One of the devs said in an interview somewhere that they didn't expect Impossible Ironman to be beaten. I guess the real test is to get as far as you before the game eats your lunch.
One of the devs said in an interview somewhere that they didn't expect Impossible Ironman to be beaten. I guess the real test is to get as far as you before the game eats your lunch.
One of testers beat the game in impossible ironman mode though, didnt they say?
bah no thank you, I maybe MAYBE try classic ironman at some point, but even that just sounds like one ridiculously stressful experience after the other.
I think impossible+ironman is more likely to be how far you get before you just stop out of frustration with the games randomization.
Having played the game on Classic everything was quite manageable. But Classic+Ironman quickly devolved into hoping the game does not screw me with either a bad sequence of strategic map events or ridiculous combat rolls, (in the first half of the game). "Oh hi didn't see you there, my best sniper on high ground behind heavy cover, and in upgraded smoke grenade getting one shotted by a measly Muton with a light plasma. Wassup 4 missed overwatches on a suddenly teleported group of ravagers, yolo! What's that a very heavy UFO class showed up, two shotting your interceptors in month two taking down an expensive satellite and simultaneously raising panic levels? Or would the sir prefer 4 abduction missions in a row to spike the panic levels from blue to on the verge of dropping out? Or random menu has an exquisite selection of treats for you!"
I think impossible+ironman is more likely to be how far you get before you just stop out of frustration with the games randomization.
Having played the game on Classic everything was quite manageable. But Classic+Ironman quickly devolved into hoping the game does not screw me with either a bad sequence of strategic map events or ridiculous combat rolls, (in the first half of the game). "Oh hi didn't see you there, my best sniper on high ground behind heavy cover, and in upgraded smoke grenade getting one shotted by a measly Muton with a light plasma. Wassup 4 missed overwatches on a suddenly teleported group of ravagers, yolo! What's that a very heavy UFO class showed up, two shotting your interceptors in month two taking down an expensive satellite and simultaneously raising panic levels? Or would the sir prefer 4 abduction missions in a row to spike the panic levels from blue to on the verge of dropping out? Or random menu has an exquisite selection of treats for you!"
Granted i'm still having fun with it ^.^
This almost caused me to break something the first time it caused me to lose a guy, I feel you.
Just got over the first hump in Ironman Classic (my third try on Ironman Classic, though I beat the game on Ironman Normal by now). The campaign was almost lost, after 2 complete mission failures early on, with loads of dice roll bullshit going down, lost all of Europe - and by the time I was halfway ready to go after the Alien Base, pretty much the whole world was about to collapse on me. Managed to get the Alien Base done, and now everything is in the green again. Hopeful that I'll pull through, and get Ironman Classic sorted out.
Can't imagine Impossible difficulty to entice me for yet another playthrough. Just sounds deliberately unfair, even more so than Classic can be at times. Nonetheless - learning to deal with losses is a great experience you almost only get from XCOM. Love it.
I've been trying to get through Ironman Classic, and that's bad enough. I haven't made it more than a few months without starting to screw up.
I'm trying to beat the game on Classic Ironman, and it's really tough. I do very well for a while, and then everything falls apart to the point where I can't possibly go any further.
@BoG this is where I was at with iron man normal. I start out good, heck Id even say fantastic and I slowly get worn down. I'm on my second normal playthrough now and hoping to beat that and move on to classic
@AbeBroHamLincon: Impossible Ironman is... impossible. ha. It's a battle of how far you can get before everything falls apart.
Though, I was watching someone Twitchtv last night who is doing decently on Impossible Ironman. You do have to abort missions sometimes and return everyone to the ship, and you'll definitely be straddling the line on how many countries have left XCOM. Just try to see how far you can get. :)
174 days into my third attempt at Ironman Classic, the Council disbanded XCOM. 7 lost battles. Houndreds of lost soldiers. I was so close. I had several top notch soldiers, but they were always alone in a sea of rookies and squaddies, and perished heroicly in the line of duty.
XCOM is all about getting that A-Team up and running, before the tide washes you away. I came close, but evidently failed. Next time, I'll turn the tide.
It's time to take a break from XCOM. Might pick up a PSP and Valkyria Chronicles 2. Not giving up on Ironman Classic, but I need to recuperate first. Ironman Impossible? Never! Excuse me - I need to go to bed and curl myself up in a ball.
(in the first half of the game). "Oh hi didn't see you there, my best sniper on high ground behind heavy cover, and in upgraded smoke grenade getting one shotted by a measly Muton with a light plasma.
