lowering a country's panic level

[son-goku]

Hello,

as I recall, in the vanilla UFO Enemy Unknown, a country's panic level dropped one point at the end of the month if said country had a satellite over it. After starting a new game with Enemy Within, it doesn't happen. I had three countries with Panic Level 3, and two of them had satellite coverage. But after the month ended, the panic level stayed the same in all three countries.

So, how do I lower the level, besides doing terror missions (that don't just pop up when you need them)?

[Milk]

Drop some sats on the country. Other than that, you can't.

[Shadow]

Only via Missions or Satellites.Other than that, you can't.

[son-goku]

So, only launching a satellite (which is not possible for two of those three, since they already have one). So I guess I have to wait for a mod again.

[JH]

Ever increasing world panic and your race to beat the enemy invasion is pretty much the idea behind the game

Or do you think people will be like "oh look like that tusked omniped has just killed and puked down that womans throat. OMG not another braindead zombie to try and make conversation with. Whatever, aliens are so yesterday"

[son-goku]

No, but I think they should say "Yeah, we got slobbered now but there wasn't an incident this month and we are looked after, so lets calm down a bit."

[Milk]

Oh look, aliens attacked our capital city and got away with it, but oh look it's been a month and we haven't been attacked yet, so I'm instantly going to be calmer.

[son-goku]

Now you get it :D I'm not saying, panic should drop to zero immediately but one point down isn't too much to ask...

[LeftPaw]

Bloody panic levels are a pain in the arse. I wish you could have a switch to turn the stupid things off.

[Bindal]

Originally posted by son-goku:

as I recall, in the vanilla UFO Enemy Unknown, a country's panic level dropped one point at the end of the month if said country had a satellite over it.

You recall wrong. Saterlite, Council Missions and an assault on the Alien Base lowered panic as well as Terror Missions with a high amount of rescued civilians.
Now there are also successful EXALT Covert Ops missions in Enemy Within (but you might had a Propaganda from them, which raises the panic by the same amount)

Originally posted by Joote:

Bloody panic levels are a pain in the arse. I wish you could have a switch to turn the stupid things off.

Then you would have literally no way to lose outside of one (Alien Base Assault) or two (Base Defense) missions. There are also the very first mission and the very last, but those allow you to just restart them instantly without even a reload.
You see why you can't remove panic?

[LeftPaw]

They didn't have it in the original Xcom, and that game played better than this. I vote they dump the daft panic system, but I know that they never will, but modders can get it under control.

[Nick Naughty]

One time on eu I had a satiellite country go to 5 and some how it did lower to 4 at the end of the month but I did deploy satiellites on the remaining parts of that region, that was on impossible and it was a mistake by me for not taking into account an abduction mission.

[Bindal]

Originally posted by Joote:

They didn't have it in the original Xcom, and that game played better than this. I vote they dump the daft panic system, but I know that they never will, but modders can get it under control.

Actually, they had it. You just couldn't check it. Remember the end-of-month review back then, with some countries saying they reduce their funds? Yeah, that was panic back then.

[LeftPaw]

Originally posted by Bindal:

Originally posted by Joote:

They didn't have it in the original Xcom, and that game played better than this. I vote they dump the daft panic system, but I know that they never will, but modders can get it under control.

Actually, they had it. You just couldn't check it. Remember the end-of-month review back then, with some countries saying they reduce their funds? Yeah, that was panic back then.

I use to believe that was because you had not done a mission to their satisfaction, needless to say it just meant a little less money, it never got in the way of play or ended your game as this panic mechanic can.

[Bindal]

Originally posted by Joote:

Originally posted by Bindal:

Actually, they had it. You just couldn't check it. Remember the end-of-month review back then, with some countries saying they reduce their funds? Yeah, that was panic back then.

I use to believe that was because you had not done a mission to their satisfaction, needless to say it just meant a little less money, it never got in the way of play or ended your game as this panic mechanic can.

They actually can. With less funding countries, you can't pay your costs and when you're into dept too much, it's game over.
And countries left if you did poorly in their region (ignoring bases and UFOs, doing bad missions) or when they were taken over by Aliens.

So, yes, panic existed in the Original game. It just wasn't called that and had no direct tracker.


And again, without panic, you have NO OTHER WAY TO GET A GAME OVER (besides the two mentioned story missions), meaning if you disable panic, you can't lose. Ever. Making even things like Impossible Ironman a breeze to win.

[Mandemon]

Originally posted by Joote:

Originally posted by Bindal:

Actually, they had it. You just couldn't check it. Remember the end-of-month review back then, with some countries saying they reduce their funds? Yeah, that was panic back then.

I use to believe that was because you had not done a mission to their satisfaction, needless to say it just meant a little less money, it never got in the way of play or ended your game as this panic mechanic can.

That's... the same thing, really. Except instead of trying to guess why the nations are reducing funding or are panicking, you know very well why.

Three nations send message of "JESUS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CHRIST ALIENS RAMPAGING DOWNTOWN GET THE ♥♥♥♥ HERE!" and... you only can answer one places. So other places think you are doing bad job.