KickStarter Terra Invicta - sci-fi grand strategy from Long War mod creators - now available on Early Access

[RobotSquirrel]

You were playing the Crypto-Servants all along.

I didn't want it to go down this path but I invested too many hours into the playthrough so I think its more manageable, Earth is still strong I didn't go too crazy its just Russia is screwed. If I was going full servant I would've nuked everyone.
Its like, well if you're going to lose anyway might as well make everyone else lose too. I tried to build a good USA. Let that be a lesson, don't let alien sympathizers get nukes at all costs, just one is enough to sabotage the entire world from victory.

And then the aliens attacked China. Lol The resistance played so poorly, turned out Humanity first they controlled the executive but Resistance had the rest declared war on me and basically doomed humanity in the process. Yeah the AIs gonna need some improvements this was a bad strategy, they didn't even have a claim on me so it was a pointless war.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Found an amazing bug. The Alien Nation expands too fast that it ends up with (10) Civil War unrest, deletes the entire armies of the aliens and frees every single territory they conqured.
Did they even test if the aliens could win LOL.

 

[Mitleser2020]

Terra Invicta = invincible Earth, not just the name of the game.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Ok after finishing the game I can give some good strategies:

• In the early game PR is extremely important so you'll need at least 2 people good at it. People that can take CPs are also highly valued here as you can quickly jump in and take a whole country in one turn. Prioritize countries with lots of CPs but consider claims as well. EU and Russia are amazing for early empires (Resistance and Humanity First benefit a lot from this, Russia can annex Kazahkstan early). China is a great country for tall turtling strategies (protectorate and initiative benefit a lot from this playstyle). USA is best for Space conquest (Resistance, Humanity First and Exodus do well here) it has good boost early on and its neighbors develop space programs early. Servant strategies are "Get Nukes At All Costs!" If you can't get a major in time Iran and North Korea are good candidates due to high sympathy and close to finishing nuclear projects. Make sure to make use of adjacency nations and abandon them once you've got your desired nation.
• You will need one person, ideally a politician to use as an administration dump, this will expand your CP like crazy especially once you get the government orgs on board.
• Orgs are amazing, you will need all of them especially the admin ones for the above admin dump.
• You will need someone that can use the investigative ability, though orgs can provide these as it tricks the AI into leaving you mostly alone because its afraid you'll kill their counselors. The protect target ability also helps with this too.
• Late game strategies, are have everyone with good Espionage, Admin and Command get all of these to 25 if you can, these are super useful in the late game. Your main attacks will be PR, Purge, Destabilize, Crackdown and Coup, with destabilizing and coup being your most potent weapons.
• After taking targets have lots of people with the increase stability abilities, these are super super potent in the late game as it allows you to prevent being couped yourself.
• Space strategies as I've gathered tend to be get construction hubs asap, they help speed up your space building. Be weary of the upkeep costs of each colony/station as I found it gets expensive eventually so ensure you have good economy on Earth first. If you want to prevent stations and colonies from being taken or destroyed you will need to build barracks modules and some defenses.
• The game does a poor job at telling you when things can be upgraded watch the hubs screen regularly (the whole hubs UI is dreadful though needs arrows so you can cycle through the list, right clicking on Upgrades will auto-place them for you).
• If you're working with the aliens nukes are your friend, reducing GDP removes CPs from a country, so consider economic sabotage as a way of getting around CP costs. If you're against them your priority should be to disarm everyone early in order to prevent alien supporters from getting them (ie. Servents and Protectorate) pro-human shouldn't use nukes, even using one hurts global GDP, pro-Humanity should be investing in the economy so that they have a strong economic base to support a large space fleet and take the fight to space, the longer you can prevent the alien nation the easier your time will be, the alien nation event is a sign you're close to losing the game.
• Don't bother with world conquest, the game will be over well before the tech becomes available. Space conquest is more important.
• Assinations can be useful sometimes, I found capturing to be a bit pointless. If there's an annoying counselor that keeps coming back over and over kill them and buy yourself a few turns of peace. You need to investigate them before it'll work, works best on home soil.
• Africa and South America are a waste of time. GDP too low to be beneficial and the claims you get early on suck so don't bother. If I was that desperate, Middle East or Oceania are better choices, Indonesia is amazing and Middle East gets claims after the first unity tech. If you're trying to take China early you'll need to use late game strategies due to it being a dictatorship so lower their stability, increase PR and coup often.
• The bar next to the speed throttle shows overlays, the 2 most important I found were Population and GDP per Capita as this tells you how well you're doing as a nation. There is also ones that show CP and Boost, these are also useful.
• Wars are pretty damn pointless. You'll still need military, but wars give you barely anything that you otherwise can't get by couping. Peaceful unification is where its at. Use the diplo tooltip to figure out what you can Unify right now and don't waste your turn with policy, just check the tooltip, this information shouldn't be hidden though its kinda shit UI design. If you're playing servants though you'll need wars in order to nuke so declare on everyone that you can.
• Solar Arrays are only useful up until Mars. By Jupiter, you should be purely nuclear.
• Be mindful of the relations screen, its hidden but its super important because it allows you to move countries into spheres of influence and create alliances. I neglected this a lot in my playthrough, you should be consolidating as much as possible as often as possible.
• Non-Agression pacts are awesome in the early game but don't last forever. By midgame you will be in a state of full war with someone. This caught me off guard because its not very visible unless you check the Faction Relations screen often.
• I think stealing tech is broken because it never gave me the tech! lol
• Your agents can be augmented with cybernetic implants, add these ASAP add all of them there's no consequence for adding too many as I can tell.
• this game is LONG, don't be fooled by the fact that my ending date was 2035, I basically spedrun the game by nuking Russia. I think I only got 25% of the total techs in the game.
• The game is fairly unrestricted in how you play each faction, its entirely possible to have the servants attack the aliens, likewise its possible to have Humanity First try to destroy the world. Most of what sets each faction apart is their faction specific events and win conditions. How you actually play them is entirely up to you really.

