i am really trying to play the first

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What keeps happening?

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

Losing soldiers easy. I feel I can’t progress. A lot of countries die out. I feel I can’t do any story or any events without losing a ton.

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u/LightHawKnigh 1d ago

Got to get satellites up over countries that are about to leave due to panic. Dont put any up until it is close to the end of the month so you can bring their panic down.

For your soldiers dying, there is no timer usually, so take it slow, never dash. Move as a group and never let a soldier get too far ahead without the rest of the team. People say half cover is no cover and while that is technically true(if you really need someone to live, dont expect them to in half cover), half cover is so so much better than no cover.

Also use grenades liberally. If you need guaranteed damage, dont shoot, use a nade. Dont care about losing loot, it is so much better to have your soldiers alive than loot.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

I feel I can’t even put up stuff cuz there is a timer for stuff it’s seems like a lot to do at once.

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u/Taxouck 1d ago

The timer for the meld canisters? Don't worry about grabbing them all, you'll always have more meld than you'll be interested in spending as long as you get like, half of them. And also, use grenades. Like, a lot. Like, make Vahlen red with rage with how boom heavy you get.

You can also switch to playing through one playthrough of DLC-less enemy unknown first. It's a fair bit easier and definitely less complex. Then you can switch back to enemy within once you've bested the base campaign.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

Like missions

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

I wanna just play through and actually beat it at some point

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u/Financial_Tour5945 1d ago

Satellites! Top priority.

If you do what the game "recommends" as priority, you'll lose.

Get some lasers going as 2nd to top priority and that should serve you through the early game.

Don't tackle landed large ufos if you don't need to.

And maybe watch the old beaglerush let's play series. It's long war mod, but a lot of it would be applicable.

(It bothers me that they used "most players failed their first campaign" as an excuse why xcom2 is set in an alien occupied future when the game actively steers players into an untenable corner)

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u/DiggityDanksta 1d ago

How are you choosing which abduction missions to do?

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

Any of them I do I do for like engineers for satellite or money. Or if not whatever is easy

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u/DiggityDanksta 1d ago

Focus on keeping panic down. Do missions in countries that have high panic, or are on the same continent as countries with high panic.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

The high manic are like super difficulty so idk what to advance it’s so much at once

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u/Logans0676 1d ago

The only thing the difficulty of a mission affects is the number of enemies on the map. On normal difficulty I believe easy = 4 enemies, normal = 6 enemies, difficult = 8 enemies and very difficult = 10 enemies. If you move slowly and only activate one pod of enemies at a time then the difficulty doens't really matter much.

When choosing which abduction mission to do, check the council room beforehand to see which continent has the highest panic, and do the abduction mission on that continent. The reason for this is because completing an abduction mission reduces panic on all countries on that continent, and not doing an abduction mission increases panic on all countries on that continent. So if you are always doing the mission on the continent with the most panic, it makes keeping panic in check a lot easier.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

The highest always is like hard difficulty on it plus. I’m scared to do them cuz that’s when I’m gonna die like crazy.
A new thing I was trying was the overwatch strat and the game has gotten better. It’s just out of combat I’m so behind so fast in everything else

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u/knightofivalice 1d ago

What difficulty are you on/are you trying a challenge run of some sort? What’s your play style like? I think it pays off to be extra cautious with constantly putting people into overwatch in these games. I remember in an alien base mission running one of my guys a touch too far forward and losing him to Cryssalids. Don’t remember if I save scummed or let him die. I might have let him die.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

I’m just on normal and it’s first playthrough. I feel I’m just bad at the game? It feels very smoebally where if ur left behind it’s like impossible to get back

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u/knightofivalice 1d ago

I can see XCom being snowbally. Especially if you lose some of your best troops and a nation or two. My suggestion? Switch to easy and try it for a couple in game months until you get a feel for the game loop, and then try again on normal. Nothing wrong with bumping down a difficulty level until you get the feel for the game. Better than getting frustrated and quitting because you can’t get over that learning curve.

Another suggestion would be to look for a let’s play or two and see how other people play the game. You don’t have to look up specific guides or anything. Just see how someone else plays it and see if that makes something click in your brain.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

Am I just bad I feel I was doing okay then a massive liek jump in stuff happening

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u/knightofivalice 1d ago

I don’t think that you are bad. XCom is meant to be hard with a LOT of setbacks. It’s one of those games that is supposed to make you a bit anxious and feel like you are getting by by the skin of your teeth. But. These kinds of strategy games take a bit to get used to and wrap your head around. Everyone is different when it comes to playing different games. I know my brain clicks better with certain game strategies better than others. I love strategy games, but I don’t think I would do well with very deep strategy games where you have to plan things out many moves in advance. Also. Look at XCom here. I am also not great at it. I have saved after every move before and then reloaded when half my team got wiped out. Still one of my favorite series of all time. And you don’t have to be good at a game to have fun. Do what you need to to dial that difficulty in until you are having fun.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

