snipers, and use one action point to pull back to completely avoid retaliation fire.

Enemy groups that randomly teleport nearby, or amongst your team, will not immediately open fire when they strike a pose and race for cover. They will actively attack once your turn ends. If this occurs when you are not engaging the enemy, you can often use this opportunity to get in close and take them down at close range. If you are in the middle of engaging another group or more, these re-enforcements could tip the odds in the enemy's favour. You will need to adjust your tactics accordingly. Prioritize targets, take defensive measures, make a tactical retreat to safety, use area-effect weapons, etc.

To be (an Angel) or not to be

That is the question. The answer may lie in your playing style but it may also lie in a game bug. Ghost Armour is the obvious choice for all classes (maybe Psi Armour for Psi), but for snipers you may want to equip with Angel Armor. Because of a bug in the game, Angel Armour grants you Height bonus and Damn Good Ground bonus even though the Angel Armor strictly says it shouldn't. With these bonuses plus a scope, your chance to hit jumps to near certainty even for aliens with full cover.

Satellites are Key

• Plan ahead and cover the entire world with at least 8 satellites ASAP. This is the only undisputed rule in playing this game. Some players prefer to launch satellites at the end of the month to lower panic levels when they're highest. Launching satellites at the end of the month also gives you more flexibility to deal with unexpected alien activity at the end of the month.
• Order satellites individually, not in bulk. That way you'll be able to cancel satellite orders if you are in a dire/unexpected need of credits and still be able to launch the other satellites at the end of the month. Of all game items (Facilities, Craft, etc.) that require days for manufacture Satellites are the most flexible to cancel, if needed.

Mission Choices

You will be considering several things when deciding on which mission to choose. However your considerations should come in these orders:

1. Panic level
   • Your choice differs vastly depending on difficulty level. For example, on easier difficulty settings, ignoring some missions can lead to increased panic for one country. In comparison, this could lead to increased panic in the whole continent on higher difficulty settings. Thus, consider panic level on the whole rather than individual countries. In some cases, continents with more countries should be taken care of first.
2. Rewards
   • Before you have full satellite coverage, credits and engineers should be your preference. After full coverage, you will probably prefer engineers until you no longer need more for buildings or tech. Scientists and soldiers aren't that important, comparatively speaking.

Scientists, Laboratories and Research

Consider refraining from building laboratories, as they aren't really necessary even on higher difficulty settings. You can still complete research quickly by first researching arc throwers, and following up by completing all autopsies and interrogations. The biggest obstacle to research is not the duration, but the required alien artifacts that are gathered slowly. Building laboratories only serves to drain these precious resources.

Africa may be Key

As strange as this sounds, because of game mechanics and because you need full satellite coverage as fast as possible, the African bonus in credits is probably your most important reward. Consider this as your first base location.

Alternatively you may consider North America as your first and cover Africa afterwards, but this strategy may not be viable since satellite launches are generally dependent on panic level.

Don't sell like 1994 X-Com

For veteran players of the original X-Com that are new to this game, take heed that corpses and miscellaneous items are no longer useless junk. They are valuable resources used not only for research projects, but as resources for completing council member requests, foundry upgrades and as components for manufacturing certain advanced equipment such as Chitin Plating.

Generally, keeping about 10 corpses of the common species (Sectoids, Thin Men...Mutons, later) in storage should be sufficient if you need some quick money. Keep more if you know you'll need them for a Foundry project.

On the other hand, items that have no research value such as damaged UFO components and alien entertainment are clearly marked as such. These items can be sold freely.

Once you are familiar with the game and know how much of each is required for tech that is within reasonable grasp, only then should you consider selling valuable equipment and corpses to fund Satellite rushes.

Strategies and Build Orders

Satellite Rush Strategy

Build order and strategy for a satellite rush, tested on Classic. Aim of this build order is to launch 4 satellites in the first month (up to total of 5), 3 satellites in the second month (up to total of 8), and 4 satellites in the third month (up to total of 12). By the third month, you will have all continents covered except Europe or Asia, which will give you enough money to never more care about it, and still allow abductions to happen.

In order to succeed, it is crucial to not only consider the current month, but also the next one. Preparations for the month's facility construction must sometimes happen in the previous month. If you simply try to build 3/4 satellites and an uplink in the first month, you will most likely not be able to complete your next uplink in the second month.

This strategy is not 100% reliable, which means, sometimes (rarely, but surely) you will not have enough loot to sell to build Satellites, Satellite Uplink or following facilities in the first month. Game CAN screw you up. Also, sometimes abduction mission will pop too late to build your first workshop in time. However, reloading in month 1 is not a big loss, and most of the times, you will be fine, and question will be, how many Alloys or Fragments you have to sell.

