The Great Eight Challenge

[lechuck]

Hello all. I have finally finished this challenge I thought up about a year ago. You start Xcom with 8 soldiers and can never go above a total of 8. You can't hire any the first month, and only hire 1 at the start of each month. No save scumming, only 1 base, no psi usage(can research for soldier psi resist number), and cannot fire soldiers. Tanks are allowed. I managed to have only 6 deaths fighting on earth, and 1 more on mars. In the screenshot below it says 14 Soldiers recruited but that includes the original 8 you start with. I wish on that statistic screen it showed the amount of smoke grenades used because I used probably hundreds. I also included another screenshot of my previous attempt at this challenge. Total disaster, first mission was on jan 09
a base defence mission against Sectoids and Cyberdisks with Rifles and grenades. So if looking for a challenge, one that makes you change your playstyle, and every rookie no matter how much they suck are worth their weight in gold, give this a try. I can upload more screenshots if requested and will archive the save file if anybody wants to check it out.

[Starving Poet]

That's pretty damn impressive - I always lose more on my first terror mission than you did the entire campaign!

[lechuck]

Thanks for the reply, I will try on the next one to use only laser weapons. I think using no tanks would be too hard.

[hellrazor]

If you use smoke grenades effectively and in huge numbers, you can basically reduce your looses.
There are some situations were you have to take a loss from a soldier and sometimes they are unavoidable, even if you try to savescum. So better take the loss, don't savescum and learn from the errors made.

[lechuck]

This was a superhuman ironman playthrough. One of the rules is no save scumming which I mentioned above.

[Meridian]

If you use smoke grenades effectively and in huge numbers, you can basically reduce your looses.

Doesn't it sound almost like "If you use smoke grenades effectively and in huge numbers turn off the AI, you can basically reduce your losses." ?

I know it works, but do you really enjoy it... ?

[hellrazor]

This was a superhuman ironman playthrough. One of the rules is no save scumming which I mentioned above.

This is were smoke grenades come in really handy.

[hellrazor]

Doesn't it sound almost like "If you use smoke grenades effectively and in huge numbers turn off the AI, you can basically reduce your losses." ?

I know it works, but do you really enjoy it... ?

Smoke becomes obsolete once the AI get to know your position. Especially the position of the entire Squad.
So its only a protection very early.

[Meridian]

Smoke becomes obsolete once the AI get to know your position. Especially the position of the entire Squad.
So its only a protection very early.

Hmm, so fights in your mod regularly take over 20 turns?
In that case, you're right, but I'm not sure I like that either... just out of curiosity, how long is an average mission in your mod?

[hellrazor]

Hmm, so fights in your mod regularly take over 20 turns?
In that case, you're right, but I'm not sure I like that either... just out of curiosity, how long is an average mission in your mod?

It depends logically on the UFO size. The smaller UFO's can be done under 20 turns. The bigger UFO's kinda depend on the ingame time, because Power Suits increase your stamina, so you can run longer with alternate movement methods, it also depends what weapons you have and what aliens you face.
Going vs Muton with Personal Armor + Alloy Ammo and explosives takes logically longer, then take them on with Power Stuis and Laser Weapons.
I usually finish the mission below 20 turns, so i will probably lower the alien cheaturn significantly to 7 or maybe 5.
Haven't decided yet.

[Starving Poet]

I don't know - on the one hand, I think using smoke and skipping the first turn is cheesy - but so is landing and having 5 aliens looking directly at your craft exit with full TUs for reaction fire with heavy plasma / sonic.

[hellrazor]

I don't know - on the one hand, I think using smoke and skipping the first turn is cheesy - but so is landing and having 5 aliens looking directly at your craft exit with full TUs for reaction fire with heavy plasma / sonic.

SmalL Launchers reacionfire is much better when you elerium bombs on the aliens

[Meridian]

I usually finish the mission below 20 turns, so i will probably lower the alien cheaturn significantly to 7 or maybe 5.
Haven't decided yet.

Full cheating from turn 5 is probably a bit too much... although maybe for Hardmode it is appropriate.

PS: In OXCE+ there is a feature that some units can ignore some percentage of the smoke (i.e. can see through smoke better than others). I guess that would be nice to have in this case. And even crazier, some can see through walls