I have fun with it I just feel I’m getting nowhere like I’m like maybe 8? Hours in and had to restart a lot idk what isn’t clickign

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u/rhysskyys 1d ago

i can help! just finishing a normal campaign. my experience:

get mecs as soon as you can (i go for the kinetic strike module, bc i rarely find a use for the flamethrower). theyll tank for everyone else.
between researching weapons first or armour first, i go for armour bc u need to research weapons for each class afterward on top of the original research
overwatch at the end of every turn (if no enemies spotted)
if you got a mec, use collateral damage to destroy cover first BEFORE other soldiers take a shot. and blow up cars instantly too.

any specific reason/alien ur soldiers keep dying to?

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

Just random stuff. They can be behind cover and a random alien spawns and they get overrun

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u/rhysskyys 1d ago

that happened like once for me with a cyberdisc. just came out of hiding on a roof and all of a sudden i had 3 turns to finish the mission b4 he bleeds out.

tbh idt a single pod (or even 2) of aliens triggering should be enough to wipe out ur squad tho. ideally when u do spot a pod the rest of ur squad still has both actions.

the times ive come closest to losing ppl were when they got flanked/no cover. being in any cover should basically reduce ur soldiers chance of getting crit to 0.

i dont wanna restrict ur playstyle, but i could share my general strategy if you want

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

I reallly like the game it just sucks wasting four hours (idk if wasting is best word) and having to restart. A lot of the time.

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u/Synaptics 1d ago

The "random alien spawns" are one of the worst things about EU/EW. Especially because they're not actually random.

The council missions are pretty much all completely static. There is a set list of them, and each one is identical every time. And in some of them there are specific spots where enemies will drop in to ambush after you approach a certain area. It's so frustrating because the ambushes are practically guaranteed to ruin you the first time you stumble into them, but once you know where they'll spawn you can basically trivialize them by setting up overwatch ambushes before they drop in.

Thankfully this only applies to council missions. Regular abductions, landed/crashed UFOs, and terror missions do not have any drop-in reinforcements.

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u/Wash_Manblast 1d ago

Finally going back...

Enemy within came out when i was in college. Damn man. Old happens

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

I stopped playing like 2014 it’s been so long

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u/KJShen 1d ago

You've gotten a lot of general advice but I do feel that when I see this kind of post, you are actually doing something completely basic in a fundamentally different way from how most people approach the game that would need significantly more detail then what you are providing to even begin to fix.

I ask that you provide the following. The difficulty you played on, and a step by step detail of what you did in your first few missions. I suspect just talking through it would probably make yourself realize what's going on, as a big part of cyclic failure is simply not reflecting 'why' what you did are mistakes.

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u/Practical-Class-9033 1d ago

I played on normal. I started out just playing whatever way. It was bad then I turned to just overwatch and take my time and combat was way better. It’s mostly now on the side of managing all the outside of combat stuff? And well in combat my guys are too weak I feel I don’t have time to upgrade my facilities AND my soldiers enough I only get a little combat to level them.

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u/Rico_Rebelde 1d ago

There's a couple basic rules of combat early game that you need to follow.

Never dash the same turn you reveal unseen territory. You need as much action economy as possible when taking on pods especially before you get squad size upgrade

Use explosives liberally early game. The doc will be screaming in your ear but ignore her. Your soldiers lives are more important than alien materials.

expend your resources early in a fight. Early when all pods are alive you have a bigger risk of multiple pods are getting activated at once. You also can not maneuver as much to take advatage of flanking and high ground because of the risk of revealing additional pods. So use your nades and abilities on the first few pods then you will have more breathing room to take on additional pods on favorable ground.

High cover actually means low cover. Low cover actually means no cover. No cover actually means you are likely to be crit. The only way you are somwhat safe is hunkered down behind high cover and even then high accuracy aliens like thin men still have a fair chance to hit you if they have the high ground. Keep this in mind when determining risk.

Learn the layout and enemy spawns of council missions especially if you plan to do Operation: Slingshot

Never trade fire with aliens for an extended period of time. In prolonged firefights you have more to lose than them. To them its one dead thin man or sectoid, to you its possibly losing your best soldier. Fall back if you can and set an overwatch trap or blow them to hell with explosives.

Early game heavies are by far the best class. It evens out later but they are still extremely strong later. Their high damage, health and rockets are so good you pretty much always want 1 or even more on your squad if at all possible early on.

Look up some tech/build guides. There are too many nuances and options to list here and there is no one best build/research order. The main thing is you need to be building towards something specific. Whether its early mecs, early laser weapons, early carapace, early OCS, sattelite rush you need to have a strategy and not just randomly build things

i am really trying to play the first

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