You mean he struck a critical hit from lower ground through tick smoke and high cover? WTF is up with this game?
Played a normal game trough completion with 1 casualty and it seems my tactical choices tiped the ods in my favor with 6 dudes agains a horde of aliens. Now playing classic and shit is fucked. I feel like aliens get a some insane accuracy and crit rate buffs and your soldiers start without the abillity to hit an ennemy at point blank range.
Despite wanting to take a break, I started up a new Ironman Classic campaign the very next day. Pretty sure I'll beat it this time around. Got a killer squad, good gear including plasma rifles, the firestorm is in the making, have sufficient council support - and am about to finish Act I with the Alien Base Assault. Won't take much to get myself ready to finish Act II and III at all.
Then I'll finally be able to play BF3 again, just in time to get back on my A-game for the BF3 Aftermath expansion. Unless I still can't stop thinking of XCOM, and I'm going after Impossible Ironman after all - that is.
I dunno if I could stomach an ironman run on anything higher than normal. I imagine it would only take one enemy unit getting a miraculous crit on a senior unit in proper cover, taking him/her from 100% health to dead in one shot, to make me pull the disc and toss it out into the grass outside. D:
I need my bullshit safety net reloads there for just-in-case. Particularly so when it seems like my units either get hit for less than their remaining HP or they get insta-killed. It has been quite rare so far to have a unit in the alive but bleeding out state. I would play ironman if the probability of insta-kill wasn't so high.
I don't mean to spam, but Beagle on Youtube is doing an Ironman Impossible run here. His videos are concise and informative - could be a big help to some.
Impossible Ironman has at least been recently shown to be possible. After putting 100+ hours into the game, the twitchtv streamer and professional gamer ROOTslush beat Ironman on Impossible difficulty. I watched it live, and you can find archives of his successful run on his twitchtv page. It was... insane. http://www.twitch.tv/slush
Still on my Normal, non-Ironman playthrough (Borderlands 2 and school taking up too much time). Hopefully by the time I'm finished with that and start my Classic Ironman playthrough, most of the bugs will be ironed out. Playing on Ironman where enemies can toss grenades or shoot through obstacles and geometry doesn't sound like it would be much fun.
I don't mean to spam, but Beagle on Youtube is doing an Ironman Impossible run here. His videos are concise and informative - could be a big help to some.
I tried my first impossible Ironman game today, lost the very first mission 3 times in a row. After finishing Classic Ironman with just 3 deaths a couple days before. So yeah, it's pretty IMPOSIBURU!
@Tennmuerti: Haha that indeed sounds as a good time.
I don't mean to spam, but Beagle on Youtube is doing an Ironman Impossible run here. His videos are concise and informative - could be a big help to some.
@TruthTellah said:
@Tennmuerti: Nice. Good luck!
Impossible Ironman has at least been recently shown to be possible. After putting 100+ hours into the game, the twitchtv streamer and professional gamer ROOTslush beat Ironman on Impossible difficulty. I watched it live, and you can find archives of his successful run on his twitchtv page. It was... insane. http://www.twitch.tv/slush
Having just started my own impossible ironman run, I have to say ... FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK >< GHAAA
Also while those guys in the two vids are quite good they also got incredibly lucky for their first mission. Getting missions with some nice good terrain and most importantly, not getting one shot behind heavy cover, aliens being totally unaggressive in the stream to the point that it seemed broken, and generally hitting 25% shots on exposed enemy mind melders, with full damage no less ... that's just super fucking lucky.
My impossible ironman run has been restarted half a dozen times now. Dudes getting one shotted behind heavy cover all over the place and constantly missing 65%+ shots.
I thought the same thing when I was watching some of those. Some of the shots their rookies were making were completely absurd from my experience so far. As in, if I would have landed them, I would have been doing cartwheels.
My play through is going "ok" I guess, but it seems impossible to keep two or usually three countries from leaving at the end of the first month. You just can't get satellites up quickly enough with no income or engineers, and the nations you don't pick on abduction missions immediately go to full panic most of the time. This next month will probably make or break the play through (again). It's not the ground level game so much as it is the global panic, since it escalates so quickly right off the bat.
