Which mods/settings to make late game more difficult?

[TaxxiDriver]

This actually involves the critical question how one would see this game.

My characterization of this game (the ideal setting of this game) is that it should get tougher every month so you really have to do anything to send decent agents to Cydonia before you lose the game. But as you have said, this game does the exact opposite since while agents become incredibly more powerful each month, the power of aliens remain relatively constant.

The biggest threat in my opinion is the period where ethereals start to come out, and that wihout psionic LOS mod: it's because psionic attack is based on probability, so no matter what you do you have some chance that one of your soldier will do something that you probably don't like  . And if the Cydonia mission were so hard that you really cannot win the mission with just only rookies, the loss of experienced soldiers at the ethereal missions would have been the real threat to many commandors.

Well, anyway here are some thoughts of mine:

(1) Turn on the aggressive retaliation mission mod: I haven't used this one before though. You can loot a lot from the mission so I'm a bit doubtful that this would make the game more challenging. But what can I say is that the chance that you'll lose your newly built base would be quite high (if the alien ship goes into a base with no soldier, then the base is just lost  ). Maybe this is just too stressful? I don't know... Anyone have tried this?

(2) Change the ruleset to your taste: 100% accuracy for aliens, increased hit points etc

(3) Find or Make a mod that makes the game harder as you progress: This can also be done by slightly modifying the ruleset. For example, make aliens that come late much stronger (sectoid, floater -> snakesman -> muton -> ethereal: am I right?). There is also a mod that changes the order of sectopods and cyberdisks (of course, sectopods got nerfed).
     I doubt if there is a mod to control the frequencies of UFOs, but if there is, you can use it to make it really hard to get a positive score in late months (so many UFOs so some of them will accomplish their missions, thus getting points). I also think Russia cannot be infiltrated, but if there is a mod that even Russia can be infiltrated by aliens and forcing you to lose when you lose every country by aliens, I think it would be also a great option 

By the way, how can I disable the guided shooting of blaster launcher? I also think that's too much so want to know how to disable it 

[Arthanor]

Pretty good advice! Unrestricted psi-attacks is indeed a good part of the alien threat, you just have to restrict your own use of psi.

1) Aggressive retaliation is a pain! I am using it and you really have to be careful. It's a good way to add more UFOs and increase the challenge. It works well with the "Air Combat Rebalanced" mod, which makes it more difficult to shoot down UFOs. That limits your ability to intercept as your crafts get damaged more. An alternative is my XCom Armoury Expanded: Crafts, which also nerfs interceptors and early weapons, but also offers new crafts and craft weapons. It makes the early game more difficult, but not so much the later game because of the new additions. The YetMoreUfos! and Alien Armoury Expanded: UFOs mods also add UFOs, amongst which the fighters are quite deadly.

With the retaliation on, you have to shoot down UFOs before they come anywhere close to your base so they don't find it, and sometimes there is nothing you can do, you lose 'em. I usually have an empty hangar somewhere so I can quickly transfer the interceptor of the doomed base, along with all the materiel I kept there to cut my losses.

2-3) A risky thing to do, since those changes will also affect aliens in the early game. I guess you can "safely" buff mutons and ethereals. Another thing to do is use the gazer race by robin, those guys are tough! And it is a new challenge to deal with armoured aliens.

I have never had issues with losing too many countries to alien infiltration (and I think the russian immunity is a myth?). Aliens need to launch a specific mission to steal a country and at the rate of 1 mission/month, 2/month in the later game, there are enough countries that it would take them years to infiltrate them all. Increasing the point values of alien missions would be one way of making things harder though. Then you really have to respond.

To make Blaster Launchers direct fire, you can either:
- Go in your ruleset folder, open XCom1Ruleset.rul and then find the STR_BLASTER_LAUNCHER under items, change "waypoint: true" to "waypoint: false".
- Put a new file called DirectBlaster.rul (or whatever with a .rul extension) and in it write:

Code: [Select]

items:
  - type: STR_BLASTER_LAUNCHER
    waypoint: falsethen enable that in your mods, under options.

