OpenXcom Playthrough

[Mr Poltroon]

So here I am, creating a series on a game I was feeling nostalgic for. It's been a while since I've gotten my arse handed to me on a silver plater.
The game is OpenXcom, a faithful clone of the original UFO: Enemy Unknown minus the game breaking bugs and an interface that isn't finicky and clunky as can be.

I plan to make this series interactive. so please give me names and characters and describe them to me, so I'll try to role-play them in the game, wherever possible (If you want to be a coward, I'll try to give you a soldier with the appropriate stats, for instance).
Furthermore, your characters will earn promotions as time goes on. If you are the highest ranked officer in any given battle (or a squad leader - I'll get into those as it happens), you will be the one dictating the battle strategy. So, when you make your character, make sure to include your preferred strategy and any indications. For example, do you want me to be aggressive? To focus on explosives? To be cautious? To run away every time something moves? To use all the weird technology in the game even I have no idea how to use? To move in large numbers? To have everyone lone wolf it? To ruin my bloody play through (the blood's on your hands)?

PLAYLIST:

 

[Decay]

Superhuman difficulty and ironman rules or no watch. 

[Mr Poltroon]

1 hour ago, Decay said:

Superhuman difficulty and ironman rules or no watch. 

Good point, I forgot to mention what I'm playing with.

OpenXcom permits ironman and also has an option to disable save scumming. I could, potentially, play it with both of those, but I wouldn't last more than a couple of episodes.
There are five difficulty levels. The video was recorded on level 2 of 5, experienced.

Edit: For clarity, anything I record will be one save file. If I have incredibly bad luck, so be it. No reloads.

[Nosebleed]

>Bandicam logo

Oh. Oh god. No. The horror.
Please use OBS to record your videos like a decent human being with morals and ethics.

Other than that, I'd probably watch a couple videos if they're not insanely long and have something interesting happening in them rather than just being a standard playthrough.

[mitchhamilton]

mememememememe! i want a character to be a long ranged classed and i want him to be named "Camouflaged Penis" because enemies will never see him coming.

[Mr Poltroon]

1 minute ago, Nosebleed said:

>Bandicam logo

Oh. Oh god. No. The horror.
Please use OBS to record your videos like a decent human being with morals and ethics.

Other than that, I'd probably watch a couple videos if they're not insanely long and have something interesting happening in them rather than just being a standard playthrough.

Thank you for the suggestion. I was actually not meant to use Bandicam but due to resolutions and a bunch of other stuff that insisted on going wrong, I decided to just use it. You're also trash for complaining at such a small issue.

I will make sure to tell you when the time comes where half the world explodes and I start crying tears of blood.
For any X-Com veterans, you can read what I just said as terror mission with Chryssalids and/or Ethereals.

 

1 minute ago, mitchhamilton said:

mememememememe! i want a character to be a long ranged classed and i want him to be named "Camouflaged Penis" because enemies will never see him coming.

I don't think I have it in me to name it that, so unless you provide me with a viable alternative, I will make the character, but he'll end up something like 'Camouflaged Sausage'.

[mitchhamilton]

1 minute ago, Tiagofvarela said:

I don't think I have it in me to name it that, so unless you provide me with a viable alternative, I will make the character, but he'll end up something like 'Camouflaged Sausage'.

Camouflaged Sausage it is!

[Nosebleed]

6 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:

Thank you for the suggestion. I was actually not meant to use Bandicam but due to resolutions and a bunch of other stuff that insisted on going wrong, I decided to just use it. You're also trash for complaining at such a small issue.

Bandicam logos need to be banned in order for peace to prevail on the internet.

And yes, if you make videos of yourself crying tears of blood, I'd totally watch while eating popcorn.

Since I don't know much about the game I guess I'll sit back and let other people give you their suggestions for characters and stuff.

Honestly I mostly just wanted to comment on the bandicam logo.

[Fred the Barber]

That was actually a lot of fun to watch. I've never played any XCom before, but I have a friend who's a very enthusiastic player, so this helps me relate a bit to that, and makes me want to give the game a try myself. If you're short on soldiers, feel free to make a soldier named Fred with the following preferences:

1) a strong tendency towards caution

2) heavy user of items, especially to increase the probability of not getting hurt/shot/killed

3) mostly uses rifles (generally no explosives)

If you've got plenty of people already, or more enthusiastic people, that's cool too.

[Mr Poltroon]

5 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

That was actually a lot of fun to watch. I've never played any XCom before, but I have a friend who's a very enthusiastic player, so this helps me relate a bit to that, and makes me want to give the game a try myself. If you're short on soldiers, feel free to make a soldier named Fred with the following preferences:

1) a strong tendency towards caution

2) heavy user of items, especially to increase the probability of not getting hurt/shot/killed

3) mostly uses rifles (generally no explosives)

If you've got plenty of people already, or more enthusiastic people, that's cool too.

