That is how it should be. Scenario should look like “Enemy has artillery → run for the cover → then fight”. Not the: “enemy has artillery → I kill it instantly → then we can have rest of the fight”.
Tactical fight in just 4 turns? Then there is no tactic to look upon. 
As many players have said it gets boring after some time.
I have to disagree, 4 turns is actually plenty. You have to consider how many actions/choices 4 turns imply - for 6 men squad that’s 96 APs.
It may be different from some tactics, but it is still tactics - there is enough room there for some tactical game even if doesn’t satisfy some expectations 
Not so with alpha striking, because that basically breaks the game.
By the way, not at all attacks on the first turn are alpha striking. For example, this doesn’t qualify as alpha striking in my book (or at most it is borderline AS):
@jskintauy you still had two sides to contend with, so maybe roughly 2/3 of the enemies alive and capable of retaliating? This is similar to what happens with the ambush missions, when you eliminate the enemies around you (whether that deployment is good mission design is a different story…)
It often depends on the situation, of course… But stuff like leaving most enemies dead, crippled or panicked on the first turn, because you have guys teleporting from one end of the map to another with dash, that’s definitely game breaking alpha striking and there is no cure for it. You have to nuke the whole thing from orbit, just to make sure.
But not if you used 2 turns to erase the main army (Sirens, Chirons, maybe Bomb-Arthron) and “search” for the remaining small animals in the last 2 turns.
Of course, if by the end of the first turn all you got are some tritons and crabs (and probably panicked to boot) make it last another 20 turns, instead of 3, it won’t make it any more tactical, or fun.
You count AP. Yes you have “so many”(?). But typical actions take usually 2 AP. So now you go down to 48 actions. Now if you would stand just head to head with enemy then yes, that would be plenty, but you need to find enemy, take cover. Let say that you need at least 2 or 3 actions (average 2.5) with each soldier to do that, so it takes 15 actons from the pool. So you are left with 33 actions to flank, overwatch and shoot enemies. So each soldier for average has little over 5 actions to perform all of that to beat enemy forces which usually count more than 12 enemies. So basically each soldier has 5 actions to kill at least 2 opponents by himself. FANFARE >>> AVENGERS COME TO THE STAGE. Not the kind of gameplay I prefer.
PS. Above calculation is estimation of gameplay I would assume should happen.
I am seeing a ton of hypothetical to justify one side or the other of this mare’s nest. Depending on one’s game style, none of the hypothetical will fit. But, if one plays a different style, some, but not all of the hypothetical fits.
Perhaps, instead of the Pandorans “evolving” based on the player’s success, the players skillls/combos should de-evolve (DEVO!) to compensate for their using OP combos.
As I said, it is tactics, just not necessarily the ones you (and many other players) want…
Btw, I use the number of APs just as a very rough approximation of the number of possible decisions to make, which is what I care about. How many APs are needed to take down an enemy vs how many to get the drop on it is the same (to me).
My point is we don’t have to agree on what kind of game we want PP to be to agree that alpha striking must go 
Once again I’m confused. We are told that we are talking about both player and enemy OP. However, almost all examples are on the player side. Which is it?
Both.
The only reason you have to alpha-strike in the first place is because if you don’t, the Crabbies can slaughter you (that’s not quite true if you let the DDA do it’s thing without fritzing it, but you get my point - 20 Crabbies backed up by a handful of Sirens & Acid-lobbing Chirons is an alpha force in and of itself).
One of the reasons the DDA ramps up to such ludicrous levels against alpha-striking players is because they have alpha-struck and taken out their last mission like they were Superman.
So it’s a vicious circle. You alpha-strike because if you don’t, you’ll get overwhelmed. This ups the ante with the DDA. So you are forced to alpha-strike again to survive. This ups the ante, so…
But it doesn’t have to be that way. For all that you and others constantly have a go at me for wanting to limit your abilities/fun, I can tell you from personal experience that if you prevent the Squad from alpha-striking (and take your casualties when they come), the DDA doesn’t throw endless waves of CrabTron, Siren lobbing Chirons at you, and the whole game becomes a really fun tactical game of cat & mouse, that feels like the early stages of the game.
But to get there - and reduce the number of Nasties you are facing - you have to prevent alpha-strikes.
We are, but I don’t think either definition is invalid.
Yours is very specifically referring to the ability to cripple an entire Panda force on Turn 1.
