We played through 1 round of the tutorial, and then started a new game.

We got an easy game of Infiltration mission type.

1. Easy is very easy. We were never in any danger of losing--though ufos did start to ramp up 2 turns after the base was revealed.

2. Infiltration meant very few UFOs in orbit. (Like, three times the whole game.) But it also meant typically at least 3 crisis cards were being drawn every round.

3. We opted to not send any troops on the normal mission the first round. This allowed us to front load troop and interceptor building.

4. We also cashed out our emergency fund over the first two rounds. Crisis cards mean you can lose the funding anyway--so we thought it best to invest early.

We lost 1 continent, our final round. And we lost it because we didn't want to do all the interceptor rolls, so we just herded all the UFOs to North America since it was 1 panic shy of revolt.

I can see the appeal of the timer now. Given enough time you can always find the most efficient use of your funds/cards/choices. That being said, I still hate the timer for things like "place a UFO in orbit, NA, and Asia." And as the Central Officer I spent half of the game with my head in app, and not interacting with my friends. I love the randomness the app provides--and it's very well written and stable. I just know I wouldn't want to be the Central Office again if I could avoid it.

I actually really enjoy all of the roles the game has to offer, though I think Commander is my least favorite. Easy mode does seem to be easier than the tutorial mission. And early game, the resolution phase is a dice game, and the dice can go very very against you sometimes. After you have researched some good tech cards, the dice game becomes more consistent, but you can still fail at the rolls easily enough.

One thing to note, you can't put any UFO's into a country that is already in the red. So if I'm understanding what you mean, it wouldn't have actually worked out that you could just stack up in NA since it was 1 away from a loss anyways.

Anyways, I've found I have plenty of time to interact with the players/board while one player is taking his time deciding on his action. Gives me the time to assess where we are at for funds, what UFOs are already on the board, plan how many satellites i'm going launch and if I'll have enough satellites to maneuver things around. It also gives me time to use the "radar" function in the app to see where UFOs are going to appear soon to further plan things. But I can understand where some would find that job less appealing. Thankfully, there are 4 jobs and I'm sure you can find someone in your group that likes the job - or just rotate jobs each time you play maybe?

The Rules only say that you can't put them into a country that has fallen into panic, which is the orange line at the very end. You just can't use your HQ-power anymore if the country is in the red section.

ah, gotcha! ty for the clarification.

1. Easy is very easy.

Yes, indeed.

I recommend all of those who successfully finished the tutorial mission to skip easy level and start regular play from normal.

The aliens at easy difficulty are just lame .

Doesn't panic from UFOs overspill if the county falls to panic though?

EDIT: Ah, no I see, they go to orbit.

We've played 3 times yesterday, with 3 people.

Nice game, the flow is brilliant - everyone is 100% involved for the whole time, which is great, IMHO.

1st game:

MISDIRECTION - normal

First game of a Squad Leader

3rd game of a Scientist

my 6th game (I took the rest - Commander and Central Officer)

Aliens stood no chance. They was unable to bring even one continent to yellow.

Our thoughts: "maybe the game is too easy?"

2nd game:

ONSLAUGHT - hard

Same roles

We were crushed with no remorse. The Aliens destroyed us in 3-4 round. It was forty minutes of pain.

Our thoughts: "maybe we are too easy?"

3rd game:

OCCUPATION - hard

Same roles

Hard and unpredictable battle to the last round. We won at the last moment possible, with most of the continents in red, but with feeling of strategic control of the situation (yeah, right ).

Our thoughts: "that was real nice experience"

If I can recommend something in the base of my experience so far - I think that the beginners should start from the Squad Leader role, which is very rewarding, but have little influence on the other players (I mean - it's very important to pass missions and defend the base, but you get all the stuff FROM other players, and don't have to think what give TO them - which can be better handled when you know the cards better). In the yesterday's session it worked just fine.

Anyways - the game is very easy to play and learn, which is great, in my opinion. I believe, based on the 3 plays we've had, our Squad Leader may now be effective in any other role, when we'll bring fresh meat on our next meeting.

We've played 3 times yesterday, with 3 people.

