Veteran Difficulty Help
I beat veteran first try, it’s certainly possible, though annoying. (Final mission involved rocket launcher suicide squads, it was very funny).
Community edition, installed from the steam beta options menu, has somewhat better balance than the vanilla game. Bravery actually works to defend against psionics, at least. It also buffs vehicles armour, though I never had problems with that in particular.
Two planes per base is not enough, only good for first month. Aim for three bases, in middle east, central america, and between china and australia, in that order. Four planes each, three foxtrots and one corsair. Corsairs effortlessly clap the escorts while foxtrots bomb the main craft out of the way. You can try 2 foxtrot 2 corsair which is probably better, but I prefer foxtrots since they are significantly easier to control in battle.
I have, funnily enough, never had a tank actually die to anything, though I do make a point of withdrawing them from combat once they sustain enough damage. Don’t full move into the unknown, keep your troops covering the tank, don’t overextend. Or just not use tanks, you can win without them in a pinch.
LOS in this game is pain. It is not impossible to play around, and I have exactly zero failed missions, but honestly you should just give up on the idea of beating missions with no casualties. Your guys will die to nonsense and that’s just how it is.
Vertical LOS in particular is handled extremely poorly and a sniper sitting on a roof is basically completely invisible to ground level troops even though by all logic they should be able to see him. The only real counter is to research Buzzard ASAP and have at least a couple guys scouting out the rooftops for you. Beyond that, just do your best to keep to full cover at all times to not get shot from the darkness.
Shields are very, very good. I keep at least two shield guys at all times, they are extremely useful when breaching. Do give them a spare rifle in case their shield breaks, which it probably will.
Aliens will only throw grenades if they see two or more soldiers close together to get tagged by one. Grenade radius is two tiles orthogonally, one tile diagonally. Avoid placing your soldiers in grenade bait formations. Yes, they know where all your soldiers are at all times, though they still need to see the tile they intend to throw the grenade at.
Until you have plasma technology, use electroshock grenades against androns, which will obliterate them in one or two hits. Once plasma rifles and plasma grenades are online, you should be able to take care of them like any other enemy.
Killing civilians hurts your relations and funding with the nation, but the effect is rather negligible. Don’t do it for complete ♥ and giggles, but if you aren’t confident in a clean takedown, rockets it is.
The most important part is winning the air game. Invest heavily in your planes. Once you can swat down all the UFOs, you have functionally unlimited cash, and can recover from just about anything. I royally ♥ up the air game in my first playthrough and at one point Southern Africa was giving me exactly 250$ of funding, but I still managed to fully recover from that. You can recover from more failures than you’d expect possible.
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