I play the game at the standard difficulty. I noticed that it seems that at the end of the month, with good results, countries (or something else?) give me more staff to hire. Right now, I have 44 scientists (got the particle weapons !!), 20 techs, 5 doctors and 8-10 soldiers. Each time I have a tactical mission, I keep having 0 casualties at my soldiers, even with no rescued civilians, the countries seem to be happy and pay me well. I nearly kept the same team (8 soldiers) since I started the game. I loss only one soldier in a particulary hard mission, that was before I got nano armors.
Edit: already 2 answers when I was typing mine ^_^ ...
Since I am new to this game, I may not be accurate, but I need to say something about that: grenade launcher is really (too ?) powerful.
No advanced items except the nano armor, I just use casual ammo for all my weapons. A soldier with, let's say, 40 TUs, protected by a corner or wall, behind him, 1-2 soldiers as guardians with a rifle/assault gun in reaction fire mode.
Take one, move it to take a look and see where the aliens are, go back.
Move your grenade launcher soldier, launch 3 instant explosion grenades. Not dead ? Gamble: if it's a though one, or if there are a pack of 3-4 aliens, another 3 instant grenades. One alien is still alive ? Get one of the "guardians" and shoot it down.
I often notice that if they still survive, they seems to be badly wounded (3 indirect/direct grenade hits, d'oh !!) and flee/hide themselves or panic.
I made many mission where the alien hides itself behind in a little house, but the roof is destroyed and I can use a grenade launcher. Same thing with a wall and a window, I can't hit with a rifle/assault, but grenade launcher works well.
Three good points:
- it is not possible to research the plasma ammo for grenade launcher too early, that would be too powerful.
- it is a close/middle range weapon.
- it can not be used in reaction fire.
