Alien Terror (EU2012)

For the original UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994) version, see Alien Terror

Mission Brief & Objectives

Alien terror attack in progress. Strong civilian presence; take care to avoid civilian casualties. Failure will have severe political consequences for XCOM. Approach civilians to enable evacuations Minimize civilian casualties Neutralize all hostile targets

Source: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012)

Alien Terror Attacks, or Terror missions, have made a return from the original game. In this missions, the civilians will be spread randomly throughout the map. As you approach them nearby aliens will engage both you and the civilians. Each civilian lost counts against your final score. To rescue a civilian all you need to do is get close to them. Necessary proximity is indicated by a circle around each civilian.

Terror Site Map List

Bar Commercial Alley Commercial Street Convenience Store Office Paper Street Hurricane

Commercial Restaurant Highway 1 Military Ammo Police Station

Office Paper Terror Pier A Terror Highway Fallen

The 4 maps of the 2nd column are the most frequent since the game will prioritize usage of maps not already seen on the present game and the maps on the 1st column are also used for Abduction missions. The third column indicates the additional Terror maps available on the Enemy Within DLC; the DLC also changes the probabilities of the maps in the 1st and 2nd columns appearing, giving maps all 3 columns the same chance of appearing during Terror missions.

Mission Results

If you completely ignore or lose a Terror mission by aborting or having your whole squad killed, then the country will automatically leave the Council. Also, all civilians count as dead if you lose or abort the mission, even ones that you've rescued. If you fail to rescue any civilians then the country will also leave the Council. Failed missions will also raise panic on the entire continent by 2 points.

If XCOM wins a terror site, the number of civilians saved at the end of the mission will be classified according to the following criteria:

• +75% of civilians = "Excellent"
• 50-74% of civilians = Good"
• 10-49% of civilians = Poor"
• 0-10% civilians = Terrible"
  • Source: XComGame.upk, XGSummaryUI class

However, to calculate the panic reduction on the country and continent in case of a successful mission, the following numbers of rescued civilians are used instead:

• +75% of civilians = 5 panic reduction in country, 2 in continent;´
• +50% of civilians = 3 panic reduction in country, 1 in continent;
• +0% of civilians = 2 panic reduction in country, 0 in continent;
• 0% civilians = 0 panic reduction, both in country and continent and country leaves the Council.
  • Source: XComStrategyGame.upk, XGStrategyAI class

Notes

• Rescued Civilians will run for the Skyranger immediately. They will not trigger reaction fire when they do so but they can open doors and activate hidden aliens on their way to safety. They will also hang around by the Skyranger DZ and can be targeted and killed by the aliens until the mission is over.
• Although there is no timer or countdown on this type of mission, you need to be very quick without being reckless. Too slow and you lose civilians which can then be turned into zombies by a Chryssalid and then eventually hatch into a new Chryssalid. Too reckless and you'll lose your troops to the overwhelming forces in these fights.
• Civilians still alive when all aliens are dead are automatically counted as rescued; they do not all have to personally rescued, although that makes them immune to further attack.
• If there are still Chryssalid packs inactivated since their presence will cause random infections on any civilians present on the map and turn them into zombies. The chance for off screen infections increases in higher difficulty levels. The resulting zombies will turn into Chryssalids 3 turns after they're infected but they'll only move after your squad spots them.
• In the Enemy Within DLC, civilians are given a bit of health, probably in response to Drones slaughtering them left and right in EU. Their HP on the different difficulty levels (E/N/C/I) are: 3/3/3/2.

Tactics

• If there are no remaining Chryssalids, active or inactive, extending your front line ahead of any civilians means they're safe from the aliens. If anything, keeping civilians around is good, since a dead civilian hurts your cause less than a dead or wounded soldier. Whenever a civilian gets shot, think to yourself "better him than me".
• Unlike the original XCOM, there is no additional penalty for XCOM killing a civilian (although the number of survivors will determine the panic reduction on that country/continent) if such an unfortunate event does happen (with explosives, primarily). Remember, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few! ;)
• You'll need to have at least 1 civilian rescued at the end of the mission or the country will leave the Council.
• Aliens almost always take priority to shoot civilians over your troopers, and never miss killing them (cover doesn't work on them). In fact, they will often skip on a close-range flanking shot on a soldier, and shoot a civilian halfway down the street instead.
  • If you're hurting on the panic levels, you might find it a worthwhile risk to move quickly to eliminate all the aliens and save at least 75% of the civilians for the massive panic reduction.
  • The three exceptions to this priority rule are the high-HP Cyberdiscs, Sectopods and Berserkers: they will always ignore civilians and attack your troops. This forces you to concentrate your fire on them while their squadmates pick off civvies at will.