At the end of each month, a funding report is provided, where nations can choose to increase or decrease their level of funding based on their perceived progress of the X-COM project. The player can view the X-COM bases (one in the beginning), make changes to them, equip fighter aircraft, order supplies and personnel (soldiers, scientists and engineers), direct research efforts, schedule manufacturing of advanced equipment, sell alien artifacts to raise money, and deploy X-COM aircraft to either patrol designated locations, intercept UFOs, or send X-COM ground troops on a mission in a transport aircraft.ДЇunding is provided by the sixteen founding nations of X-COM. The Geoscape screen is a global view representation of Earth as seen from space, which displays X-COM bases and aircraft, detected UFOs, alien bases, and sites of alien activity. It begins on January 1, 1999, with the player choosing a location for their first base on the Geoscape screen. The game takes place within two main views: the Geoscape and the Battlescape. It is up to the player to fully prepare the final assault team, attack Cydonia and destroy the mastermind behind the alien invasion, the Alien Brain. It is revealed that the aliens are led by creatures of immense mental power called Ethereals, and that the their main base located on Mars, in region known as Cydonia. As the game progresses, the player learns more and more about the enemy, their species, sub-species, mutated creations and technology. The player manages X-COM throughout the game, battling aliens. From this meeting was born the secret paramilitary organization Extraterrestrial Combat Unit (X-COM), over which the player assumes control at the start of the game. On December 11, 1998, representatives from some of the most powerful nations in the world meet in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss the issue.

The nations of the world come to perceive this as a threat and attempt to form their own forces to deal with this, such as Japan's Kiryu-Kai force these forces fail miserably, the Kiryu-Kai not intercepting a single UFO in its five months of operation. Tales of abduction and rumours of attacks by the unknown aliens become widespread. The initial plot centers around increased reports of UFO sightings.

Ufo enemy unknown