Seems like I've waited for ages for 2.3, but it was well worth it, added to which the bugs that people are picking up seem to get fixed at light speed. This continues to be one of the most enjoyable games out there and I remain astounded that it costs me nothing. Thanks folks.
Things that make 2.3 better than earlier versions are: the slower pace of the campaign (I like this game, so why rush?); the tech tree has grown a lot and continues to be well implemented within the storyline; there are no more fixed maps - they are sufficiently random that missions have the feel of the old x-com games. A few "simple" changes have expanded the game massively.
Things that I don't like: Just one thing really - the resources available to Phalanx seem to have been wildly curtailed. By about the mddle of the month it's a struggle to find enough unhurt soldiers to form a squad in the first few years of the game. I get attached to my soldiers, but plasma pistols at six thousand yards are causing more fatalities than dumb mistakes at point blank range because I'm forced to send the same handful of soldiers into action around fifty times a month with too few replacements available. I'm also finding it difficult to find sufficient quantities of basic equipment like grenades and submachineguns with an entire planet to scour. If there is a balancing problem then it would feel a whole lot more realistic (and a lot less frustrating) to get hammered by the aliens at odds of 3:1, rather than take the odd hit here and there (whilst winning easily), but at the end of the month find myself in a desperate situation because of simple attrition (despite having slaughtered the enemy for a handful of casulaties). The aliens are the ones fighting at the end of their supply line, but they seem to find it ar easier to replace dead and wounded than a heavily industrailised planet with more people than it knows what to do with.
