Classic Ironman Beating Tactics

[MM]

I just beat Classic Ironman after my fifth or sixth try, and I know people are having quite a difficult time adjusting to the challenge in Ironman. After my many failures, and a "getting acquainted" Ironman playthrough on normal difficulty, I do have a few tips that I've adopted for surviving the crushing encounters with all the bad aliens. Adopt most or all of these, and I think you'll find that, once you're past that grueling first 2 or 3 months, Classic difficulty isn't the bear you thought it was.

The first, and actually most important aspect to master if you expect to get anywhere in Classic Difficulty is:

[/u] Panic Management[/u]

1. Satellites only get launched on the last day of the month - Satellites, as you know, reduce panic when they're launched, and add that precious monthly income. What they DON'T do is reduce panic AFTER they're launched. Panic can't possibly go above five, and you can't possibly know where the aliens are going to hit next. If Egypt's batting its brains out in terror on the 5th of the month, just let them do it. For all you know, the second after you launch that satellite there'll be a wave of abductions in Egypt you just can't ignore. Procrastinate til one or two days before the council report, and you're guaranteed to keep them one more month.

2. Always have extra satellites - This one's quick and simple. In the first several months of the winning game I think about 3/4ths of my budget went toward satellites and uplinks. The aliens may shoot them down, and if they do you want another one to launch (at the end of the month). If things are looking bad in several countries, make sure you have excess satellite capacity to launch a wave of them in case things don't shape up before the 31st.

3. Save the Alien Base until you REALLY need it - There's nothing saying you have to go charging in there right as soon as you can. Sure it has loads of tasty elerium and alloys and the beginning of your psi-project, but its REAL appeal is that it lowers panic worldwide by a large amount. Save it. Milk it. Get your research all caught up. Once you've got the option to wipe the panic level clean around the world, blow your whole budget on building more uplinks/nexuses/satellites. Get yourself a nice reserve of "Get out of Jail Free" cards for the second half of the game. Once either you're technologically quite advanced, or the world is throwing a "burn the xcom commander in effigy" day, then it's time to raid that thing.


Now that you know how not to lose the game, let's talk about winning.

Squad Management


1. Don't Dash - All right, I admit it, sometimes you have to once the shooting starts. What you DON'T have to do is to dash before it does. In fact you should never, ever ever dash before combat starts because A: Some alien packs do come looking to see where the noise is coming from; and B: Your point man now has no move left to find more favorable cover. If you must dash, always do your standard move before committing to a dash - even in combat (unless you're running through an enemy's overwatch - you want that dodge bonus) You never know what the move will uncover, and you need that option to waffle in case things just started getting ugly.

2. Fall Back - The time I started picking where the fights happened is the time I stopped losing soldiers. In my playthrough I lost 17, and none of them Colonels. Is everyone in full cover? No? Fall back until they are. The Aliens will come, usually. If they don't then even better, you now have the initiative and can move your squad around to flank.

3. Move like you're on a minefield Most of the Xcom squad massacres people remember in their nightmares are caused by overly curious rubberneckers who just had to see what was around the next corner, even though they were the last squadmate to act that round. Let your first man do ALL of the exploring, everyone else should move where he moves, and noplace else. Since you're not dashing, your pointman will have half a move to find better cover, fall back, or open fire - while you'll have the whole rest of the squad with actions available to take them out. Remember: Nobody uncovers terrain except the pointman who moves first.

4. EXPLOSIONS! So all these tactics are well and good, but everything goes to hell in a handbasket fast when you've got a skyranger full of rookies. I have a solution for that: Give anybody who's not Lieutenant or higher grenades. They can't hit the broadside of a barn anyway, even with a SCOPE, so farm them up some xp with the boom boom. Even if the alien doesn't die, you've likely blown away his cover, making it slightly easier for one of your cross-eyed goons to land a bullet in him.

5. Orientation Day Unless it's a terror mission (where exceptional performance nets continent-wide panic decrease), you can afford to take a few rookies. You don't always need your a-team. Yes, your A-team is more likely to lose a member when they're dragging Sam from accounting along, but your A-team is going to lose a member eventually anyway. Better make sure Sam and all his friends know which end to point at the bad guys. Make him take point, and keep your top guys back, let the newbies get a few kills. Rinse, repeat, and when that Ace Colonel Assault bad@ss of yours finally meets his maker you'll have a replacement who isn't dragging his knuckles.

