as suggestible from headline post will be parted into 2 parts. Sorry for my English in advance.
strategic weaknesses
during my playing 2.4 i observed 2 different "weaknesses" of the AI
1st thing is that alien behavior is quite predictable in general. If Phalanx is in range, it moves closer (not the case if badly wounded), if not it moves closer to civilians. so far so good. inappropriate is that it's possible to "lurk" them closer behind an obstacle, as they mostly come around the corner with nearly no TUs left. Even worse: having another soldier in quite some distance, with a laser rifle for example, the remaining TUs are wasted to him, not to the close one. A - partly - random behavior concept could fix that, making it more challenging.
Even worse it the 2nd aspect: on maps were most aliens are within the ship, especially harvester, it is possible to "collect" them on one point, moving to where the wing ends in the UFO (front of it). using IR glasses you then usually can observe 6-10 aliens gathering on nearest spots within the UFO. The rest of the team can be gathered without any interruption at the back of the UFO. When everything is ready you just move the front one a bit farther away, making 2-5 aliens approach at the back within 2 turns, the rest - dependent of distance - is still at the front. there is no "safer" way of execution. don't thing that the AI is meant to behave like that.
Auto-combats
As game progresses the "lust for battle" declines a bit, especially after 100th ufo without bigger changes in aliens (3 types) and weapons (plasma rifle, plasma blaster, smaller stuff). Thats why i started to use Auto-combats a bit.
Entering the combats i used my typical setup (1 rocket, 2 sniper, 1 maschine gun, 1 heavy laser, 1 las rifle, 1 plas rifle, 1 bolter, all with 2nd armor). therefor i would have to live with my soldiers i chose them quite careful (*1) [....]
1st thing i observed is that Auto-combat - if successful - lifts all stats for those that got the kills, it doesn't just lift the weapon stats of the weapon used plus it does lift strength speed accuracy and wisdom way better than a normal combat would do. I mean: nice for the moment, but why? after a while was even angry i didn't try that before.
2nd thing: Combats vs observers / fighters are usually won without losses. while that's not the case on any bigger ship i'm asking myself how important the "quality" of the soldiers would be for the outcome, as i received comparable results for untrained soldiers of other bases shortly after. Is the terrain of interest for Auto-combat - may be combined with equipment used?
3rd: why Auto-combat is not possible on all maps, just on some?
Auto-combat generally is a nice feature in the late mid- and endgame, especially when all the world is covered by bases (seems as number of UFOs corresponds to it), but it has its faults. Still it SHOULD NOT exceed point gains possible without it.
*1:
4 classes:
complete waste: accuracy below 25, speed/strength below 20, targets most soldiers
acceptable: accuracy above 25, speed/strength above 20
specialist: acceptable + 1 class of weapon above 35 (rare)
super-soldier: all stats >30, sometimes up to 40 (very rare)
"supers" usually used as assaults or heavies
EDIT: to make that clear: i enjoyed the game so far, thats why i dealt to it a bit more. This is no criticism, thats just points that are worth a 2nd look by developers. most of the rest is pretty fine. Thank you for making it!
