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Watch for high alien activity (check the graphs) in an area of
the world yet no interception: there's probably a base in the
area.

Send something slow but long-range like a Skyranger to patrol the
area. An empty Skyranger has excellent range and therefore is
perfect in spotting alien bases.

Watch UFOs, esp. where they land. If you see a "Supply Ship", do
NOT attack it. Trail it and follow it to their base. After it
lands, patrol nearby and you'll see the base.

Hyperwave decoders (research item) can find UFOs on supply runs.
Follow that UFO will usually lead you to a base.

Of course, you do NOT have to take out that base... You go after
the supply UFOs instead will net you a lot of supplies. Of
course, can you survive the retaliation raids?

XCOM agents have a chance of finding an alien base for you, but
chances are pretty slim. So do not rely on that. This happens
as a "bonus" for you if you failed several missions and had a bad
month.


2.3 XCOM BASE MANAGEMENT

[also see 3.0 for XCOM Bases]

Since it takes several weeks before additional modules to the
base can be brought online, you need to build them ahead of time.
See the base status to see how full are your facilities getting.
If they are getting close, start building additional facilities
so that they'll be ready by the time you need them.

Examine base status at least twice every month, check living
quarters, workshops and labs, etc, and determine your expansion
schedule. Dismantle extra stuff before end of month so you don't
pay maintenance on them.

Hire engineers and scientists at the last hour of the month so
that they get delivered early NEXT month, so you get maximum
research from them while not paying an extra penny in salary.


2.4 GEOSCAPE TRICKS AND TIPS

Many people don't realize that click on the UFO icon will bring
up all known info about the UFO. If you detected it via
Hyperwave Decoder, you'll know A LOT about it.

UFO Crash Sites usually disappear in a few days. If you have no
soldiers available, you can let it sit for a day or two.

Landed UFOs will take off in a few hours (less than a day).

Terror Sites disappear in less than a day (which mean you have to
get to one ASAP, even if it means skipping UFOs and landing at
night!)

Landed/crashed UFOs still has info, such as size. Use that to
determine whether you want to hit it or not.


2.5 TARGET SELECTION

If several targets presents itself, which one should you attack?
Here are some of my general guidelines:


2.5.1 UFOs in flight

Attack the biggest UFO you can handle. Supply ships are easy.
Terror ships are okay. Battleships are death unless you have
Firestorms and Avengers and can attack with multiple crafts
simultaneously.

Launch from the closest base FROM UFOs INTENDED TARGET if it is
known or can be deduced from UFO path. Launching from the
closest base at the time of contact will result in a tail chase,
resulting frequently in lost tracking and waste of fuel and time.

If the landing site is on the dark side, you may want to patrol
nearby and wait for light. Of course, in the meanwhile the
landed UFO may take off again.

Keep a fighter on top of a landed UFO in case it takes off before
your transport can get to it.


2.5.2 Downed/Landed UFOs

Attack the biggest UFO you can handle. Terror ships have annoying
terrorists (esp. Chrysalids!) and Battleship simply have lots of
enemies (and terrorists, depending on mission). Supply ships are
okay if you watch the grav- lifts closely

Larger UFOs have more aliens and more artifacts to recover, so
risk and reward are proportional.

If you have a choice, attack a landed UFO instead of a shot-down
UFO. Landed UFO is undamaged and therefore has more artifacts
(plus 50 units of E-115 per engine) but of course has more
aliens.

Some veterans have reported that they can finish game faster by
attacking landed UFOs only. While score may not be as
spectacular, they also have less risk of retaliation and can get
more research done and have more money (from the extra booty)

Don't follow an UFO around with a loaded transport (with soldiers
and equipment). They are wasting fuel and time and they may not
have enough endurance to finish the race and thus, not able to
respond to a different emergency (such as a terror site suddenly
popping up elsewhere)


2.5.3 Terror sites

Attack one ASAP, no exceptions. Divert from other UFO or base
attacks if necessary, and definitely attack at night. The penalty
for ignoring a terror site is simply too large to ignore.


2.5.4 Alien bases

Depending on your soldiers, you should attack a base as soon as
you are able to (don't take rookies though). You should not
allow more than one alien base on Earth since you can't really
afford the penalty.

