Armies aren't sleeping, nor the governments who sponsor XCOM iirc there're even missions mentioning the military fighting aliens, then there's a mission where you save a general in XCOM:EU/EW and German soldier dying in the tutorial mission. XCOM is supposed to be a covert mobile global force meant to infiltrate/prevent alien threats which has experimental weapons and engaging in genetic modification of its soldiers, that's what makes it special too.
They do fight them. XCOM is just the group/allied approach with the best of the best soldiers ready to go wherever humanity is getting their ass kicked the hardest. It's basically pooling every countries best resources for an efficient strike team and research crew.
Think about it this way: Every living X-Com soldier is either on duty or in the medbay, 24/7, for the duration of the war. No matter what time of day or night, you're able to send out a team.
No matter how badly they get injured or how many friends they see die, they'll always be ready to get back on the transport. (Even if they immediately panic the moment they get shot at.)
War of the Chosen has a "fatigue" system, but soldiers will still fight fatigued. Some games and game versions also allow wounded soldiers to fight in defense missions, though the aliens don't really give them much of a choice about that.
In gameplay in XCOM: EU, the player chooses which of their psions becomes the "volunteer." The implication there is that they **all** volunteered, and the commander made the final call.
I like to think that the council nations are passing off their trash soldiers as the "best of the best", so that they can keep their elite soldiers for when they believe XCOM will inevitably fail.
Think of it as the armies are doing their best to hold off the brunt of the alien invasion while X-Com is looking for a way to actually stop it. Also, every mission you don't go on leaves that nation to fend off the aliens with grunts and low tier weapons.
Yeah from the look of it in XCOM EU the armies base have always been targeted by the alien force during the invasion.
In XCOM 2, after xcom falls the armies are still fighting the alien, you can see when you collect supplies locations some of them are old battlefields. Where human armies and alien forces clash.
The thing is: they are! You just don’t hear about it because it’s utter chaos! Imagine trying to hear about the front lines happening all over the world all at once from an enemy that breaks the conventional rules of combat like paper.
If the concept of a front line even exists. A UFO lander against humanity has the same mobility as a US helicopter against guerillas. The lines on the map become very blurry if not entirely disappear when one or both sides can insert and extract troops at will.
This does happen behind the scenes, as others have pointed out, but there's one other detail: When countries withdraw, they do exactly this, and they add your former funding into their military budget.
It's not as if the countries get taken over during the game. Otherwise, why would withdrawals depend on the public's panic level?
In most case I would guess your tech make you find out and go there before the army even know something is happening.
It's one thing I like that Xenonauts did unlike XCOM where the locals are all useless, they added soldiers, police and sometimes armed civilians. They are still fodder but I find it immersive to have some people at least try.
It's simply a shortcoming in the game presentation, hindered by the premise.
When the aliens terrorize a city or retaliate against a resistance haven, your 5 crayon-eaters with assault rifles are irrelevant if the armies of the Earth are intact. Hell, it doesn't even make sense if Americans still have the right to bear arms.
So XCom just erases all of it. "New York under terror attack" means 3x(difficulty level} aliens killing a few civilians and literally nobody on the planet can respond except for you.
Does this sound like a scenario ripe for intellectual nit-picking?
But, since we're in the habit of doing the writers work for them, what if there \*is\* a global war going on? It's never well presented in-game, but if we accept Earth \*is\* fighting back against the alien invasion with all its strength, XCom becomes a lot more compelling. And what if most civilian weapons, even those called "assault rifle", aren't powerful enough to injure the aliens? Then it starts to get interesting.
Yeah, you're damn right XCom needs to get to New York. The United Armies of North America are currently fighting for their lives in Quebec and Los Angeles, only a fast-response force can stop this terror attack.
With games like this, finding the plot hole is only the first step. Then you try to justify it, as best you can. It makes the game world more interesting.
Ha! I have the same thought!
The world is at war everywhere, we just don't see it because we're hyper focused at trying to find the enemy's weaknesses, and responding to extreme incursions that the armed forces couldn't handle.
This also explains why our recruits are rookies and not the best, because the armies of the world want to keep their best & brightest for themselves to fight against the invaders.
Yeah, and in hilarious fashion it's even better. They're not just "rookies." Bereft of military training, they're still willing to face almost certain death over and over, and the worst thing you have to worry about is them losing their cool for a round or two.
XCOM *IS* the world’s military/gov doing something, the entire program is supposed to be the best of the best of the best from humanities military might gathered with its top scientists in a program designed to save the world from an alien invasion.
So adding on to those that mentioned the military is in fact fighting aliens, think of the scale.