- As for the bug I discovered, if the aliens are being dumbasses you will as Protectorate or Servants have to stabilize their stability over and over. Its annoying but you have to do it otherwise the game will never end.

I cannot give advice on ship battles as the game ended before one even occurred lol.
I cannot also give advice on the later game colonization, as apparently, you build colony ships to do it. Shame I never got to it sounded really cool.

I wish that in the side list they put the countries you controlled so that I could easily switch between them. They put the stations there! why the heck aren't the countries there.
Abandon Nation is an annoying as hell mechanic, all it does is add crackdown, if no one takes the country you will have to manually go back to each and every damn country and click abandon over and over and over.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

fist impact with the game, the faction selection: they didn't care or weren't able to give a whole working window, instead all we got is a dropdown which obscures the description and doesn't remember the slider position.
if this is representative of what's to expect from the full game, we're on a cyberpunk 1.0 level of disaster.

no popup tooltips. to very very minuscule generic icons. what is this, 1985?

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I mean you've got a point the UI is a disaster. That's not on the same level as Cyberpunk though, Terra Invicta isn't a disappointment it does deliver its just got rough edges and a steep learning curve. I haven't had a single crash, it came close but it never did. Cyberpunk crashed many times for me. I will say though Terra Invicta does run like garbage when the alien invasions start it can't handle lots of armies but that's par for the course of Paradox games so I'm forgiving of it considering the state that HOI4 is in. I do however feel that for the price it is unfairly and unreasonably priced given the state its in. I don't think this game needed early access I think it needed a traditional release.

Also heads up and I read this on the steam forums but Superpower 3 is coming out in a week. Coincidence I think not. The early access makes a little more sense when you consider that they're trying to get in before THQ releases essentially the same game minus the aliens. So yeah obviously they rushed the game out. The school holidays are awesome! two grand strategy games in the same week and I have time off!

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

whatever. even everything aside, in the era of the refund wthin 2 hours, the first 2 hours must be BEYOND FLAWLESS. and they can't even be arsed to present the factions.

 

[Alpharius]

Anybody got Mars mining up and running without mining moon? I didn't have enough boost for the outposts when mission to the moon was finished and the AI have taken all the juicy landing points so i decided to save my boost for Mars. But the damn mining module on Mars costs 195 boost cause i have to transport all the resources from Earth (like 5 years of my boost income at this rate).

