Territory is equal to power in the game – the more you control, the better your interceptor coverage, the faster you can do research, and the more biomass you can repulse. And here comes the tactical part.

You gain territory by wining in tactical missions, where your squads must engage the aliens and mutants face to face. Once you control a territory, you can decide what type of base you want there - research, military, or biomass repulsion. If you want to have a research base there, you probably want to research something. But you may need, for instance, an alien body to finish the research. After making a strategic decision – let’s research this and this – you must accomplish several missions and find the right body.

Most of your game time, let’s say 70-80 per cent, will be spent in tactical missions, fighting on the ground against aliens and mutants for the control of territories.

Ferrago: Which part is most important?

JR: As you can see, it’s always a combination of strategic decisions and the outcome of tactical missions, so they are both important and one impacts the other.

Ferrago: Turn-based or real-time? Why?

JR: UFO: Aftermath introduces our unique combat system which features all of the best elements of both turn based and real time combat systems. You give orders while the game is paused, to avoid the frantic rush of a real time system. While paused, you can give your troops very detailed orders, taking as much time as you like. Once you are finished you simply tell the game to start. Once the game is underway, you can pause the game at any point to update or change your orders, and the game will automatically pause when important events occur, so that you may modify your plans accordingly. Be sure to note that all of the combat happens at once, combining the finely grained tactics of a turn based game with the realism of a real time system.

Ferrago: So what about these ‘RPG elements’, then?

JR: Each of your troops has a name, a portrait, and a set of statistics. Their skills are derived from these statistics, and each point that you put into any one of these attributes will have a noticeable effect on that soldier’s skills. This way you can, with enough experience, easily make your soldier into what you want them to be, either generalists or specialists. You can make snipers, medics, heavy weapons soldiers, or any mix of all of these skills and more. It is very important that you do so, in fact, as a group of random, average soldiers who are good at everything and excellent at nothing will get chewed up as the opponents become tougher. You need to create a solid team with a good group of interlocking skills to win.