Squad wipe in second month - how would you proceed? (Ironman/Classic EW)

[Statisfaction]

It's my first run-through of EW, I/C, and I'm at a cross-roads.

I'm in mid-April, just got Laser weapons and I should have access to MECs very soon. My base is looking good; thermal generator where I want it, and I'm in line to have 3 uplinks and like 5 satellites up by the end of this month. No Officer Training school yet though.

Here's the problem: I've lost every single experienced soldier I had (lost half on a mission, then lost the other half on a failed council mission. Realtistically I should've been able to do it with starter gear, I just made some dumb moves). Though i do think I made a critical mistake by accidently spending a few days researching Xeno-biology instead of beam weapons.

I feel like my meta-strategy is (was?) going well and I should be in a very strong financial and panic condition at the end of April, but as its my first time through Enemy Within I don't know if this will be sufficient to salvage my game. Is it early enough that it's not a big deal?

Please no spoilers :3

[ARi0S]

It happens, sounds like you're doing well on the strategic level. And as you admitted, you should have been able to handle the council mission. What's important is that you learn from that council mission.

Just take it slow and don't rush for the MELD, you'll be good.

[Falentir]

Statisfaction eredeti hozzászólása:

I feel like my meta-strategy is (was?) going well and I should be in a very strong financial and panic condition at the end of April, but as its my first time through Enemy Within I don't know if this will be sufficient to salvage my game. Is it early enough that it's not a big deal?

This is going to be tough, indeed, but it would be a shame not to try to go further. Grab the OTS and give you a maximum chance to rank your soldiers. Switch to have 2 MEC to act as a shield for the other soldiers. Rush for carapace - if you have it, equip them instead of grenades. Have the foundry ready to be able to equip your soldiers with two items. Rookies will be promoted soon because the ennemies will grow in number - but, eh, challenge is fun :) anyway, if you fail, let a few days pass and try again. You will not make the same mistakes twice, I assure you :)

good luck on your mission, Commander - be proud if you succeed...

[Rufus]

I just had a squad-wipe on my first counil mission at the begining of the second month and I'm going to have to restart. I'm in a pretty much non-recoverable position now since I only had 4 squaddies, who are now dead, and the missions are only going to get harder from here on out while the only soldiers I have are rookies. I don't even feel that I could have done anything to prevent it; a single thinman crit-killed everyone while they were in full cover and none of the at least 8 shots they took at the thinman came close to hitting him. I guess that I'm unlucky that I got a council mission so early in the game, it was only the 4th or 5th mission.

Anyway, it looks like you're in a better position than I was so your situation may be recoverable. You've just got to hope the game lays off on the RNG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for a while until you can get back on track.

[Martial.Lore]

I have been inspired and negatively influenced by Zemalf"s much publicized Ironman Impossible playthrough. I can't bear to lose a single soldier and I so utterly hate Thinmen by now.

I was doing really well, with no losses until the second Slingshot mission. The unexpected timer just wiped me out, as did the unexpected Mutons. And my squadsight sniper had been unavailable...That was like, Ironman Classic Game 3. Now I'm on game 20, just five days later!

Everytime something screws up I curse, cover my eyes and restart. But my will to succeed 100% remains undefeated!

[Stardustfire]

loosing all experainced soldiers is the biggest issue for a loose, at least for me. when that happens to me, and i face mutons and havnt "new guy" already, restart is the only option because Rookies cant get a stand vs Mutons with Carapace and Laser.

[Phoenix]

It will be extremely difficult to move on from here. The missions and aliens will get harder, so working with rookies is going to be tough. In your position I would restart and try again, but if you're determined to give it a shot, then you'll need to focus on keeping your soldiers alive above all. Make sure they have Carapace armour and get an Officers Training School ASAP to increase your squad size. Missions are a LOT harder with four soldiers instead of six. Only buy things for your soldiers once you get missions (you can back out to Engineering after scanning for a mission and before starting it) so you don't end up with stockpiles of medikits or weapons that you don't end up using. Make sure you have several medikits available in your missions since you lack a support with Field Medic now by the sounds of it.

On missions, keep your squad together, don't dash into unknown territory, use Overwatch often, use Hunker Down if it doesn't look like you can eliminate the opposition during your turn but the aliens are capable of killing someone (Hunker Down also prevents critical hits along with the double cover bonus, which is great when dealing with Thin Men) and flank often but without leaving any soldiers exposed. Always have a backup plan in case the worst happens (like if your assault who you were depending on gets one shot by an alien, who else can you use to deal with the problem?). Never expect your soldiers to hit (especially rookies) so plan on using grenades or attacking the same target with multiple soldiers. Half Cover is barely useful on Classic and Impossible because alien aim is very good so go out of your way to find the full cover. Retreat to more defensible positions in explored territory if caught in a bad spot (it's OKAY to dash in this case if you know the aliens can't catch you immediately). Get a height advantage when you can, it gives aliens an aim penalty and improves the aim of your own soldiers (and also allows you to retreat from the edge of a roof to force aliens to climb up into your overwatch fire). .

