Alien Campaign

[Rtron]

Ive always liked the idea of after you have played a certain part of the main campaign to a certain point or completed it on difficulty that you could play the campaign of the enemy you were facing for Xcom you could play as the aliens and try to destroy earth instead of saving it to put your base down you have to clear the area of human military and you send your soldiers on missions to destroy,terrorize,etc. earth and for research you could have to collect minerals from earth to resupply your soldiers? its an idea anyways what do you think? what would be good for research and other replacments? for like ships enginerring etc.

[Inkidu]

While I like them, it would kind of be a rofl-stomp battle. The military in XCOM is pretty ineffectual. So unless you're fighting actual XCOM operatives then it's a no-challenge situation.

[Rtron]

hmmm good point maybe it could be alien remnants? after you win the game and beat the aliens these are the ones left and you have to reasearch/scavenge back your tech?

[Skybuck]

Awesome idea as well.

It would be really fun, if the programmers manage to program something of "squad based tactics" like we human players do, and then instead of playing as x-com we play as aliens... trying to terrorize as much as possible.

And then we get surprised by the x-com landing and trying to repell us... pretty damn awesome !

And then we can try and infiltrate their base and knock it out... and we need to defend our base.

Unfortunately I think this is too much work for the developers, and ultimately it pretty much turns into the same basic game but just vice versa graphics... though perhaps the aliens could have some special abilities or special units.

If the developers have the time for it then it would be pretty cool, maybe it could be an expansion pack or so...

First you played as x-com and now you get to play as aliens !

[SectoidSquisher]

Awesome idea as well.

It would be really fun, if the programmers manage to program something of "squad based tactics" like we human players do, and then instead of playing as x-com we play as aliens... trying to terrorize as much as possible.

And then we get surprised by the x-com landing and trying to repell us... pretty damn awesome !

And then we can try and infiltrate their base and knock it out... and we need to defend our base.

Unfortunately I think this is too much work for the developers, and ultimately it pretty much turns into the same basic game but just vice versa graphics... though perhaps the aliens could have some special abilities or special units.

If the developers have the time for it then it would be pretty cool, maybe it could be an expansion pack or so...

First you played as x-com and now you get to play as aliens !

I would love a DLC where we could play as the aliens. Do it, Firaxis!

[coyote_blue]

It's a great idea, but it would defeat the stated purpose of the devs to maintain a sense of mystery as to the aliens' purpose. I'd be against a rofl-stomp if it made the aliens less scary.

I have similar problems with being able to play the xenomorphs or Predators in any of the games that feature them. Or playing a Nightmare on Elm Street game as Freddy.

[Dont_mess_Xcom_Up]

hmmm good point maybe it could be alien remnants? after you win the game and beat the aliens these are the ones left and you have to reasearch/scavenge back your tech?

Perhaps an expansion could be alien payback where the aliens bring they're more serious weaponry? Perhaps enemy Unknown was only the scouting parties. Then you get to play as the real pissed off aliens.

[japester]

As others said, I could totally see some variation of turning the tables as DLC, assuming the original sells well. Maybe have a lone alien left in the corner of a damaged base. He scrounges a single cloning tank, and slowly brings the numbers back up. And with very little alien tech left, now he is at the tech disadvantage. Force him to capture the fully maxed alien/human tech that XCOM is using post-invasion to rebuild his own weapons. There are lots of angles that might work.

[Agent Trunk]

I like this idea but such a campaign would probably require more than just an expansion pack or a DLC. Probably its own game; a spin-off of some sort. I've been thinking on how an alien campaign would work based on what I've seen on the first X-COM game.

Concepts
The alien faction work in similar ways as X-COM but there are things that are unique to them.

• Starting point - To avoid a curb-stomp battle, the game would have to start where X-COM already has an advantage over your forces, like say, the first invasion failed and that you're the "second wave" of some sort.
• Cloning - unlike X-COM who hire their soldiers, scientists, and engineers, the aliens use cloning chambers facilities to "manufacture" new units. This only applies to organic units. The more powerful the unit the longer it would take to clone it.
  
  • You can also sacrifice your veterans to make more potent clones. For balance, these clones wouldn't be as good as the original and would soon deteriorate the more you clone that one guy due to depleting/deteriorating genetic material until all of his biomass have been used up.
  
