Wow . An odd and interesting story . Thanks for sharing . <| sep |> Honestly , the only reason its free on pc is that the original with mods still looks way better so no one would have bought it anyway . <| sep |> Part of the struggle with XCOM is that the earlymidmid game is arguably the hardest , because you have to constantly be thinking ahead . If you ' re asking about what to build and how to manage your research , etc . , then it ' s going to vary a bit , but there are a few basics that help out . 1 . Use your engineers to excavate spaces on the Avenger early . Several of the early quest steps require you to build certain facilities , and you can ' t do that if you don ' t have room to build them . 2 . On that note , you need power to build facilities , so plan on making your second or third building a power relay . And keep an eye on the power you have it can become a huge time suck if you want to build a facility , but don ' t have the power . 3 . Prioritize research based on a leapfrog game of upgrading your squad ' s armorweapons and doing quest research . 4 . Do not wait too long to make contact with other regions on the world map , but choose your first connections wisely . You can ' t raid an ADVENT project base without having first established comms in the region where it ' s based , so you should expand your regional contacts towards the closest advent bases . You need to attack at least one of these bases in the earlymid game to prevent the ADVENT project from gaining too much progress . 5 . Establishing comms requires Intel and time . I personally would not bother with the black market it costs intel unless it is an utter emergency . Spend your intel on gaining regional contacts following rule 4 . 6 . DO NOT LET YOUR SOLDIERS DIE . Do not overextend . Take advantage of positioning . Make smart choices about the soldier upgrades you choose , and the weapon upgrades you apply . All of these small choices in battle are critical to success in the long game . 7 . Cycle in some rookieother low level soldiers outside of your main squad in the earlyearlymid game missions . You will need these upgraded soldiers later when your mains get hurt . 8 . Increase squad size after building the Guerrilla tactics school again , keep excavating as soon as you possibly can , unless you are going for a challengemodeish playthrough . 9 . For the love of god , get a specialist with a ton of healing abilities and keep her alive in every mission you play . She can not only save your entire team ' s life , she can also hack certain enemies or stations , granting you major buffs on the battlefield . That ' s all I ' ve got for now . I left my setup in my brother ' s room so I can ' t play right now , even though I really want to Hope this helps ! edited for numbering and spelling