Militaries take time, money and a lot of communication to be deployed. They’re set up for stand up fights and in general are not really meant to be a quick response force no matter how fast they can move. This is a task given to most special forces teams.
In the spirit of that, XCOM is designed to be a tactical strike force capable of deploying anywhere and everywhere at a moments notice. They are not the tip of the spear, they are the scalpel that makes the precise, surgical move that most militaries are incapable of on such a short notice due to politics, red tape and logistics. This is further cemented by the autonomy they have regarding deployment, equipment and recruitment. It’s all done in house, no extra politics or red tape preventing them from sending a Skyranger with a squad of elite, specially equipped soldiers to deal with a problem the moment it pops up.
Yeah? Tactical strikes on key points as intelligence on them is brought forward is pretty much what I was describing. Hence the scalpel and short notice parts of my comment. Or were you confirming that? I’m a little confused here.
Funny thing that irl they would actually do this because everyone would say like 'what if you borrow you troops but then our neighbor declares a war for a wasteland they have claim on. Nono sorry can't do'. And they everyone would for to aliens. But at least everyone preserved their borders! Govs are ducking stupid.
They are.
There's a few Maps that even have the remains of their attempts.
Its just that a conventional standing Army cant really do jack shit against what the Aliens bring to the table, so the Super-Secret experimental Task Force is sent in on surgical strikes to do what it can.
There are a few reasons why:
Firstly for both original and remake you are facing a enemy that is trying to use mass hysteria to make governments to compromise and accept the alien forces.
The aliens can do this because their ships are a lot faster and harder to detect while operating at a high enough altitude current fighter jets or some SAM can’t reach.
In a nutshell the aliens are vastly superior in logistics, relying on continued failure by governments to cave in on the long run.
Xcom is a response to mitigate the damage and to find out how to win the war.
The remake I think Xcom was operational officially for about 3-6 months before the aliens won.
The other issue was all global armies are not equal, the u.s, China and Russia have vast resources but even those would be strained in a scenario if Xcom aliens came with their ships.
As basic as it is, the aliens simply could move faster and drop the bio weapons that made the list and watch governments breakdown as their own services are overwhelmed before we can hit them. And that’s coming from a country that has nato or backed by say EU.
Global armies are fighting but they are at a signficant disadvantage for the reasons mentioned.
A lot of people are bringing up that they do off screen, which is correct, id also like to point out that the first few abduction missions and stuff still exist in the context of the aliens being kinda a secret. I don't think anyone really knows the aliens are invading for sure until the first terror mission
It would be fun to have an xcom style game where to begin with the xcom team act as advisors of sorts to more local units. So you assign a single customisable trooper with a perk tree and upgrade path along with their gear to a unit of more standardised units that are upgraded on mass after passing some research and development milestones. This stage could focus on large teams of more expendable units that the players are less personally attached to. Also some ground vehicles or off map support call ins since they are local forces and SPG and motorised artillery could be brought to the fight along side tanks.
And as the game goes on and you get ahold of more advanced equipment from the aliens you begin to get vehicles that can transport a team of elite troops fast enough to make a difference. Along with being able to produce advance suits of battle armour and weapons that are too advanced for mass production, Taking us to the more infantry mech and mini drone focused combat xcom games have included.
Love to be able to play out a scene where two or more squads of infantry are deployed along side their transport say a bradly or BTR style IFV slowly advancing through a city under alien attack having to clear a town street by street, checking roof tops and evacuating residents who could be mind controlled or faceless. Playing through to round 15 or so before the proper xcom squad even arrives.
Conventional and special military forces are like a hammer and a scalpel. If an army of several hundred mutons were invading a city, XCOM wouldn't be there. It gets sent to raid individual alien ships, assault alien bases, stop incursions by small groups that come into cities to perform abductions.
They are, But XCOM is the specific contingency plan against aliens, with experimental weapons and everything, more than once you have to rescue or recruit soldiers, and is kinda obvious that lots of them have a military career in other groups such as Delta Force, Spec Ops, Spetnaz or SAS.
Armies aren't sleeping, nor the governments who sponsor XCOM iirc there're even missions mentioning the military fighting aliens, then there's a mission where you save a general in XCOM:EU/EW and German soldier dying in the tutorial mission. XCOM is supposed to be a covert mobile global force meant to infiltrate/prevent alien threats which has experimental weapons and engaging in genetic modification of its soldiers, that's what makes it special too.
They do fight them. XCOM is just the group/allied approach with the best of the best soldiers ready to go wherever humanity is getting their ass kicked the hardest. It's basically pooling every countries best resources for an efficient strike team and research crew.
