I want to make a guide up to 1999

[SickBoySid]

Love the game. Wana try to get a few friends into it who is think would really like it. also think a general guide would be pretty cool. But I don't think the average Joe would appreciate the lack of direction in the mod game in general tbh combined with the heavy time investment. So I Wana make it a little less painful with a guide basically stopping at promotion III

I don't want to really tell them the "meta" or step by step instructions, I think the creativity and customization of your tactics/play style is what makes the game. I just want to give a guiding hand & the tools to victory.

You guys got any advice / notes

We often play/stream single player games like fallout new Vegas while in a call together so it be fun to do the same with x-com files

[PPQ]

My advice is to stop at the start of the invasion and not at promotion III. You can get promotion III and still be some time and story away from the invasion starting.
Ideally you should focus on giving us instructions on how to clear out all the cults and have a clean slate before the aliens hit. If that is even possible.

[SickBoySid]

My advice is to stop at the start of the invasion and not at promotion III. You can get promotion III and still be some time and story away from the invasion starting.
Ideally you should focus on giving us instructions on how to clear out all the cults and have a clean slate before the aliens hit. If that is even possible.

That's exactly the plan. The issue I had on my first run and kind of saw was getting the clut cleaned up before the invasion is in full swinge or you seem to fall behind the curb. With promotion III being a general sign you're on the right track.

[Juku121]

Generally, the issues I have seen have been a) manors, which were recently nerfed to a significant degree, b) not focusing on the four main cults (or RNG preventing you from doing so), which hits you with specific penalties, and c) not focusing on promotions (kinda hard for a first-time player).

You don't particularly need to kill more than one of the four cults by 1999, and the rest can be left alone (that is, unresearched) until you're tooled up and ready. There's no great benefit to e.g. killing off the Syndicate or the Apocalypse guys before the invasion starts. You're more likely to get your good agents killed in an Apocalypse rocket launcher sermon or storming a skyscraper. While there are huge benefits to getting a promotion early.

There have been several threads about these topics, and two (currently abandoned) playthroughs that showcase various things.

[Chuckebaby]

Generally, the issues I have seen have been a) manors, which were recently nerfed to a significant degree, b) not focusing on the four main cults (or RNG preventing you from doing so), which hits you with specific penalties, and c) not focusing on promotions (kinda hard for a first-time player).

Those were the main 2 things right there that tripped me up my first time playing it.

I lost physical sanity on mansions and under estimated the need to get rid the cults. Well that and capture some of their leaders but that is a whole different story.
Also not researching bosses and instead went right for promotions.

[Juku121]

Oh, yeah, there's also the mod's focus on live captures and researching every little thing for score, too. A surprising number of people have been having trouble with score.

[Vakrug]

I want to make a guide up to 1999

I don't believe "X-Com Files" needs full separate guide. If having 2 hangars in your base is not big enough hint to acquire additional vehicle, then nothing will help. What it really needs is "list of frequently made blunders". A would add to that list these points:

• Only first spawned manor gets instantly visible to a player. From now on player must check graphs and do patrol.
• If a mission has agent number limitation and you fail that mission, craft you arrived with will be lost despite you brought additional crew members to drive that craft home. Those additional crew members will be lost too.
• HQ is not the only facility that houses scientists. Scan tech tree to guess how to unlock those. Building additional bases with HQ just to increase science is not what game want you to do.

[Juku121]

Only first spawned manor gets instantly visible to a player.

It does? I don't recall that, there's the usual monthly chance of discovering an 'alien base', but that's about it.

Building additional bases with HQ just to increase science is not what game want you to do.

But building more bases with more actual labs is pretty much what drives your tech progress.

[Nerro]

• HQ is not the only facility that houses scientists. Scan tech tree to guess how to unlock those. Building additional bases with HQ just to increase science is not what game want you to do.

But building more bases with more actual labs is pretty much what drives your tech progress.

He is right though. As someone who started the mod recently, it was very tempting to spend 3M in an additional HQ for my second base since I could not figure out how to get any labs.
At some point, I figured out how to search the tech tree and was able to make a better use of the 2.7M I had saved, but I nearly made a big mistake.

