/tg/ - Traditional Games

If I remember since in XCOM 1 the bad ending happened and the counsel of nations were mind controlled by sectoids to surrender.

In our world I am expect hard core terrorism/militia cells popping up everywhere the aliens in XCOM are to specialized in one role which is the reason why they wanted human genes to make the best super soldiers to join there army

>>221769

>In our world I am expect hard core terrorism/militia cells popping up everywhere the aliens in XCOM

Definitely in certain countries. America would have them pop up and maybe even have state/federal sanctioning to some extent if shit gets bad enough.

Eastern Europe & the Middle East/West Asia would definitely have them too.

From what I've seen of the alien invaders' technolical level and whatnot? Humanity's armies get rolled over for lunch money, Earth becomes a cattle colony. The End.

>>221777

I don't think that would necessarily be inevitable if the Alien's entire force remains similar to the game. How many aliens can be killed in classic XCOM or even long war? Hundreds? Maybe thousands? That's not enough to occupy an entire planet. And again, this is assuming they just don't try lobbing WMDs, but try attacking us through more conventional military means. Guerrilla/terrorist warfare at most.

So maybe they could take out the bulk of the major airforces and dominate airspace over the course of days/weeks/months.

I've had the thought that such an invasion would go the path of least resistance and hit poor/militarily weak nations first. That way a response from the stronger nations would be delayed and the aliens would have footholds.

>>221795

This game should have never been called XCOM

>>221783

>>221780

The general idea seems to be that the aliens didn't want to incite total war or active occupation, because they see humanity as a resource and unnecessary casaulties as wasteful. Their aim in X-COM isn't outright conquest (As Shen mentions they could do so easily if they wanted) but to spread terror, destabilise countries and infiltrate governments to make humanity willingly surrender.

Hence why their activities are a mix of scientific activities (Abducting humans from all over the world to gain samples and biomass, probably mapping out humanity's genome with their own ability) and terrorism (bombings and rampages in crowded areas) to destabilise society and convince people that resistance is futile.

As for X-COM's response, that's the tricky bit. Too easy to figure that it'd be a miracle that something like X-COM could be formed in the first place, given the distrust, corruption and difficulty of cooperation between countries we see in the first place. Likely that every nation has their own independent resistance efforts going on, hoarding knowledge and resources, that doesn't go well because the aliens are acting on a global scale. Probably realistic that X-COM has to fight so hard for funding and resources.

EXALT is pretty likely, though.

To a broad overview, it would be pretty close to what the XCOM game was like, except that first there would also be an X-Files division telling the X-Com jarheads where to point their guns and second there would be multiple different X-Com organizations, at minimum one each for America, Russia, and China, and they would work together to greater or lesser extent based on the situation. Which also means there would likely be infighting and paranoia. Is the Russian X-Com breaking ties because they've been infiltrated by aliens, or are they just being dicks?

The aliens have an overwhelming technology advantage but their numbers are incredibly limited, making a straight invasion impossible. Instead, their plan is to use mind control to take over world leadership invisibly and dupe humans into being their occupying force. So the X-COM guys work in small, 5-10 man units and have total numbers somewhere in the neighborhood of a few thousand, most of whom are base defense personnel. This makes it relatively easy to weed out infiltrators as opposed to a millions-strong united Earth army, and they only need to be big enough to kill sectoids mind-controlling VIPs, punching through that VIP's private security (possibly including government soldiers/police who either work for a non-compliant government or are willing to break ranks on their bosses' command) and any aliens sent in to help. Depending on the VIP and how cooperative the local government is, you might need anywhere from a single 6-man X-COM squad on hand to take over if local government forces break down to a 30-man platoon launching an assault against a hostile government facility, but either way you don't need infantry divisions and you don't benefit from having a much larger army that's far more vulnerable to infiltration.

Since humans do have a decisive numerical advantage, however, it is the aliens, not the humans, who will need to pick and choose which operations they want to reinforce, while X-COM can send a squad to thwart every single abduction attempted. Also, it is unclear why they attempt abductions, but I am assuming the aliens need abducted humans as part of their infiltration plan.