6. You can never have enough assaults People may disagree with me on this one, but let me tell you, I had a 3 assault squad and it was nigh-invincible. One sniper, one anything else (my preference was a support with an arc thrower / medkit), and three assaults with all defensive talents + double shot. Want your guys to stay alive? Nobody's better at that than an assault.


Now that your squad is operating somewhat smoothly, lets talk about the last bit you'll need to get in order to have a chance at finishing Classic mode:

Research and Development

1. Armor- Because a living soldier is not a dead soldier Living soldiers get xp for every mission, even if all they did is pick their nose for 12 turns. Keep all of them alive that you can. This means Armors should always be your top priority. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. I favored a full Ghost squad, but if you want an archangel sniper - go for it. You'll seldom have to choose between researching armor and weapons if you get the next part right:

2. They want our brains, we want their guns Once you start seeing mutons, the name of the game is: capture, capture, capture. You want their Plasma guns, you want their Grenades, and you want all the delicious research credits. Why spend your precious satellite and armor resources building weapons when those blokes over there have perfectly good ones just asking for a new owner? Give 'em the Steve Irwin treatment. A sniper with disabling shot is immensely useful for this, as is a support with the +3 movement talent carrying the arc thrower. Also, I kept all my troops using standard, un-upgraded pistols to whittle the last few HPs away to ensure my arc thrower had the best chance.

3. Skip the lasers. - not much to say here. Skip the lasers. You could have plasma in just a little more time without wasting research time and precious alloys if you're putting enough effort into opening your own Alien zoo.


At the suggestion of more than one poster, here's a small section on Alien Capture

1. It's not polite to taser in town - Terror missions offer big benefits for doing really well - namely a continent-wide panic decrease if you've managed to achieve an Excellent/Good on the mission objectives (the requirement may not even be that stringent, but it is what I recollect.) With that in mind, you really shouldn't be bringing arc throwers into this kind of mission, or wasting time adding more aliens to your fishbowl when you should be saving the cowering denizens of the city.

2. Hey boss! I Shot his ammo! (submitted by Cougarific, rephrased by me)

Two parts.
1)Don't get frustrated if it takes you quite a few turns to set up a decent capture attempt - you want to make sure the stars have aligned before you spring your trap, or someone important might be pushing up daisies. Take care to move everyone to line of sight to your capture target before moving on to the next step. Don't worry, your guys don't get paid overtime.

2)Your sniper's disabling shot on the last alien in a pack is the go-signal for your whole squad to work together to whittle an alien down to 1-3 hp for an easy capture. If your sniper opens the round for you with this shot, that guarantees you a delicous TWO ROUNDS (the remaining round you're on, plus the one that follows) for your squad to get their act together and take ET home to meet your mother. Save one guy to be the 'trigger man' in case your arc-thrower is as cross-eyed as the rest of your squad - make sure the trigger man has a clear, very high chance shot at putting the alien down in case your arc-thrower fails.

Disabling shot may not hit, though in which case feel free to put the alien out of its misery and try again on the last alien in the next pack. If it did miss, and you brought along Sam from accounting, (see squad tactics) you might not be sunk yet, which brings us to:

3. Sam! I left the skyranger keys in that open field there! Go get them! So you were following my advice and brought a rookie or two along (good on you), here's where they pay off. Need to get your arc-thower close enough that he'll be able to bag a wounded (1-3 hp) alien next turn? Send Sam to go get those keys, in full sight of the alien you're going to (not so) politely ask home for dinner. Move your rookie into the open while your capture specialist bravely ducks behind some rocks close (but not too close) to the alien.

Aliens are nasty, cruel little beasties and they tend to take the shot that's most likely to make owies. Make sure that shot isn't your capture-guy. Sometimes that means that Sam is going to have to take one for the team. (And nobody really liked him anyway)



That's it. Those are the hard lessons I learned from several failed attempts at Classic Ironman. If you can make it past the first two or three months with at least a few relatively high leveled troops, and you follow this advice, it's just a matter of time until you've won.



EDIT: Added section about alien capture strategies. Appropriate credit given to contributor.

[Xyrzhal]

thumbs up ^^

[Sardonic]

Skipping lasers seems a little bit too bold. Especially for things like laser sniper rifles. The plasmas are endgame items, enourmous costs. Though I'll grant you the rest of the advice seems spot on.

