I'm a veteran from when the game was new. Had great fun with both Enemy Unknown and Terror From the Deep. Never finished TFtD, got lost in a Crabman base with a commander in my backpack and all my saves in the same loop. Realized much later that I could probably have finihed the mission with a Commander as my only loot. Guess I thougt I deserved all the other loot as well after hours in the mission. So I just left it for later and never got around to do it. It all comes back to me now. There were stunned navigators and other alien leadership laying around as well, the whole loot was what I needed to finish the game. I a had two surviving guys one of them fataly wounded, searcing for the last foe while those pesky Crabmen started to wake up. The game had actually become a bit monotonous by then, research for vessels had stalled. There's an interwiev with the maker of X-Com 1 Julian Gollop on YT. He said the alien base maps in TFtD were to big to be fun, I couldn't agree more.
Big shoutout to Lewis and Ben, playing my favorite games on youtube, just like my friends and I did it, one pc crewed by severel men. They nailed it about TFtD "There's way to many cupboards to go through on the Terror missions in Cruiseships" For me when the game makes me put in work like that is part of what makes the victory feel deserved. There's a limit of course, but fear and loathing is and important part of my motivation in Ufo, "I have to stop this alien menance before they can Terrorize another cruiseship."
I played The final mod Pack from 2019. I invested quite som time in the game and had a near "losing the savegame experience" when my son tried out the 40k mod on the same pc. After that we did no more fidgeting with the game until I had finished.
The stats I want to brag about is attached.
With some pauses lasting months it tok took me two years to complete. I did no cheating like checking the forum for what's worth researching and not. I did read a post about how many of the supporting nations who could defect berfore you risk losing the game. So I could skip some missions.
I played on Ironman and had the good old feeling of being on the edge of disaster for most of the game. In fact every mission was the ultimate disaster for at least a few of my soldiers. Funny part is how could I do so many missions without winning the game when I knew perfectly well I had to catch certain kinds of enemies alive?
The ranged stun weapon proved to be elusive and at the end of each misson with a potenial VIP foe my nerves were wracked and my crew as well. I just blasted the the last aliens, got out of there with great relief and what remaind of my squad.
As you can see the aliens never built a lot of bases nor did they terrorize a lot in my game. I think that was because they didn't get the chance, I built a lot of hangars and radars around the globe early on. Eventually I realized I had to capture aliens no matter the cost, even then I reserved the capturing until the end of missions not to waste soldiers. Well then I got what feels like fifty missons with the alien race of grunts who seemingly don't have any high ranking aliens among them. I did all the missions because I could still use the resouces to improve and the end of the game was not in sight.
Highlights of the journey: When I finaly had level a chump so he could emerge from cover, fire the minigun and walk back behind a corner again. I had one guy who survived lots of missions and almost survived until I had some decent armor. There's more but there's been a few years since i finished this game.
There were a lot of things i loved in the final mod pack. Have to mention all the weapons and all the foes.
I'd like to tell more about my playstyle later on.
I feel I have to explain how I can spend so much time without winning the game. In short it is because I do like playing all parts of the game, I want to do all the reasearch and the missons don't get boring fast and I use a lot of resources not to lose. Always building and producing. Felt like I had a lot of scientist as well, had 150 and 200 for most of the game. I guess finishing in May of the year 2000 is'nt slow in gametime?
Before I decided to go for the final mission there were one weapon I hadn't reasearched and the secret of the armour of the MiB's were like a sacred unicorn in a galaxy far away. My eldest son hav'ing played battles could confirm I had more to find. I did not spoil the fun by doing single battles and see all the content of the game. An excellent addon for the game to bring in the young. I knew I would get all the battles I could wish for in the storymode. Anyone else doing slowruns of the game in any way similar to me?
I do have a game going in pretty much the same way again now, playing X-com 40k as the Arbites faction. Have been plaing for a over a year and thanks to the good storytelling the end is in sight.
Saw Ben playing an updated version of Rosigma made me want to complete the only 40k game I'm on now.
Again, thank you so much for the mods!
From Norway with love.
