I was brainstorming how Strategic level could be included in X-Com.

It would work, IF the alien side is restricted by certain rules. For example, aliens must send a scout ship over a certain area a certain number of times before they can, say, have a terror mission there. Aliens must have x number of terror missions in order to attempt to subvert a government, setup a base, and kill x-com funding.

I''m not 100% sure what the cow dissection farm land alien missions would achieve, other than a knowledge of the earth. . .

These rules would 1) keep the strategic game similar to the original 2) keep the alien side from overpowering x-com early in the game.

Also, for this to work, the geoscape should be generated randomly, with countries having different economic values (but the, say gdp and gnp of each country would be known to the human, but not alien player.) Otherwise, the alien player would have an advantage by knowing that, say, the X-com player is likely to set up base in japan, europe, or the US. . . and not antartica.

There was also an x-com play by email . . . unfortunately, it was a dumbed down version.

Alexander