By going this route, you will only have Alien Containtment up by 09 May (third month), and Officer Training School by 24 of April (second month), and will not have Foundry until later in the third month, or even later. You wont be building any Labs at all until month four.You will also not be getting any Medkits/Scopes/Vests or extra recruits (usually taken for bigger HP) in the first month and be limited on those in the second month. Also, you will have to sell most of the loot you get from missions. When selling corpses and UFO parts is not enough, you will have to sell Elerium, Alloys and Fragments. Sell Elerium first as it will be only required later in the game. When choosing to sell between Alloys and Fragments, pick you poison. Fragments are only required for research, but Alloys will be the limiting factor in getting out Carpace Armor and Laser weaponry. However, you will be bottlenecked by fragments for the rest of the game, so selling them early will hurt you later. General advice is to see how many fragments you need to finish crucial research topics (Beams/Precision Lasers and Caprace Armor, for example) and sell the rest, and only then start selling alloys, but your mileage may vary.

The absolute bottleneck of this strategy will happen in the first month, and thats why going with North America seems the best choice - you get most starting funds ($ 300). Another serious bottleneck is the second month, where you need to raise at least 1 extra engineer by day 6 (in order to have at least 15 required to build a second workshop). Thats your two main concerns.

In the build order base tiles will be referenced using (1,4) notation, where 1 is row and 4 is column (1,4 here refers to the first Access Lift, while 1,3 would refer your first Satellite Uplink). To better understand the timings keep in mind that March and May have 31 days, April has 30. Building Power Generator, Access Lift and Digging takes 5 days, Workshop takes 10 days and Satellite Uplink takes 14 days. Satellite production takes 20 days.

Lucky Man's Build Order

If you don't hesitate to reload a few times on your first mission, this build order is much easier than alternatives, but requires either 1,5 or 1,6 (first or second to the right of the access lift) to be already excavated at the game start (which you will only know of after you complete your first tactical mission). Build order then goes like this:

• 02.03 Dig 1,5/6 (one that is not excavated)
• 07.03 Workshop 1,6
• 11.03 *** Satellite x4 (order them 1 by 1, not in bulk)
• 17.03 Satellite Uplink 1,2
• 27.03 Power Generator 1,5
• 31.03 *** Launch Satelites (in the evening)

• 01.04 *** Order Interceptors (2 is enough)
• 01.04 Access Lift 2,4
• 01.04 Dig 1,7
• 06.04 Dig 2,5
• 06.04 Workshop 1,7
• 10.04 *** Satellite x3
• 11.04 Power Generator 2,5
• 11.04 Dig 2,3
• 16.04 Satellite Uplink 2,3
• 16.04 Officer Training School 1,1
• 22.04 Dig 2,6
• 22.04 Dig 2,2
• 27.04 Power Generator 2,6
• 27.04 Dig 2,1
• 31.04 *** Launch Satelites

• 01.05 *** Order Interceptors
• 02.05 Access Lift 3,4
• 02.05 Dig 2,7
• 02.05 Alien Containtment 2,1
• 07.05 Dig 3,5
• 07.05 Workshop 2,7
• 11.05 *** Satellite x4
• 12.05 Power Generator 3,5
• 17.05 Satellite Uplink 2,2

Total money you will need in the first month is: - 130 for Workshop - 308 for Satellites - 150 for Uplink - 60 for Power Generator

Thus, you will have to raise $ 138 by day 11, and another $ 150 by day 17, and then another $ 60 by day 27. Crucial here will be getting the sum of money for the Uplink. This game is RNG based and sometimes it will surely screw you up by leaving you 1 or 2 $ off the sum. Then, you will have to restart, or cancel one of the satellites. However, most of the time, you'll be fine. If you're playing on Impossible, this is actually less of a problem, because more enemies means more loot to sell. Getting money for Power Generator is not a problem. Getting money for Satellites depends on having UFO show up before day 11. If it doesnt, you will only have enough money for 3. If it does, you will have enough money for 4. Generally, 4v3 is not THAT big deal, but still, you may want to fast-forward the time right after you finish your first tactical mission and see wether you will get your UFO in time, in order to save yourself time spent on doing the abduction mission, in case you absolutely want 4 satellites in the first month.

The fact that you want to get engineers on your first abduction goes without saying, since its obvious. But before the 06 day of the second month, you'll have to get an extra engineer on top of that. You can get it either by covering a continent that provides engineers for covering its countries, by getting them randomly as a reward from council mission, or from second abduction mission in the first month, or, if you get lucky with timings, for first abduction mission in the second month (however, this cannot be relied on, since it can as well happen after 06th - if you want to save-scum, save before council report, thats when time at which missions happen in the next month is determined).

Also, you should from the start consider which continent you will be covering first, and leave that continent unattended in the first two abductions. You only got three reasonable choices, thats Africa, Asia or Europe. Europe is the best money-wise (considering their bonus, which will save you additional $ 78 on workshops in the 2nd month), but will not give you engineers you need. Africa is better than Asia, since you get to cap another country (preferably Russia or some $ 100 one). However, its really your choice (and somtimes depends on how rewards for 1 and 2 abduction missions roll out).

