If ranged attacks are overpowered, then choose one:
a) nerf them
b) reduce them in number
c) make them the mainstay attacks. As in every warrior carries a crossbow.
d) make melee characters real tanks.
For one of my own games, in which I didn't take my own advice and put in a fantasy setting with action points and ranged combat which could be pretty deadly (one shot kills), I ended up balancing it by giving other classes skills that enable them to get closer to a ranged combatant: stealth/quickness making one a harder target, tower shields with up to 70%+ cover for the really slow guys, arrow deflection for the highly proficient, and of course plenty of magical defenses.
I also used a bit of (c) and had many characters carry ranged weapons at least as backup.
X@COM, back in topic:
How will the geoscape be rendered? Will it be a ball or will it be a spread-out map??
A spread out-map will suffice, a ball would be awesome for bragging rights, but it looks difficult and would probably be confusing in console...
Hm, finally something on topic... This thread does seem to have taken off in a completely unexpected direction.
For the geoscape, a true 3D globe in ASCII might be more than I can handle, though I'll explore the possibility when the time comes. In either case, the extremely limiting dimensions of a console window will obviously necessitate zooming. At its largest, half the earth has to fit into a 60x60 grid... (and making it round would reduce that even further) A flat map may actually look better in the end. It's a ways off though, anyway, since I want to get the battlescape functioning pretty well first.