I and others would also consider taking out the most dangerous Nasty(s) on Turn 1 - or whenever they appear - to be an alpha-strike. The point being that you don’t give them any chance to do their thaing.
I would also consider the ability to move (almost) anywhere across the map and 1-shot (or multi-shot with no opportunity for retaliation) your target to be alpha-striking behaviour, regardless of how many enemies that involves.
And for the record, @mcarver2000, I would also consider being able to drop 3 acid bombs on a squad from the other side of the map, with no warning and giving them no ability to neutralise the Acid, to be alpha-striking behaviour by the Pandas. As is the annoying ability of Sirens to MC through walls - which my Priest has never been able to do. And though it should only ever happen once, on the very first occasion that you encounter the bitch, the Scylla’s Scream is also alpha-striking behaviour, since it cripples your squad’s ability to fight back.
I don’t know if anyone said it before, but alpha strike is the main problem, why acid, poison and other status damage don’t really matter. Status effects just don’t make sense if everyone dies after 1-2 turns.
Dear devs, don’t you see that many many problems result from the alpha strike?
Thanks for keeping this discussion in perspective.
TBH, it always is - though it might not seem to be at times.
Everyone here just wants the game to be balanced fairly, and for everyone to have a good time - not just power-gamers (if they actually exist here in anything other than people’s imagination).
It’s just that many of us feel that can only be achieved by removing the alpha-strike capability of both sides.
I definitely don’t consider myself a power gamer, but I will work to find exploits. I am terrible at RTS games because I have trouble coordinating the keyboard / mouse and when things get hot and have to go fast, I get all messed up. Because this type of game is slower, I can get fairly good at it. Alpha-strikes in this game are no different than finding exploits in other games. I endlessly cheesed Xcom Long War missions with crazy specialized builds and tactics designed to avoid detection and escape. I would count tiles and plan routes designed to avoid enemies I was aware of and find them before they saw me. Many times achieve the goal without even detection. I can’t help myself, I have to figure it out. Still, the developers should do everything they can to control cheesy hacks and that has not yet been accomplished here.
I never played the long war mods because, well, I’m put off by a mod that announces itself as being the long version of something I thought was already outstaying its welcome.
If there are any exploits in the vanilla Firaxis XComs I didn’t find them (though WotC is not very well balanced, in my humble opinion). I don’t generally find exploits in games, and I don’t go looking for them. I’m never looking for exploits in PP - I stumble upon them, like with the Roy build I describe above. I just wanted a fast moving heavy specialist, and suddenly I realized that I had broken my game, with Roy sweeping the maps mostly on his own.
On both sides?
Just because a queen is OP in chess, it should be nerfed? As the doctor says, if Roy hurts, stop doing that.
No, the queen is not OP in chess, because both players have a queen and the initial deployment of the pieces prevents the player playing with the whites from taking undue advantage from going first.
I’m sorry, but I have decided to ignore you from now on. I’m tired of repeating myself over and over again.
I also decided to do it.
sorry it just doesn’t make sense (just provocation, looking for a fight) bye
My point was that the queen is OP and should be removed from the board on both sides (or at least nerfed). Isn’t that what I keep hearing about aspects of PP over and over again? Perhaps my sarcasm is lost on some.
EDIT: None of the OP on both sides comes straight out of the box. For the player they are earned/created. For the enemy, it’s a nature of the evolution or DDA. I presume the latter was put in place by the devs to counter the player’s “evolution”. Did they get it correct and balanced? The common belief here, is no, they didn’t.
In the game of checkers, the first player to get kinged is now OP. There is no DDA to help the other player, they were outplayed by the other player and by the rules of the game. This does not mean that I don’t think some of the rules in PP are not in need of adjustment. However, it’s interesting that some here apparently know more about the game than the devs and coders.
It’s good to be able to voice our concerns, but at times our specific thoughts may not follow the designer’s goals. I want to see the rough edges filed down and the various wrinkles ironed out. I am not necessarily wishing that the game be changed to fit anyone’s playing style, which is what I am often hearing in this forum. I want to see their vision of PP shine, not mine or anyone else’s.
The devs and the coders know their games for sure, but for having modded games before I know it’s possible to figure things out they never intended or thought possible. Players will always find new and novel ways to “break” a game, often doing things the developers never anticipated.