  
• Research - The aliens use this to better understand Earth so that they would become more efficient in their mission to conquer it. You use this to improve your soldiers via genetic engineering and cybernetics research or to unlock new base facilities compatible enough to be constructed on Earth environments.
  
  • Some research would also be essential in winning the game in various ways such as a super weapon or a genetic altering/terraforming device.
  
  
• Starting Fleet - This will act as your "starting base". Consists of the bare minimum like a few small scout ships for spotting areas of interest, a terror ship for troop transport, a supply ship for base construction, a harvester for food and an abductor for research. You get the more fancier UFOs as you progress.
• UFOs - All of them can carry troops but they require at least a navigator class and maybe also engineers class units for larger vessels to function. They can fly longer than X-COM ships but they still need to refuel. If you don't have enough Elerium, they'll automatically fly off to space and stay there (meaning they're not in the geoscape for X-COM to intercept) until more supply comes.
  
  • UFOs as mobile facilities - the aliens rely heavily on UFOs to do things as we've seen on the variety of vessels they use making them more mobile when it comes to their operations compared to X-COM. If you want to do heavy duty stuff like manufacturing, ship construction and mass-production of clones, you have to construct a base.
  
  
• Cydonian Council - They will serve as your funding council and supplier. Elerium is their payment to you instead of money. If you do well, they'll let you use more powerful weapons, units and vessels which you can order from them to be delivered to Earth using a supply ship. It takes longer compared to X-COM buying stuff from the market so you'll have to rely on you own manufacturing capabilities to be efficient.

Resources
The aliens don't rely solely on money. Instead they rely on their UFO missions to get what they need.

• Bio-material -You get these from harvesting missions. They can be converted into alien food or be used for cloning.
• Alien Food - This is the equivalent of X-COM operatives' monthly salary. They need to eat to survive the month or else they'll die out. To get food you need to do harvesting missions or invest some food resource to construct alien gardens in your base... or you always could cannibalize some of your weaker troops.
• Elerium - The fuel which powers your campaign. It's used in almost everything you do. You get these from the council as payment for your extraordinary services. The more you have, the more stuff you can do on Earth.
• Research - You get these from missions using abductor UFOs. The longer it does research outside, the more likely that X-COM will discover your research vessel.

Missions
The aliens would have much mission variety than X-COM. Their effects on the game would be pretty much the same except this time it would be in reverse.

• Harvest missions - The mission would work like this: Get a harvester UFO to a populated area or farm land and station it there until its cargo is full. Soon it'll return the gathered supply to base or fleet to be used for food or cloning.
• Abduction missions - Used for research purposes. Can be executed in populated areas. The more populated the faster the research and the more likely that X-COM will detect you.
• Scouting missions - A scout UFO will scour the globe for anything interesting like urban areas to terrorize, farm lands to harvest bio-material and spotting X-COM bases.
• Research Missions - The mission depends on the research requirement. For example the genetic engineering branch would require human test subjects which you'll get from populated areas and would work the same way as a harvesting mission.
• Supply mission - Used to transfer items from base to base or haul in supplies from Cydonia when you order things from the council. Going back and forth from Mars to Earth could take a while so two supply vessels are recommended.
• Base Attack/Defense - Works the same way as the base battles of X-COM.
• Terror missions - The fun part. Send your terror ship, kill civillians, strike fear in the heart of humankind
• Infiltration missions - Send covert operatives to a funding nation to convince them to side with you, robbing X-COM of funding and allowing you to conduct your operations without the territory reporting you to X-COM.
  
  • Perhaps in a tactical mission, you'll have to mind control a politician or VIP at the end of the map heavily guarded by non-X-COM troops.

Facilities
UFOs and base facilities would function similarly with the former being more mobile but light duty and the other immobile but heavy duty.

• Alien necessities - unlike X-COM operatives requiring only the living quarters, the aliens have more essential facilities to sustain their ranks.
  
  • Alien Entertainment Chamber (aka the "disco room") - Acts as the aliens' equivalent of the living quarters and acts as a population cap just like its X-COM counterpart though this facility alone won't be enough. A happy alien is a "good" alien.
    
    • Some ships have these so those ships can house your soldiers though some can't produce food so they'll have to carry a supply of them before departing.
    