Now, terror missions are where things get weird. In X-COM, a terror mission is a huge abstraction. It's played up like it's basically an invasion of a city, but the total number of aliens is like fifteen and the total number of doods sent to stop them is like five. And the city being invaded is protected by an army, which can crush the invading force under their numbers (unless they can't, in which case the aliens don't need to be all sneaky and subtle all, they can just launch a global invasion). So the realistic version of this would be that the aliens are presumably dispatching several thousand aliens to try and cause havoc before government forces can show up, and if X-COM helps it's mostly in an advisory position, because the member nations can use their own damn armies to defend their own damn cities. They probably have closer bases anyway. There is a serious question, however, of why the aliens even want to conduct terror missions. In the game they arbitrarily cause council members to lose faith in X-COM and withdraw, but that only makes sense if they expected X-COM to defend them instead of their military, rather than in addition to their military. If you've just had one of your cities ripped apart, why would you then choose to back out of a defense pact? Terror missions might make sense as an attempt to cause political instability in order to give alien-controlled VIPs the opportunity to seize the public narrative by being strongly anti-alien and criticizing the government for failing to stop the attacks. That's a risky ploy, since in X-COM 2 the aliens' plan is to rule openly. Terror missions just don't meaningfully advance the aliens' objectives in the first place.

Since we don't have any means to read an alien species' mind, the plot of mind-fucking aliens to find secret base locations isn't going to happen, but the X-Files division might be able to locate them on their own. And an alternative route to victory would be to just wear the aliens down with attrition, thwarting their attacks until they no longer have any sectoids left to mind control world leaders. Really, when it comes to available resources and effective strategies, the aliens and X-Com are almost exactly backwards in the actual X-COM game. X-Com has effectively unlimited numbers and can deploy to far more hot zones than the aliens. The aliens are much more powerful individually but must pick and choose their battles and too many botched missions will cause attrition that they can't recover from (although the aliens probably won't suffer the "one failed mission will doom us all" sort of attrition problem that X-Com faced in the games).

>>221769

>All resistance disappears once you mind control the world leaders

Jesus christ that's stupid.

>>221843

Well, to the average civie, things are actually pretty cool, since the ylive longer and better, although the dont know abotu the avatar project and the abductions.

>>221843

>>221846

And apparently ADVENT sells them some ridiculously good hamburgers but no one knows what they're made of.

>>221828

>Also, it is unclear why they attempt abductions, but I am assuming the aliens need abducted humans as part of their infiltration plan.

It's pretty strongly implied or outright stated in the games that they do so to stock up on humans for experiments, examinations and food. Their goals are to turn humanity into their new ideal slave race, having just the right mix of physical ability, intelligence and psionic potential compared to the relatively flawed slave races they throw at us.

Also not hard to imagine that X-COM itself is an underfunded, token international effort while every country's own organisations are too restricted by global boundaries, suspicion and infighting to effectively combat the aliens' plans. While the aliens use their technology and organisation to take full advantage of humanity's divisions.

>>221846

>>221843

Yeah, the idea is that at least on the surface the aliens are offering a better society- they don't give a shit about race, wealth or ethnicity, they provide tons of free medical treatments and cures to diseases, and make lives better for the average citizen than the corrupt, greedy and incompetent humans that preceded them, or at least put a lot of effort into convincing everyone they are.

It's not hard to imagine being liking a government that made the rich assholes who've been looting the country disappear and built shiny new cities and gave out free stuff. Though XCOM 2 seems to make it pretty clear that it's a facade set up by aliens who don't understand humans half as well as they think they do.

>>221861

>It's pretty strongly implied or outright stated in the games that they do so to stock up on humans for experiments, examinations and food.

What's the rush, though? In X-COM 2 we see that they plan on sticking around Earth for decades after their immediate victory, entrenching themselves as humanity's rulers and poking around at our genetics. Why launch the abductions immediately when you could wait until after you've already taken over?

>Also not hard to imagine that X-COM itself is an underfunded, token international effort while every country's own organisations are too restricted by global boundaries, suspicion and infighting to effectively combat the aliens' plans.

I find that second part pretty hard to imagine. Black ops operating in another nation's boundaries happens all the time, and while suspicion and infighting might make them less effective, it won't make them so ineffective that X-Com doesn't even notice they're there. Plus, there's no mechanic for getting nations more fully on board with you. Which there easily could've been, since the satellites mechanic works almost exactly like that, except instead of convincing nations to take you seriously, you launch a satellite and they're immediately on board. It makes it seem like their support is conditional to you putting a satellite over their airspace, but a bunch of the council nations have the ability to launch satellites themselves.