[NoelBuddy]

You touch on a lot of good ideas here.

About this one inparticular:

     I doubt if there is a mod to control the frequencies of UFOs, but if there is, you can use it to make it really hard to get a positive score in late months (so many UFOs so some of them will accomplish their missions, thus getting points). I also think Russia cannot be infiltrated, but if there is a mod that even Russia can be infiltrated by aliens and forcing you to lose when you lose every country by aliens, I think it would be also a great option 

Personally I find that by late game I am spending most of my time shooting down retaliation flights on every continent, and with the delay that gets added to the next wave when you shoot down a UFO can make it so you are seeing the ending waves of one mission at the same time that the beginning waves for a new one start... There already is a ramping up from one mission/month to two.  Beyond that maybe you could make a mission that features multi-craft waves and has all raceWeights at 0 for the first few months and then goes up to 100 later.

By the way, how can I disable the guided shooting of blaster launcher? I also think that's too much so want to know how to disable it 

Code: [Select]

items:
  - type: STR_BLASTER_LAUNCHER
      waypoint: false


[Warboy1982]

actually once an inflitration mission STARTS in a region, it doesn't ever stop, so if we assume the mission schedule averages one completed infiltration run per month, that means you'll lose one country per month in that region. it is possible, assuming a run of really bad luck and minimal xcom activity, to have all the funding nations drop out as early as january 2000, if not sooner.
the russian immunity to infiltration is not a myth, you can see it in the main ruleset: the aliens don't schedule infiltration missions in siberia.

[Arthanor]

Hum.. I count 16 countries total. Month one is hardcoded research. Month 2-5 are one mission each: up to 4 infiltrations. Months 6-12 are 2/months, so up to 12 infiltrations, total 16 infiltrations in 1999. Indeed, potential game over by the end of december 1999. That's really unlucky!

Regarding Russia, isn't it also part of Europe, which can be the target of alien infiltrations? I do see Moscow listed in Europe under regions. I got that from Hobbes in this post.

[Warboy1982]

you're counting the countries, not the regions. countries are inside regions.
missions are run on a per REGION basis, not a per country basis.
there are 8 regions that can be infiltrated, once an infiltration mission "succeeds" the first un-infiltrated country found in the region signs a pact, and the mission starts over, so for example in europe, you will always lose the UK first, followed by france, then germany etc...
remember it's possible for more than one country to sign a pact per month, as missions all run simultaneously.
so in this example (given appropriate circumstances), you'd lose one country on the first month, two on the second... and so on until the fifth month where you'd have lost a total of 15 countries (1+2+3+4+5)... given that russia doesn't get infiltrated, you've already lost everything you can and it's not even july.
also, moscow is a city. cities are used for terror sites, and nothing else. it's counted as a european city due to its geographical location being closer to the euro mission zones than the siberian ones.

[Falko]

countries are inside regions.
missions are run on a per REGION basis, not a per country basis.[...]
also, moscow is a city. [..]  it's counted as a european city due to its geographical location being closer to the euro mission zones than the siberian ones.

how can i find the connection between country and region in the ruleset ?
the only thing i can imagine is region with most overlap with country areas => countryregion i dont see any other way to connect them

is moscow in europ because of the location that is in the regionbox of europe or because moscow is a element in the region[type=europe]->cities list?
better question: to what region are terror missions in jakarta added (jakarta is in the austarlasia region area but in the southeastasia-regionm->cities list

[Warboy1982]

it uses the country label coordinates. whichever region the country label falls inside is the region it belongs to (using the order listed in the ruleset as the priority in case of overlaps)

as for moscow and jakarta... don't ask me, i didn't make the data, but a terror mission in region X will choose a random city in that region.