    
  • Digestion Vats - Those large blue vats filled with organic stuff. Converts bio-material into alien food which is used to feed your troops. They let machines do the digesting for them for some reason. X-COM agents make good human soups.
  • Alien Garden - Those rooms filled with strange flora in alien base attacks. They're used to produce bio-material to be used for alien food.
    
    • This is an alternative of having to send harvesters for food. Harvest missions can become tedious (as in manual clicking) but has more food and is prone to X-COM interception. On the other hand alien farms automatically (and safely) provide you with a stead supply but in few amounts.
  
  
• Cloning Chambers - This is where you get new recruits aside from waiting for new personnel from Cydonia to arrive. The way it works is that you sacrifice an alien to be cloned. Its genetic material would be used to create more of itself. The resulting clone is a bit weaker than the original but the bright side is you now have more of the alien. Genetic material for that alien isn't infinite so eventually you'll run out and you'll have to sacrifice another alien.
• Other facilities necessary for a playable alien base:
  
  • Laboratory
  • Fabricator room (workshops)
  • Storage
  • Hanger - Maybe, they seem content on having all their ships floating around in space. Haven't seen an alien hanger bay in the original before.
  • Defenses -Perhaps a starting defense would be a cloaking facility of some sort.
  • Anti-grav elevators (Access Lifts) - This is where those X-COM soldiers come out in base defenses.

Soldiers

• Rank - Functions the same way as X-COM ranks though there are some specific ones that would be needed in some vessels such as scientists, engineers and navigators.
• Attributes - Same though unlike X-COM operatives that are humans, the aliens consists of many different species and aliens so what they are would contribute to the attribute they'll have.
• Innate abilities/traits/perks - floaters and Ethereals float, sectoids and Ethereals have psionics already unlocked, Chryssalids are melee and can't hold guns, etc.

[54x]

I've always wanted to see a planetary invasion simulator where the humans are doing the invading, personally.

[SectoidSquisher]

It's a great idea, but it would defeat the stated purpose of the devs to maintain a sense of mystery as to the aliens' purpose. I'd be against a rofl-stomp if it made the aliens less scary.

I have similar problems with being able to play the xenomorphs or Predators in any of the games that feature them. Or playing a Nightmare on Elm Street game as Freddy.

Not if it's released a long time after the main game - by then, surely everyone would know pretty much everything there is to know about the aliens' purpose.

[Usul]

I've always wanted to see a planetary invasion simulator where the humans are doing the invading, personally.

If you want to live your imperialistic dreams, there is always Master of Orion 2 for you.

[Agent Trunk]

If you want to live your imperialistic dreams, there is always Master of Orion 2 for you.

...and Galactic Civilizations 1 & 2 (1 is human only).
Too bad you can't personally command and control your ground troops in combat in those type of games.

[William Dymock-Johnson]

I too would love a game that had you as the Aliens. Just have it against a more aggressive humanity. Give the little ships excellent stealth and scouting to highlight ground based defences so your more valuable ships don't get a battery of SAMs up the tailpipe (and later on more exotic stuff). Missions should have a 'stealth factor' so a smaller ship / band of aliens can sneak in without running into heavy resistance. That is, two sectoids may succeed where 14 ethereals would call down all manner of unholy crap on themselves.

Also I would have 'flight time' on the big battleship contigent on successful missions with the small and medium vessels. So you have to start small but success pays off in being able to stomp some serious ass with the battleship later.

Another thing would be to heighten just how much the aliens don't know. What's the dominant species? You (the alien) don't know.
Where is the central seat of power? You don't know. Part of the fun would have missions which start off barking up the wrong tree and every once and a while have some alien scientist suggest they test his pet theory of the 'Cow Overmind'. Go get some more coos or it's no Battleship for you this month.

[Agent Trunk]

Another thing would be to heighten just how much the aliens don't know. What's the dominant species? You (the alien) don't know.
Where is the central seat of power? You don't know. Part of the fun would have missions which start off barking up the wrong tree and every once and a while have some alien scientist suggest they test his pet theory of the 'Cow Overmind'. Go get some more coos or it's no Battleship for you this month.