[Juku121]

He is right though. As someone who started the mod recently, it was very tempting to spend 3M in an additional HQ for my second base since I could not figure out how to get any labs.

True. But it's quite easy to read "Building additional bases with HQ ... is not what game want you to do." as "Building additional bases ... is not what game want you to do." Which is the very opposite of what the mod actually wants you to do with its one-lab-per-type-per-base model.

[Vakrug]

It does? I don't recall that, there's the usual monthly chance of discovering an 'alien base', but that's about it.

May be it depends on a difficulty. I remember that a couple of times manor was found on start of 1-st January.

[Juku121]

I doubt difficulty has anything to do with it. Most likely it was just the random 'agents discovered alien base' mechanic, since manors count as alien bases.

[krautbernd]

You don't particularly need to kill more than one of the four cults by 1999, and the rest can be left alone (that is, unresearched) until you're tooled up and ready.

I might be mistaken, but don't spawned manors result in score penalties which can impact funding? I mean it would at least be beneficial to adress the cult situation as soon as possible as far as funding is concerned and to prevent further manors from spawning.

[Juku121]

Yes, 3-5 points per day per manor. At most a middling mission's worth of score. Worrying if you have dozens of them, not so much if it's just a couple.

There are also other inconveniences, from ongoing mission spawns that either take an assault to resolve or eat some points themselves, to slander missions if you intentionally prolong their demise. OTOH, you can earn a lot of cash, score and cult artifacts from doing even some of the missions.

But my point was that it's not the end of the game nor necessarily even a disadvantage if the cults survive into 1999 and beyond. The biggest worry is the manors overrunning the globe. If you can keep up with those (and there should be a lot more tier 1 manors now so killing them off when they're young should be more viable), it's fine.


Edit: Basically, the only situation (post 2.8 or maybe even 2.7) where I can see killing off the cults being unquestionably beneficial is if you can muster the troops to take their HQ once, with difficulty, yet cannot kill tier 1 mansions on the regular or are so overrun with them you need the break to take 'em all down.

[SickBoySid]

Edit: Basically, the only situation (post 2.8 or maybe even 2.7) where I can see killing off the cults being unquestionably beneficial is if you can muster the troops to take their HQ once, with difficulty, yet cannot kill tier 1 mansions on the regular or are so overrun with them you need the break to take 'em all down.

so im running 2.7 and ive been takeing screenshots in frustration and took out the 4 starting cults mid 1999 ( im running a bit slow because of manor spam ) and taken out maybe 20 manors in my current playthrough so far only having maybe 5+ active atm,
and i can tell you that the HQs are Significantly easier then the manors. my manors are starting to have 80-110 units vs the HQs 70-100 but theirs alot more reasons why much harder
- reinforcements tend to shoot your units on the turn they spawn in even if your units are looking at all 4 of the corners to spawn getting off free hits. also they have pretty good night vision so its not hard to nab free spawn hits at night
- reinforcements elite soldiers often seem to make around 50% of the units atleast in the late manors according to the elite badges i get after raid . and they spawn throughout the raid. making them a bit harder to  P A N I C   C A S C A D E . unlike in the HQs where i was generally able to panic most of the units within 4-5 turns
- migs 

i think the spawn distance is only 10. and if you cover all the spawns they just force spawn even if your troops actively see them spawn. so i watch 3 corners and mid building and smoke the last corner one and that helps out abit

uh my monthly score is 2000-3000 only cus i take out 2-3 manors a month pretty much ironman now. but in mid-late 1998 i had to do alot of save scumming on the missions because i was having to fight manors that had 98 units with my OSPREY and basic armor vests with non bio enhanced troopers with black ops rifles and antipersonnel mines. or my score would be -1000+ ( i quickly realized i had to hard beef everything and eventually got it undercrontrol after alot of pain )

but with the new update im hoping they are more balanced and not rapidly evolving with huge troop counts because id rather fight muttons then manors lol