[MS-DoZz]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Smegmata:

3. Move like you're on a minefield ...Remember: Nobody uncovers terrain except the pointman who moves first.

I prefer to use hover tank to uncover territory. In case it will destroyed than it will not so pitty.

[MM]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von MS-DoZz:

I prefer to use hover tank to uncover territory. In case it will destroyed than it will not so pitty.

I can't speak to the efficacy of hovertanks personally, as I haven't ever made use of the SHIV units.

It may be a good idea, although by the time you have access to a hover-shiv, I would expect you have sufficiently progressed to the point that "losing" the game is no longer your primary concern.

I found that - if I survived the first three or four months - the 'endgame' was more of an afterthought. Victory was at hand, it was just a matter of how long it was going to take.

[MM]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sardonic:

Skipping lasers seems a little bit too bold. Especially for things like laser sniper rifles. The plasmas are endgame items, enourmous costs. Though I'll grant you the rest of the advice seems spot on.

Thanks for the good word.

On laser weapons - You don't have to manufacture plasma weapons if you capture them. They're not endgame if you make a concerted effort to capture mutons in the meanwhile, with the notable exception of the plasma sniper, which is a small investment (you only really need one).

There will be a short interval where your troops will be fighting Mutons and Chrysalids without the benefit of laser rifles, admittedly. However, if the other squad advice is followed, my experience is that this won't be especially difficult, as they only begin to show up in twos.

If those first few encounters with Mutons end up yielding plasma weapons for you, (they really should, unless you're prioritizing something other than capture) you saved yourself nearly a month of dead-end research that can catapult you into late-game armor mid-game. If you were researching armors instead, your resources can be spent there, helping to ensure your high-value soldiers survive brushes with bad luck, and giving you ample Colonels to work with endgame.

I do take your point that -if you fail to capture plasma weapons- skipping lasers can be a bit of a gamble. I chose to take squad casualties (rookies, usually) to ensure that I got three or four plasma rifles very early on.

[Sonic Boomer]

any tips for capturing aliens alive? I finished getting all the arc thrower preps when I was facing mutons/cyberdisk... capturing one alive isn't an easy task.

Also, when should you just surrender and start a new playthrough? On my current ironman, I just lost 5 countries (1 in the first month, 1 because I couldn't get satellite sooner, 3 because of a failed terror mission). Should I just start a new game?

[Red Phantom]

I am on the temple ship right now and I agre with a lot of your points.

I also skipped laser weapons and made it my sole mission to capture as many aliens as possible until after the alien base. If you do it that way, you can have most of the best equipment in the game before you head in to the base, plus you have plenty of time to set up satellites and firestorms for panic management.

After the global panic reduction of the alien base I have had all 15 of my remaining countries at panic level one at all times making it very easy to focus on the rewards I wanted and training up psionically gifted rookies to colonels for an all-gifted squad.

Your orignal colonels are almost worthless endgame because they will have substantially lower will than rookies trained up with the OTS will boost, so that is something to keep in mind.

[nanoforge]

The best of its kind I've seen so far. Well done.

[Cougarific]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sybreed:

any tips for capturing aliens alive?

Patience and teamwork - you shouldn't be trying to capture stuff on Terror missions so you should take all the time (and turns) you need to make it work.

If you have to make 5 of 6 soldiers spend three turns on Overwatch while your Arc Thrower works his or her way into position - do that - you're not losing anything.

When your Arc Thrower is in position - use teammates with Suppression or the sniper's Disable Weapon skill to keep the target locked down and prevent reaction fire.

Remember that the Arc Thrower works best when the target is down to 2-3 bars of health.

If you're really struggling - try "setting aside" the final enemy on each map for a capture attempt. If it's possible to "know" that you're down to your last enemy it's very easy to focus all your energy on capturing it, rather than killing it.

And OP nicely done on the strategy session. Question: When you say "launch" satellites on the last day of the month - what about the time it takes for them to get into position after launch - they're only counted (by the Council) if they're in position, right? Are you taking that into account before launching?

[MM]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Cougarific:

Question: When you say "launch" satellites on the last day of the month - what about the time it takes for them to get into position after launch - they're only counted (by the Council) if they're in position, right? Are you taking that into account before launching?

Good question - As the primary concern for the satellite launching is the local panic reduction (which, if I am not mistaken happens immediately) the latentcy time after the satellite is launched but before it begins actually providing coverage isn't a concern.

