I've been playing this for a bit on Thursday nights at my FLGS. That's board gaming night, and having played other complex board games for the first time and fought to hold my attention while folks attempt to tell me what I need to know to play effectively, I thought I'd try writing a brief of the important stuff for XCOM so I could get the essentials across without making people doze off.
I posted this on my web log , but I wanted to put it up here to see what you veterans think.
- Central Officer: Destroying UFOs in orbit with Satellites (called Orbital Defence); the orbit space on the board is one task and each success destroys one UFO.
- Chief Scientist: Researching new technologies with Scientists (called Research); each research space on the board is one task and each success earns one point toward the chosen technology’s research goal.
- Commander: Destroying UFOs over continents with Interceptors (called Global Defence); each of the six continents on the board is one task and each success destroys one UFO.
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Squad Leader:
- Destroying aliens invading the XCOM base with Soldiers (called Base Defence); each alien is one task and each success earns one damage point against the alien’s hit points.
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Going on the current Mission with Soldiers; each alien on the mission or non-alien space is one task each success either:
- earns one damage point against the alien’s hit points, or
- earns one point of success for the non-alien space.
- every UFO remaining on it once the Commander has finished Global Defence,
- every UFO in orbit once the Central Officer has finished Orbital Defence (only the least panicked continent increases its panic), and
- the difference between the total of Interceptors, Satellites, Scientists and Soldiers allocated to tasks this turn and the number of credits in this turn’s budget, if the budget is the lower number (only the most panicked continent moves further up the track).