Just to regale some stories of my starting attempts on impossible:
1st mission, I trigger 2 groups of sectoids that are literally right on top of each other, that's right 2 groups were standing in one spot, so triggering both at the same time was inevitable! awesome!, same mission 2 of my rookies both miss 65% shots on an exposed 1 bar sectoid mind melding another, rookie gets crit shot behind heavy cover to the face
2nd mission, I uncover the first group, stay in the same spot, and get over the next 3 turns get three more patrol groups run into my squad that has barely moved from the starting position! so I was in a map corner facing 4 total groups with 2 of them flanking me
gg
or another run, my best one yet i got 3(4th?) missions in!, my first and only support gets crit shot behind heavy cover by a measly sectoid half a mile away (on a UFO down mission) , my first/only heavy panics and crit shoots my only assault to death, rookie panics, I miss the next turn, and have 2 rookies left with absolutely 0 promoted dudes in the bank and 2 sectoid groups in the field
gg
oooooh i got another one! this one is fresh from the oven still hot! 1st mission in, my 4 rookies are going around the map behind heavy cover (long truck), trigger a group, instantly flanked with nowhere to back up, all 4 have a 45% chance to hit the 1 alien flanking them, 3 miss 4th hits for 3 out of 4 ... alien survives, rookie, plasma to the face, panic, and the rest is history
Impossible ironman so far makes me feel like I am playing dice against a dude with weighted dice, while classic ironman was relatively pain free for me ><, i could plan for RNG on classic, i can't plan for this much BS
OK i'm gonna hook you people up, this one is fuckng hiiiiiiilarious:
(i was flanking the invisible enemy which is why some dudes are out of cover)
overwatch is so boss
That really is fucking hilarious, and I say that with a profound sense of empathy.
Some friends of mine were over after a night out while I was playing the start of my Ironman/Impossible game and got trashed from playing "Take a shot every time Grimhild says 'Oh my God, what the fuck?' 'Of course you would miss that!' or mocking Jake Solomon (whom I love, don't get me wrong) by saying 'Hurrrrrrr daaaaAAATS XCOM!" drinking game.
I don't mean to spam, but Beagle on Youtube is doing an Ironman Impossible run here. His videos are concise and informative - could be a big help to some.
His strategy is actually REALLY helpful. Hunker Down is INSANELY useful when you're out and about. You can't get crit, and gain like 20 defense.
Plus it also exploits the enemy "pathing" so that they can "move" into an area you can see if you aren't hunkering down, but can't if you are. The reason this works is because the aliens don't ACTUALLY move. They just teleport from waypoint to waypoint until you find them or the game deems it time to run them in. Though it should be mentioned this isn't true in Terror missions.
I am currently of opinion that impossible ironman is just as much about luck on the early stages as it is about skill.
There are some situations that will just fuck you, and there will be nothing you can do about it. A lucky crit against your dude in heavy cover can lead to a chain panic that will bring down your entire team core team, and have fun recovering from that on impossible ironman. Or you get cornered on a map on the first or second turn by several squads of aliens. Or you get a bomb mission in a particularly bad map that forces 4 groups to be basically hugging each other with all the resets on their side. There are simply scenarios you sometimes can do nothing about. Even all the overwatches and hunkering downs in elevated high cover are sometimes not enough, and/or there is no more map to retreat to.
10 restarts in. I'm halfway through my second month. 3 countries left on the first, which is probably a best case scenario. 2 abduction missions are enough to panic 4 countries and you only have 1 satellite. I am fucking stripping everything down to nuts and bolts, my operation is running on fumes and prayers, the second UFO was completely sold even the non broken stuff. But now I feel at least somewhat secure that 3 satellites and an uplink will be ready before the second council meeting.
The second UFO mission (intact) was a goddamn trial by fire, thank fucking god for my mid level assault, he is the only reliable motherfucker on the team.
So my strategy changed somewhat, even creeping forward with constant overwatch on is simply not good enough on impossible ironman. A few misses or a bad flank and you still get fucked. Just encountered floaters and thin men with 6hp each they are an absolute pain to kill at low levels with standard firearms. currently I find a good spot to with a lot of high cover somewhere at the start and send forward my agile support with extra movement forward, then if he triggers something I run him the fuck back to the rest of the team, who are all on overwatch. This way at least ensures that even when I am fighting without moving forward, it's much harder for another group to stumble into the fight, which makes it more manageable at least.
On the positive side, I can't remember experiencing such incredible joy in a game for a long time. The are frustrations and shouts of anger for sure. But from time to time I explode with exuberant shouts while jumping on the bed and pumping my fist in the air telling aliens to suck on my mammalian anatomy with evil glee; when a rocket finds a target group, or a sniper nails that 50% high cover headshot on a mind merger. And exhale with relief when a turn in a firefight passes without anyone taking damage. Each single mission is a torrent of emotions that leaves me drained and shaking in need of a break.