You also should not have gone for three uplinks by the second month since you could have used that money for an Officers Training School (which is VERY IMPORTANT for the increase in squad size). A good rule to go by is to build one uplink a month, ideally a Nexus on the third month or the fourth at latest. Each uplink built adjacent to another will give 3 satellites, 5 if it's a nexus. Your fourth uplink/nexus will give TWO bonus satellites because in the square 2x2 formation it will be adjacent to two existing uplinks. Consequently you should have two satellites launched by end of first month, 3 on second month, five on third and the remaining on fourth. Two uplinks and two nexuses gives you full coverage, 3 uplinks and one nexus gives 14/16 I think. With this strategy you can still keep panic under control everywhere usually (or at worst you lose a country or two, but it's not the end of the world). Satellites are important, but don't compromise your effectiveness to complete missions to get them up too fast.

Also always go Alien Materials -> Carapace or Alien Materials -> Weapon Fragments -> Carapace. Carapace armour should be developed early on and should be a higher priority than weapons in my opinion. You can kill off early aliens with your starting weapons and with grenades, but your soldiers can get killed extremely easily even by Sectoids on Classic.

And like someone above said, most importantly in Enemy Within, DO NOT charge for the Meld unless you're confident you can handle whatever you may run into. Better to miss out than to lose everyone. It's one of the things that really screws over players switching from Enemy Unknown.

[Martial.Lore]

I just did a UFO mission: I had my four soldiers outside a door, ready to move, opened the door with my Assault, activated the unexpected four floaters and two thinmen on the other side, dealt with them all that turn, but one rocket that killed three of the aliens exposed the Outsider on the other side of a damaged wall, my last soldier to move was my Sniper with no rifle shot available, so bloody useless, and boom, my first casualty (one of my two Heavys on mission) after having dealt with a lousy hand almost perfectly. But I shall soldier on. I love this game but sometimes I hate it so much.

[Statisfaction]

Thanks for all the comments and tips guys! There's some amazing information in here, I really appreciate the detailed responses :)

I think I'll start a fresh game this weekend when I have a few hours; I think this blind I/C run is enough of a challenge to deal with without having a revolving door of rookies getting killed, especially since I think I need to re-rank a soldier to even get access to OTS and the upgrades.

I notice a lot of people suggest alient materials first rather than the straight bee-line to beam weapons, so I'll give that a shot and hopefully keep my vets longer.

[Stardustfire]

Err dono what Square Knight has smoked but i want some of that too.
Hunker down dont doubles Def it gives a static 20 Bonus,
and u DONT get 2 Bonus Sat no matter how much satstations are beneth one even when u set one in every direction and one in the middle the one in the middle still give onyl one Bonus Sat.
On Classic the Carapace Armor dont helps vs oneshotdeath, but a Beamweapon helps to not get shot at all, becasue it can deliever a save oneshot death, where ballistics maybe let a Alien wounded but alive.
Another matter is the mentation that hunker woud be specialy effective vs Thins, what isnt, because in classic and impossible they just spit u when there hit chance is to low.
His tips may work for easy and normal, but they are mostly sucid for real normal (classic) and impossible.

[ARi0S]

Stardustfire eredeti hozzászólása:

Err dono what Square Knight has smoked but i want some of that too.
Hunker down dont doubles Def it gives a static 20 Bonus,
and u DONT get 2 Bonus Sat no matter how much satstations are beneth one even when u set one in every direction and one in the middle the one in the middle still give onyl one Bonus Sat.
On Classic the Carapace Armor dont helps vs oneshotdeath, but a Beamweapon helps to not get shot at all, becasue it can deliever a save oneshot death, where ballistics maybe let a Alien wounded but alive.
Another matter is the mentation that hunker woud be specialy effective vs Thins, what isnt, because in classic and impossible they just spit u when there hit chance is to low.
His tips may work for easy and normal, but they are mostly sucid for real normal (classic) and impossible.

Definition of Hunker Down. "Doubles cover bonus and provides immunity to critical hits, but reduces sight radius."
In half cover it gives 20, in full, it gives forty.

The rest I give up on, the lack of any grammar might have just lowered my IQ.