When picking rewards for second abduction in the first month, if you're going to be covering Europe, consider getting engineers. If you dont get'em here, you're viable to screw-up by RNG who wont give you them as council mission reward and will place first abduction in the next month on day 7. Else - get money. You'll need all money you can get in the second month.

In the second month, it becomes a little easier. Still calculate amount of money you will need on crucial facilities before spending on non-important ones, or on squad upgrades like scopes and medkits. You want to get a second continent covered here, and that is Africa if you didnt get it already, or the continent you placed your spare satellite on if you did get it. By day 7 of month 3, you will need a total of 6 extra engineers from external sources, in addition to 4 you got from your first abduction mission. Since you cannot get less than 3 from an event, and get 4 from abduction mission, and you will be getting engineers from countries you cover, usually you'll be fine. However, still pay attention to this, since you'll need 25 total engineers to start building third workshop in month 3.

In the third month you are way less stressed, you can now afford juicy stuff like OTS upgrades and some nice gear. Watch out for large ship that comes early this month - you absolutely have to have one laser canon and one phoenix canon interceptor on each continent for that one (if you dont want to save-load).

Recommneded research path to take is Fragments - Materials - Carpace Armors - Beam Weapons - Precision Lasers - Experimental Warfare - Heavy Lasers - stuff to capture a live alien

Unlucky Man's Build Order

What if you didnt get lucky with already excavated tiles and don't want to restart? In this case, instead of having Workshops on 1,6-7 and 2,7 you'll have to place them on 1,5 and 2,5-6, and Power Generators vice-versa. Problem is that Workshop takes 10 days to build, unlike 5 days to build a generator. Therefore, you will have to start excavating space for your second workshop on 01.04, and to do that you have to build your Access Lift on 27.03 and your Power Generator on 22.03. That means you'll have to get money for your Power Generator earlier, and you'll have to find additional $ 50 in the first month. Usually that will not be a problem (if you already got thus far, meaning you passed the Uplink bottleneck) but you will have to sell nearly everything, all your alloys and fragments, severely cripplig your research and ability to field Carpace armor and Lasers by the time first terror mission happens in the second month.

If you don't want to suffer through that, you can build your second Workshop on 1,1 - this will take away your adjacency bonuses, but they arent that great anyway (7% rebait that you only start to get in the end of the second month, and thats like several $ per completed facility, by the time it ramps up its already irrelevant). Therefore, you build first Workshop on 1,5 and generators on 1,6-7 and second workshop on 1,1 and your Officer Training School goes on 2,5. At this point, you'd better substitute your third or fourth generator with a Thermal one, so that you can place your third workshop on 2,6-7, but if you get even more unlucky, and have no available Steams, you will have to build third and fourth generators on 2,6-7 thus making you build your third workshop one level deeper, on 3,5 (which, agian, will require you to build access lift one month earlier) or on 1,2 (will delay alien containtment).

1st month on Impossible: Build Order

Build-order for 1st month (march) on Impossible difficulty - "Fast Satellite Uplink". No research/hire soldiers/production included.

• 1d - excavate ($10, 5d, space for Workshop);
• 4-7d - Abduction Site (+4 engineer, for Workshop);
• 7d - Workshop ($130, 10d, +5 engineers for Satellite Uplink), excavate ($10, 5d, space for Power Generator) ;
• 7d-10d - UFO (small scout, 1 interceptor needed), UFO Crash Site (sell as much as possible);
• 11d - 3x-4x satellites ($77 each with 9 engineers; 20d) not in pack (1 by 1),
• 12d - Power Generator ($60, 5d, power for Satellite Uplink);
• 17d - Satellite Uplink ($150, 14d);
• ...
• 32d - Council Report

2nd Abduction Site and Council Mission will be this month, but it usualy goes after 17d.

From Normal To Classic

Making the transition from one difficulty level to the other can prove to be tough. The main differences to watch out for on Classic are:

1. The +10 Aim bonus to the Aliens - suddenly Sectoids can be a lot more lethal.
2. Soldiers have -1 HP than on Classic - making Plasma Pistols and Light Plasma Rifles deadlier (specially the last one - it takes only 1 shot to kill a soldier!)
3. Outsiders/Thin Men now have 4/5 health - Assault Rifles are not much useful against them anymore.
4. No OTS at the beginning - stuck to 4 soldier squads for a while until you get a Sergeant promoted and the OTS built.
5. Panic now spreads throughout countries - all the world seems to be turning redder and redder.
6. No extra satellite at the beginning - and less funding/base power/etc making resources scarce due to all of the requirements (OTS, satellite, research, engineering, etc.)