How many civilians do I need to save on terror missions?

Solution 1:

I had a handy save, so I played around with killing some civilians.

75% or better gets you "Excellent." That's a mininmum of 14/18, or 12/16. 50% or better gets you "Good." That's 9/18, or 8/16. Less than that gets you "Poor." As far as I can tell, the only way to get "terrible" is to save no one, although I had already saved 3 civilians so I couldn't be sure. (You get this if you abort, too.)

"Good" and "Excellent" grant terror reduction across the continent, as well as in the target country. "Poor" only gets terror reduction in the target country. I'm not sure about "terrible."

Solution 2:

Not quite, sure, though I can make a guess. I've saved only 6 of 18 and gotten a Poor rating, and 12 of 18 and received a Good rating. The thresholds for success are likely simply based on the proportion saved, though the developers may have gotten fancy and changed this proportion based on the game's difficulty, types of enemies, type of stage in the campaign (bridge, gas station, town, etc), or any other similar factors.

I'd like to see some more data on this, for a definitive answer.

Solution 3:

Saving no civilian results in a mission failure and the country leaves the council immediately. I was getting greedy on chitin plating and let em transform all civvies. Killed all aliens, but the country still left. So at least save one civvy when you are farming.