Longest game ever?

[Avalanche]

What's the longest a game of XCOM has ever taken you to complete using the in-game calendar? So far the longest I've ever gone is into the third year. I kind of want to see how long I can just keep the game running before I get overrun.

[Arthanor]

Oh wow, what happened in that game to make it so long? Lots of setbacks? I am curious to know since making games take longer is one of my aims.

My own games are pretty short, but I have OpenXCom ADHD. I keep changing the mods I use (it doesn't help that I am still developing my own too) and starting new games so I never really finish. I usually get flying suits + some plasma and think: "well, this is it", then start a new game..

[Avalanche]

Oh wow, what happened in that game to make it so long? Lots of setbacks? I am curious to know since making games take longer is one of my aims.

My own games are pretty short, but I have OpenXCom ADHD. I keep changing the mods I use (it doesn't help that I am still developing my own too) and starting new games so I never really finish. I usually get flying suits + some plasma and think: "well, this is it", then start a new game..

Well, I was playing an older version of the FMP, and I had absolutely abysmal luck. Because of how random the tech tree was, I was stuck using alloy ammo until about December, and I was continually attacked by Gazers and mutons, which laugh at weak AP guns. Even worse, they'd keep attacking my bases, sometimes before I even had the chance to actually garrison them. By the time December rolled around I got lucky and was able to skip lasers completely, and got plasma and gauss at around the same time. Pretty much the entire first year was lost, and it wasn't until January rolled around again that I was able to really start making a stab at capturing all those live aliens (which were much more important than they are in the current build) and actually making progress toward Cydonia.

[Arthanor]

That sounds like fun! I am impressed you made it. Gazers and Mutons are no joke when armed with AP weapons.

Having to capture a bunch of aliens to make progress is a nice feature of the FMP.

[XOps]

Theoretically you could keep playing near forever. Even if every nation got infiltrated you could keep playing by selling laser cannons. So long as your score was good and you occasionally clean out all the alien bases, you could keep playing vanilla forever.  So far as I know, no one has played a super long game of XCom like that one guy on reddit who played civ II for ten years.

[yrizoud]

My first game of TFTD went well into the third year before I gave up. It's only years later I learnt about the issue being the Tasoth Commander bug.

[Arthanor]

Ugh, TftD was a really tricky game without the internet. I remember a game spent mostly with starting armour and subs because I did not know how to get the basic aqua-plastics, then had to wait forever to catch a live deep one. These alien requirements are cool, but they should be a bit more obvious or have multiple lead-ins.

As realistic as "super hard research with no hint" might be, it's not much fun in a game.

[Avalanche]

Yeah, that's been one area where the newer versions of FMP have improved. The "data slates" you can find make it quite a bit easier to progress along the tech line, instead of having to rely on the good luck you need to capture the right alien alive. It still has quirks (I got plasma weapons before lasers AGAIN), but I think it works pretty well.

As for TftD, I never got around to finishing it. I ran into the same bug many years ago, and just gave up. I don't know if the steam version of the game still has the problem, but I've never gotten around to finding out. I figure I'll just wait until OXC's version comes out

[endersblade]

I intentionally run my games long. I like the long struggle for dominance. I think clicking a button, killing a final boss and ending the game is a cheap way to win. I'm not satisfied until I've slaughtered THOUSANDS of aliens. I have to feel like I've won my planet back.

In EU/EW, I have a squad pushing 600 missions and some of them have upwards of 800 kills. I have a mod that steadily increases the number of aliens per mission, some small ships have around 30 aliens! I never saw a point in rushing to endgame in these types of games. I know my original UFO/TFTD games used to run more than a year. Granted, I used to hex edit mod them, so I did a fair few restarts.

I really got into UFO:ET because of this. You had several tiers of weapons and armor to research. More incentive to play longer, basically. Baddies got harder, and there were a lot more of them.

I'm looking forward to long games in OpenXcom. The sheer amount of customizability this project has added males my head spin. I can't wait for my weekend to start so I can tinker with it!

[kharille]

Need to get back into my first OpenXcom game.  I think I'm on UFO 300 if not 600..  Won't stop playing when I can send more soldiers with low stats and low psi ability to their DOOM.

[TaxxiDriver]

Need to get back into my first OpenXcom game.  I think I'm on UFO 300 if not 600..  Won't stop playing when I can send more soldiers with low stats and low psi ability to their DOOM.

Man, that's sick  I can see the aliens are crying for the hopeless attacks 

I intentionally run my games long. I like the long struggle for dominance. I think clicking a button, killing a final boss and ending the game is a cheap way to win. I'm not satisfied until I've slaughtered THOUSANDS of aliens. I have to feel like I've won my planet back.

I'm looking forward to long games in OpenXcom. The sheer amount of customizability this project has added males my head spin. I can't wait for my weekend to start so I can tinker with it!

I think a lot of modders (moders?) are also trying (and already have done) to lengthen the game and make it more challenging. I'm also with that idea! Due to the whole lots of information so far gamers have gathered up, the vanilla one seems to become too easy for veteran players I'm not veteran but love challenges 

And for the last paragraph, yes so do I

[pilot00]

Oh wow, what happened in that game to make it so long? Lots of setbacks? I am curious to know since making games take longer is one of my aims.

My own games are pretty short, but I have OpenXCom ADHD. I keep changing the mods I use (it doesn't help that I am still developing my own too) and starting new games so I never really finish. I usually get flying suits + some plasma and think: "well, this is it", then start a new game..

2008. I wanted to research EVERYTHING, but I cant remember which entry I was missing. I also wanted to role play it, and I had accidentaly read 2008 instead of 2002 the connon ending in the TFTD files.