_Muton_AttacksCivilian.jpg){kind=link}
A Muton attacking a civilian.
Terror Site is one of the mission types in XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
Mission Brief
| “ | Alien terror attack in progess. Strong civilian presence, take care to avoid civilian casualties. Failure will have severe political consequences for XCOM. | ” |
Mission Objectives
- Approach civilians to enable evacuations
- Minimize civilian casualties
- Neutralize all hostile targets
Acquisition
This mission type first appears during the second month and becomes active as part of the "random event pool" for each month of the game after that. Each Terror Site has its own difficulty rating which indicate the number of aliens packs present on the mission, with Easy usually having 2 packs and Very Difficult around 4.
Mission Site
Terror Site missions always take place in densely populated urban areas. The layout is chosen randomly from a pre-determined set of hand-crafted maps. The pool of mission layouts for many locations of the world is shared. Terror Site missions also partially shares its pool of maps with the Alien Abductions mission type.
Urban areas typically consist of tight spaces with a lot of cover and multiple obstructions. This makes them good for mobility and flanking. Some maps also have multi-level buildings. Having soldiers equipped with grappling hooks via Skeleton Suit or Ghost Armor can be very helpful.
Enemy Types
Depending on the stage of alien invasion, these missions can feature every enemy type, with the exclusion of Ethereals and Outsiders but typically features some of the most dangerous enemies in the game including but not limited to Chryssalids, Cyberdiscs and Sectopods. These are also the only missions where the player can encounter Zombies in abundance.
Tactics
At the start of the mission, there are 18 civilians spread across the map, whose survival influences the mission results; a rescued civilian count at 14 or above is considered "Excellent." It is possible to rescue civilians by moving a soldier close to them; they will be shown fleeing the map which makes them immune to further attack. All the civilians do not all have to personally rescued, as any civilians still alive when all aliens are dead automatically count as rescued. However all civilians will count as dead if you lose or abort the mission, even ones that you've rescued. Explosives should be used with care, as they will kill any civilian caught in the blast.
Every turn, alien forces actively roam the area, killing every civilian they can find. When encountered, they will prioritize easily targeted civilians over distantly located XCOM soldiers in cover. As civilian survival is a priority, it is thereby advisable to engage enemies at close distance, if full cover is available. However, this comes as a trade-off, as advancing will often result in alerting additional groups of enemies to your presence, and the possibility of being flanked by them.
Some terror missions feature Chryssalids, which comes with an additional challenge. Civilians killed with a Chryssalid's melee attack turn into extremely tough Zombies after one turn. To avoid being overrun, it's preferable to make Chryssalids priority targets on these missions.
On the other hand many players see that having cannon fire run around the map is helpful and don't put their soldiers behind civilians in safety. Some people just grab 1 civilians then clear the map like any abduction.
Rewards
Aside from alien corpses, Weapon Fragments, and weapons from alien soldiers captured alive, Terror Site missions confer pre-announced rewards from the affected country. Additionally, they decrease panic by two points across the continent where the mission took place and by at least 3 (on Classic difficulty) in the country where the mission took place. Failure of the mission is catastrouic resulting in a huge up in panic. These are missions you CANNOT fail.