Using low intellegene units

[happyscrub]

Do you use your starting soldiers regardless of their intellegence or do you cycle them out after you find smarter people?

[KRON]

I use covert actions to raise their combat intellegence. Sometimes units with standart CI have better set of abilities than savants.

[Tschudy]

The dummies go into the psi chamber

[Tiasmoon]

Combat Intelligence is less important then getting good/many XCOM abilities. You can always spend XCOM points on a specific soldier, as those are a shared pool of points anyone can use.

I'd say high Will is more important then Combat Intelligence overall.

[Synavix]

Combat Intelligence doesnt really make a huge difference. Standard soldiers get 3 free AP every rank up, and Above Average only gives 1 extra AP per rank (for an extra 7 total), and Gifted only gives 7 more than that (for an extra 14 total if you hit max rank). It's not until Genius and Savant that you get noticably more. 4 extra per rank at Genius and 7 per rank at Savant.

Since a "Gain AP" covert op usually gives around 15 AP to the xcom pool, that's usually more efficient to get than improving a soldiers combat int unless they are already Gifted -> Genius or Genius -> Savant level, which would give an increase of 14 or 21 over their previous intelligence. The lower int missions would only increase their final pool by 7.

But getting a high intelligence naturally is rare, so farming generic xcom pool points is usually the best choice except for your few lucky soldiers.

Like Tiasmoon said, the random XCOM abilities that you get will make a bigger difference in which soldiers are weak/strong than their Int.

[Azure]

Bad aim is a bigger drawback than low Combat Intel and the main reason i'd leave soldiers languishing at the bottom of the list but even they are good for filler on CovOps that just need warm bodies in them.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by AzureTerra:

Bad aim is a bigger drawback than low Combat Intel and the main reason i'd leave soldiers languishing at the bottom of the list but even they are good for filler on CovOps that just need warm bodies in them.

Yes, but bad aim doesn't exist without mods.

[red255]

its more Extra perks for me.

I get a sniper with Run and Gun I'm using him and upgrading his CI. but after i go thru my squad of people for good perks, Yes I'll buy recruits and only upgrade the ones with gifted or better CI.

[happyscrub]

But don't yal build the training center late game? So you cycle out all those high level people for rookies late game after you find out their perks?

[red255]

whether or not you build the training center late game, abilities are revealed as they reach higher ranks.

If I wanted to promote a rookie, its 5 days (10 on legend) for a rookie to go to SGT in the GTS, they generally promote once on a Lost mission, 4 days per covert Op promotion reward mission.

so around 1 new colonel per supply drop period.

new colonels can be acquired from Guerrilla ops and map rewards and such fully promoted late game.

But yes, IF I didn't have a good set of bonus perks, on ANY of my soldiers, I would consider trying to create some new soldiers with the perks.

We aren't cycling Colonels for Rookies though, we are cycling old colonels for new colonels.

[happyscrub]

Originally posted by red255:

whether or not you build the training center late game, abilities are revealed as they reach higher ranks.

only for faction units though

[Azure]

Originally posted by SamBC:

[
Yes, but bad aim doesn't exist without mods.

Ive played so much that its hard to recall a time before mods

[red255]

Originally posted by happyscrub:

Originally posted by red255:

whether or not you build the training center late game, abilities are revealed as they reach higher ranks.

only for faction units though

no.

for all units except sparks, use the training facility.

[happyscrub]

Originally posted by red255:

Originally posted by happyscrub:

only for faction units though

no.

for all units except sparks, use the training facility.

"whether or not you build the training center late game, abilities are revealed as they reach higher ranks."

which goes back to me saying this comment was false.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by red255:

Originally posted by happyscrub:

only for faction units though

no.

for all units except sparks, use the training facility.

Yes. They aren't revealed until you build the facility. You seemed to be saying they were revealed whether or not you build the facility.

[red255]

I meant whether or not you build the facility late game or early game the new perks are not revealed until the soldiers hit the required ranks for them.

I generally don't build the facility until I have the AP points to spend on the facility.

but its a higher priority build than the useless buildings.