9 Tips for XCOM: Enemy Unknown

As you might have noticed, I’ve been playing a lot of XCOM lately.

I’ve learned the hard way how not to play XCOM, so here are some tips on how to make the most of your game:

• Don’t rush: It’s so tempting to go haring around the map to figure out where the aliens are. Don’t do it. You have an elite tactical squad – proceed through the map methodically from cover to cover, always watching each other’s flanks. If you send a rookie dashing forwards and he disturbs some aliens at work, there’s nothing he can do to protect himself. His support is probably too far behind to help. Say goodbye to your rookie. Move slow, use overwatch and keep your guns reloaded.
• Spread out: Not only will you cover more ground, but cyberdisks and mutons won’t hesitate to sling a grenade if they can hit two at once. You should do the same to them.
• Build satellites: I cannot emphasise this enough. They take 20 days to build, so start early and get those extra resources from your favourite countries. Cover an entire continent to get those bonuses as well. The satellite nexus South America only has 2 countries and gives you instant interrogations and autopsies, so it’s a good place to start. Research the satellite nexus for a good boost to your capability.
• Research your defenses: If you don’t, the alien attacks will soon far outstrip your hitpoints and your soldiers will turn into one-hit meat pulp. Build a few nanovests from the alien materials research and use them to buff your guys who don’t need to carry medikits or the arc thrower. Upgrade your armour as soon as you can.
• Bring snipers. Put them high up: It’s possible to win without snipers but they do make it a lot easier. Squadsight is far more useful than removing the overwatch restriction on a sniper rifle because a good sniper is still deadly at range with a pistol. If you can, put them behind elevated cover for combat bonuses. A well-placed plasma shot has saved my team’s ass on many occasions.
• Buy the squad upgrades: As your soldiers level up, you’ll unlock squad upgrades. Buy them. Buy them all. But first, buy Squad Size I to get five units on your team and then buy Wet Work so your people improve faster.
• Don’t commit before you have to: Many a time I’ve moved a soldier into a good position and dumped him into overwatch only to have my next soldier reveal a cache of aliens. Worst case scenario? A giant frigging muton berserker who ran right into our midst. These guys can pound you into mulch so you need to put them down quickly and a soldier already in overwatch is useless during your turn. Move everyone, then put them into overwatch or reload or whatever it is they need to do.
• Beware of the Foundry: The upgrades are sweet but that Foundry research uses a lot of resources. Keep tabs on your alloy and elerium stash. You’ll need it for the good gear.
• Take out the drones: You’ll thank me for this one when you come across the cyberdisks.

Yes, there’s a lot of emphasis on research. Here’s a handy research tree that user agent86 created for Stack Exchange. I’ve not unlocked everything myself so I can’t vouch for complete accuracy but it looks about right for the parts I know.

Good luck, commander. You’ll need it. Got any of your own tips that other players should know? Leave them in the comments.

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