Part 8

Learn essential XCOM: Enemy Within tactical combat strategies, including unit health, movement, cover types, and the Hunker Down ability, to defeat aliens and EXALT.

This section covers basic tactics for defeating aliens and EXALT soldiers in XCOM: Enemy Within. More detailed information on unit stats and spoilers can be found in Section 4.

Controls and Basics: Assume familiarity with camera controls. Use the mouse to move the camera, the middle mouse button to zoom, and the buttons in the bottom left to rotate the screen. Different zoom levels may be necessary to specify movement tiles.

Unit Health and Movement: Every soldier has HP and two actions per turn. HP is represented by small rectangular bars; when depleted, the unit dies or is critically injured (receiving a permanent will penalty). Action bars, represented by larger rectangles, typically allow for two moves per turn. Using most abilities ends a unit's turn. A soldier can move twice, move once and shoot/use an ability, or perform one ability/shot. Some classes, like Heavies, can shoot twice, while Assaults can move and shoot. Overwatch and Hunker Down abilities also end the turn. Colored transparent layers on the ground indicate movement options: blue means one action bar is used, allowing further actions; yellow means two action bars are used, ending the turn. Moving into the yellow area first is called dashing and weakens Overwatch. Any movement, even a single step, uses an action bar. Holding the left mouse button shows a grid for movement distance, and hovering over an area displays the path, which is always the shortest route. Movement also allows soldiers to reach cover.

Half and Full Cover and Hunker: Half cover provides 20 defense, and full cover provides 40 defense. A blue shield icon appears when a soldier can take cover. A half-full shield indicates half cover, and a fully colored shield indicates full cover, in the direction of the shield. Cover is directional; cover from one direction does not protect from attacks from another. A soldier can have cover from multiple directions, but only the cover from the direction of the attack applies. Use logic to determine cover direction (e.g., moving to the south side of a car provides cover from the north).