Just got Siberia Base finished. Wasnt what I was expecting one bit.
Took in alot of heavy antipersonnel and gas stuff.
# its heavily armored nazis with gas masks and lasers.
I was expecting a dusty old Xcom base filled with rusty robots and maybe some Reticulans, or filled with creatures that happened to make their nest in there.
Also from the sound of it there was supposed to be alot of computers and valuable equipment in there, but the only benefit I can see was (2?) briefcases of the Russian files which the nazi guys were carrying around.
Got it finished though, barely, lots of wounded from the battlecannon tanks and the funky lasers the humanist instructors were using. Used all my hellerium grenades. Had to start using their own heavy lasers against them. The only thing that took out the Supersoldiers was the (one, singular) Force Blade ive got, and I dont know if the Ghost Dagger did anything to them.
In the early stages (year 1-2 - depending on difficulty) you have to sell captives to boost your income. Civilians got a lot of stuff to be squeezed out of them and every single small ship-engine is worth 100k that adds up quickly.
Figured it was a (no)brainer that you had to sell captives. Otherwise your jails overflow and it tells you to sell them anyway. Early game since all the hands have poor aiming doing takedowns on enemies is more favorable.
Good melee will be essential later on anyway, so you better start beating people over the head with Handles and Aye-Phones. Whips have 3 tile range and *always hit and you can aim those up elevator shafts (I guess this is an indiana jones snag-with-whip maneuver).
Temple Of Sirius missions are a money haul - expect 500,000 to 750,000 to come out of there between captives and loot, I still take the mission even at this mid-late stage of the game (plus I currently need one to get a shrine maiden now, somehow they never got researched).
And in no missions should you ever kill sharp guys, thats 40 grand you're throwing away if you do - brave their pea shooter and go bust their head open. Priests are hard to take down but shoot him once with a pea shooter and then beat him with a handle and he's done - 60 grand. Get up behind him and just position the cursor over the "swing" option and keep tapping the touchpad on it until he goes down.
Extractors: Now there's a nifty tactic I hadn't thought of. Usually I wait til the Workshop comes along before I expand my workforce. Ill do this next time I reset.
Maximizing Brainers: Are you insane? These creatures cost a massive salary. I might add +1 every month. Im at July 2603 and ive still only got 27. And I ran out of research topics twice even at this rate. Bad idea to max brainers (but its great in vanilla xcom) - there's alot of stuff you cant research until it shows up.
Four bases? I have 1 and a half and I'm trying to afford outfitting an air force.
Dont build a 2nd base until August first year, and I mean that. You've got alot of other things that need that money to advance. And I dont suggest you do anything important with that 2nd base either - put an Outpost and Large Vaults in it, stick 5 Hands in it and ship them the stuff they'd need to defend the base. Its a storage facility until you decide to do something else with it.
Base #3 needs to be functional in some way, but I wouldnt lay it down until you get Hyper Wave Decoder because you really (really) want to skip all those intermediate radar techs and just go for that. These facilities are expensive and you'll end up having to wait the (30?) days for the Decoder to build no matter what. You put Base #3 down somewhere far away from your primary coverage.
Base #2 & #3 are where you dump your excess Crafts so you've got something that can intercept (or do the long range terror mission delay trick). So its good not just for storing ore and ship engines its also good for letting dust collect on ships you want to keep around too.
Yknow this reminds me of a nasty trend im seeing with people playing this game and its that they're playing it like its running a business, with long term protracted income model and business plan to get as much money as possible. 1 Dimensional thinking.
And thats NOT the way it works. Money isnt the only currency in this game. I mean you can play it that way but its more effective to play it like Captain Malcom (Mal) Reynolds. And I will probably quote this in the Get Gud thread just to make sure it doesnt get lost.
Current Monthly Balance - how much can you afford
right now at any given time. Keep a certain amount in reserve, a healthy buffer, spend the rest on something you need or really want, or start saving up for something expensive (usually a building or new base). My healthy buffer, safety limit is about 5,000,000. If ive got more than that sitting around it needs to be dumped into something or have an earmark for it like armory towers.
I caught some flack for putting down 18 Power Stations but you know why I did it? Because I had $33,000,000 sitting around doing nothing. So I put it to work. Lets do the math here these things cost 1.5 million and resell for 1 million so its a net loss of 500K, when im ready to use the real estate they are taking up I WILL sell them (functionally you only need ONE to fulfill the manufacture requirement).
They income for 150K every month so they pay for themselves after 4 months. After that each one is taking an Empty Space of base real estate and making 150 grand for it. Eventually all that real estate will be necessary but its a good idea to probably build all 8 Bases and lay down power stations across as much of them as possible (corridors folks... you wanna maximize how many you're producing at a time).
I havent done this but I did take my Base #2 and #3 and built 18 of those things. I have 3 more bases I can build and im thinking of expanding this now since somehow ive got 75 million laying around doing nothing.