Will have to try and capture the AI moon outposts or trade for resources i guess.

Also boost income seems kinda strange, was investing into it in my main countries almost the whole time and the contries provide about 40% of boost income, the rest is two organizations. (I don't have US or Kazakhstan.)

 

[Joggerino]

I just skip the moon, Mars has much better mining and you can save the boost.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

My trick was to use Construction modules to reduce the build times. The moon is useful in that it can be used to reduce the build times due to its distance with mars.
Once you get one Construction module on or around mars your build times are basically nothing. Plus if you miss out on a resource you have the moon to fall back on.
At that point you're self sufficient and boost stops being a thing. If you're rich in boost its better to go right for Mars if poorer aim for the moon.

Also be mindful that at the asteroid belt it becomes Hydra city so you'll need military at that point.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

How I imagine the servants taking over the mass media CP looks like in the game.

Protectorate would be like RT news where they just deny any wrong doing all the time.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

perhaps the tutorial is more important than i thought. i tried a couple time with initiative and whenever i focus on a country the computer either coups me/gets me out of any alliance or focuses on the most nearby one and "unifies" me.
why did you say "europe is easy"? i can barely get into eastern states, even with 80+% of the people supporting me, controlling and purging are almost impossible, even when spending big. on the other hand, africa is free real estate, all it takes is some crowd control, which is a fairly easy mission.
still no idea how to build outposts, i got the tech, the logistics, the launchpad, but no idea where to click.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

i can barely get into eastern states, even with 80+% of the people supporting me, controlling and purging are almost impossible, even when spending big.

These are tied to Stability but having support helps as well, the main stat is stability. If you want to Crackdown, Purge and Coup you need to reduce stability.
Purge will only normally work with Crackdown applied first. Coup requires an Unrest score of at least 7-10 in order to work, if you get it to 10 all CPs are reset as this implies the country naturally couped on its own.
If you don't want to get coup, Boost Stability, if you don't want to lose CPs defend interests and ensure that Support is high. If you want their councilors to bugger off Investigate Councilor, and have someone protecting target country then they won't bother you.
Coup requires command, Crackdown requires investigation, and purge requires espionage so ensure you have characters with these stats, Acquire orgs always!

still no idea how to build outposts, i got the tech, the logistics, the launchpad, but no idea where to click.

Initially, the main resources are Boost and Mission Control. You can build an outpost by selecting the planet, one of three things will be present: 1. A button to build stations 2. A button to colonize and 3. A button to send a probe, the probe must be sent first before you can colonize. Stations are fairly worthless, they're only good later on when you unlock Operations, Construction and Shipyard modules, and prioritize colonies/settlements. In order to reach the planet you need to first research the tech that unlocks it (ie. Mission to the Moon, Mission to Mars).

I agree its confusing as heck but it is what it is and once you've learned it you'll find the game a bit more tolerable. The learning curve is steep.
I'm doing an easy mode run as Exodus so I can figure out the space mechanics better. Rushing Mars and mass colonizing it is a valid strat, basically nerfs everyone else's space capabilities. Once you reach the Asteroid Field rush Ceres asap as then every other faction is essentially fucked as far as space resources are concerned- once there get ready to defend as the aliens are coming. If jupiter triggers early, build a station around it temporarily as it'll take ages to build.

Also I had my first crash so it does indeed crash.

 

[Joggerino]

Africa is easy to take because it's shit. Also far easier to defend a single 5 VP nation than five 1 VP nations.

 

[Norfleet]

So can Poland into space?

 

[Talby]

I just focused on the US from the beginning even with a low chance of capture. I did get lucky by getting two control points in a row when I had a 1% chance, though.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I did get lucky by getting two control points in a row when I had a 1% chance, though.

that's xco... hey wait a second!

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Had something annoying happen with Loyalty, my counselor was a moron that decided to do something illegal, they were arrested, I lost admin points went into negative influence. When you go negative in influence it hands your most valuable CPs over to the worst enemy. This is a nasty mechanic, game doesn't even warn you that going into negative influence can do that and so sudden as well. I now have a nightmare scenario where I have to destabilize the US just to get rid of the bastards.
I see now why Perun made a big deal about Inspire.

