Talk:X-COM: A Military Analysis

Nature of the beast

Good question. For me, the template and probably the inspiration for the X-COM organisation is S.H.A.D.O., but I know you are sticking to the canon here.

I would compare X-COM to the paramilitary arm of an intelligence agency such as the CIA or the wartime OSS. These organisations have a strategic goal, and include intelligence, scientific, special manufacturing and aircraft-using roles as well as a paramilitary function. X-COM is similar. We can assume that X-COM has personnel other that the scientists, soldiers and engineers in its secret, hardened bases. Apart from the pilots (who seem to sleep in their planes and whose salary is paid by some other organisation, possibly the aerospace forces of the funding nations) there are known to be X-COM "agents" and there are probably administrative, analytic and managerial staff - perhaps tucked away in an HQ facility in a non-descript (but highly secure) building in the UN complex in Geneva.

It is curious that X-COM never fields more than about 250 each of soldiers, scientists or engineers - any many fewer pilots. Possibly this is a constitutional limitation. Concerns about international law, jurisdictional issues with national militaries, a desire to keep X-COM under control, preservation of secrecy, or not provoking the aliens - all are possible reasons for keeping the organisation small. Perhaps the total staff is limited to 1000, with a decision to break this down as 250 each for military/scientific/technical/admin? Speculation.

Still it means the entire military forces of X-COM are only company-strength, and never operationally deployed in more than platoon strength. (Even in an attack on a heavily populated training base, X-COM will put into the field at most a reinforced platoon, under cover of which the remaining personnel will withdraw).

X-COM initially lacks any officers. Possibly in its early stages it is supervised by senior officers of the funding nations, attached to X-COM as advisors but not formally part of the X-COM complement (an old geopolitical trick!). Perhaps the difficulty of establishing precedence of ranks between soldiers of different nations led to this decision not to differentiate between soldiers. A 'team' approach may have prevailed in the early days. However, as in any situation, natural leaders soon emerge and are recognised with ranks. While drawn from existing elite units, humanity's finest soldiers, the capability to cope with the alien threat and handle the exotic technology does not become apparent until after live operations against the aliens. After a short time, X-COM developed a full rank structure appropriate to the small size and specialised nature of its paramilitary group. A good parallel to the X-COM paramilitary group is a Special Forces company, split operationally into small teams, sections, flights, etc. Another (perhaps better) parallel is the paramilitary teams inside agencies such as the CIA, KGB (in 1999), Mossad MI6 or the various French secret services.

The term X-COM, while shrouded in some mystery, is sometimes glossed as "EXtra-Terrestrial COMbat force". Does X-COM then refer only to the paramilitary division, relatively more visible, of an even more shadowy organisation whose very name is unknown? Or is "Combat" to be understood in the strategic sense of combatting the alien threat by all means?

Yeah, I didn't have time to continue my line of thinking but my idea is that X-COM is more akin to the OSS for a number of reasons. The CIA, KGB, etc. are also possibilities although their military component is significantly less than the OSS.

The 255 limit you mention only applies to individual bases IIRC, so the actual limit would be 255*8 (the number of possible bases), which leads into some 2000 and something maximum soldiers. And then there's also the Agents, support staff, etc. More into this article later.

The 255-per-base limit applies to Engineers and Scientists, but SOLDIER.DAT, which stores troop stats, has only 250 entries in it. This limits X-COM to only possessing 250 standing ground forces at any one time(which is probably a constitutional restriction, since given the equipment X-COM has access to, they could make a viable world domination bid with more. One soldier in a Flying Suit with Heavy Plasma would be practically invulnerable to most military forces in 1999.) Arrow Quivershaft 11:14, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

Thanks for the clearup regarding the 250 soldiers issue. And yes, 1 such soldier equipped would be invulnerable to most military forces, but eventually exhaustion would take its toll against thousands of opponents with bullets. Hobbes 11:29, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

Er... no. Such soldiers would be impervious to small arms fire, but I think they could eventually be brought down by Anti-Vehicle class weapons, anti-tank missiles, and a Fuel Air Bomb would probably be able to take down an entire division in one shot. An Avalanche missile seems to be more powerful than a Blaster Bomb. And those craft mounted cannons are strong enough to penetrate UFO exterior hulls. ... The real threat is probably those Avengers armed with Plasma Cannons, I think one of those would be unstoppable unless you managed to take out it's resupply and repair base. Jasonred Jasonred 13:20, 25 February 2009 (CST)

Force limit

I just checked and there is a hard global limit in the game of 250 X-COM soldiers in total across all bases.

The error message is

"NO MORE SOLDIERS ALLOWED You have already recruited the maximum number of soldiers."

So I think what you are saying about 255*8 limit may apply to scientists and engineers, but not soldiers. Probably due to the size of SOLDIER.DAT. Or something.

Also there are 3 bugs: you still get charged for Soldiers you purchase above this limit, or above the transfer limit, and the error message for hiring too many soldiers loops once for each soldier over the limit, ie up to 250 times. Spike 11:38, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

It is exactly because of the size of SOLDIER.DAT. And I know you can hire a large number of engineers and scientists at different bases, because once I get well into the game, every base has at least 40 engineers on staff, and many have 90 or 140. Or possibly even more. Arrow Quivershaft 12:53, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

Science-led forces

Hi Hobbes. I really like your thinking there. It makes sense: visionary leadership at the nascent X-Com realised that science would ultimately win (or lose, or both) the battle. Therefore the military were put at the service of the scientists, in formations appropriate to the primary task of scientific intelligence gathering. It makes a lot of sense, and of course it is "the right answer" in that "history" shows that prioritising scientific research is the necessary, best and indeed only way to defeat the alien menace. Cheers, Spike 11:44, 22 June 2009 (EDT)

Hey, thanks for the feedback. My original idea was not to put so much emphasis on the scientific influence upon X-COM but things just turned out that way. Hobbes 13:41, 22 June 2009 (EDT)