Nice game, the flow is brilliant - everyone is 100% involved for the whole time, which is great, IMHO.

1st game:

MISDIRECTION - normal

First game of a Squad Leader

3rd game of a Scientist

my 6th game (I took the rest - Commander and Central Officer)

Aliens stood no chance. They was unable to bring even one continent to yellow.

Our thoughts: "maybe the game is too easy?"

2nd game:

ONSLAUGHT - hard

Same roles

We were crushed with no remorse. The Aliens destroyed us in 3-4 round. It was forty minutes of pain.

Our thoughts: "maybe we are too easy?"

3rd game:

OCCUPATION - hard

Same roles

Hard and unpredictable battle to the last round. We won at the last moment possible, with most of the continents in red, but with feeling of strategic control of the situation (yeah, right ).

Our thoughts: "that was real nice experience"

If I can recommend something in the base of my experience so far - I think that the beginners should start from the Squad Leader role, which is very rewarding, but have little influence on the other players (I mean - it's very important to pass missions and defend the base, but you get all the stuff FROM other players, and don't have to think what give TO them - which can be better handled when you know the cards better). In the yesterday's session it worked just fine.

Anyways - the game is very easy to play and learn, which is great, in my opinion. I believe, based on the 3 plays we've had, our Squad Leader may now be effective in any other role, when we'll bring fresh meat on our next meeting.

I think it entirely depends on the difficulty for passing missions (and the alien battle plan). Easier difficulties or battle plans that involve significant base attacks (ie onslaught IIRC), I would agree. But for harder difficulties (ie Hard/Expert) passing missions is not the greatest idea IMO as it is the only way (really) of reducing panic in continents that is under a players control. Sure passing missions give you more time, and allows for concentration on the base, but you miss out on a lot too.

Harder difficulties, in my experience, try to knock you out earlier. Not undertaking missions allows you to more easily mitigate one end-of-game issue (ie base) but does nothing for (unless the battle plan penalty affects it) global panic. Global panic has so many more issues that contribute to it spiralling out of control, and affects not just the end of game but also the current budget. UFO continent defence, orbit defence, flippin crisis cards, low budget and possibly the alien battle plan all push the global panic skyward.

More missions also means more salvage which should be used judiciously to gain tech, abilities, money etc.

Remember the SO essentially gets 8 techs a round, so its relatively easy to burn through the deck to find those techs you want early (IMO generally those that influence future tech use, or your budget or allow you to utilize other resources ie spare scientists/salvage early on, then switching to squad/air power later on). Also I favour techs that match the battle plan strengths ie from my experience misdirection will favours orbit attacks but will otherwise be all over the place ie crisis one round, base the next, ufo's the next etc. Conversly onslaught (IIRC) nails the base hard each and every turn. You can generally get an idea of the overall alien strategy by the penalty (in most cases).

So if they will be going UFO heavy (the worst IMO as you can only ever have 8 interceptors and loss's cost you), then you want techs that give you air power defences, and should make judicious use of the CO ability to suck ufo's into orbit. I would be doing 3 a round, cause satellite damage is inconvenient but NOT costly. So long as we have satellites, we always deploy 3, and then use another 3 to suck UFO's (the other 2 are either exhausted generally or used elsewhere). Even if you cannot defeat all the orbit UFO's they contribute to the LOWEST continent's panic that round which is infinitely better then the alternative generally (unless it will push your home continent into red).

Anyway that's just my meandering take on it.

FYI From my experience, assuming the battle plan does not effect final mission drop time (which it may well do), Even on expert difficulty, without taking any missions, it drops consistently on turn 7 (small sample size admittedly). It seems that each successful mission either moves the FM drop ahead one turn (most likely) or increases the chance of it dropping (less likely from that stats I have). So far I have been able to successfully predict when the FM would drop by just using (7-mission success). That said I only have a small sample of games recorded so it may just be a good estimate. (I actually hope battle plan does effect it, as difficulty does not seem to). Has anyone ever had an FM drop on turn 3 on normal or harder difficulty ? As that would disprove my theory, ether that or a drop on turn 8 or higher.