Yep that completely trashed my campaign, losing Beuracracy to the US and now being unable to retake it, the servants started economically sabotaging the US which caused a death spiral to my Mission Control income, and all my colonies started betraying me.
This needed to be explained better. Its seems odd how if you control the executive you can't remove a branch in your own nation, they need to add an ability to do something about that as its impossible to remove them not even unrest can do it.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

WAIT you can sell resources?! clicking on the top bar allows you to sell resources. Well then yeah what even is the point of maintaining earth once you get to Operations Modules, you can fund everything with resources, influence is your councilors.
So I guess you can ignore the geopolitics once you get a strong base on Mars. The main issue I was having with space was paying the maintenance if you can just sell your resources there's no issue then.

 

[thesecret1]

Well, I consider this run lost – alien armies control over half of Earth, their servants another 25%, they are methodically glassing all my stations and colonies, and I'm technologically way, way behind them. Key takeaways from this (ie. mistakes I made that cost me the run):
1. Don't let Servants get their hands on any superpower. Everyone else is fine, but not Servants. They probably get some manner of a tech boost from the Ayys, and go super aggressive once aliens land, basically double teaming everyone (and you can't do anything about it because they ally the aliens). In my game they took China, and it was impossible to oust them from there. They also like to start nuclear wars. Remember: if nukes start flying, Servants win, everyone else loses. Doesn't matter who wins the actual war.
2. It may be tempting to focus all your research on projects, letting the AI factions spend their points on global research. This is a bad idea. The way the AI picks global research is practically sabotage. Instead of, for example, pursuing one line of weaponry to get to some good guns, they will pursue EVERY line of it, so you will have choice picks of all the different flavours of garbage guns. Don't worry too much about "wasting" points on global research – a massive number of the research projects are practically just filler anyway. You should focus on the ones you actually want, even if they take assloads of time to get, rather than going for the cheap but useless things.
3. Your faction rivals are mostly pests (save for Servants, who look like pests up until the time aliens land) and not your real enemy. Don't waste your time trying to sabotage them or fuck them over, you're just wasting resources your should reserve for the aliens. That said, if they get their grubby hands on something good (countries, or space stations in good positions), don't hesitate to go and grab it from them. Even if their relations hit rock bottom, they can't actually do all that much to you if you're handling the country micro well.
4. Funding is useless at start, but becomes increasingly important later on. Larger income = more mining colonies you can support to get their resources. It's also good to have cybernetics for your counsellors, and those are expensive. Selling resources works in a pinch, but is not sustainable – you actually need the resources you mine, you can't just keep selling them. Why? Because decent ships cost a LOT of them, and you'll be wanting to build a lot of those. Similarly, it's never too soon to build mission control. Bigger ships cost a lot of it. You can sort of get both by building space stations, but be aware that eventually, the big bad alien will stop ignoring you, and will come to take them out. And not just one or two, he'll go and fucking purge them from orbit. You better either have the muscle to actually defend them, or not be reliant on them in the first place.
5. Armies are important. Grab them and slowly build them. Having a high level of your military is, likewise, important. The aliens will come with Quality, not quantity, so you best be able to overwhelm them. Ignoring them leads to them sending in more and more of their high quality troops, and then you're kinda fucked. Best to be ready to squash them right when they land with an overwhelming force.
6. There is a massive difficulty jump when the aliens arrive. Be ready for it. Don't get complacent just because you're doing very well compared to the other factions – as I've said, they're just pests.
7. Remember that your armies are useless if they cannot get to the enemy. Having a navy attached to your army can be extremely important, especially if the aliens land on another continent
8. Consider having a counsellor become a fulltime adviser of your "main" country. You don't actually need every councillor for the country micro too often, and getting a 25% bonus (assuming you hit the skill cap on the relevant skills) can be a pretty powerful boost for it.
9. I will reiterate: avoid nuclear war at all costs. There is no recovering from it. You'll be gimped for the rest of the game if you let it happen, and it doesn't manner where in the world you are. The ecologic fallout of it ruins the economy of everyone in the world (and the nations involved are forever ruined. Not only is their economy down the drain and their population decimated, they will also start to lose population from then on, and very quickly too).
10. Faction objectives ask you to do expensive research. This research gives you absolutely nothing (well, okay, it unlocks a couple techs, but they're mostly just 'nice to have' rather than something to beeline for), but eventually leads to unlocking a new kind of resource (that you'll need to build the best ship parts and stuff) and that you'll be getting from wrecking alien ships (I assume. I lost the run before I could test this out, but it seemed likely). Plan accordingly.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i grow more and more unimpressed by this.
if you focus on a single big nation (as you should) you spend more time picking your nose than actually playing. if you try to have a look around, the game degenerates quickly in a whack-a-mole of cracking and purging.
the interface is terrible, just terrible, sometimes things work, sometimes they don't and you have no feedback why. most of early game is spent cursing yourself because you didn't double check the minuscule font and ended controlling afghanistan and angola. there's extremely little feeling of improvement, and it's extremely hard to understand at a glance how the opponents is faring.
more than the factions, i feel i'm fighting the game itself, and this is definitely not fun.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

