Instead of dictating a subjective direction, I recommend you go to UFOpaedia.org and do your homework there. Bugs in older games can be part of the novelty (particularly the exploits in X-COM's case), but I have also played OpenXcom and like how it makes features optional that can turn the strategic side more realistic while the battlescape game becomes quite the sophisticated turn-based tactical simulator.

Equip your green recruits with those basic rifles (superior aim accuracy, especially when crouched) in order to let them build their skills from safer engagement distances: just one of hundreds of variable approaches you can make as a commander in this old game with a depth to it matched by few titles even today.

I mean, just go play it. It's engaging fairly quickly and easy to pick up. I remember playing it a ton when I was about 13 - if 13 year old me could handle it, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Half the fun is finding out what works and what doesn't

Also, the original CD release was just fine - occasional bugs but I don't remember them being game breaking.

Well, I started playing OpenXcom. About the bugs: as far as I can tell, the original game had so many bugs I'm amazed it was playable, not least one that put the difficulty level back to easiest every time you loaded a save 🤣!

As for picking it up, well I read the official original manual and it's one of those ones that's pretty useless and just repeats what's on the screen instead of giving you insightful new info. I've already learnt various things via the wiki that I don't see how I would've picked up just by playing. Maybe it's just that I'm older now and as a kid I would've picked up stuff but I dunno.

OpenXcom however, sans major bugs, seems quite fun so far. Still a steep learning curve though I'd say. I was just getting good at missions and then my troops started getting psy controlled and I lost most of a squad. Probably shouldn't have landed near a very large UFO. Apparently you're not meant to engage all of them.

MicroProse was not a company known for games with simple learning curves. Their earlier bread and butter was flight and submarine simulators that came with keyboard overlays because of how complex the controls were even while trying to attain a balance between accuracy and fun. Their manuals were educational tomes even before they got involved in the grand strategy genre, and it picked up from there with certain 90s titles having multiple books in their boxes. That being said, the tutorials in the manuals were usually good at serving as an introduction to how to work the game functions and understand how they tie together.

You're in good company, trying to dive into one of the best titles from one of the best eras of gaming with a depth of sophistication and quality that is all but lost in much shallower and casual modern game designs. I happen to enjoy it because I have a military thought process and it translates well to something like this, but strategy gamers come in many stripes and X-COM offers a hybrid genre approach that satisfies multiples tastes. Fair warning: only graduate to its sequel Terror From the Deep when ready because the difficulty spikes.

We could have not just whole, but multiple, topics on tips for this game. There are obvious strategic points such as investing immediately into researching advanced weapons and alien technologies, but no one set way to proceed tactically which leaves it open to players to decide their own approach within the limited budget. One thing that is fairly consistent, especially in the early war when both you and the enemy are weaker: never welch on letting your troops carry and use plenty of grenades because, just like in real war, if the objective involves inflicting greater casualties then artillery is more effective at doing so than direct small arms fire.

Funny, I found that laser pistols and rifles worked perfectly well. I very rarely bother to use grenades. If I want a big explosion I go for the rocket launcher or auto cannon with HE rounds.

Of course, *smoke* grenades seem to be almost mandatory for every scenario.

I remember I played this game with a friend when I was like 10, he was a former soldier while I was a child, but what I learned about that game was with try and error, knowledge, I do find quite funny the advice to read the ufopedia website, you lose all the discovery part of the game, the tricks and so on... sure it's not an easy game, it has never been but if you want an easy game go for the redux. Terror from the deep (the cheap sequel) is even worse!

There is one major deficiency in X-COM as a tactical simulator: attribute gains only being possible in combat, as if these supposedly elite troops never train beyond maintenance levels (except for psionics, but that's its own unique thing). It is far from the only military strategy game with this issue, but skill-building is a vital element and more frustrating than it needs to be. Rifles and laser pistols will stop cutting it as standard loadouts by mid-war (early 2000s) and sufficient numbers in your squads will need to have earned their marksmanship badges for the more advanced weapons.

Bit late but having gone through the same process years back I thought to add my few cents.

My recommendation to everyone going fresh into vintage XCOM is to play exclusively with OpenXcom (or even better OpenXcom Extended) and forget about everything else. Reason being it's simply impossible to play the original as developers intended due to AI being broken in later larger maps, along with missing enemy placement nodes (further exacerbating AI issues). That's unless you get screwed by few career-ending bugs along the way. Source port fixes everything while adding many QoL stuff and can even load vanilla saves. The only thing it can't do is reproduce vanilla AI but as I said not even the original had a working AI. From my once vast experiences OXC/E enemies, both in Geoscape and Battlescape, faithfully recreate vanilla (when it's working) behavior. Its developers strictly follow vanilla-friendly principles so there's no fear of it ever turning into something else.

Over the years there have been several projects of fixing the bugs in vanilla while retaining the AI. As a hardcore purists I tried most of them but no one has done it right. Closes it ever got was an old version of UFO Extender, itself a continuation of UFO Loader by seb76, before Extender's dev took too many design liberties and mucked it all up. I spent so much time finding and fiddling with the proper way to play this thing it's unreal but OXCE is easily the best hands down.

Other than that you should definitely give the manual a good reading to get you started with the basics. The rest will fall in place naturally. Once you're done with OG games, give X-PirateZ total conversion a try and prepare to be blown away! :)