A defeat screen? It said you lost? Ok, well you should see:

Major SPOILER BELOW

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You should see the endgame video where your PSI soldier raises the alien mothership to outer space so it explodes there, saving the earth and becoming a hero. Then it takes you to a comparison screen where you can compare your game stats with the rest of the world average stats. No, five nations pulling out of X-com isn´t a reason for the game to end. Eight or above i´ve read is where you lose.

I was a little confused myself about my game ending since i believe i hadn´t killed all aliens but maybe i did. Just replay your game from any save within the alien mothership and kill off the last alien mindcontrolling enemies and you should be able to beat it.

I believe that just applies if you stun the alien since the weapons seems to be destroyed the moment you kill the aliens. I´ve yet to see any recovered weapon, that i know of, and probably wont since i finished the game after completing it.

Yeah i´ ve seen that in the lower right corner the percentage number rarely matches the one you get in the third person zoom in. I see another patch coming, hopefully.

Put a minor spoiler in that, i just read that it had to do about the ending and then i glanced over your post. ;)

Another ugly one just popped up ruining the game. I have to reload the save game over and over since the chryssalids or what they´re called, the zombie makers, keep on jumping into places they shouldnt be, outside the game area. So the game halts as it doesnt seem to know what to do with them in the twilight zone. Seems i´ll have to lure them into appearing in valid areas where they can actually make a move instead of freeze in their tracks. Boring.

I´ve seen them a couple of times with soldiers having supression fire ability, so i´ve just gone along with the bad numbers and chosen supression fire before anything else, (overwatch or if feeling really stupid, taking the shot.. not).

What gives such low numbers anyway? With team members around in not so much better firing positions, radius. Better weapons, yeah, having way better odds to hit. But in reflection, is such a low shot percentage really justified? Because of what then i ask.

Edit: No, it wasnt with the shotgun at long range neither, assault rifle or the equivalent of it i believe it was.

Can someone tell me what the different types of mission are (e.g. crashed UFO), and how they generally tend to rank in order of difficulty? Just to help me decide what level of troops to take along for each mission.

ianpwilliams

Crashed and shot down ufo´s in general can be considered easier missions overall. Apart from that, consider the rest, if not otherwise said, as difficult imo.

Edit: The larger ufo´s can still be a pain in the A to deal with. Shot down or not.

It's all about luck. There is no tactic involved other than "Don't stand in the open" or throwing the occasional grenade/firing a rocket. I've had soldiers (end-game!) miss aliens right in front of them when they had limited cover on the OPPOSITE side. Or have 4 people miss their shots of opportunity on a moving target on several occasions, which is pretty much ridiculous as I usually had 80+% on aliens that had no cover. So ... luck is necessary.

PS: You should have used artillery/ships/bombers to soften up those Italians before going in with Infantry or even better Engineers.

ryadings

Edit: To be more specific in my criticism of your statement:

It´s all about luckryadings

Capture can be easy if you tack 2-3 assult with run'n'gun and Arc ThrowersCruiserCaptain

Edit: Anyway, having a soldier with the ability sprinter greatly helps in any stun attempt, also remember that any later enemies may have to be wounded first for any stun attempt to be successful.

If camping is an issue i wont even touch mp with a ten foot pole. I´ll stick with single player for the time being since i managed to erase all my saves when i thought i ereased old games. Just to start over, yippee. Is there co op in it? I doubt it, that would be awesome.