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I'm hoping in the upcoming holiday to get XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and was wondering I have never played XCOM ever, I only became interested after playing Warhammer Squad Commander on the PSP and I'm wondering what would be a good difficulty to start at. I want to play Ironman so its harder but I don't at the same time is there a good inbetween or is XCOM going to be evil.

LumbarGibbon wrote:
I'm hoping in the upcoming holiday to get XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and was wondering I have never played XCOM ever, I only became interested after playing Warhammer Squad Commander on the PSP and I'm wondering what would be a good difficulty to start at. I want to play Ironman so its harder but I don't at the same time is there a good inbetween or is XCOM going to be evil.

Well Ironman really does nothing but enforce discipline by keeping you from save scumming, it doesn't really make the game "Harder" per se just makes it so you can't trial-and-error your way through a single play through.

Honestly I'd just slap it on normal non-ironman for your first play through. It'll still be challening and let you learn the mechanics without pulling your hair out. After you finish that up you can move on to a classic ironman game. It'll be really hard but you'll understand where you're making mistakes and should get through after a few a tries.

The game has a lot of replay value, don't be worried about getting in the whole experience right away by jumping straight into harder play levels, it'll do nothing but frustrate you and sour you on the game.

I'll try that still I only am going to reload saves if I fail a level and is the classic mode with ironman or is it another mode? Thanks for the advice by the way.

LumbarGibbon wrote:
I'll try that still I only am going to reload saves if I fail a level and is the classic mode with ironman or is it another mode? Thanks for the advice by the way.

Ironman vs Non-Iron man isn't a difficulty mode. All Ironman does is disable loading saves. The game maintains a single save that auto overwrites itself after ever player and enemy move, each event on the world map, each thing you build in the base etc... etc.. meaning you can n ever go back and "Fix" something, or not take a shot because you missed when you had a 90% chance to hit.

You can enable the Ironman mode on any difficulty level.

Difficulty levels are different:

Easy: You get extra money. Aliens have less health. Your guys have more health. Countries are less likely to panic. The AI is nerfed (has some smart features disabled)
Normal: You get normal money. The aliens have normal health. Your guys have normal health. Everything is baseline. The AI is nerfed.
Classic. You get less money. The aliens have a tiny bit extra health, you guys have slightly less. All aliens get extra to-hit bonuses. Countries panic just a bit more. The full AI is unlocked.
Impossible: You get even less money. Your dudes are made out of tissue paper. Aliens have substantial health bonuses. Aliens have the same increased to hit bonuses and a think a slight damage increase. There are extra aliens per mission (way more), countries are cowards. The full AI is unlocked.

not going for impossible then thats for sure, thanks for clearing that up it was confusing before.