Is the satellite rush tactic sustainable on classic?

I picked up Enemy Within during Steam's winter sale, and I just finished a normal playthrough. Enemy Within seems to have added the tactical & strategic depth I felt the base game lacked, so I'm still in the mood for another playthrough, and I figured I'd try classic difficulty.

I haven't had much trouble putting up 3 satellites in the first month, but I haven't figured out how to put up another 3 or so in the second month. There just doesn't seem to be enough time to excavate, build a power generator (or two), build a workshop to get enough engineers, and then build a 2nd satellite nexus.

On normal I was able to launch 3 satellites a month every month until I had full coverage, but I can't see how to do it on classic. Is it possible, and if so, how do you do it?

Solution 1:

Not sure about a specific satellite rush strategy but concentrating on satellite coverage and getting full coverage before any country leaves is possible - and probably easier on Enemy Within as you get extra missions therefore extra money to spend.

Follow any of the Wiki guides for how to do this there's no difference really on Enemy Within to how to do this - there's plenty of advice available.

Basically sell pretty much everything to get Uplinks & Workshops to support them. It's pretty critical to build a 2x2 square of uplinks for the adjacency bonuses. Don't forget your power either. Take every mission that gives Engineers. Remember to start building your satellites on day 10 but don't launch until right before the council report.

Whenever I've done it I have full satellite coverage before I'd invented Satellite Nexus - I save my Nav Computers to make Firestorms.

In recent games I leave 2 countries in my home continent without satellites to keep abduction missions coming - for the extra cash and weapon fragments.