X-com

Good news everyone, i just beat the game for the first time.

I think i got the bad ending or something since I wasn't even sure if I really killed the final boss. Also this ending kinda sucked, I mean I just kinda explode the ship in outer space. Is there a second better ending or something?

No, EW just has a really shitty ending. If it helps, it's not canon anyway

You gotta get the true ending where you lose the game and XCOM 2 starts

well atleast I didn't get the bad ending.

just played xcom 2 and holy fuck is it buggy. Sometimes the game just won't continue because of these cortex faggots and the user interface will just randomly fuck up somehow and not respond, have empty buttons, do the wrong thing upon clicking the button that says "do X thing", I wonder if somehow by using a controller these issues vanish, but there must be some real spaghetti code behind this shit

Don't forget about the shitty optimization that eats up all your resources

It's anecdotal but I've been playing X-COM: EU the past two weeks and it's worked fine for me, are you playing on the same rig as last time?

Having to set up a large page file on an external drive so the game doesn't crash was quite the unique fix.

Its terrible. A few issues are fixlled by mods, but from looking at the official forums, it seems that they throw any CTD report into the trash, if you use any mods. It was a godsend to find the one that fixes the firebrand elevator noise in the avenger.

Also, EU/EW and 2 are "XCOM", while UFO-Defence, Tftd and similar are "X-com"

but why?

They probably did it so there's no confusion between remakes and the old games

Because that's their names and you didn't lurk enough?

It's tolerable, but doesn't really improve on the EU. I even think it's fucking up balance since you get council missions pretty fast and have to deal with Thin Man and their sniping-crit-bullshit without good protection or firepower. Other than that, Mecs are okay, augmentations are pretty unimpressive and EXALT faction is just baddie XCOM with their boring missions.

How so? They never explained what was EXALT ultimate goal and their missions were basically XCOM vs XCOM with little variety. Even the final assault was a simple wipe out, nothing more. The whole cover ops shit got boring after a while and didn't give to the player any sense of achievement, only feeling you will have to do same shit again in every country, regardless if they were still in XCOM project or not.
Mecs were okay due to their punch ability, it still baffles me how minigun they use is somehow more accurate than a fucking railgun. In late game they were overshadowed by hover SHIVs imo.

So, they're a literal ZoG, banker striped suits and all.

And speaking of EXALT, tried the MOCX/EXALT mod for LW2?

Nope. XCOM is not good enough to prolong its gameplay even more.

I love mind control porn.

Sex should be left to conceding adults in love.

I don't disagree but LW2 is a bit better from LW1 in that regard since you're still working against the clock. There's also less timewasters in general like combat fatigue or farming meld and it's pretty easy to tweak them even further.

They're basically free cash and experience for your troops. Which can be helpful in the higher difficulty missions, If I have to be honest though I like the idea of another human organization that is involved with the aliens and having their own agenda then what the execution was in the game.
Hover SHIVs can't act as full cover for the rest of your team or deploy explosives like the proximity mines, the big advantage they have over MECs is their maneuverability since they get flight.

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Well I liked the idea too, but it was implemented poorly. I expected some sort of arms race, contesting every XCOM council country, then finally rooting their cells. Maybe adding possibility of EXALT drop during normal alien missions, since they want to scavenge technology and disrupt XCOM operations? Instead we've got copy of our soldiers as enemies.
Yeah, but cover ability is a overshadowed by jump jets. Also, hover SHIVs has bigger range and flight, so it can flank multiple enemies and help snipers with In the Zone perk. It is more accurate too.

Who knows, maybe I'll try it someday. I disliked the idea of this mod since it seemed to be a hair -splitting in design to push this 'oh so much difficult and hardcore' appearance.

bump

bump

Is there something in particular you want to talk about the newer XCOM games, user?

A great alternative to X-Com is Jagged Alliance 2.
I'm just realizing that after all these years.
It's basically X-Com without base building and intercepting UFOs. Instead you just march your troops around the map as you increasingly piss off some spic queen.

If you're going to bump the thread, at least bump it with sneks

Just play open X-Com

not really, I just wanted to post about x-com

ok

>>>/xen/

Delet yourself.

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But isn't the main mechanic of that game recruiting and micro-managing a base full of soldiers? You have to keep running back to that damn base repeatedly rather than being able to have fun just fucking around killing people.

Any lewd snake webms?

honestly I really like the basebuilding part of XCOM. so the idea of game with less base building sounds pretty dull.