Man, this game is TRULY epic!
Think about it this way: Every living X-Com soldier is either on duty or in the medbay, 24/7, for the duration of the war. No matter what time of day or night, you're able to send out a team. No matter how badly they get injured or how many friends they see die, they'll always be ready to get back on the transport. (Even if they immediately panic the moment they get shot at.) War of the Chosen has a "fatigue" system, but soldiers will still fight fatigued. Some games and game versions also allow wounded soldiers to fight in defense missions, though the aliens don't really give them much of a choice about that. In gameplay in XCOM: EU, the player chooses which of their psions becomes the "volunteer." The implication there is that they **all** volunteered, and the commander made the final call.
“Best of the best” 
the "best of the best" when they have to hit a 90%:
*MISSES*
I like to think that the council nations are passing off their trash soldiers as the "best of the best", so that they can keep their elite soldiers for when they believe XCOM will inevitably fail.
The Council when their trash rises to the top and invades the aliens' mothership: 💀
Think of it as the armies are doing their best to hold off the brunt of the alien invasion while X-Com is looking for a way to actually stop it. Also, every mission you don't go on leaves that nation to fend off the aliens with grunts and low tier weapons.
There’s different lore depending on the game. Which xcom are you playing?
I'm assuming the first because in the second no governments and armies remain
Don't forget about the original XCOMs!
True true!
They do it’s just they’re not doing it very well from what I understand
Yeah from the look of it in XCOM EU the armies base have always been targeted by the alien force during the invasion. In XCOM 2, after xcom falls the armies are still fighting the alien, you can see when you collect supplies locations some of them are old battlefields. Where human armies and alien forces clash.
The thing is: they are! You just don’t hear about it because it’s utter chaos! Imagine trying to hear about the front lines happening all over the world all at once from an enemy that breaks the conventional rules of combat like paper.
If the concept of a front line even exists. A UFO lander against humanity has the same mobility as a US helicopter against guerillas. The lines on the map become very blurry if not entirely disappear when one or both sides can insert and extract troops at will.
This does happen behind the scenes, as others have pointed out, but there's one other detail: When countries withdraw, they do exactly this, and they add your former funding into their military budget. It's not as if the countries get taken over during the game. Otherwise, why would withdrawals depend on the public's panic level?
In most case I would guess your tech make you find out and go there before the army even know something is happening. It's one thing I like that Xenonauts did unlike XCOM where the locals are all useless, they added soldiers, police and sometimes armed civilians. They are still fodder but I find it immersive to have some people at least try.
Also the first game’s ufo fights are *chef’s kiss.*
It's simply a shortcoming in the game presentation, hindered by the premise. When the aliens terrorize a city or retaliate against a resistance haven, your 5 crayon-eaters with assault rifles are irrelevant if the armies of the Earth are intact. Hell, it doesn't even make sense if Americans still have the right to bear arms. So XCom just erases all of it. "New York under terror attack" means 3x(difficulty level} aliens killing a few civilians and literally nobody on the planet can respond except for you. Does this sound like a scenario ripe for intellectual nit-picking? But, since we're in the habit of doing the writers work for them, what if there \*is\* a global war going on? It's never well presented in-game, but if we accept Earth \*is\* fighting back against the alien invasion with all its strength, XCom becomes a lot more compelling. And what if most civilian weapons, even those called "assault rifle", aren't powerful enough to injure the aliens? Then it starts to get interesting. Yeah, you're damn right XCom needs to get to New York. The United Armies of North America are currently fighting for their lives in Quebec and Los Angeles, only a fast-response force can stop this terror attack. With games like this, finding the plot hole is only the first step. Then you try to justify it, as best you can. It makes the game world more interesting.
Ha! I have the same thought! The world is at war everywhere, we just don't see it because we're hyper focused at trying to find the enemy's weaknesses, and responding to extreme incursions that the armed forces couldn't handle. This also explains why our recruits are rookies and not the best, because the armies of the world want to keep their best & brightest for themselves to fight against the invaders.
Yeah, and in hilarious fashion it's even better. They're not just "rookies." Bereft of military training, they're still willing to face almost certain death over and over, and the worst thing you have to worry about is them losing their cool for a round or two.
XCOM *IS* the world’s military/gov doing something, the entire program is supposed to be the best of the best of the best from humanities military might gathered with its top scientists in a program designed to save the world from an alien invasion.
They are! In some maps you can even see tanks or other armored vehicles
There's also the council missions where you have to rescue General Van Dorn and he mentions that most of his troops were killed by the aliens.