[Phoenix]

Stardustfire eredeti hozzászólása:

Err dono what Square Knight has smoked but i want some of that too.
Hunker down dont doubles Def it gives a static 20 Bonus,
and u DONT get 2 Bonus Sat no matter how much satstations are beneth one even when u set one in every direction and one in the middle the one in the middle still give onyl one Bonus Sat.
On Classic the Carapace Armor dont helps vs oneshotdeath, but a Beamweapon helps to not get shot at all, becasue it can deliever a save oneshot death, where ballistics maybe let a Alien wounded but alive.
Another matter is the mentation that hunker woud be specialy effective vs Thins, what isnt, because in classic and impossible they just spit u when there hit chance is to low.
His tips may work for easy and normal, but they are mostly sucid for real normal (classic) and impossible.

Hunker Down DOES double your cover bonus. In other words you get +20 in half cover and +40 in full, so it's very difficult to be hit when hunkered down behind full cover. And it most certainly does prevent critical hits. It's all described in the tooltip and can be proven through testing in-game. I've never been crit and rarely been hit while using that ability. And as Smpmax mentioned it also reduces sight radius which is also a very good point. The reduction in sight for your soldiers is huge, and this can help you surprise new alien groups, as even if they wander really close they won't be triggered until your soldiers fire at them during their next turn, allowing you a free non-overwatch shot while they're exposed out of cover.

You get a bonus satellite for EVERY adjacent existing uplink or nexus. The game indicates this visually through the number of green plus signs between the buildings. Why do you think they're there and only appear between buildings of the same type that have such a bonus? There are four common edges between the buildings so four bonus satellites. The first uplink won't provide a bonus because there are no adjacent ones. The second (built beside it) provides a bonus of 1. The third provides another bonus of 1 as it is connected to the first or second. The fourth provides two because it is adjacent to two existing uplinks if they're build in a 2x2 square formation (which they always should be). This means that 2 uplinks and 2 nexuses in a square provide 2 x 2 + 4 x 2 + 4 bonus satellites for a total of 16, so full coverage. 3 uplinks and 1 nexus gives 3 x 2 + 4 x 1 + 4 bonus = 14, so you're 2 short of full coverage.

And why on earth would Carapace not help vs one shot death? The aliens need to hit higher to one shot you. A rookie with carapace CANNOT be one hit with a plasma pistol even with a max crit so sectoids are out. A thin man obviously still can, because light plasma rifles are better, but then he gets a +10 aim boost for using one and already has 75 starting aim, meaning your soldier's chances of being hit are still very high. In that case you might as well increase your chance of survival by taking advantage of the fact that while thin men are likely to hit, they're not as likely to do the extra damage necessary as well. Poison does one hp damage over 3 turns, which is nothing compared to the plasma rifle. The health bonus from Carapace is 4. And besides, soldiers carrying medikits or respirator implants are immune to it, and even those not carrying them can be healed with a medikit later when the aliens have been killed or can just tank it without dying. And if you position your soldiers some distance from each other you should avoid having multiple squad members hit by the poison. In any case, the prerequisite to carapace is alien materials, which gives you nanofiber vests, which add ANOTHER 2 hp, so you're effectively getting 6 bonus hp + base hp to any front line soldier you decide needs to act as a tank (like assaults). And respirator implants also provide the +2 hp, replacing the nanofiber as a superior item when they're acquired due to their additional benefits. And Thin Men have 4 hp on classic, it's not the end of the world to use starting weapons, and if things get hairy, that's what Heavy rockets are for.

If you rush laser weapons you have the ability to do unnecessarily extra amounts of damage but can still be shredded easily. The early aliens have low health but high hit chance and damage because of their plasma weapons, but have no decent defenses. That's why you go carapace first. Your early weapons will do, but your starting armour won't. Then by the time you get lasers later, you are prepared for aliens with higher hp. You should at least have carapace for the first terror mission.

[Segovax]

By the time you get to lasers and carapace you're going to be dealing with spiders with mutons not very far off. I agree that carapace is necessary asap but I personally prefer the added damage from lasers to guarantee kill shots.

Nanofiber means no grenades, which means no guaranteed damage or cover clearage, same with respirators, until you get deep pockets.

Carapace is a very viable strategy to rush to, but it does not trump lasers. Either path has advantages; foundry pistol upgrades + laser pistol gives you a guaranteed kill shot on early Classic difficulty aliens from a weapon that never runs out of ammo.

[Martial.Lore]

I just completed the first slingshot mission at the end of the second month with a four-man squad, including a squadsight Sniper, two Assaults with laser rifles, and a Rookie with a laser rifle (and high aim).

No carapace armor yet but not one alien even so much as got in a shot let alone a hit, yet I had previously had a 3/4 squad-wipe on this mission not too long ago.

If you've got good Rookies and laser weapons you can keep them alive against thinmen and floaters, if you're very careful, IMHO. (The sniper got one kill with a laser pistol but no squadsight kills and the Assaults didn't have to use Run and Gun either.)