The only management is when they arrive in the game overworld. When they are about to leave you have the option to renew their contract or just tell them to leave their gear at one of the areas you control so you can collect it to rearm still active soldiers. The only micromanaging is in regards to the soldiers on the field, which is less complex than managing the base in X-Com. Since it's basically the combat aspect of X-Com with slightly more detail in regards to equipment and the fact your troops can loot weapons/ammo and need food if Hunger is turned on.

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Glad to see mind control is as broken as ever and that the layout of alien bases doesn't really change. Mind controlled some lobstermen to destroy the synonium device using their own dpl's and left that hellhole as soon as possible. All of this without having anyone move around to get picked off by the tentaculats or some grenade happy lobsterman like it usually goes.

New total overhaul mod for Xenonauts released.
goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/14406-xce-0342-xenonauts-x-pansion-pack/

It's a bit dead.

and thats a bit of an understatement.

Wow

Jesus, the big one is so cute.

is there any mod to change the pooskin in X-COM: Apocalypse?

or you can just drive by a car you know?
i usually have 2 cars in JA, one with main assault forces, second is a logistical one, running from airport to frontlines with mortar shells, rpgs, ammo, new weapons etc…

And there is constant confusion.

Why are pc games so full of artificial difficulty? I tried to play the old x-com since it would run on my crappy pc and it was just total bullshit dude definitely going back to playing Nioh.

Another one to fall for the "gattling guns are inaccurate" myth.
Thay are 4 times more accurate than a HMG

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Well what do you consider to be artificially difficult? Not being able to open a door without going through it? Well yeah that's pretty valid however once you get enough tech upgrades you can breach the walls and bypass the ambush points. Beyond that common sense and strategic use of smoke grenades will help you a huge deal in the early game.

Pretty sure he was just shitposting, there is almost no artificial difficulty in Ufo Defense

Not being able to just open the door without walking through it is a bit of a problem.

It is irritating, but it wasn't on purpose. TFTD added the option to open doors without going through them, it reminds me of how NPC's could get in your way in FO1 and the ability to tell them to get out of the way was added in the sequel.

Next time I am giving all of my guys mind shields

Non-Console X-COM is much more about coherent simulation and much less about the gimmicky 'baby's-first-tabletop-tactics-game only with tons of rage-inducing exceptions to the rules' kind of design that Console X-COM has, so I don't think you'll find there to really be quite as much to get angry over. Guns actually shoot projectiles rather than just being random number generators, for instance, so you don't get any of that "95% chance to hit" bullshit you do in Console X-COM.

so there is less RNG? well shit I might actually like it more then.

If you want to be cheap about it and not need mind shields you can funnel the avatars through the door that precedes the final room and bombard them with an overwatch trap

Yes, it just requires knowledge of how things work and strategy on your part. You will lose troops and missions here or there, but it isn't as crippling as in the new XCOM games.

There's one of her holding hands with some guy while she blows him.
It's also cute.

The RNG in UFO Defense decides what the radius for the bullet's trajectory is using percentages. So It's less "chance to hit" and more "chance my guy won't be retarded". The jokes at the expense of your soldier's eye sight is rather apt.

And you can get both UFO and Terror right now.

Well I just completed TFTD and going to move on to apocalypse next. Apocalypse looks drastically different compared the previous two so I'm not too sure what to expect, but I've seen some anons liking the whole sci-fi angle of it.

Apocalypse gives you the option to continue playing the tactical side in turn-based mode or in real time

It has projectile paths, if you miss you can hit another ayylium, gas tank or your own troops, I wish the newer ones had that.

It's my favourite game in the series, user. Partly because I like the aesthetic, partly because I was an RTSfag when I first came into contact with X-COM, so Apoc eased me into the rest of the series with its RTS mode. I don't think it's the best in the series but it is dear to me. Hope you like it.

Woo I just beat XCOM 2.

I mean the ending was a little bit better but still kinda shit Are they going to make an expansion about underwater aliens now? What were they talking about in the end? is there something that they are running away from? I thought they did this to replace their old bodies not to fight something else.

On the whole I thought XCOM 1 was better.

I fucked up and for got to spoiler the images.
sorry.

They mention it in XCOM1 as well the ethereals were trying to get humanity and the other aliens under their control to fight some other alien race that is even stronger than them, the avatar project was going to be their human units since they are both psionically competent and durable

All the X-COM plots were mostly excuse plots anyways

Looks like they released all the expansions they want to give a shit about, my money is on a XCOM Terror From the Deep, hopefully they won't fuck it up

It was mentioned in the first XCOM that the ethereals were looking for a way to beat another ayy superpower

Vanilla EU was better but LW2's shaping up to be better than LW1, haven't played much of the former though so I'm not entirely sure.

