🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi all, some things I found which may be of use?

http://www.gamecenter.com/Underground/Faqs/Strategy/  will head you to some
XCOM FAQ's amongst other things.


http://www.gamecenter.com/Underground/Community/Strategy/Xcom/  lists some
websites relating to XCOM stuff [dunno how good they are mind....]

Check out this rather long, but interesting thread found on XCOManiacs
website - http://home.sol.no/stighw/X-COManiac/

I can't find an email link to give credit to the author for this extensive
history, but the site lists some other interesting reading, so it's worth
having a look.

Thanks for to the XCOManiac for this information - apologies if this is
blatant copyright infringement [the work of the author is acknowledge, btw,
and I claim no responsibility, nor credit for the following! - hope that
covers it?]

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The History Of X-COM
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I want to start out this section by stating that the information
you find in here, are the results of my own research.
It's a cutdown, bit for bit kind of chronological storyline.
In other words, this is not any Microprose or Mythos official
story compilation, though much of the information I have used
to put this together, are from two of Mythoses pages. These are:

http://www.mythosgames.com/aboutmyt.htm
http://www.mythosgames.com/gamehist.htm

Other things that have helped me, are mail-responses from both
Mythos and Microprose, and all the other web-pages out there.

And off course, if you guys out there reading this,
feels that something should be put another way,
or you have something to add, then don't hesitate
to mail me. I am glad for every addition I get.





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Mythos
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Mythos was registered in 1989 with three directors and
shareholders: Julian Gollop, Nick Gollop and Peter Gollop.

Their aim with this company was to produce computer strategy
games of the highest quality and longevity. In particular they
wanted to produce games that they would like to play themselves,
regardless of market trends or the popularity of other genres.




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Julian Gollop
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Among the three Gollop's, it seems like Julian Gollop was
the one who came up with new ideas, and also did most of
the design and programming. Julian had long before the start
of Mythos been designing games for himself. These games were
at first published by Redshift, and contained titles like:
Time Lords(83), Islandia(84), Nebula(84), Rebelstar Raiders(84).

Rebelstar Raiders was the last game published under Redshift,
and also their most successful title. From now on Julians games
were to be published by several publishers like:
Games Workshop, Firebird, Target Games/Blade Software.




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Rebelstar Raiders
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This title was the first in a dynastic succession culminating in
the X-Com games. It was a simple two player individual level
fire combat game, inspired by SPI�s boardgame "Sniper".
So here one might say is the origin of the X-COM game series.

After Rebelstar Raiders(84), came Rebelstar(86),
then Rebelstar II(88). Here the Rebelstar series ended, and
a game called Laser Squad continued in it's place.




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Laser Squad
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Laser Squad followed on from Rebelstar II with many
improvements. The interface used a simple joystick system
that meant you could sit back from the keyboard.
You could choose equipment for your troops before beginning
the scenario and the variety of equipment was greater,
with the addition of rocket launchers and grenades.

And now we are getting very close to the first X-COM game.




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UFO: Enemy Unknown

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Julian, now with Nick Gollop showed a demo of Laser Squad 2
on the Atari ST to Microprose in 1991. The idea was to produce
a sequel to Laser Squad, but with much neater graphics
using an isometric style very similar to Populous.

Microprose liked what had been done so far, but explained
that they wanted a "big" game. They also said that it had
to be set on earth, like Civilisation or Railroad Tycoon,
because people could relate to it much more. So they went away,
scratched their heads and thought about it. Then they came up
with the idea of adding on a grand strategic element to
the game, very firmly set on earth, in which the player
managed an organisation that defended the planet against
UFO incursions. Julian now went ahead and bought quite a few
books on UFOs for research purposes, so that they could give
the game an even more "authentic" basis.

The project started reasonably well with Julian and Nick
designing and programming, while the art was to be done
by John Reitze and Martin Smillie at MicroProse.
Soon they had some problems because Microprose did not
understand their game design and they asked for clarification.
The whole project were nearly axed several times, because of
amongst other things financial difficulties.
Certain creature types were removed, including the "Men In Black"
and others added. Finally they had to spend a couple of months
working very long hours at MicroProse, in Chipping Sodbury,
to get the game finished by the end of March in 1994.


The X-COM Pedigree





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X-COM: Terror From The Deep
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After completing UFO, MicroProse wanted to do a
quick follow up within six months. Julian and Nick said
that this was not feasible, and if it were possible it would
be little more than the same game with different graphics.
Instead they started work on X-COM: Apocalypse, which was
much more ambitious. Once UFO/X-COM was clearly known
to be a success, MicroProse suggested that they license
the code for them to develop their own sequel.
And so Micoprose developed the second X-COM game.




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X-COM: Apocalypse
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After three years of hard work and five different producers
X-COM: Apocalypse finally hit the streets. The initial game
design was definitely too ambitious and too complex.
The aim was to recreate in some detail the events,
organisations and personalities within a futuristic megalopolis.

Each corporation had a leader who could be tailed, arrested,
interrogated or assassinated. Organisations could buy and sell
buildings as their financial fortunes changed. X-Com agents
could spy on other organisations to gain valuable information.
A sophisticated diplomacy display allowed the player to instigate
aggressive or defensive alliances with other organisations.

There were multiple alien dimensions, generated pseudo-
randomly, and the aliens gradually expanded their empire
as the game progressed. The game also featured a scenario
generator and multiplayer options using a hotseat turn based
system or a real time LAN option. Most of these features were
implemented to some degree, but were finally stripped out due to
the horrendous amount of work involved in QA and debugging.

They decided right at the start of the project to include
an option for real time tactical combat or turn based.
This decision alone caused many of the headaches for
the programmers, but the final implementation of
the real time combat stands up as a truly innovative system.




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X-COM: Interceptor / Alliance
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The news about these games are so hot and heavy,
that I don't really know what to put in here right now.
And what's more, they are not history yet,
heck they are not even on the shelves.
I'll rather concentrate on the previous titles,
cause I can still expand this page on those.




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Summary / My Thoughts
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So. What we do know is that Mythos,
and by that I mean Julian, Nick and the rest of the team,
designed X-COM: Enemy Unknown and X-COM: Apocalypse,
while Microprose designed X-COM Terror From The Deep,
X-COM: Interceptor and any other game that follows.
I guess this means X-COM Alliance and so forth.

I think it's a bit sad that Mythos now no longer
has a hand in on what happens with the X-COM series.
Pleased is not the word I would use to describe,
how Microprose are so radically changing the style of X-COM.
Either it's a Flight-Sim with a sectoid painted on the sidewing,
or a Quake-Monster roaming in the halls of a desolate hangar,
it's still not the X-COM that we all love.

If I believed it to help, I would go down on my knees
and beg Microprose to either change the style back to
the old Soldier vs Alien ground-combat, or that they let
Mythos get back to developing X-COM titles.

But who am I to think that they (Microprose) would listen
to an average customer, who's bought their every title.
I guess it's not their style, and it's not where the money is.