I do have a bit of an issue with missions, in which human enemies are scattered all over the map in a sort-of even distribution. Not a problem with beasts and zombies. It makes sense, that they would be spread across the landscape until you arrive. Also managable, difficulty-wise. Usually.
But with human(oid) enemies it often leads to situations, where casualties are nigh unavoidable, due to being surrounded on turn 1 with inadequate cover. More importantly to me, it often makes very little sense for all the baddies to just be randomly spread across the map. The worst offender for me so far has been the first Cult of Apocalypse mission. It would be far better, if the deployments would be more similar to what you normally find in a cult safehouse mission. That is, the bulk of the enemies, including all the priests, huddled around the altar and then dispersing upon your arrival. And only a couple of sentries dotted around the map, to keep you on your toes. It would be more realistic and play better. Instead you arrive in a wild mess of enemies, as if everyone was just wandering around aimlessly on their own.
This is made worse by the fact, that the number of enemies in that mission is enormous (for that map size). And I'm only playing on difficulty 2! So far, I was able to win this mission only once. My transport spawned at the edge of the map, with the open door pointed toward it. That way, I could exit the craft into smoke cover, without getting pummeled by rockets immediately and getting swarmed by cannon fodder from all directions. Every other time I had at least one rocket launcher pointing directly at me. Deploying smoke would cause reaction fire into my transport. Besides, there's riff-raff all over, that can see into the smoke.
So I aborted the mission immediately each time.
Now, that is not a catastrophe, there's even a positive side to it. I kinda like, how I am sometimes forced into unwinnable situations. X-Com is just a small agency at first and ill-eqipped for its duty for much of the campaign. As it should be. You are way in over your head and your enemies don't play nice and wait for you to prepare and leave the hard missions for later. So every so often you get into a bad situation and you must accept taking casualties or play it safe and retreat. That is immersive. It also speeds up the game. I'm always tempted to play every mission I can, for the loot and experience. That can get monotonous. Unwinnable missions improve the flow of the campaign.
That being said, I have to repeat, that this approach to populating a map works with some missions, but not with others.
Zombies meandering through the desert without purpose. Sure, they're zombies, they don't organize.
Cultists loitering in the streets and squatting in random buildings. Fine.
Aliens spread throughout the city in a terror mission. Obviously. They are hunting civvies after all.
Red Dawn fighting a rival gang, but there is nothing like a battle line, just a tangled mess. How did that happen? The Osiron warehouse mission does it better.
Cultists stumbling around through bushes and inside caves, solitarily, all over. Why is there barely anyone inside the hideout?
Of course you can explain this sometimes, as the enemy having seen your craft approach and taking defensive positions before your landing. If only there wasn't so many of them without any cover even close to them.
It always looks worse, the more enemies there are and the more flat and open the map is. Throngs of baddies just standing out in the open, disorganized, gazing in random directions. It looks absurd
Eh. I am making this sound like a bigger problem, than it is. But it takes me out of the experience sometimes. And then the game feels like a complex, abstract puzzle, not like X-Com.
