Talk:Impossible Difficulty (EU2012)

Panic Management

I've just had a read of this section and while it seems a well thought strat for Impossible, my question here is the following: does it focus on the differences between Classic and Impossible and provide general tips on how to survive on Impossible? To me that should be the center of this page but this section starts with the following:

"It is possible, if exeedingly difficult, to last out the first month (and hopefuly, a campaign) without losing any countries in Impossible. Required is luck, extreme skill and knowledge of the game, and probably a lot of save-state abuse. Slingshot (and Progeny, if in Enemy Within <need to check if it's usually late-month, I think my plan kinda depends on it being so>) is extremely helpful, and should be used if you have it."

If I just had started playing Impossible just this introduction would put me off reading the rest of the section since it seems to depend on a lot of factors to work, and there's too much uncertainty involved. What if the Council mission isn't on one of the 4 countries? What if you get a squad wipe in one of those 2 Abduction missions? And even some factors don't seem to have been tested:

"Month 1:

You'll want to build the two Uplinks to the left of the starting one.

Don't forget to dig if you need to, plus you'll need one Generator (§60, 5 days), ideally placed on the other side of the base, so it doesn't get in the way of your Sattelite block.

You'll need at least 4 Sattellites to save all at-risk countries, but the Adjency Bonus will give you a capacity of 8, so up to 7 more can be built"

How can you build 2 Uplinks in the 1st month if the 2nd one should require 25 Engineers? Or, where do you get §400 credits before the 10th of April to build 4 sats and then §60 + §300 for the Generator and 2 Uplinks before the 16th?

Also, in general, pages shouldn't also have personalized ("my plan") or even be signed - if you're still working on it, you should create a sandbox page such as User:Xuncu/Sandbox to develop work in progress.

Just my 2c. :) Hobbes 14:38, 5 December 2013 (EST)

Ah, hm. Well, the fact is I did it. I didn't even cheat by using the trick to go into negative power by lowering the difficulty, ordering construction, then putting it back up. Plus, I think someone just added that Uplinks are cheaper in EW. Started with Germany giving 160 credits (via New Economy), so start with 225 credits, and DUMPING nearly all the corpses that Impossible gives. Plus, with Engineers, I got satts down to I think it was §65 or §75 each; "buy 3, get 1 free." Though, as I noted, NOTHING else was built or bought that first month. Carlock was the COuncil mission I got (with Panic reduction, though not in the best spot then, but did save Austrialia from going to full in April) was another §140ish, woulda done better if the RNG let the Elerium Generator survive, because I sold the two computers instead, dumped in Elerium, like half the alloys (because once I got to use them; with that many Engies, I wouldn't need that many), and it's labeled "Impossible" for a reason, and I don't remember what/when I got for the council request. --Xuncu 19:41, 5 December 2013 (EST)

Wait, wait, I got it: "When then called it 'Impossible', they were talking about me!"--Xuncu 20:07, 5 December 2013 (EST)

From my calculations you still need to get 20 Engineers on March to build 2 Uplinks and that means building a Workshop, since you'll get 8 engineers from the Abductions and 2 from the Council mission. That's §130 for 1 Workshop (before March 5th, so that it is finished on time to build and finish the 2nd Uplink before the end of the month), ~§300 for 4 sats (before the 10th), §100 for 1st Uplink (before the 16th) and the 2nd Abduction mission also needs to happen before March 16th, otherwise you won't get enough engineers for the 2nd Uplink. You started with §225 + 20 Sectoid corpses (or §100) from the starting mission and the 1st Abduction but you need a total of §430 until the 10th for the 4 sats and 1 Workshop, if you want to build the 2nd Uplink. Unless you get lucky and the 1st UFO appears meanwhile, where do you get the remaining credits?

It isn't impossible, but this strat depends on too many that you can't control (both 2 Abductions having Engineers as rewards AND Carlock Council mission before the 16th AND only 4 countries being on Level 5 panic AND UFO before the 10th) - this is a best case scenario unlikely to happen in most campaigns, and doesn't really help someone who is trying to make the transition between Classic and Impossible. Hobbes 10:25, 6 December 2013 (EST)