5. Armies are important. Grab them and slowly build them. Having a high level of your military is, likewise, important. The aliens will come with Quality, not quantity, so you best be able to overwhelm them. Ignoring them leads to them sending in more and more of their high quality troops, and then you're kinda fucked. Best to be ready to squash them right when they land with an overwhelming force.

Armies are important. Wars are not really. There's only two places in the world where you might need a war, India and China, the rest of the world can be conquered easily you just need to grind your counselors to level 25 in the right skills. A level 25 can turn even the most stubborn of countries. You will mostly need your armies to fight off the alien nation if and when it lands. But even then just use that unrest exploit and it won't be a problem.

the interface is terrible, just terrible, sometimes things work, sometimes they don't and you have no feedback why.

100% right there. I think too much of the information is hidden and you end up suffering really badly from tunnel vision. Too many plates to spin and not enough help from the game to make it work. My advice to you, play protectorate or servant you'll have a slightly better time as they're much easier to play as. Humanity first is incredibly difficult as the story techs require you win against RNG.

Exodus can be fun but I'd advise you don't rush settlements and my biggest advice is DON'T PUT MC ORGS ON YOUR GUYS because if they get arrested you lose that MC which can totally screw your campaign, have one character as your main admin guy and have them do nothing but advise, PR, inpsire and protect target on your main country. Don't hire criminals if you're mostly using people not corrupt as this will incur massive loyalty hits. Next time I do exodus I'm going to sit on outposts and slowly build up to settlements, I rushed settlements everywhere to try and get tier 2 mines going and it was a disaster.

The ship battles suck easily the worst part of the game the whole thing needs throwing out and reworking. Nothing works and everything sucks. I will give them credit though it runs insanely well in large battles but its my least favourite part of the game.

 

[Axioms]

i grow more and more unimpressed by this.
if you focus on a single big nation (as you should) you spend more time picking your nose than actually playing. if you try to have a look around, the game degenerates quickly in a whack-a-mole of cracking and purging.
the interface is terrible, just terrible, sometimes things work, sometimes they don't and you have no feedback why. most of early game is spent cursing yourself because you didn't double check the minuscule font and ended controlling afghanistan and angola. there's extremely little feeling of improvement, and it's extremely hard to understand at a glance how the opponents is faring.
more than the factions, i feel i'm fighting the game itself, and this is definitely not fun.

Afghanistan lmao every time. This was a huge pain in the original demo. Not fixed? Blech.

 

[Norfleet]

So I guess you can ignore the geopolitics once you get a strong base on Mars. The main issue I was having with space was paying the maintenance if you can just sell your resources there's no issue then.

Well, obviously, geopolitics and the petty squabbles of the Old World become far less important when you're now the Martian Empire.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

5th game in a row i had to restart in a few minutes because starting men + available made it impossible to do anything.
one i threw because i was thinking of going for russia, by the time i took mongolia and half belarus someone had already two in russia. the game is cheating. hard.

also what's up with casi belli? uk can attack zimbabwe and bangladesh but egypt can't do anything, not even attack israel?