Well, if being able to play this AWESOME x-com game makes me ignorant or stupid, I am cool with that.

The game rocks!

Quote from: Sandepande;598616I fancy ignorance and stupidity in this case, because Steam has never given me  anything but pure love.

There's good DRM and bad DRM. Steam is one of the better ones.

Googling for "problems with steam" produces 24 million resutls. There are entire web sites to devoted to bitching about Steam, out of frustration because nothing else has worked.

I'm happy for you that you're not among those who have had problems. Most, in fact, don't, though the assorted security vulneratibilities that have cropped up over the years obviously affects everyone.

But I choose not to infect my computer with software that has been described as a root kit, and one that leaves the computer open to anyone that knows how to exploit it. (The latest such incident wasn't Steam, per se, it was Ubisoft games, but Steam was the vector that it arrived by, in an automatic update.)

No thanks. I'd rather keep an old XP box around to play the original XCOM on.

Quote from: Sandepande;598616There's good DRM and bad DRM.

No. There's not. I absolutely guarantee you that nothing you like about Steam requires DRM.

And while it's nice that you, personally, haven't suffered as a result of a company like Microsoft or EA turning off their activation servers and bricking your software, I guarantee you that it's only a matter of time if your ignorant attitude towards DRM is "well, it's never happened to me, so I'm sure it'll never happen to me".

You're like a Manhattan landlord who thinks he doesn't need flood insurance because it's never flooded in Manhattan.

And there really are only two options: Ignorance or stupidity. If it's the latter, you have my sympathy. If it's the former, you have the option of educating yourself.

Obviously we'll have to agree to disagree. However, I'll hardly consider myself ignorant or stupid. The thing is that I simply do not care, because the likelihood that something happens is, from my personal experience as well as those of my friends, negligible. In DRM scene, Steam is one of the lesser evils, and they have a bunch of exclusives, so I'll have to choose between having those nice games, or not having them.

And in the end, it is my problem, if something goes wrong. If it helps any, I promise not to come crying to you how everything went tits-up.

Quote from: Sandepande;598778However, I'll hardly consider myself ignorant or stupid.

Yeah, well, the Dunning–Kruger effect predicts that.

Quote from: taustin;598915Yeah, well, the Dunning–Kruger effect predicts that.

Works for me!

Quote from: Sandepande;598920Works for me!

I expect so. If ignorance is bliss, you're in fucking heaven.

Quote from: taustin;598640Googling for "problems with steam" produces 24 million resutls. There are entire web sites to devoted to bitching about Steam, out of frustration because nothing else has worked.

I'm happy for you that you're not among those who have had problems. Most, in fact, don't, though the assorted security vulneratibilities that have cropped up over the years obviously affects everyone.

But I choose not to infect my computer with software that has been described as a root kit, and one that leaves the computer open to anyone that knows how to exploit it. (The latest such incident wasn't Steam, per se, it was Ubisoft games, but Steam was the vector that it arrived by, in an automatic update.)

No thanks. I'd rather keep an old XP box around to play the original XCOM on.

I have had issues with older games on newer windows; I wish I had an xp machine sometimes. I foolishly upgraded my last xp computer.

Steam seems to like me though.

Virtual machine is your friend.

Also, "problems with Windows" got 248mil hits.  BRB.  Either I'll be licking my new iMac's screen or I'll be setting up a Linux box behind 30 proxies.

Well, Im in the last mission right now, so I would like to express my final veredict on the game.

At first I thought this version would surpass the original and even Jagged Alliance 2, but right now I dont think so.

The Tactical aspect is brilliant. They managed to simplify it while keeping all the tactical richness, and still making it more dynamic and fun. Excelent work.

But the Strategical aspect didnt have the same results. The simplification here made it more linear, shorter, and with less replay-value. Special mention to the (short) tech tree, and to the Interception part (how they managed to stupidify something that was already relatively stupid is beyond me).

All in all, a very good game, but not a great one. If Firaxis improve and expand it with future DLCs this can change. But right now thats it.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591635What exactly am I meant to do? If i concentrate my pitiful funds on one thing I lose heavily in aother area, such as not being able to shoot down ufo's. I don't think the game is per se bad, I just find the disparate elements completely out of kilter. Training different squads is not made easy when the difficulty of the missions available, which spawn as and when (which strikes me as poor), ramps right up and doesn't change. Once the panic levels start rising the missions are very difficult. This in turn means you need to upgrade your equipment as well as your troops, all of which is more money. How to negotiate this is just not made clear and with these kinds of games you need that clarity otherwise strategy, the whole point of these games, is meaningless.

This is, in fact, the point; you never have enough resources to do everything you need to do. You'll always be tightrope walking with money, elerium, etc. Making hard decisions part of the game, and learning how to make the best decisions possible is part of learning the game. It's true it doesn't hold your hand with this, because this is the point of the game. You need to find out for yourself what does and doesn't work best.

The strategy is, therefore, not meaningless. Every decision you make strategically has consequences. If you're having trouble with grokking this part of the game, I recommend starting on Easy difficulty, as the game is much more forgiving here, and you can go pretty far down a wrong path and have a chance to recover without losing too many countries.

Also, there's a ton of guides online for learning some tips on how to manage your strategy.

One of the most important tips to keep in mind is that when doing Abduction missions, keep in mind that the sites you don't help won't just raise panic in the country targeted, but in the entire continent. And if you have two countries in the same continent being targeted, failing to do either will mean that the continent's panic will increase by 2. Back out and peek at the situation room before picking an abduction site to make sure that by neglecting Egypt, you aren't pushing Nigeria into chaos.

Quote from: silva;599880Well, Im in the last mission right now, so I would like to express my final veredict on the game.

At first I thought this version would surpass the original and even Jagged Alliance 2, but right now I dont think so.

The Tactical aspect is brilliant. They managed to simplify it while keeping all the tactical richness, and still making it more dynamic and fun. Excelent work.

But the Strategical aspect didnt have the same results. The simplification here made it more linear, shorter, and with less replay-value. Special mention to the (short) tech tree, and to the Interception part (how they managed to stupidify something that was already relatively stupid is beyond me).

All in all, a very good game, but not a great one. If Firaxis improve and expand it with future DLCs this can change. But right now thats it.

I tend to agree. The tactical game is incredible, but I agree the strategic game doesn't give enough branching to permit too many different strategies. Engineers are always better than scientists, workshops always better than labs. Also, the research tree is too short.

I recently tried Marathon Mode with Second Wave, and it just made the strategic elements take a ridiculous amount of time instead of actually making the game longer in any fun way.

And the air defense is pretty stupid and annoying.

That all said, I think it IS a great game, because I think it's strengths are strong enough to outweigh the negatives. There's definite room for improvement, and a beefed up strategy game, bigger research tree, a better balance between engineering and research, and a less linear story line would have gone a long way to making this one of the best games ever.

Still, as it stands, it's a very fun game, and the modding community is robust so there's a large number of mods to try out when the base game gets dull. Check out Warspace, probably the best mod out there right now: http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/18

I've had nothing but fun with this game, even when - especially when - it was kicking my ass all over the place. It's good at keeping you on your toes, and that's hard to find these days.

The game is flawed, but quite fun.

The replayability for me, is trying different squad configurations.

Try using four soldiers and 2 shivs.

A squad of all six of the same type.

Play with only using pistols the entire game.

Build labs instead of workshops early and let half the world be lost