And I think Arthanor misunderstood me...
Halfway
The way you presented your example (XCom first, Neutral second) confused me. I didn't understand what you meant for the tone and thought you wanted to make it neutral as in not flavoured for any one application. Rereading your post now, I see that it wasn't the case and that we, in fact, agree on a lot.
As for vocabulary, it is probably easiest to say "alien" for the aliens, as that seems to be what they are most often refered as, with enemy being a decent substitute to avoid too much repetition within articles (since it is
Enemy Unknown, I feel like it keeps the same vibe). Soldiers for soldiers.
The order of awards you have (Commendation -> Medal -> Star, from easy to rare) is similar to what I was suggesting, but I think it would be good to keep some other terms, something like, from common to rare:
Citation (soldier is cited as an example):The "easy" stuff, surviving, total kill numbers, flanking, backstabbing, headshots, total missions
Commendation (soldier is commended for his action) :Somewhat exceptional, but not something that would get you a medal. ex: Long distance shots, lucky shots, killing multiple enemies with explosives, stats improvement
Medal (soldier is honored for something worthy):The first special thing (for absolute number of kills, number of kills per missions), going on X missions, going on Y (less than X) night mission
Order (soldier joins an elite order made of outstanding individuals, like the French Légion d'Honneur):For things that only a few would manage to do, but also have a "personality". XenoCide is a good example, where you would expect soldiers that excel at killing a certain alien to share a certain "bond", like members of an order would. Stunning lots of aliens and saving all civilians could fit here too. It would be neat to have ranks here be knight, officer, commander, grand officer and grand cross, or something similar, to give the impression of an Order.
Cross: Really hard/rare stuff, like capturing leaders and commanders, drawing fire a lot
Stars: The almost impossible stuff, like killing/stunning all aliens in a mission, doing a mission all by yourself. Checks have to be made so that you can't do those against a small scout
I've just updated
my spreadsheet with all the requirements for awards and made it editable. I'll start listing what I feel those should be based on the above, feel free to edit it (the link should allow that)