Damn I hate impossible ironman so so much, yet I can't stop playing it.
I couldn't seem to even finish the first mission in Impossible, but I finally realized. Just as how you can't play Classic as if you would normal, you cant play Impossible as if you would Classic mode.
Keeping to high cover is no longer enough. High cover in Impossible is the low cover of Classic.
What has been working for me, is staying out of sight completely, backing a lot, and just engaging when I have the number advantage over an alien.
Also, bring two rookies always, and once they die, fucking retreat everyone!
It has been "working" in the sense that I havent just lost immediately, instead its a long and painful process :D
Well I got over the hump of the alien base and now everything is going smoothly (or at least as smooth as it can), still harder then classic obv. but much more manageable and less reliant on luck.
Really the first 1-3 month are the absolute worst, hell on earth type of deal (har har), god the painfull memories! Hardest part of the game, just like they was on classic. Once you get your high tech toys and leveled up soldiers things are much more in your favour.
That's not to say the game doesn't keep throwing curveballs at you. The difficulty of enemies keeps rising. I just had a terror mission on the tiny map with 1 building in the centre. There were 4 ... FOUR sectopod groups and a muton berserker group. Two of the sectopod groups and the muton/berserker group were in the same tiny building, i don't even fucking know how they managed to get inside considering they're bigger then the damn doors or how they all managed to cram in there lol. And straight after that an intact supply ship surprised me by a sheer number of enemies that never ended, a total of 24 aliens consisting of sectopods, muton elites and sectoid commanders; every time I thought that was the last group the map stubbornly refused to end.
There were 4 ... FOUR sectopod groups and a muton berserker group. Two of the sectopod groups and the muton/berserker group were in the same tiny building, i don't even fucking know how they managed to get inside considering they're bigger then the damn doors or how they all managed to cram in there lol.
haha, holy shit!
Are you playing with Ironman mode on? my hat off to you sir. I haven't gotten that far.
How many countries did you lose by the time you reached the alien base?
Impossible Ironman has at least been recently shown to be possible. After putting 100+ hours into the game, the twitchtv streamer and professional gamer ROOTslush beat Ironman on Impossible difficulty. I watched it live, and you can find archives of his successful run on his twitchtv page. It was... insane. http://www.twitch.tv/slush
I watched like 4 hours of this. It's fucking intense.
Impossible basically sets you up to lose 3 countries in the first month, because 2 abduction missions mean 4 countries panic instantly and you only can get 1 satellite deployed. Second month is triage and hoping for not too many bad mission choices, still you can have the next 3 satellite ready to drop at the end of the month, I lost another 1 country at that point. Third month I planned for relying on the alien base to reduce the panic levels and save the countries (plus the next batch of satellites).
Or to be precise and impossible ironman. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.
Some parting images for the memories. You know the guys in this impossible ironman run were so much more dear to me and i was way more attached for them than any of my previous 2 classic playthroughs. And interestingly enough I did not feel very elated at the ending when I first finished the game. But now, now when the ending cutscene started to play it actually felt EPIC!
I have found that I cannot enjoy the game on a difficulty higher than normal (with Iron-man). Classic just seems to kick my ass and the randomness with dice-rolls defining your accuracy makes it a load of bullshit.
Yep. And so do I. The closest I can give you is a picture of my save slots, but even that just says "Ironman" on it and not the difficulty. This is the whole reason I wasn't going to post it, but Tennmuerti asked me to, so there you go.
@Grimhild: I don't even know what to say! Jesus Fucking Christ, you people are insane. I wish i could play XCOM more often. I'm playing Super House of Dead Ninjas right now. Yes, it's a browser game. DON'T JUDGE ME! Also, people keep calling you "man" and "dude"... So that means i got your gender wrong all this time?
EDIT: About being called "man" and "dude", that is. I still care about you being one of those unwashed "casual" gamers that plays browser games... bleh... ;)
EDIT: About being called "man" and "dude", that is. I still care about you being one of those unwashed "casual" gamers that plays browser games... bleh... ;)
IT REQUIRES SKILL! I SWEAR! Go get that frickin' laser sword if you don't understand! But seriously, it's a cool and pretty well made game, with homages to the SNES era. It's cool. Here, check it out Also, about being called a dude, it reminds me of the time where my name wasn't MikeGosot(It was Gore_Girl. Don't ask why.), and sometimes i got super weird friend requests.
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