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Suggestions / Re: Disabling mutual surprise rule
« on: October 05, 2014, 04:16:11 am »
These things would all be something to think about if shooting were the primary form of violence in X-Com. In reality though, if any of my soldiers are about to enter a crowded area, they are going to be carrying a zero-primed high explosive. Thus, attacking the doorway in the worst case the aliens will get blown up after my soldier gets shot, but the majority of the time either he will manage to throw the explosive and run the hell out, or just shoot the alien if they're unarmored and close enough.
With or without the mutual surprise rule you are a fool if you are defending and ending a turn with any of your soldiers outside of cover. Aliens have a longer sight range. On base defense are our soldiers out in the hallways? Or defending the rooms in the living quarters, sending explosives periodically to clear said hallways? Aliens can't understand this and have everything to lose from the mutual surprise rule, as they don't know how to exploit it. Alien bases also aren't pre-fortified like the way we design them. Furthermore if you carpet the map with mines that will account for half your kills, and removing the mutual surprise rule will not change that.
This presents the side issues of whether aliens need the brains to step around mines, and also whether they need to learn to use them (as will be mandatory if TFTD were implemented) and in general just use explosives a lot more and know where to put them. It definitely can't turn into World War I because explosives are just too powerful and they cannot be used during the passive turn. Once shots come from anywhere a (smart) human player totally destroys the area. But without the mutual surprise rule at least the aliens get a chance to shoot at the scouts.
But this is not about whether the game is better with our without the rule, but rather whether the same would be better if the rule could be changed.
With or without the mutual surprise rule you are a fool if you are defending and ending a turn with any of your soldiers outside of cover. Aliens have a longer sight range. On base defense are our soldiers out in the hallways? Or defending the rooms in the living quarters, sending explosives periodically to clear said hallways? Aliens can't understand this and have everything to lose from the mutual surprise rule, as they don't know how to exploit it. Alien bases also aren't pre-fortified like the way we design them. Furthermore if you carpet the map with mines that will account for half your kills, and removing the mutual surprise rule will not change that.
This presents the side issues of whether aliens need the brains to step around mines, and also whether they need to learn to use them (as will be mandatory if TFTD were implemented) and in general just use explosives a lot more and know where to put them. It definitely can't turn into World War I because explosives are just too powerful and they cannot be used during the passive turn. Once shots come from anywhere a (smart) human player totally destroys the area. But without the mutual surprise rule at least the aliens get a chance to shoot at the scouts.
But this is not about whether the game is better with our without the rule, but rather whether the same would be better if the rule could be changed.