Yeah, a good army always study the enemy first before attacking. It's an alien world (to them at least) after all and you have no idea if your race or any of your space crafts could even survive Earth's environment, lest you end up just like the alien invaders in "The War of the Worlds". Maybe at first the alien invaders would have no choice but to wear bulky environment suits and modified spacecrafts prototypes compatible for Earth's atmosphere that limits their capabilities until they find better technology and genetically engineer themselves to become more and more compatible with the environment (or they could do it in reverse and terraform an area of the world which would also give an added bonus of making the terraformed area inhospitable to your human opponent). All of this is assuming that it's the invaders first time on carrying out operations in an alien planet like Earth and that they're biologically incompatible to Earth's environment which adds to the challenge.

Power source would also be an issue since you're a long way from home (waiting for supply from the homeworld would take a long time) and you'll have to research more accessible power sources before your initial exotic and alien power reserves runs out. This also assumes that the aliens came from very far away (i.e. not Mars), maybe even farther than they have traveled before, and that their primary power source isn't available on Earth.

[William Dymock-Johnson]

Another thing would to be to have a required number of techs, engineers and navigators to crew a ship. Youl'd need a certain number of 'wranglers' for each terror creature, an alien leader of sufficient rank to command a ship ands so on.

Rather than have cash I would have an artificai system that represents the confidence of the overall alien overmind. If it feels things are good it will give out stuff and as that's used up it becomes more miserly and defensive. The aliens still have overwhelming resources, they just aren't releasing them for use just now. Of course performing supply missions and other harvest type missions increases morale as the alien sees the goodies coming in.

So the overmind should periodically issue orders along the lines of 'Do X mission in Y area within Z days.' with a confidence reward / penalty. Possiably even include materiel as rewards as well. Eg Terrorise a Chinese city and recieve six elite mutons.

With such a system players can see what they need to do to gain access to the big guns, ie confidence needs to be at X before the overmind will even think about releasing Y. The player has a resource they need to manage / keep happy and even when things are bad they can just rely on the random largese of the overmind as it periodically sends mostly low-tier troops and equipment. It also means those rare powerful units cannot be easily spammed and may even need looking after with more disposable grunts.

[Rtron]

I REALLY hope they put the alien campaign in DLC like in Dragon age origins where you could play as the Darkspawn Note: i enjoyed Dragon age origins not great combat system but (as far as i am concerned) a great plot/story line

maybe for the first few mission(s) there could be an alien civil war after the failed invasion on earth the alien home planet (and maybe other planets depending on if theres an alien empire) goes into anarchy and you have to pick a race and win as it that could be the tutorial mission(s) and then for some reason the planet(s) all die out or are destroyed and then its just cut to the last sectoid on earth who like japester said has to slowly rebuild the numbers starting with sectoids and as he either a: finds corpses of the floaters,chrysalids,etc. uses the DNA on that to clone or B: goes on stealth rescue missions to get some of the other aliens to get DNA that way

[Rtron]

maybe the Xcom soldiers who had interaction with the alien tech have been mutated by it? giving them different powers to what the aliens have and now the Xcom instead of being funded by nations are the rulers of earth. or they could be the internationally funded world-wide quick response force to counter the alien threat still with the mutations

[William Dymock-Johnson]

I would prefer the alien campaign to be it's own creature.

Also I would have levels of human response.

1. Civilians - Some have a pistol. All the rest have (awful) HTH.
2. Hicks - Farmers with shotguns and rifles. Maybe some dynamite. And cows to abduct. Bulls could have a moderate HTH.
3. Militia - You're UFO has stirred up a nest of militia, survivalists, rebels, banditos, whatever. Some military weapons.
4. Cops - Swat teams and cousins. Light military weapons, vehicles and armour.
5. Military - Some heavy weapons, APCs, Tanks, Helicopter gunships.
6. Those %$&@s from XCOM.

So you have things build up to the desperate fights with trained XCOM agents. It also makes for some beautiful set peices. The first mission can essentially be a version of 'War of the Worlds' (any version). You can also mix and match and add. Eg for a terror mission of course you start with civilians, then after a few turns the cops show up, then the military, then those pesky XCOM dudes.