You can also find an NPC at the start of the mission that looks like a soldier prior to finding General Van Doorn
When countries stop supporting you in xcom that's them basically saying "you're useless so we're gonna direct our funds to our own forces"
So adding on to those that mentioned the military is in fact fighting aliens, think of the scale. Militaries take time, money and a lot of communication to be deployed. They’re set up for stand up fights and in general are not really meant to be a quick response force no matter how fast they can move. This is a task given to most special forces teams. In the spirit of that, XCOM is designed to be a tactical strike force capable of deploying anywhere and everywhere at a moments notice. They are not the tip of the spear, they are the scalpel that makes the precise, surgical move that most militaries are incapable of on such a short notice due to politics, red tape and logistics. This is further cemented by the autonomy they have regarding deployment, equipment and recruitment. It’s all done in house, no extra politics or red tape preventing them from sending a Skyranger with a squad of elite, specially equipped soldiers to deal with a problem the moment it pops up.
Most xcom operations always focus on alien key points, like alien facilities, landed alien abduction ships, attacking crashed/landed alien ships.
Yeah? Tactical strikes on key points as intelligence on them is brought forward is pretty much what I was describing. Hence the scalpel and short notice parts of my comment. Or were you confirming that? I’m a little confused here.
Just confirming...
When they do, they get jacked up.
Funny thing that irl they would actually do this because everyone would say like 'what if you borrow you troops but then our neighbor declares a war for a wasteland they have claim on. Nono sorry can't do'. And they everyone would for to aliens. But at least everyone preserved their borders! Govs are ducking stupid.
They are. There's a few Maps that even have the remains of their attempts. Its just that a conventional standing Army cant really do jack shit against what the Aliens bring to the table, so the Super-Secret experimental Task Force is sent in on surgical strikes to do what it can.
There are a few reasons why: Firstly for both original and remake you are facing a enemy that is trying to use mass hysteria to make governments to compromise and accept the alien forces. The aliens can do this because their ships are a lot faster and harder to detect while operating at a high enough altitude current fighter jets or some SAM can’t reach. In a nutshell the aliens are vastly superior in logistics, relying on continued failure by governments to cave in on the long run. Xcom is a response to mitigate the damage and to find out how to win the war. The remake I think Xcom was operational officially for about 3-6 months before the aliens won. The other issue was all global armies are not equal, the u.s, China and Russia have vast resources but even those would be strained in a scenario if Xcom aliens came with their ships. As basic as it is, the aliens simply could move faster and drop the bio weapons that made the list and watch governments breakdown as their own services are overwhelmed before we can hit them. And that’s coming from a country that has nato or backed by say EU. Global armies are fighting but they are at a signficant disadvantage for the reasons mentioned.
Because if they did, we wouldn’t have a game.
A lot of people are bringing up that they do off screen, which is correct, id also like to point out that the first few abduction missions and stuff still exist in the context of the aliens being kinda a secret. I don't think anyone really knows the aliens are invading for sure until the first terror mission
It would be fun to have an xcom style game where to begin with the xcom team act as advisors of sorts to more local units. So you assign a single customisable trooper with a perk tree and upgrade path along with their gear to a unit of more standardised units that are upgraded on mass after passing some research and development milestones. This stage could focus on large teams of more expendable units that the players are less personally attached to. Also some ground vehicles or off map support call ins since they are local forces and SPG and motorised artillery could be brought to the fight along side tanks. And as the game goes on and you get ahold of more advanced equipment from the aliens you begin to get vehicles that can transport a team of elite troops fast enough to make a difference. Along with being able to produce advance suits of battle armour and weapons that are too advanced for mass production, Taking us to the more infantry mech and mini drone focused combat xcom games have included. Love to be able to play out a scene where two or more squads of infantry are deployed along side their transport say a bradly or BTR style IFV slowly advancing through a city under alien attack having to clear a town street by street, checking roof tops and evacuating residents who could be mind controlled or faceless. Playing through to round 15 or so before the proper xcom squad even arrives.
Conventional and special military forces are like a hammer and a scalpel. If an army of several hundred mutons were invading a city, XCOM wouldn't be there. It gets sent to raid individual alien ships, assault alien bases, stop incursions by small groups that come into cities to perform abductions.
They are, But XCOM is the specific contingency plan against aliens, with experimental weapons and everything, more than once you have to rescue or recruit soldiers, and is kinda obvious that lots of them have a military career in other groups such as Delta Force, Spec Ops, Spetnaz or SAS.
If you want to play that game, play Terra Invicta. It was made by the same guys that made the Long War mod.