[Arthanor]

Hum.. I am confused. By "the mission starts over", do you mean that:

1-  The aliens keep infiltrating the same region immediately after one country signed and that it doesn't count as a new mission? (That would work with your 1+2+3+4+5, with the infiltration missions keep going and new infiltrations are launched every month)
2- The next time an infiltration mission is picked in that region it will start from scratch, but result in the second country signing? (That would cap the number of country signing to 1/month until June, then 2/month)

And I only have a "Europe" region, with Moscow in it, in my XCom1Ruleset, no Eastern Europe? In fact, a search for "eastern" (case insensitive) returns nothing. Looking at your new post, I understand that since the country label for Russia is in Siberia, it counts as belonging in Siberia for missions and thus never gets targeted by infiltration. Fair enough.

Still not 100% sure how the order you describe of UK, France, Germany for signing is determined though..

[Warboy1982]

the first one, but remember that an infiltration mission is only one possibility among many. for the purposes of the example i gave, i was assuming the player has such bad luck that every month results in an infiltration mission.

by eastern europe i simply meant the eastern part of europe.

the order i described is the order as listed in the ruleset.

[Arthanor]

Oh, just the order that they are listed in the "countries" section? I see. Thank you.

Infiltration missions never stopping until the every country in the region has fallen is nasty! I thought a mission was considered completed as soon as one country fell.

[HelmetHair]

Russia never signs a pact...ever.

Their deep cultural sadness and alcoholism and experience of being screwed by everything repeatedly means they are all but immune to Alien MC and also allows them to easily spot infiltrators.

"What you mean new comrade no drink Wodka? Well, maybe he get thirsty in gulag"...

Or

" Comrade, Is not Tolstoy the greatest of authors, so happy his books in give misery"
**Alien infiltrator shoots self after reading**
"Yes, Comrade.... you agree"

Or

" I feel uneasy, I better drink more"...

Only love to my Ruskie Bros though!

-HH

[TaxxiDriver]

Russia never signs a pact...ever.

Their deep cultural sadness and alcoholism and experience of being screwed by everything repeatedly means they are all but immune to Alien MC and also allows them to easily spot infiltrators.

"What you mean new comrade no drink Wodka? Well, maybe he get thirsty in gulag"...

Or

" Comrade, Is not Tolstoy the greatest of authors, so happy his books in give misery"
**Alien infiltrator shoots self after reading**
"Yes, Comrade.... you agree"

Or

" I feel uneasy, I better drink more"...

Only love to my Ruskie Bros though!

-HH

That was fun

But seriously, why the original developers let Russia as the last defense? I know nothing about Russia so wondering why. My best guess is also that aliens got frightened by vodka or something...

To be precisely...

(1) Was a plan to let certain countries uninfiltratable intentional?
(2) Was it also intentional to choose Russia as the only such country?
(3) If it was intentional, why?

I got the impression from several video games that France is often described as the last rebellious country (whatever the situation is) (ex. Deus Ex). Not Russia taking that role, though.

Well, back to the topic. I've thought more about my plan having more UFO appearances in the late games, but as NoelBuddy had said, unless the UFO battle or recovering UFO themselves become more difficult it would rather give more points to players  But if those problems can be modified suitably (there are many good attempts already out there I guess), with Russia being able to infiltrated, I think it would be one option to make game more interesting.

By the way,

the russian immunity to infiltration is not a myth, you can see it in the main ruleset: the aliens don't schedule infiltration missions in siberia.

if it is just a matter of aliens not having any infiltration schedule in Siberia, I can just assign such missions using current ruleset, am I right?

[Warboy1982]

(1) Was a plan to let certain countries uninfiltratable intentional?
(2) Was it also intentional to choose Russia as the only such country?
(3) If it was intentional, why?

only Julian knows for sure.

if it is just a matter of aliens not having any infiltration schedule in Siberia, I can just assign such missions using current ruleset, am I right?

yes.