I too really want an XCOM terror from the deep

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well repost them faggot

k

The difference can be seen with the state of the ethereals in 1 vs 2. In the first game the ethereals are alot more lax(?) and much more numerous while in XCOM 2 they're on their last legs and are acting purely out of desperation. Which is why their DNA harvesting project is all kinds of fucked for long term gain.

speaking of ethereals during the very last battle in XCOM 2 There is an ethereal that says something like "you will defeat them as you have done before", was that the uber ethereal from the last game? can he travel between alternate timelines just to cheer me on?

Well because there's no air game, so at least they can't fuck that up.

Could you post a clip of the end? I don't remember hearing that, but it has been a while

The most popular ones I've come across is time shenanigans, or the blue glow is the ethereal from declassified.

bymp

You realize that the entire 1st game was the commander being fed tactical data from the aliens?
EXALT was Xcom in the real world, that's why they have a hologlobe.
This also explains what mecs were and why the Advent mec and the Xcom 1 mec were so similar looking.

This is a fucking fanfiction, it was never confirmed in the game or by the devs. As far as Jake said, Aliens attacked the XCOM headquarters early and XCOM lost, nothing in that game ever happened in any way in XCOM 2's universe. Also on top of that IIRC he said aliens attacked the base first month in "EU", so they completely disregarded EW anyway

Explained in an XCOM 2 dlc, for completely different reason

The main guy behind current XCOMs, Jake Solomon is a huge TFTD fan. IIRC it's his favourite game in the series so a remake of it is bound to happen at some point. Either as an expansion to XCOM 2 or a whole new game

Do you have an official source to back that up? Because I always assumed they were just different timelines.

Yeah they are different timelines, the devs themselves confirmed it to be this way when explaining XCOM2 is not a sequel.

I want to hop across dimensions and fight meat ufos damn it

It's different timelines, where that user got it from was that in one of the early cutscenes in XCOM 2 after researching brain chips or something like that, Black Vahlen says that the Ayys were using the Commander as a tactical computer to optimise their forces and the computers in the lab show footage of EU.

Further, it's mentioned in the tie-in novel that after the Commander was captured X-Com is basically scattered with the Shens hiding out in a nuclear sub while they try to recover the Avenger, Vahlen doing mad science in some island near Argentina for shits and giggles and Bradford getting absolutely shitfaced. What few regular troops there are seem to all get killed or start their own resistance cells, but as far as organised resistance is concerned, X-Com is basically dead until they get the Avenger up running and they don't actually win anything bigger than the odd skirmish until the Commander is freed.

So canonically XCOM 2 is working off of a timeline where X-Com shoot down a single UFO and then promptly get their base invaded with the Commander captured and forced to play video games for 20 years.

Meanwhile after her secret island base is destroyed by the Ayys, Vahlen goes on the run and apparently decides to make super aliens including a QT husbando which she apparently made hyper-fecund. Make of that what you will.

Apocalypse was amazing. It fucking kills me whenever I see another X-com remake or fan project that's just retreading the EXACT same ground as the original.

You know I was wondering what happened to her and figured she just died but no apparently she is off on some fucking insane sex adventure. I need to know more.

And after a while, technology too.

The Alien Hunters DLC has a level designed to introduce the new Ruler Aliens as well as give them some lore. If you have the DLC installed and the missions active then you get a short chain of geo-scape events involving you finding a crashed old Skyranger full of prototype weapons and a distress signal apparently from Vahlen which leads to a mission.

In the mission you send a squad +Bradford into a cave to search for Vahlen. You quickly find a laboratory has apparently been set up there and listen to Vahlen ominously talk about one of three test subjects she's been genetically modifying. You then get ambushed by ~20 really young Vipers with shit all health in an encounter that is basically designed to get you to use the Reaper ability Bradford has by default.

An audio-log Vahlen points out that all the Vipers you normally fight are all female. Not her Subject Gamma though, oh no. Vahlen has taken Viper DNA, fucked around with it and produced a male Viper with increased intelligence, cold powers and (as evidenced by the baby regular Vipers that ambush you) a fully functional penis. Did I mention that the cave was full of eggs? There are eggs all over the place. Apparently Gamma was able to sneak out, find some Advent Vipers and decided to start fugging them all and having them lay eggs around Vahlens lab for laughs.

