Playthroughs of some XCF missions vs BAI 7.10.2

[Abyss]

Hi everyone,
I'm doing second campaign of XCF vs BAI and want to share some partially sped-up videos.
Should be noted that initially I was dissatisfied with quality of BAI gameplay, but as Xilmi heeded players requests, it now includes:
- two randomization factors, which lower overall difficulty, yet give you some fire
- dynamic aggressiveness, when enemies first assault you, but when you push back - start to regard you
- no AI cheats (actually, it never cheated, just wanted to point that out). Sniper/spotter mechanism is replaced with random fire and grenading, assumptions, etc.
- zombies and critters are now behave as vanilla creatures
- more suggestions are on consideration

Long story short, now it feels cool.

There also Realistic accuracy mod by Joynarical that makes covers lower hitchances. At this moment I turned it off, because I think it is disbalanced by means of 30-50% reduction of battle dynamics, but it also worth looking in terms of feedback.
 
Now, videos:
Black Lotus outpost assault, jungle, vs BAI 7.10.2, 40% random, dynamic aggr., realistic acc. ON, SH + Ironman.
2 tries.

Red Dawn forward base assault vs BAI 7.10.2, 40% randomness, balanced . SH + Ironman, extender acc.,
3 tries.

Red Dawn HQ assault, X-COM Files, vs BAI v.7.10.2, dynamic aggressiveness, 40% random, extender acc., SH+ Ironman. 1 and a half tries.

 

[Abyss]

(reserved for SH+Ironman playthrough, which is already captured past first year )

[Scamps]

Interesting. So BAI doesn't throw flares back, yet...

[Stone Lake]

Oh wow.
>> Stay right by the craft
>> Bunch up 200 snipers
"Oh no, grenades, my only weakness"

[Abyss]

Oh wow.
>> Stay right by the craft
>> Bunch up 200 snipers
"Oh no, grenades, my only weakness"

Yeah, that's the only scenario you don't get serious casualities i know.
You can suggest better tactics for ironman?
FYI, these videos are made to show BAI, not me)

[Stone Lake]

Yeah, that's the only scenario you don't get serious casualities i know.
You can suggest better tactics for ironman?
FYI, these videos are made to show BAI, not me)

I thought the point of playing against a better AI is that it makes you think. Playing ironman certainly made me think more. Yet here you go, showcasing the same old braindead "firing squad" and praying for RNG. And the "very sophisticated" AI loses! Nuff said. Was the point to make such tactics viable, then?

As for better tactics - it depends on what you have. Proxy/mine minefield, grenade showers from smoke, hit-and-runs from cover, smoked melee/dog rushes all work decently well against vanilla. They don't require snipers or "good RNG", they require good execution.

The moment with witch going melee is cool, of course. As with self-owning coordinator - I think he was planning to throw that hi-ex at you next turn? Maybe he was too weak to make the throw or something?

[Abyss]

The moment with witch going melee is cool, of course. As with self-owning coordinator - I think he was planning to throw that hi-ex at you next turn? Maybe he was too weak to make the throw or something?

Yeah, he would had thrown hi-ex if wasn't killed. There are two options: they can pre-prime grenades or not.
I played with pre-priming enabled, but will switch that off, for fairness.

 These videos are not much representative regarding how well BAI fucks you up, so it's fairly unbeatable on SH/Ironman without randomization factors. Veteran at most, if you indeed want to do the campaign from beginning to the end with 100% intelligence on units. 
My campaign is fucked up already but it's, at least, fun. By the end of year one 110 are hired total and half of them are dead, making only 20 agents trained, 20 are not even bio-enhanced. And this is compared to SH/Ironman first-year campaign in vanilla, which is doable and predicted with 1/2 of that.   

[donk]

Abyss. I'm playing with BAI too and I'm curious what settings you use. You said that you found a setting that you think is fun, so could you post a screen of all of them please?

[Abyss]

I'm playing with BAI too and I'm curious what settings you use.

These. But balance changes from time to time. Like, yesterday major update has been released.
Note that:
- aggressiveness mode overwrites Enemy aggressiveness, if not 0.
- intelligence mode overwrites static intelligence, if not 0.
- Brutal AI option preset is something Xilmi implemented recently, it just configurates all other parameters, which than could be changed.

also, switched off pre-primed grenades, because it gives additional advantage to AI. I don't preprime anything except landmines and flares. So AI shouldn't too, no more.

[donk]

These. But balance changes from time to time. Like, yesterday major update has been released.
Note that:
- aggressiveness mode overwrites Enemy aggressiveness, if not 0.
- intelligence mode overwrites static intelligence, if not 0.
- Brutal AI option preset is something Xilmi implemented recently, it just configurations for all other parameters, which than could be changed.

also, switched off pre-primed grenades, because it gives additional advantage to AI. I don't preprime anything except landmines and flares. So AI shouldn't too, no more.

Thanks. I turned off pre priming AI too, but I did it because they would be a random walking bomb. Sometimes they blow up, sometimes not and this is a big problem for dogs. Is this red x on the map a grenade or a mine? It became too random. It's also a problem if the mission has key items on enemies since they would blow up too.
But turning it off also reduced how often AI use grenades by a lot. Exception for units with big TU, like aliens.

[Abyss]

Thanks. I turned off pre priming AI too, but I did it because they would be a random walking bomb. Sometimes they blow up, sometimes not and this is a big problem for dogs. Is this red x on the map a grenade or a mine? It became too random. It's also a problem if the mission has key items on enemies since they would blow up too.
But turning it off also reduced how often AI use grenades by a lot. Exception for units with big TU, like aliens.

It often depends from mission to mission.
One time you got dynamite right away, second - no one bothers priming something.
BTW i recently walked on mine, which exploded. Amazing things happen

[Juku121]

BTW i recently walked on mine, which exploded. Amazing things happen