The following strategy will allow you to win
X-COM, at superhuman level, in less than
seven months (game time).

General Points

In brief, there are two important points to 
remember:

1.It is imperative that you achieve air superiority
over the UFOs as early as possible. In practice, this
means developing the AVENGER fighter/transport way before
June 1999.

2.Developing the technologies necessary to defeat the
UFOs is very expensive.  The funding of the member
countries is not enough (too little, too late).
You must develop alternate means of funding your
alien bashing organization.


Specific Hints


Initial Organization

In order to win the game as quickly as possible you 
will need to build the following facilities on a crash
basis:

************************* IMPORTANT ***************************

Laboratories and Living Quarters for 100 scientist.
Workshops and Living Quarters for 250 engineers.
A Large Radar.
And Later On,
An Alien Containment Facility.

You will need the 100 scientist to develop the AVENGER
spacecraft before you are over-run by UFOs.
Have your scientist research the following:

ALIEN ALLOYs, ELERIUM-115, UFO-POWER SOURCE, UFO-NAVIGATION,
UFO-CONSTRUCTION, ADVANCED FIGHTER, FIGHTER/TRANSPORTER,
ULTIMATE SPACECRAFT.  

You will need to capture samples of the first four items from
the UFOs in order to get your scientist started.

Once you have the technology to develop an AVENGER, research
the following so you can arm it:

HEAVY PLASMA, HEAVY PLASMA CLIP, PLASMA CANNON.

Once you've developed these technologies, capture an alien
commander, research it to discover where there main base
is located and invade.


You will need the 250 engineers (there is a bug in the
program that prevents you from having more than 255 engineers/base),
both to build the AVENGER, as well as produce the goods
you will need to sell to stay in business.  I've found
ALIEN ALLOYS, and HEAVY PLASMA to be good and excellent
trade goods respectively.


Obviouslly, you will not be able to hire 250 engineers
immediately; however, as it takes about a month to
develop a WORKSHOP it is important you start building
them right away.

If you do your building and hiring correctly (i.e. very
agressively) you should end January with almost a
500,000 dollar deficit.  And this assumes you've looted
two or three intact UFOs.  Don't worry this build up
will pay for itself later in the game.



It is important to realize that the amount of money
you have will determine whether you win the game
or not.  There are essentially three sources of funding:

1. Contribution from member countries.
2. Loot from downed/captured UFOs.
3. Sale of items manufactured in your factories.

During the first couple of months, items 1 and 2 will be 
your most important sources.  ****** It is very important,
that you do not shoot down a UFO if you can capture it
intact *******.  Intact UFOs have a lot more loot than
crashed UFOs.  During the first couple of months you will
need all the money you can get for start-up expenses.

*********************************************************
Unless you really have to, I would advise against rescuing
civilians from a terror site. The effort/reward ratio is 
not worth it.
  
A terror site implies that a very large saucer got through
your radar net.  If you've been doing your job; the planet
should be encircled with large radar monitoring stations.
Nothing should be able to fly in the Earth's athmosphere
without your OK.

My final base configuration was
1 Base in North America filled with LABS and WORKSHOPS + Large Radar +AC.
2 Bases with  one Hangar, Large Radar
4/5 Bases with Large Radar

No PSI-LABS,no defences etc....
****************** ACTUAL TACTICS ************************

If you did you hiring and building correctly, actual combat 
tactics will not be very important.  For example, if you
have 250 engineers building and selling HEAVY PLASMA they
will generate more than 25 million dollars of profit per month.
This amount of revenue will allow you to build more bases,
more factories (e.g. eight bases with three avengers each)
and just overwhelm the UFOs.

However, once you have your factories churning out all this
loot; the game becomes pretty boring. So you should probably
end it as quickly as possible.

AERIAL COMBAT:
Until you develop AVENGERs with PLASMA CANNONS; arm your
interceptors with AVALANCHE missles.  Sell your short range
missles and cannon.  Again, do not shoot down UFOs if at all 
possible.  Capture them intact.


GROUND COMBAT:
Until almost near the very end of the game, I used 
14 men with no armor; five armed with missles launchers,
and nine with rifles.  It goes without saying that you
should sell all unnecessary hardware (e.g. grenades,
cannons, etc.) Even after I learned how to use
HEAVY PLASMA, I still preferred to  sell them
(around 150,000 per PLASMA rifle) than use them.  What
can I say, infantry is cheap.  Replace as needed.

I organized my fourteen men into three  teams of
four men each ( 1 missile, three rifle).  Moving in concert,
(rifles as scout, missile as fire support) they could generally
take any target.  The two remaining missile guys would act
as a reserve force.


********************* END GAME *******************************

Once you have all your factories running, it becomes a waiting
game until you capture an alien commander that will reveal
their secret base. (Tip: Stun Bombs are good for capturing aliens
alive) During, this time you can have your scientist
and engineers develop "toys" for your soldiers (e.g. flying suits,
blaster bombs etc).

I invaded with 26/25 men armed with HEAVY PLASMA, MISSILE LAUNCHERS,
and BLASTER LAUNCHERS. I went through the first level with
neglible casualties.  The second level gave me more trouble.
Aliens started mind controlling my soldiers, and I had to
shoot a couple of them to stay in business.  Needles to say
morale was reaching an all time low.  Fortunately for me, the
alien boss was situated very close to one of the drop zones.
Once a scout discovered his location a human wave assault with
launchers was enought to overwhelm his bodyguard.