Basically, the panic reduction happens right away, even though the recipient nation isn't actually getting anything for a few days. If there is some other secondary panic reduction that accompanies the satellite actually becoming operational, I am unaware of it.

On Capturing Aliens, Or: Rookies Catch Plasma

The previous poster had some good advice, and I recommend you follow it. Additionally, I occasionally found it useful to leave a rookie standing unprotected, out of cover for an alien to shoot at while my arc-thrower closed to within a standard move of zapping range for the next turn.

Aliens tend to take the highest % shot available to them. This can be exploited in a number of ways, but here it can be used to make sure your arc-thrower doesn't get gibbed before he's gotten a chance to zap the alien.

If you want to coax the alien to sit still and get captured, and you don't see another way to accomplish this you can plant a rookie somewhere out in the open where he can see. He'll shoot (and probably kill) the poor guy, but that should buy your arc-thrower (whom you'll want to keep behind cover) enough time to close the gap.

[MM]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sybreed:

Also, when should you just surrender and start a new playthrough? On my current ironman, I just lost 5 countries (1 in the first month, 1 because I couldn't get satellite sooner, 3 because of a failed terror mission). Should I just start a new game?

I'm thick-headed and don't give up until the game tells me I've lost, personally. I expect that it's probably a good idea to quit if A) Your guys are still getting massacred and B) You're down six or so countries.

Personal preference really matters here.

[76561198070999785]

A really nice list. I like the titles also. And congrats on wining the game!

After like 20ish attempts i finally developed a strategy which is very confident and solid on beating the game. But my strategy is somewhat different. I will post an overview after i finally beat the game, which is going to be this weekend.

In advance i got to say i decided not to have assaults at all, they are too random and too risky, and have no actual benefit for the squad at all. I had fun runing 3 assaults on regular classic, but on ironman they just not working at all for me.

2 heavy 2 support 2 sniper is my squad. Its much more safe, more control, more firepower, more tools to aproach the encounter, and more sustain in the fight. Its like you basicly never getting hits on your guys at all, they just shred through.

But the actual win or loss is happening on the globe. The way you manage panic, the way you pick abductions missions, the way you set up your sat's - if you screw up here, you are dead months ahead. Poetry.

But anyway Good Job there mate!

[AliceMalt]

thank you smegmata.
but can you tell us how to recruit more Assault soldiers ?

[Niteshade]

So far Ive usually enjoyed Using Assaults myself, usually at least 1. I guess its mainly the run & Gun ability, in my early missions that skill has seemingly been a 'safe' button to rely on. situation where i needed to take something out before it picked off one of my squad members I didnt want to lose or to break a floaters suppression fire maybe. As long as u dont run & gun in with no ammo @.@

[MM]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AliceMalt:

thank you smegmata.
but can you tell us how to recruit more Assault soldiers ?

This is where things get tricky. I never was able to find a consistent way to recruit assaults in the early-game. There's an Officer Training School upgrade that causes all your new recruits to come already upgraded to Squaddie (meaning they come with a class), but by the time that's available, you're already quite far in the game.

What I did is coddle my assaults - I babied them and fed them kills until they were beefy enough to survive when things didn't go according to plan. They always got my heaviest armor and biggest guns, and never carried grenades - instead they had chitin plating. I was very careful to pull them out of situations that were dangerous before it was too late.

I do think that assaults are the way to go - they don't screw up crucial shots like heavies and snipers do, because their crucial shots are Run And Gun + point blank Double-shot, which very often have a 100% chance to hit. This means one assault with off-cooldown abilities nearly always translates to one dead alien - have three assaults and every fight is already won when there's only 3 aliens left standing. Pick another squad makeup and you're stuck rolling dice for a few more rounds.

I found that my heavies and snipers failed their 75% shots all the time, and often went from full health to dead in one attack because of an unlucky crit. A Colonel assault can't be crit if you pick the right talents, so you should never end up with a dead Colonel Assault in one round. An assault can't mess-up a 100% chance point-blank double shot, either, meaning their damage is far more consistent.

The reason I like assaults is because when they're used right, they're immune to bad luck. Heavies and snipers may have more damage potential, but Assaults will live when the s*** hits the fan, and will do the damage you expect them to.

Luck is a fickle lady, so I try not to invite her into the house so she can s*** all over everything.