Sadly, it turns out that producing super-aliens for shits and giggles is a bad idea and Gamma breaks the other two "Ruler" aliens out. You take your squad into the Viper King pen (which apparently takes up half the cave and is full of ice) and find the distress signal that attracted you in the hands of a dead woman who gets identified as just one of the many lab techs under Vahlen that were killed when her pets escaped. You finally have a one-on-entire-squad encounter with the Viper King and the mission ends when you kill him or after he flees.

The three "Ruler" aliens will now occasionally show up in missions from now on, at first alone but later with bodyguards. They have a shit-ton of health, unique abilities and take an action every time an X-Com soldier does rather than two at the end of every turn but will flee fights if they take too much damage, don't regain health if they flee fights (meaning that if they spawn in a later mission they will still be hurt from the last fight), never spawn together (so you'll only ever face one Ruler per mission), don't respawn if killed and drop unique armours if you do defeat them. The other two "ruler" aliens are a super Archon and Berserker but they both lack the amount of lore as the Viper King as they don't get any fanfare beyond (I think) a brief audio-log that plays the first time you encounter each one.

Vahlen meanwhile is still missing but given that the tie-in novel has her go missing after blowing up her entire island base after Advent finds it in order to fake her own death and after that she apparently thought that "super Viper test subject has escaped and seems to be using my lab as a nest" wasn't something that warranted sending someone to find X-Com and telling them she's got a problem, I kind of doubt she's doing anything good.

Source for the Snek audio logs: youtube.com/watch?v=Eb1bY2KNVXU

yeah she's kind of a short sighted mad scientist. Shen more or less proves himself to be the better scientist for this reason alone.

I wonder how moddable the game is
With enough effort, we might be able to create Neverwinter Nights 3, the new Xcom basically uses the D&D action system anyway so it won't be too hard to do if you can get rid of the Avenger and other stuff like that.

Didn't you read the lore? Deidranna was Enrico's Romanian trophy wife.

That reminds me, I've really been meaning to try Urban Chaos. Not that you can really play JA2 to death when you have 1.13 but I think a change of scenery would do it well.

bump I guess.

King Viper is cute, honestly.
Doesn't look noble or threatening, just cute.

You can always remove it by shooting it. No score penalty for terrain damage.

My biggest problem with xenonauts is that the soldiers looked so bland, the planes looked nice as hell but like in game it was really bland looking at your solders on screen.

You mean the default blue uniforms and first tier of armor? I didn't mind too much, I fully expected it because they were going for cold war themes. My real disappointment for the design was they chickened out of blue as the dominant color and make Xenonauts gradually shift and become the cobra unit, instead you end up looking like some MJ12 knockoff.

Having a bit of trouble with LW2. I keep running out of time before I even get the chance to liberate my first region. In my last playthrough I was infiltrating the regional HQ but just as I wanted to start the mission, it was game over.
What's the fastest way to liberate a region without having to do super risky missions?

From the coldwar coal miner outfit to the entie flight suit and mega armor suit, everything single armor or weapon everything dealing with the soldier was so bland.

Irl we have so many different types of outfits, like we have plate carriers, different set ups, etc If you look at by country it can get pretty different. If anything, they would be wearing civilian clothes

bumpers

Is there any cute fan art of King Viper?
I pet he likes his head rubbed.

not that im aware of, not a whole lot of XCOM art in general. Atleast not a lot of lewd ones.

Generally speaking, I wouldn't really use a whole lot of variety purely for logistical reasons.
That wouldn't matter because they come directly out of a Chinook on site, not being allowed to choose your uniform and colors I can see why you would not like that but generally speaking I wouldn't make something that isn't even all that secret a secret.

I'm not looking for lewd, though.

Never played xenonauts, worth a playthrough if I want more of the same but a bit different in terms of xcom?

IT CONFIRMED THAT VIPER HAVE MAMMARIES GLAND! THIS FUCKER DOESN'T HAVE THOSE BULGES, GODDAMNIT YOU JAKE!

It's a waste of AC tho

Fuck the king aliens. They're one of the most bullshit enemies to meet especially when you have to secure a vip with that shitty time that's always to short for some reason.

To be honest I'd have much preferred it if the ruler aliens once active boosted the spawn numbers/stats/ added a new variant of their related alien (Viper/Berserker/Archon) until you tracked down their lair and sent in a team to take them out in a mission that basically revolved around this one alien boss-fight like the intro-mission to the rulers did with the Viper King.

