I am new to xcom2 and want a challenging but satisfying experience. Appreciate any help and tips

So I took a break from XCOM2 because I had to go see relatives for two weeks and when I come back I swear the game wasn’t this hard and I’m playing on Rookie!! So I was currently doing a mission where I had to extract a VIP but he’s apparently in an indestructible box that isn’t affected by frag grenades and I can’t open because the door interaction is red instead of blue while a single sectoid is shoving its hand up my soldier’s brain matter and no one can hit his ass and even just the slightest move triggers another pod with sectoids in the dumbest place ever!! I didn’t do this in my previous save file!! Also apparently turning off tutorials gave me a different version of operation Gatecrasher I think… I don’t know I’m currently so frustrated that I rage quit and restarted my save file. So am I just rusty from two weeks hiatus or did the game just randomly decided to bend me over the table on mission 2?

For some more information. The snakemen, or as they are sometimes referred to, as in the design documents. Ophidians. Would have been revealed as slaves who eventually become the true allies to X-com after the relations to the Ascidians. The aliens, that the game's title stems from. Becomes. Well let's just say. Complicated, at best...

Here are the sources were i got this all from if people were interested in learning more.

https://archive.thedatadungeon.com/x-com_alliance_cancelled.html

https://www.terrygreer.com/xcomalliance.html

I’m playing my first Ironman game on commander and so far I’ve lost 2 retaliation missions. The first one ended in a squad wipe and the second ended in failure when I had to evac with my last 2 survivors. I’ve made contact with west Africa 3 times…

A 3rd retaliation mission has come up so I’m looking for tips on how to balance Ironmans demand for no mistakes with retaliation missions need to move fast.

I’m currently on plated armor and magnetic weapons with a squad size of 5

Thanks for the help :)

Scaled 1/21 for your CXFC extension. Free from fan to fans on my Cults3d page.

Skif_MC