Lost first game - advice?

[prospero]

Hi,

Just finished my first game on Easy mode, and lost after a couple of months.  Is there any documentation anywhere about what triggers the nations firing you?  The odd thing is that all of them were content are better on the last month-end prior to the lose game event.  I hadn't lost any ground missions, but there were a couple of events that popped up when I only had one base that I couldn't get to for a long time.  I built my second base on the second month of the game, and lose game event occurred early in the third month.  The other thing that seemed odd is that the lose game event occurred immediately after a ground mission to a harvester that was shot down.  It was a victory, so it just seemed strange.

Thanks!

j

[Destructavator]

That does seem strange - which version of the game are you playing, the 2.2.1 release (found on sourceforge), or a different one?

[prospero]

It's the 2.2.1 (latest stable).  There was an attack in NYC at the time that I hadn't dispatched a drop-ship to yet.  Maybe the game is very sensitive about attacks on NYC?  Hmmm, now that I think about it, when the NYC "x" appeared on the map there was a dialog popup that said something along the lines of "more aliens you let get away".  Maybe that's a special kind of event you have to deal with immediately?

j

[prospero]

I reloaded the save and completed the NYC mission successfully, and still got a lose game immediately after the mission victory screen.  I reloaded it again and checked the nation statistics screen.  All of the nations were content or better, except for the one around Australia which was "giving up".  There was one of the early game events in Wellington that I took a long time to get to.  So if one of the nations reaches a "giving up" state - do you lose the game?  What are the conditions for losing?

[Duke]

events in Wellington that I took a long time to get to.

Do you mean the time to fly the dropship from say Europe to Wellington OR days or even weeks until you can start the dropship ?

[prospero]

I didn't send it until days/weeks after the event started.  I think that's what lost it for me.  I loaded the save again and looked at the overall stats, and it showed 9 wins and 8 losses.  I never lost a tactical mission, but the event in Wellington I let sit so long that every once in awhile it would popup a message that "aliens have had enough time to kill x civilians".  I'm guessing that every time a message like that popped up it counted it as a loss.

On my second game now and doing much better. 

[geever]

In 2.2 there was a limit of civilians could be died before you got fired. This has been changed since then, but not sure if either in 2.2.1 or only later.

-geever

[Duke]

General rule:
If there is a mission available, go there asap. A couple of hours delay will not hurt, though.