[katscan]

Really.. an alien campaign is just a silly idea for the reasons stated above, and once again, there is only a tenuous connection with Xcom, since the way the game plays out would be completely un-Xcom (like losing soldiers/aliens per mission). Think about it. Think again about the original. You have more men, and better weapons than the enemy. Where is the game in that? Plasma rifles vs bullet assault rifles without armor ?? Just silly.

[Rtron]

Really.. an alien campaign is just a silly idea for the reasons stated above, and once again, there is only a tenuous connection with Xcom, since the way the game plays out would be completely un-Xcom (like losing soldiers/aliens per mission). Think about it. Think again about the original. You have more men, and better weapons than the enemy. Where is the game in that? Plasma rifles vs bullet assault rifles without armor ?? Just silly.

please re-read, most of the general agreement is that the aliens dont have the plasma rifles etc. you have to regain it. its just a new twist on the same game like dragon age origins (see comment before last). and besides its fun to play the bad guys

[William Dymock-Johnson]

Really.. an alien campaign is just a silly idea for the reasons stated above, and once again, there is only a tenuous connection with Xcom, since the way the game plays out would be completely un-Xcom (like losing soldiers/aliens per mission). Think about it. Think again about the original. You have more men, and better weapons than the enemy. Where is the game in that? Plasma rifles vs bullet assault rifles without armor ?? Just silly.

Huh? XCOM has the humans rapidly up-teching and surpassing the aliens. Both UFO and TFTD had the humans easily able to field more bods than the aliens. There's your challenge right there. You're up against an enemy that will always bring more bodies to any battle and rapidly develops new tricks so if you mess about they will start wrecking your plans.

And what game were you playing? UFO XCOM agents start off with rocket launchers, miniguns with explosive ammo, enough WP to satisfy any arsonist, tasers and grenades, grenades, grenades. In the next month they've got automatic man portable lasers. Month after that they've learned how to synthesise that metal you use and are covering their men in suits of it.

I'ld say a game where at some point the landscape about your dudes will start exploding / catching fire can be made challenging.

[heniv]

Out of place in an XCOM context. The aliens are suppose to be the mysterious or unknown threat (frekk, one of the titles even was UFO: Enemy Unknown).

[IdeasGuy]

Maybe after you beat the game, as in fight off the invasion force 3 times or something, a surprise Campaign pops up. You place 3 aliens of your choice to go through each area, each about 3-5 levels long. Varying objectives, something that shows why areas are crippled the way they are before XCom shows up to investigate.
Just a thought.

[Rtron]

Out of place in an XCOM context. The aliens are suppose to be the mysterious or unknown threat (frekk, one of the titles even was UFO: Enemy Unknown).

exactly. isnt the hole point the game to find out about the aliens isnt that why you do research,interogations,autopsys, im just saying that after the game has been out long enough for people to have replayed it a good amount of times alien dlc pops up and you learn a bit more about the aliens like in dragon age origins(im using that as a refernce alot arent i?) you learned a little bit more about the darkspawn

[Vincini]

Why not have an expansion that simulates if humanity lost and you are purging the remnants as you play as the aliens, but a mysterious race from underground emerges to destroy both the reamining humans and the alien race. Therefore id say make a faction based off the mayan and aztec myths. Like universe at war or rise of legends, where the technology is far more ancient than the aliens and instead of looking glossy and high tech, its stone weapons and units but with a technology never seen before that works like plasma and energy weapons but powered by a different source. Idk just a thought, add a third faction to the mix lol

[Rtron]

Why not have an expansion that simulates if humanity lost and you are purging the remnants as you play as the aliens, but a mysterious race from underground emerges to destroy both the reamining humans and the alien race. Therefore id say make a faction based off the mayan and aztec myths. Like universe at war or rise of legends, where the technology is far more ancient than the aliens and instead of looking glossy and high tech, its stone weapons and units but with a technology never seen before that works like plasma and energy weapons but powered by a different source. Idk just a thought, add a third faction to the mix lol

so like you spend the first few missions of the game wiping out the human remnants and then just before you finish them off your army and all the humans are wiped out and all you see is guys in ancient aztec armor or greek battle armor or something and then the rest of this game is finding who they are and eventually beating them...........or for a twist you almost beating them and then they finish you off predator style you know just about to kill him then he hits the explosion button on his wrist thing and laughs while he blows up a good 500+ miles of the forest :P