So rather than getting bullshit mission failures because a ruler patrolled into your squad and took out the VIP or managed to waste enough of your time before you complete the objective you instead had missions specially set up to be X-Com breaking into some Advent base and assassinating some super alien specially built up to be a threat to an entire squad on their own.

well that sounds pretty dank.

It's a streamlined (less inventory management, better UI etc) X-Com with a pretty neat air minigame. The weapons etc are kind of boring though but there's several mods for that.

But dats not eggsgom gomradd
Seriously, is it a reddit thing or a shill thing? The saying is autistic enough for either.

whats a shill thing?

That's Xcom Baby
Especially in relation to anything Alien Hunter's.

UB is pretty nice, but somewhat buggy, hard in the begging and can be tedious

only one penis? pleb.

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Vahlen was operating without a big budget, cut her some slack.

That said…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

Xenonaut2 dev thinks of removing dropships and having magical teleporters and "secret-alien-invasion" (except not so secret because you land UFOs in cities and kill people)

No vehicles either, doesn't look good.

source

X-COM 2 is on sale for 60% off right now. Good time to take the plunge? I like Enemy Unknown quite a bit, and I have the expansion too but never beat it because it kept fucking my shit up.

da fuck are they thinking?

just a big warning, its a chinese comic with short stories, everything is fucking gay except for the snake sibling incest
nhentai.net/g/143364/

MEh. No player-controlled vehicles doesn't bother me really

This, is nuCOM2 any good at this point half off?

I don't like getting too far away from the traditional formula. Certainly no dropships = no way. I'd rather for vehicles they just adjust them a bit, it can't be too hard to make them as useful as the tanks from X-Com '94.

honestly XCOM 1 is way better so id recommend finishing that before getting xcom2

I finished the base game, just not the expansion. Didn't seem like it added enough to justify forcing myself through it at the time.

Daily reminder

I mean maybe there is 1 frame where they show him teleporting away but I cant see it.

They did teleport away, and for more than one frame
You're just blind

I am not blind, I am just short sighted!

You need to be used to looking at individual frames and notice that difference in the split moment it switches frames and also happen to be looking at the guy to consciously to be able to see that.

bump.

I just played the bureau and it wasn't that bad.

You going for some faggotry record or something?

no I just have low standards.

Bump-com

The tweets are legit but it's nonsense anyway.
The ending makes more sense the way everyone else perceived it.

Also, I want to know if there's a better candidate for Volunteer than Annette Durand, who not only has The Gift but also has a pretty big "Will" score and you can level her up to make it even greater. I believe once I got her as a Heavy but most of the time she's an Assault. Mix with Gene Mods and add psi armor+helmet to make a destroyer of ayys.

In my Impossible run now (after this I'll uninstall the game and go full XCOM2). The only tactic I've ever needed is to rush Satellites (+1 in first month, +3 in the second, more sats in the third, feel free to skip a month if you're good because you'll need a lot of eingeneers and power and have the planet covered with satellites by the end of July 2015.
Oh, try to accept some Scientists in the first two months so you can develop more science faster. Scientists are actually more (only) useful in the first months of the game.
Try to rush the invasion of the Alien Base not only so you can receive that nifty worldwide bonus panic relief but also so the Aliens reduce the number of Abduction Missions. You can delay the plot advance after that for a while (i.e. creating that device that scans for alien ships).
African Bonus is best bonus, South-America comes 2nd.
Sniper is the best class, try having two of them in your team at the same time. Squadsight is the best ability. Snipers can shoot from one corner of the map everywhere, but only if they have line of sight. Keep the sniper in a place with good visibility and/or with elevation.

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try capturing some aliens, Maybe the long war does something different but normally aliens interrogated give you research credit so everything takes like 50% of the time it normally takes.

You can capture aliens in LW2?

my bad i got it confused with xcom 1.

im retard.

I dont know about you guys but MEC troopers are really fucking cool and gene mutation is pretty lame all things considered.

Bellator in machina!

A shame they completely fucked them up in Xcom 2.

There is no reason to if you dont have to. Like ever. Go ahead and endlessly bitch about shooters.

But none of the applies in …well. Non shooters basically. Even games like SupCom are playable on consoles

You'd think after seizing the means of reproduction the Vipers could ally with X-COM to fight back against Ethereal slavery, and establish a thousand year reign of two-at-a-time snek dik.

