User:Tequilachef

Currently I am trying to finish the game on superhuman and with "Council Money Only".

Rules

• Not selling any alien artifacts, corpses or UFO components
• Not selling any X-Com made Equipment
• Thus only getting money from the funding nations (and by selling surplus earth equipment like rifles or stingray launchers)

This makes the game much harder and much more fun.

Finances

When expending money, always keep in mind that you only will get oney ONCE a month! As soon as you are out of money you cannot manufacture, hire personell or buy equipment. Remember what costs might come to you for the rest of the month! Important:

• For manufacturing
• Replace losses on the battlefield (one or two terror missions can push this one up quite well)
• Replace equipment (Ammunition for earth weapons, grenades)

Before making any expenses, calculate what you are going to need over the month. Will hangars be completed? You might want some savings for an interceptor. Is important research coming up? Save some money for the Psi-Labs/Hyperwave Decoders/Whatever. If you are low on soldiers between the last 5 to 3 days of a month, do not hire new ones until only 71 hours of the old month are left. This saves the salary for those soldiers for the new month. 10 Engineers are far enough for the first few months. You won't have the money for excessive manufacturing, anyway.

Research

Everything that saves money should be researched immediately.

• The first to go should be Medi Kit. Althoug expensive in production, everytime a soldier is saved by those you save 40.000$!
• Next up should be alien weaponry. Although you need ammunition for it, the weapons themselves are for free. Equipping a squad with laser rifles costs a fortune. Also remember that all X-Com made equipment destroyed in battle has to be replaced, what costs money again!
• I therefore suggest plasma rifles. They combine supreme accuracy with good firepower, which is needed to bring down terror units and to kill most aliens with one hit. Additionally, plenty of ammo for plasma rifles can be found during the first months. It unlocks the plasma cannon research, which does not require ammo and therefore saves money, too.
• Alien grenades are quite nice, too. All alien equipment, except for those useless plasma pistols should be researched and used!
• When using personal armour of all kind remember that losing a soldier in one of those costs even more than 40 grand! Only use those for your best men!
• Psi Labs are expensive! Be very careful with soldiers currently in psi training, if possible keep them out of battles at all. After that train your most talented soldiers excessively, you wont have many of them!

Tactical Combat

One of the big bills is hiring replacements. Therefore keeping your soldiers alive should be top priority. Some tricks to reduce your soldiers' mortality rate:

• Throw a smoke grenade out of your craft in the first turn. Do not exit, all aliens have full TUs at the beginning of your first turn and will therefore be able to reaction fire on your troops.
• Think of bringing an incendiary rocket to light up night missions and to burn down jungles.
• Electro Flares are an absolute must-have for night missions. If one lights your own troops, blast it with a grenade or pick it up.
• Employ psi puppets if necessary.
• Tanks cost a whole bunch of money and are very vulnerable to reaction fire. Better use 10 soldiers for the same money.

Scoring

Obtaining huge amounts of score points is your top objective. Those will increase your payment by the funding nations. Normally, a score around 3,000 points will result in a remarkable increase in funding. This is absolutely necessary to cover rising maintenance costs, which come with global radar coverage and multiple interceptors. Some tricks to keep your employers happy:

• Every UFOpaedia entry gains points. Save autopsies and other alien research for worse months.
• If you have a nice amount of points and the monthly report is near, keep possible sources for points (alien bases, downed UFOs) untouched. Taking them when already having enough points would be waste.
• Points cost money! Every tactical mission that gains points costs money. This can go from a few thousand for ammo up to some hundrets of thousands for killed soldiers. remember that wounded soldiers still receive salaries while doing nothing, so soldiers being wounded cost, too. Therefore leave down UFOs when having enough points halfway through the month.

Emptying the stores

Although selling stuff is forbidden, there is no reason you should not be allowed to destroy it. Sell surplus equipment or corpses, then "destroy" the money by building and destroying base facilities. A nice spot for that is the position of the starting base living quarters. This improves the defenses of your base while keeping down the paying for dirt bug.