>>221877

>What's the rush, though? In X-COM 2 we see that they plan on sticking around Earth for decades after their immediate victory, entrenching themselves as humanity's rulers and poking around at our genetics. Why launch the abductions immediately when you could wait until after you've already taken over?

Maybe they consider that to be a high priority and don't want to delay it, and/or it's basically a prelude to the terror missions in spreading fear and panic and encouraging human governments to capitulate. Or on the other hand, they didn't expect humanity to be as organised as they are so they just start the harvesting process right away; terror missions only begin once you actually start shooting down UFOs, for example. X-COM makes them escalate and speed up the process.

There's a lot of ambiguity and mystery to what the aliens' motives actually are even when they give some idea of their goals, and their thought processes and priorities are just as alien. Likewise, they probably don't really understand humanity very well, at least at first.

As for the loyalty thing; again, it seems a lot like the Council of Nations has extremely little faith in X-COM and thus only give the bare minimum until X-COM can demonstrate an ability and willingness to protect them effectively. Hence why panic goes up when you don't respond to a mission, and goes down when you do, and you get requests to provide technology and materials to their own efforts to deal with aliens and social strife. Not to mention there's likely mind-controlled politicians, infiltrators and Quislings constantly lobbying the government to collaborate with the aliens.

Which shouldn't be surprising; look at the UN and EU for how globalist initiatives get stonewalled to outright sabotaged by countries who either don't want to give up an inch of their power or want to use them to gain leverage and control over other countries. Black ops operating in other countries is… well, there's a reason they're black ops; unless it's kept totally secret that's the kind of thing that's prone to causing international incidents and massive anger if it blows up, which it often does.

>>221880

To expand on it a bit, imagine how hard it'd be to do half the things X-COM done without the international cooperation. Every country would throw a fit every time an interceptor from another country chases a UFO into their airspace, and that surveillance satellites are scanning them; the outrage in Brazil if the US air force carpet bombs a kindergarten to kill aliens, or in the US if a bunch of marines get eaten by Chryssalids defending the Brazilian government. Trying to keep shit secret would be a lot worse without official channels to do so and accountability, and the easiest way to do that is the X-COM Project.

It'd be bad enough in some places; imagine the aliens taking over North Korea (they'd almost certainly surrender instantly) or some other isolated dictatorship that no one wants to get involved with and having an entire country to use as a base and population to experiment on. (Which may have something to do with how the X-COM geoscape shows Korea as part of China, ha)

>>221880

You can't simultaneously say that nations are utterly crippled by national borders and also that they dedicate no effort to X-Com whatsoever. I've mentioned this before: Things like terror missions and abductions would absolutely not encourage council nations to withdraw from X-Com. Their cities have been bombed from space and civilian survivors slaughtered. There's only two realistic responses to this: The nation either sticks to X-Com harder than ever or invests fully in their own private X-Com style black ops division, one which will not be playing with kid gloves. Who cares if it causes an international incident? We're talking about blatantly existential threats here, the threat of taking a blow to your international reputation will not convince anyone to sit around twiddling their thumbs. The only sensible way in which failed terror missions causes council nations to withdraw is if they do so to found their own, independent X-Com projects, and if America, Russia, and/or China started their own X-Com you'd expect it to actually do something. In fact, if X-Com exists at all, it would most likely have its origins as a joint operation between existing military and/or intelligence organizations from the member nations. If they're going to team up, they'll want to team up their best people. If they're not actually teaming up and just making token gestures towards X-Com, then their best people will be doing something else.

>>221928

Yeah, countries that withdraw from xcom arent surrendering to aliens, they just stop believing in the project and go on to do their own xcom, with blackjack and hookers.

OP here

>>221823

>The general idea seems to be that the aliens didn't want to incite total war or active occupation, because they see humanity as a resource and unnecessary casaulties as wasteful. Their aim in X-COM isn't outright conquest (As Shen mentions they could do so easily if they wanted) but to spread terror, destabilise countries and infiltrate governments to make humanity willingly surrender.

What were their goals in the classic ones anyway?

I think it's like that to help justify the low amount of aliens and the tactical turn based gameplay. A RPG campaign wouldn't have to necessarily be limited that way. I'm not too concerned with sticking true to XCOM.

>>221926

Every terror mission and abduction is assumed to be accompanied with whisperings to the leaders of the nation that 'Just sign here and we can make this all go away'.