You may want to consider leaving a base alone nearby so you can
keep attacking the supply UFOs that drops by. Just make sure you
can handle the alien retaliation.



3 X-COM Bases


3.1 WHERE SHOULD I PUT MY FIRST BASE? ADDITIONAL BASES?

There are several things to consider while placing your first
base. Keep in mind that your first base will be your only base
for a while, so make sure you place it where you get maximum
coverage of the sponsoring countries, who also pays the most.

Also see 3.8 for base startup costs.

The problem you need to solve is how to maximize the coverage
WHILE maximizing the covered countries' total payment. We know
that the US pays the most (always), and second most is Japan,
while Europe has a lot of sponsor countries in a cluster. Third
best paying is South Africa.

According to OSG's Chapter 5, the finance changes depend on your
score. If your score is positive, and you did a lot of stuff in
the sponsoring country (see XCOM Activity in Graphs), then they
will raise their payment by a random percentage. Now, would you
rather have 10% of $100,000, or 10% of $800,000?

OSG recommends Northern US as a good starting place, which is
okay, since US is the largest paying XCOM sponsor. On the other
hand, a base in US can only cover US and Canada. A base in
Central Europe can cover UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and a
piece of Russia (though most of Russia would need a base in Asia,
covering Japan, China, and maybe India as well). My vote is a
toss-up between Europe and Northern-Central US. Both can work
quite well.

If you build your first base in Northern-Central US, build your
second in Europe, and vice versa. The third base should be near
Japan to cover Japan, China, Russia, and hopefully India (maybe
not), and fourth base should be in Africa covering Nigeria and
South Africa (an important contributor). If you build a fifth
base, it should go in South America, covering Brazil. If you
want a sixth base, built it in New Zealand or Northeastern
Australia to covering most of the Pacific (covering Australia).

Check your graphs regularly to determine where to build your next
base. Watch for sponsor countries with high alien activity with
high-paying sponsor(s), then check how much did they pay you via
the Funding screen and see if they are worth defending.

Do not build additional bases until you have enough money in the
bank to pay for its initial construction AS WELL AS the two
months' worth of maintenance. Negative balance for two months
means the end of your XCOM tenure!


3.2 HOW SHOULD I NAME MY BASES?

I personally name bases based on the continent they are on, plus
the COM suffix (stands for Command), except for the US base,
which is CentCom. Europe is EuroCom, South America is SoAmCom (or
SouthCom, if you want to be authentic), Asia is AsiaCom, Africa
is AfriCom, and so on. Sounds military. :-)

Naming bases is important because it means less confusion on the
Intercept screen on choosing which base to launch the fighters
and transports. Launching from the wrong one means the craft
will not get there in time, run out of fuel before getting there
(never get there since it will come back first), etc.


3.3 WHAT TYPES OF BASES SHOULD I BUILD?

The OSG recommends that you build every base to be as full
fledged as possible, as to be ready in the unlikely event that
all other bases fell to the aliens. While I can sympathize with
the approach, it is very difficult to implement.

The main problem is in research. Each base research independent
of each other. Decentralized research slows discoveries and makes
duplicate research possible (efforts are NOT cumulative).

The only way to make things work like recommended is limit
yourself to about three or four bases, covering North America,
Europe, East Asia (Japan, China, Eastern Russia), and Africa
(South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt).

I believe in a multi-stage base building. Your bases will
probably evolve as follows:


3.3.1 Radar base

The radar base just have radars, and later, hyperwave decoders.
Remember to put in a storage space (for HWPs and their ammos) and
a living quarter (for expansion and a few guards). Stock it with
several HWPs (plasma hovertanks are ideal) for defense, add one
defense station when you can afford it.

Each radar has a 5 percent chance of detecting UFO within its
detection radius (just like the UFOpedia says), so you don't need
both small and large radars, just large will do (unless you run
out of money!). Ten radars mean 50% chance of detection, etc.
Usually though you only need like 3 to 4 per radar base.

When you researched hyperwave decoder, you can replace all the
radars with ONE hyperwave decoder. Hyperwave decoder detects
100% UFOs in range. Dismantle the radars to save on maintenance
(see 5.4)


3.3.2 Intercept Base

Radar base with a hangar housing a fighter (Interceptor or
Firestorm) or two. Watch the storage space since fighter needs
its own weapons and ammo. Add one if needed.