Have been playing this game all weekend. I don't know if I'm in Ironman mode as I don't know what that means (if it means that you only have one save slot and it auto-saves, then I'm not doing that - I have multiple saves). It's my first attempt in years but I'm doing pretty damned well. I did lose a fair number of countries, though - China, Australia, India, Mexico, Brazil and France, I think - but have satellitees up on the rest and have raided the first base already. Also got the next main story task out of the way and have tested all my soldiers (only a couple of my nine colonels got it). Lost two colonels doing that one, though. I kind of ran into a large number of very aggressive robots all attacking me at once after blowing a hole in the side of a room with a rocket. Oops. But one of those colonels was always in a panic in recent times so I don't miss her much. The other guy was okay, but not one of my best. My two snipers are kings, taking out four enemies per turn if they can.

I'm sure I'm playing on easy street if I'm not playing on Ironman... I'm guessing I'm not playing on Ironman, because I've found it fairly easy going overall and have only lost low rank soldiers early on (aside from that one mission where I lost two colonels). It was horrible at the start, but it seems to be getting easier as the game moves forward, especially once the satellites are up. And, you know, the snipers have Double Tap. Which overpowers them like bloody crazy. xD

EDIT: Finished a non-Ironman run and found it really fun. Oh, man, I really failed hard on Ironman. So hard. xD I'm thinking on my next run that I might just let South America and Africa burn, and focus on keeping the other three continents alive. I just can't keep everyone happy and all my better soldiers got slaughtered on a terror mission. Which reminds me - next time the first terror mission pops up, I may just ignore it. Or send really rookie soldiers named after The Expendables.

MILF, teach me how to win Ironman. x_x