>>221937

>>221928

Probably also that; but again, an X-COM project stuck within one country's borders isn't gonna go far. Especially with everyone paranoid about the other countries selling out to aliens for their own gain or using alien tech against them.

When you lose nations in Enemy Unknown, the Situation Room news ticker mentions their leaders making strange statements about cooperation with the aliens.

Basically, X-COM as an international project exists so there's one organisation that everyone can yell at, rather than all of Earth's nations rattling sabres at each other.

>>221937

A bit of both, maybe; stepping up public anti-alien efforts, but secretly signing over to the aliens, so the aliens start messing around with the country while the government covers it up and makes it look like they alone are winning the fight, or that the aliens are just misunderstood/were provoked/whatever.

>>222002

Something similar to the remake; the bad ending is a slideshow of the aliens being outwardly benevolent after the world surrenders, but they soon take over cities and turn humanity into yet another slave race, with the only free survivors struggling to eke out an existence in the horribly polluted wastelands and turning into mutants.

Presumably XCOM 2 would go somewhere similar with the bad ending.

>>221768

Oh well in X-C-oh you're talking about the console game. Nevermind.

>>222379

Nothing says you can't talk about Classic. Classic isn't that different from what OP's post described you faggot.

>>223134

Shh, if you tell the /v/idiot that the old version isn't inherently superior in every respect he might get another aneurysm.

>>221768

In the real world:

America, Africa, South America, the Middle East, and probably most of China as well as Asia would be full of constant fighting and general dickishness to ayy aggressors.

Why, you ask?

America's got guns and MUH FREEDOM

Africa has niggers and would shoot and/or rape anyone who sets foot there

South America's got drug dealers

Middle East has been doing the terrorism thing since its invention.

China is fucking China, while they might work briefly with the ayys, they'll fuck them over by the end of things

Asia in general is full of a bunch of creeps like that. The ones that aren't that way are basically feral savages types who despite their size will cut you.

Europe is the only one that'd surrender/be manageable.

Maybe Canada too.

Russia's a bit of an odd one. I can't really say for sure on them, but I'd guess they'd "work" for the ayys in the sense that they're horribly corrupt and about as likely to shoot them in the back as anyone else and as soon as they see something they want they'll take it.

There might be an international think tank. But rather than dicking about on their own, supranational unions like NATO will work together and then likely ally with other ones. Maybe next gen military tech would be produced with some level of global commonality.

>>221777

I'm not so convinced. Most alien weaponry was actually rather shit, minus the payload. Plasma weapons kill stuff dead, fine, but they seem to fire slow as fuck. Projectiles, too, were a tad slower, which'd hurt accuracy.

Biggest concern is armor. They've got much, much better armor, and standard weaponry may not punch through. But, on the other hand, for some dumb reason, 80% of their troops don't wear shit anyway.

Air superiority would be a concern, I guess, but at least in the game, UFOs were fairly rare, so they wouldn't have suitable coverage.

They'd have the advantage, sure, but I don't think it'd sweep right off. Standard rifle did fine up until things started being too meaty for it. Just doesn't punch enough.

Standard jet also can take down a lighter UFO on its own no problem. It's only the big, cargo-type ones that seem an issue.

General survivability of a decent lot of their troops is also horribly low. Sectoids and thin men were weak as fuck, compared to even rookies. I think mutons only managed to really match them.

>>223164

If you take Classic XCOM or FiraxisCOM's (or Long war) campaign as the 'realistic' size of the alien fleet, how big are they? How many troops, fleet composition etc? Roughly speaking. A regiment of troops at most?

>>221843

The vibe I always got was that there was some serious "Stockholm syndrome" going down everywhere, because the stuff you actually saw was constant armed officers who would shoot you for the slightest infraction, constant security checkpoints that slow your day, constant surveillance, blatant disregard for the safety of civilians and infrastructure, and of course the large amount of people who evidently disappeared all the time that nobody thought twice about.

It ain't perfect, people are just cowards.

They also yell at anyone who they can blame that isn't going to shoot them in the face.

>>223167

Don't know about classic, sadly.

The vibe I get is that they aren't all that big, given that they can only run three missions at any given time, can't back up their cargo with fighter escorts, generally have a low squad on the ground of most missions [and on ships themselves, given both cargo shootdown missions, and that one big battleship mission], and they can't ever send backup, support, or extraction.

