[muzani]

Both are vastly different games though. XCOM allows you to completely turtle though EW expansion countered that. XCOM 2 seems to overly punish safe play and reward aggression.

The downside of the XCOM games is you can lose a whole game on a 80% roll, so it might not condition you properly. The game snowballs, so if you get far enough without losing someone, or lose someone too early, you've basically lost Ironman but it doesn't inform you when.

Battle Brothers is of the genre, with similar flaws. Basically the whole "you lose on day 110 because you didn't knife enough mercenaries on day 31".

Xenonauts I think strikes a good balance. You can lose almost everyone and still continue the game. It's more strategic and less tactical, meaning that if you write the correct SOPs and use sufficient explosives, you should win.

XCOM feels a bit like chess sometimes, in that you lose because you didn't examine the map properly or positioned your sniper too far back.