Vehicles never really were a big part. It's a tactical SQUAD game.
Plus, having 2x2 tiles (or larger) vehicles is problematic from a coding standpoint, and 1x1 are just shit, you're better off with a soldier

What the fuck is this post? He's obviously talking about UFO Defense you tard. Lurk more.

It was still nice to have the option, though. Tanks were a relatively safe way to scout a map and could bring firepower quickly where you needed it. I prefer more options, not less. Still, if they want to focus their gameplay on the infantry combat then I hope it works out well.

ATM they are re-making the Xenonauts will all the classical gameplay in.

The things they might try to experiment with is:
- one base (but you can build other facilities all over the planet)
- turn-based geoscape (unlikely they will go with it)
- magical teleporter instead of a dropship (the lead dev seem to really like this idea)

Aside from that, there are some interesting new ideas and changes, like improved research that is devided into categories and scientist specializations. It also ties into technology unlocks (getting 400 points in metalurgy might unlock a project, instead of it being tied to a specific mission or drop)

There's also a lot of talk about Cold War tensions and secret missions, since they ayyys are trying to be sneaky in the beginning and get USA and Russia to nuke each other with False Flags.

you know I really need to play xenonauts because that sounds absolutely hilarious.

The first game has nothing like that though.

what a shame

Fun fact: That's what started the Great War in Fallout according to fucking Bethesda
But that's for another thread I guess

Anyone has the coilguns from LW2 in action? I don't want to reinstall just to test them

The real problem is how Vahlen didn't account for him being a giant, flaming faggot.

What, did they retcon the chinks out of WW3?

They're cute but nothing special.

how do they look/sound?

You can see this dipshit firing one around the 30:58 mark. Enjoy your fucking spoon.

It was mainly between US and China but the aliens apparently had nuclear launch codes and fired nukes from one side just to kickstart the war

so how far has x com 2 mods gone. can we fuck snek women yet or can we be snek women yet.
is there endless war mode etc.

The ayys manipulating the governments I can deal with but you had me thinking they decided it's more topical to make the Russians the primary bad guys or something.

Possibly; yes for awhile now; you have the second best thing with LW2 as their campaign of vanilla+ randomized missions is meant to last up to a couple of weeks at least.

>no qt snake maid to clean your house

It's basically vanilla X-Com, which is alright. The iron man mode is pretty punishing since early game makes or breaks your whole session. Don't let the difficulty settings fool you, the other thing going for the game is mods the devs even made a free expansion mod.

Is there a magnet for latest version of Xenonauts?

I've always wanted to get into X-com, but I honestly have no idea where to start gameplay or storywise. Any suggestions?

What in the goddamn

If you can't find it just download 1.58 or whatever the version before 1.65 was called and apply X:CE ontop, since the latest patch was pretty much just applying X:CE fixes to vanilla.

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The first game, however get openxcom then follow install instructions. You can use GOG or steam version it doesn't matter. From there trial and error.

X-bump

I actually just finished Enemy Within today, as a matter of fact. I had played Enemy Unknown years ago, soon after it first came out, but grew so fucking sick of enemy squadrons that would literally just teleport around the map flanking and wiping out my squadrons that I uninstalled the game and swore it off. But lately I was talking to someone about the game and they said that it was pretty much bug free at this point, so I picked it up again, along with Enemy Within since that was cheap as hell and I was told it was better than vanilla.

It was NOT bug free. It's true that I didn't run into any of the teleporting Muton squads that had pissed me off so much years ago, but at least once a fucking mission there'd be something that made me rage at the goddamned game. I can't recall anything specifically from the earlier missions, but in the Temple Assault ALONE I had:

1) A Sniper who was never able to Double Tap because, for some unknown fucking reason, shooting one enemy would cause him to immediately lose sight of the other 2 or 3 enemies he had just had vision of
2) A Heavy who, for some unexplained reason, always detected an enemy in sight (attempting to fire on the nonexistent unit lead to a "No enemy in sight" notification with a 0% stated hit chance) and was therefore never able to make use of Mimetic Skin from the second room onward
3) Randomly being unable to move units through other friendly units (if you're not supposed to be able to do that, then I guess literally every single other mission in the game was bugged, as I had frequently had units running through occupied spaces and even occasionally had two units standing on the same square at the same time)

And none of that is even taking into account all of the standard gameplay changes that the game made that I fucking despised (I don't know whose fucking idea it was to give enemy squads free movement upon being discovered but they should be shot). But I forced myself to finish the entire campaign this time. Now I'll never have to install it again for any reason whatsoever.