[Vincini]

so like you spend the first few missions of the game wiping out the human remnants and then just before you finish them off your army and all the humans are wiped out and all you see is guys in ancient aztec armor or greek battle armor or something and then the rest of this game is finding who they are and eventually beating them...........or for a twist you almost beating them and then they finish you off predator style you know just about to kill him then he hits the explosion button on his wrist thing and laughs while he blows up a good 500+ miles of the forest :P

Lmao that is the total opposite of what i imagined! haha look at this pic http://www.pixfans.com/imagenes/2008/07/los_cuotl.jpg THAT is what i see as an ancient race of myth coming from underground to conflict against the aliens

[Rtron]

Lmao that is the total opposite of what i imagined! haha look at this pic http://www.pixfans.com/imagenes/2008/07/los_cuotl.jpg THAT is what i see as an ancient race of myth coming from underground to conflict against the aliens

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so something from like rise of nations.........................I still want to see my aliens fighting spartans

[Voqar]

I've always liked XCOM. What's described isn't XCOM. Just doesn't fit.

[Vincini]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so something from like rise of nations.........................I still want to see my aliens fighting spartans

I said rise of legends in the original quote! haha

[SysOpPsyche]

Or you could play as X-Com infiltrated and manipulated by the aliens, discover it and choose to remain 'loyal' to the Alien Friendly faction or turn on them and side with the Xenophobic faction.

In fact, there Could be multiple Alien factions warring with each other & with different tech.

[Rtron]

I've always liked XCOM. What's described isn't XCOM. Just doesn't fit.

It's still the same game just with a new skin maybe some new mechanics. it doesnt have to be a whole game it could be an expansion 5 mission DLC whatever it would just be interesting to play from the aliens POV instead of the humans. And it could answer just a few questions. Like why they came in the first place, was that just the first wave, is there alien factions? government? Civil war? are they the only life out there? all these questions and more could be answered in just a few missions if they only gave us no answers and just had the aliens campaign i would be happy it would be interesting to play the bad guys cause there are very few games where the only campaign you have is the bad guys (the only one i can think of is Dungeon Keeper) other games have options but they are just the same game with slightly different missions the games that concentrate on being the bad guys usally have unique missions. but if they just did the same game different missions i would be happy.

[Rtron]

@Vinci O_o dangit lol

[SectoidSquisher]

Maybe after you beat the game, as in fight off the invasion force 3 times or something, a surprise Campaign pops up. You place 3 aliens of your choice to go through each area, each about 3-5 levels long. Varying objectives, something that shows why areas are crippled the way they are before XCom shows up to investigate.
Just a thought.

Exactly - because after you've beaten the game, the enemy won't be 'Unknown' anymore!

[Rtron]

Maybe after you beat the game, as in fight off the invasion force 3 times or something, a surprise Campaign pops up. You place 3 aliens of your choice to go through each area, each about 3-5 levels long. Varying objectives, something that shows why areas are crippled the way they are before XCom shows up to investigate.
Just a thought.

Id go with that to i just want to play from the aliens POV i want to be EVIL in this game.

[Nashk]

Id go with that to i just want to play from the aliens POV i want to be EVIL in this game.

You have always been able to be evil in an xcom game. You don't have to be the aliens to do that.

[Rtron]

You have always been able to be evil in an xcom game. You don't have to be the aliens to do that.

touche but i dont want to be punished for it for example if i killed a civ in cold blood id get less points

[Mindless]

That is actaully a really awesome idea! I will load my biggest UFO full of Chrysalid's and go on a global terror tour! I think a Alien Campaign would make for a fun and original DLC idea... good one Rtron.

[Rtron]

That is actaully a really awesome idea! I will load my biggest UFO full of Chrysalid's and go on a global terror tour! I think a Alien Campaign would make for a fun and original DLC idea... good one Rtron.

not original (see Dragon age comments) but it would be fun and to prevent you doing what your thinking of ther could be levels like WilliamDymock said like if you get lazer weapons or plasma the alarm level therefore the types of enemy you meet would increase higher than normal same with higher level aliens if a few missions into your game you are rolling around with chrysalids and bezerkers wiping everthing out then before your ready Xcom will pop up to say high and leave with the remnants of you army and base on their boots