You know the main difference between this Xcom and the remake? People are disposable in this one. Cannonfodder. In later stages I can take up to 25 people on a mission (if I remember right).

In summary, there's always room for more!

 

Disclaimer: There's soldiers and there's soldiers. Nobody wants to lose the guy with the best stats to the 360 no scope that went through three windows that a random sectoid took.

[Fred the Barber]

24 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:

Cannonfodder.

Well, at least now I know how Tiag really feels about me.

[solidbatman]

46 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Well, at least now I know how Tiag really feels about me.

Not just you. 

[Scorp]

I was reading his nick as "Tiag of Varela" all the time, but recently realized that it is "Tiago F. Varela"... Mind blown.

[Fred the Barber]

6 hours ago, Scorp said:

I was reading his nick as "Tiag of Varela" all the time, but recently realized that it is "Tiago F. Varela"... Mind blown.

It's hard to tell where the lies end and the truth begins. I'm still unclear about how it's supposed to be pronounced.

In other news, I decided I was intrigued enough to pick up XCOM 2 on Steam just now.

[Mr Poltroon]

10 hours ago, Scorp said:

I was reading his nick as "Tiag of Varela" all the time, but recently realized that it is "Tiago F. Varela"... Mind blown.

Whatever tipped you off? I keep mentioning that my name's Tiago just about everywhere, but by pure coincidence it's not mentioned anywhere on this topic or the video.

3 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

It's hard to tell where the lies end and the truth begins. I'm still unclear about how it's supposed to be pronounced.

In other news, I decided I was intrigued enough to pick up XCOM 2 on Steam just now.

My name is Tiago, Tiago F. Varela. Do not let yourself be fooled.

XCOM 2 is slightly different than the XCOM games setting-wise. It just assumes you lost the war, which is probably right, to be honest. It betters the original XCOM remake in just about every way except it times some missions (some people hate that). Nothing mods can't fix.

 

In other news, today's episode is out. I'm not sure if I'll make it daily, but I do have enough content ready for a couple of days, so there's that.

 

[Fred the Barber]

- The laser rifle also seemed to have much lower TU cost% vs. the regular rifle, for the aimed shot - if I'm understanding correctly, I think that means the regular rifle is indeed more accurate on the aimed shot, but costs a lot more time units to use, so it's kind of a tradeoff (but probably a tradeoff in favor of the laser rifle, like you said).

- I genuinely thought you were joking when you said you had no idea where Siberia was, until you sent the scout ship to a weird place.

- RIP Stray Cat. Kind of saw that one coming given where you put him, though...

- In the early game, I appreciate you playing me conservatively as requested and not sending me out in to the middle of the field where I would surely have died. Later in the game, well... let's just say I saw my early death coming after that earlier quotation, which I will not hesitate to bring out again:

On ‎3‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 5:39 PM, Tiagofvarela said:

Cannonfodder.

- Nice shot, Camouflaged Sausage - but not surprising, given how OP his original form, Triple-Kill KosakiFag clearly was.

[Mr Poltroon]

Next episode is out. Just make sure to replace all instances of "snakeman" with "floater".

 

[Fred the Barber]

I love the text commentary. Rooke has impressively shitty reflexes, but crouching in front of the right door does seem to be a surprisingly decent strat. Also, three times makes for a pretty clear pattern: Camouflaged Sausage is OP.

[Mr Poltroon]

14 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

I love the text commentary. Rooke has impressively shitty reflexes, but crouching in front of the right door does seem to be a surprisingly decent strat. Also, three times makes for a pretty clear pattern: Camouflaged Sausage is OP.

Me too. I put it there as a test because I couldn't hold my frustration during editing. Speaking of editing, I completely forgot to edit the Geoscape clips, so there's that.

"but crouching in front of the right door does seem to be a surprisingly decent strat." ?  ...? ....???

Camouflaged Sausage is bloody fantastic. Firing accuracy only increases the accuracy %, but pulling off shots under 30% is all him!

[Fred the Barber]

13 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:

Camouflaged Sausage is bloody fantastic. Firing accuracy only increases the accuracy %, but pulling off shots under 30% is all him!

Exactly - his true power isn't in his stats, it's that the RNG does his bidding.

14 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:

"but crouching in front of the right door does seem to be a surprisingly decent strat." ?  ...? ....???

I mean, my expectation would be that they should come through the door and gun you down, especially if you (and by "you" I mean "slow old man Rooke") don't fire when they walk through the door. But instead they walk through the door and just stand there, waiting patiently for you to shoot them. Probably this is one of those things that changes on higher difficulty levels.