They're no bigger than a mil, I say.

Which for a world invasion is tiny.

And, hell, they may be smaller than that, too.

Only reason they stood a chance was because some dumbass politician said "Hey, let's have a single military organization to fight them, give them exactly one plane, and not allow them to have a group bigger than ten guys. Oh, let's also give them no support whatsoever, incountry or otherwise. And while you are at it, give them a arbitrary and generally shitty amount of funding. Don't forget to yell at them for not helping multiple nations despite their one single ship!".

>>221861

>Also not hard to imagine that X-COM itself is an underfunded, token international effort while every country's own organisations are too restricted by global boundaries, suspicion and infighting to effectively combat the aliens' plans.

There's one rather easy example to give when you start thinking such things: The Gulf War.

Give someone a big enough, annoying enough target, and everyone's happy to join in.

When push comes to shove, we tend to work together.

Besides, that's what NATO and similar organizations are for.

>>223169

Yeah. I was thinking maybe in my campaign the entire invasion fleet (and Earth's defense) wouldn't orient itself to being convenient for a tactical-scale TBS game. So maybe besides a few scouts/terrorism in the very beginning, they actually don't invade in tiny, trickling waves but bring their full force.

And in exchange, XCOM (or their equivalents) aren't limited to a couple dozen combat personnel. And they start with what feel like actual combat veterans or specops. Maybe in exchange there are more Sectoids or Sectoids are more disciplined to counter-balance that.

>>223170

Yeah. Even if there won't be an XCOM, there may be some global co-operation. And those supranational military alliances will activate. At the least, America will work very closely with NATO and other countries like Japan & South Korea.

>>223173

In exchange, you could simply have the ayys not deploy what seem to be their technicians as frontline troops, if you like.

Mutons are straight up described as the "front line" soldiers, after all. Start with them for anything that is a direct attack. Inflitration/ambushes/sabotages are probably going to be done by thin men.

Robotic units are most likely going to be close to a ship or fortification, for charging and repairs.

Sectoids seem like specialists, either hackers mechanics or pilots, and are probably not going to, logically anyway, be deployed in more than a pair accompanying a squad of larger friends.

>>223170

And bombing Serbia.

>>223168

Propaganda.

If you don't think it works look at:

Nazi Germany

America

Everything

>>223179

Sure, but when you're living in it, you can tell when shit isn't great.

>>223180

No you can't

That's the principle of propaganda

>>223184

M8, if you shoot my aunt in the head, ain't no propaganda you can spin that is going to make me think you didn't shoot my aunt in the head.

>>223169

>>223175

There seems to be a principle of escalation with the aliens in either X-COM; they aren't sending their crack troops first, probably because they aren't expecting meaningful resistance.

The autopsies paint a picture of what each alien is and what they're for; and it's stated that they're all clones. Everything up to the aliens' AI compared to human EXALT forces indicates that they are expendable, and they don't extract unless they have the site secure. The Sectoids are basically cheap cannon fodder, backed up with their psychic abilities and heavy artillery (Mechtoids and Cyberdiscs), the Thin Men are infiltrators which really only work in crowds or shadows, and Floaters are rejected experiments that are basically the first real soldiers you encounter.

There's kind of an implication that the aliens don't really understand humanity and don't know what they're getting into; they may have been surprised that humans developed gunpowder by the time they arrived, and on the timescales they work on it's too late to change their plans significantly.

>>223179

>>223185

But if you can't speak up about it without getting shot in the head yourself…

Propaganda-fuelled dictatorships tend to be unstable at best and crumble quickly once the figurehead is gone, but terrifying while they are. Look at Stalinist Russia, which pretty much codified dystopia.

>>223191

Pre-Stalin Soviet Union was pretty fucking scary as well. It was a slave regime funded by Wallstreet bankers.

>>221768

>What would a "realistic" scenario of the XCOM aliens invading look like?

Massive cuckening. :(

>>223185

The propaganda that made you turn in your aunt for execution because she had an illegal radio set and only TERRORISTStm have illegal radio sets might have made you happy for it though

Or the propaganda that brainwashed your child into turning her in

Or the propaganda that makes you a loyal soldier that was shooting the filthy traitor to the state

Or the Eugenics based propaganda claiming its a sacrifice for everyone's good.

.