I've been playing this again, and developed an utter hatred for the spider missions. I was almost okay with the immense casualties the civs take on the surface, until after about 10 innocent off-camera maulings I finally got to the second stage, at which point I discovered there were like 30 random idiots wandering around in the spider cave, being mowed down for a massive points loss each time.
Has anyone managed to come up with a way to make terror missions, especially the spider terror missions, not a guaranteed abysmal failure that guarantees defunding any month in which it comes up? I've tried so many times but no matter what, X-Com always takes the blame for a bunch of dead people they physically, humanly, could not in any way have saved. Civilians dont even seem to run from danger in x-com, its so frustrating, especially now that your funding isn't more-or-less unlimited.
edit: stuff like spiders normally taking 1-2 shots but sometimes happily eating 8 direct hits at point-blank range from an AK without going down is fun also