[Mr Poltroon]

20 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Exactly - his true power isn't in his stats, it's that the RNG does his bidding.

I mean, my expectation would be that they should come through the door and gun you down, especially if you (and by "you" I mean "slow old man Rooke") don't fire when they walk through the door. But instead they walk through the door and just stand there, waiting patiently for you to shoot them. Probably this is one of those things that changes on higher difficulty levels.

The reason I place my men right next to the door is precisely so they just stop there. The aliens can't see my men, if said men are standing next to the door, until the alien decides to cross said door. If, by any chance, they lack time units to shoot, they'll be at a loss. Your character really was unfortunate.

Alien movement patterns are not affected by difficulty levels, instead, stats increase and Geoscape scoring is changed to be even more unfair to the player. Did I ever mention that games back then didn't really care all that much about fairness?

[Fred the Barber]

Interesting - the AI doesn't change at all on higher difficulties? That's actually almost kind of disappointing, since it does seem a little dumb. That is not to say that I think you should be doing any better, or even that I blame you for Fred dying at such a tender age - even on the difficulty level you're at, the odds are obviously heavily stacked against you having a flawless victory with any kind of regularity.

I'm actually totally in agreement with the idea of stationing people near the door, but I'd really expect it to be more effective to have, for instance, as many people as possible looking at the door with good line-of-sight, when you have a high expectation of someone coming through that door. For instance, when you're actually going into the ship, I'd probably try to have as many as four people going in, two to each side, rather than having more people wandering around. But I'm sure there are good reasons for why you have people a bit more spread out than that - watching your videos is currently the full extent of my experience with this game, so I'm well aware I'm missing a great deal of context.

[Mr Poltroon]

26 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Interesting - the AI doesn't change at all on higher difficulties? That's actually almost kind of disappointing, since it does seem a little dumb. That is not to say that I think you should be doing any better, or even that I blame you for Fred dying at such a tender age - even on the difficulty level you're at, the odds are obviously heavily stacked against you having a flawless victory with any kind of regularity.

I'm actually totally in agreement with the idea of stationing people near the door, but I'd really expect it to be more effective to have, for instance, as many people as possible looking at the door with good line-of-sight, when you have a high expectation of someone coming through that door. For instance, when you're actually going into the ship, I'd probably try to have as many as four people going in, two to each side, rather than having more people wandering around. But I'm sure there are good reasons for why you have people a bit more spread out than that - watching your videos is currently the full extent of my experience with this game, so I'm well aware I'm missing a great deal of context.

I'm talking about the original game, mind you. OpenXcom has options to make the AI even more vicious. Definitely not enabling those, as you'll see next episode. Besides, the AI only looks dumb because it has the same constraints I do. You've seen me get my operatives stuck in really compromising positions because I wasn't aware of all the information beforehand.

You're correct. Usually, I have a bunch of people looking at the door from different angles instead of just the two. I definitely don't enter without more people present. In fact, I don't enter at all if I know there's an alien looking at the door.

"I'd probably try to have as many as four people going in, two to each side, rather than having more people wandering around. But I'm sure there are good reasons for why you have people a bit more spread out than that"
Humans don't block line of sight. So, if I stack them, two on each side, and one of the guys on the back decides to fire, that's one of my guys dead. Even if they're set up so the guy in front is crouching, you wouldn't believe the kinds of misfires XCOM operatives manage. Honestly, no matter what I do I'm set up to lose people this early on.

[Fred the Barber]

4 hours ago, Tiagofvarela said:

Honestly, no matter what I do I'm set up to lose people this early on.

This I totally understand - I'm not faulting you on that account at all.

Just to clarify, I did understand the problem you mentioned about friendly fire and line-of-sight already. But if you have several squares between you and a door, you can still have several people watching the door, all with a clear line of sight. There were a couple situations in your 3rd episode where it would be applicable, notably the one where Rooke was watching the door, if you had more people inside the ship at the time.

[Mr Poltroon]

1 hour ago, Fred the Barber said:

This I totally understand - I'm not faulting you on that account at all.

Just to clarify, I did understand the problem you mentioned about friendly fire and line-of-sight already. But if you have several squares between you and a door, you can still have several people watching the door, all with a clear line of sight. There were a couple situations in your 3rd episode where it would be applicable, notably the one where Rooke was watching the door, if you had more people inside the ship at the time.

The aliens in engine rooms. Engineers are more likely to carry explosives than other classes. And aliens with explosives? It ain't pretty. You haven't seen it yet, but there's an engine room in the middle. That's why I've developed a habit of lone wolfing breaching. Tight corridors aren't good for their health.