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

[thesecret1]

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.

Councillor roulette at the start is ragequit material alright. But the reason why they get points fast even in big nations is that every game, the public support for various factions is randomized across every country. If they already have some 40%+ support in Russia on gamestart, they have pretty good odds of grabbing control points there, if they have an at least average councillor. Everyone else has no chance to get there this early though.

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

I think you need to make the nation your rival first, before being able to declare war on it.

 

[Joggerino]

Great tips from thesecret. Did anyone get good at the space combat controls?

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I think you need to make the nation your rival first, before being able to declare war on it.

this but also make sure that you've rivaled their Co-belligerent allies as well as you cannot declare on someone you have an alliance with as well.

5th game in a row i had to restart in a few minutes because starting men + available made it impossible to do anything.

the worst is when it gives you two councilors with conflicting traits. Guarantees that at a certain point you're entire empire will explode beyond repair. Yeah I'm not a fan of this, and I also feel you need way more councilor slots. Having only 5 at the mid-game point is annoying and you don't get the others until much later. I think they should expand the counselor cap to easily 2x the max of what it presently is. Like 20 councilors total instead of 10. It'd also be nice if you could group set tasks instead of doing it individually as most of the time I want everyone working together on the same thing. And dear god does the game need that country list in the corner and it'd be nice to have quicker access to diplo options instead of having to click on each country and hover over each icon. I mean the UI is a mess its Stellaris levels of terrible.

I had to stop playing as I had chores to do today, gutters won't unclog themselves now. Public holidays be like that. Still having fun with the game though.

 

[Alpharius]

Played till 2028 or something, got EU without Italy and UK, Kazakhstan, China with 5/6 points and Vietnam cause near China.

Wondering if its a good idea to start attacking alien ships asap, been only assassinating alien councillors so far. Will they start attacking my habs and orbitals in retaliation after one destroyed ship? Also not sure what benefit it will bring as seemingly i kill the councillors as soon as they land.

Perhaps its better to wait until i am ready to attack one of their bases.


To those saying there is nothing to do with councillors: try spamming investigate councillor on other factions, every AI seems to always have plenty of +administration orgs for hostile takeover, + engineering project and +persuasion (assuming China or US or India are not taken yet) are also not bad.

 

[Infinitron]

Battle Brothers composers:

Snippets of faction tracks from our upcoming soundtrack for Pavonis Interactive's grand strategy game Terra Invicta.

Timestamps
Appease: 00:40
Destroy: 01:05
Submit: 01:28
Resist: 01:48
Exploit: 02:06
Escape: 02:25
Cooperate: 02:50

Music written and produced by Patrick Delaney and Dennis Meyer in Hamburg, Germany, © 2022

 

[Jaedar]

So is this game worth the buy or not? I am kinda hyped for playing academy in theory, but not sure if this is playable without massive effort right now. Better to wait for full release?

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I got Russia into the EU. I don't know if that means I can unify them or not. Gonna freaking try though lol.
This resistance runs going a lot better than my others.

Better to wait for full release?

It depends on your tolerance for frustration and lack of documentation. And if the battles were the main selling point for you then you'll be disappointed.
Otherwise its a fun grand strategy that's a lot better than paradox's releases.

 

[Jaedar]

It depends on your tolerance for frustration and lack of documentation. And if the battles were the main selling point for you then you'll be disappointed.
Otherwise its a fun grand strategy that's a lot better than paradox's releases.

At this point I'm mostly interested in it for larping illuminati.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

At this point I'm mostly interested in it for larping illuminati.

That'll work. Games at least decent at that part.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

So is this game worth the buy or not?

it's an interesting prototype, some of its parts show promises, some others are utter trash. most of the fun comes from yourself, because its base mechanics are dull, repetitive and uninspired. it needs work, LOTS of work, in average paradox terms i'd say about 5 years. in stellaris terms, about 15.

 

[Alpharius]

Idk i like it so far. Perhaps i will change my mind after i figure everything out. Could probably use faster turn times and some space logistics system cause it makes little sense that delivering materials only costs resources when boosting them from Earth.
Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is that its much faster to build mission control centers in orbit, preferably around Mercury for extra power from solar panels. Can't they like assemble the same equipement on Earth? Though that stuff in orbit at least has a large money upkeep while there is no upkeep on Earth .

Other than that, the game constantly throws some new stuff at me. Aliens seemed to have stopped sending new agents for a while but alien flora and fauna got out of control in Africa so i suffered not the alien to live then Protectorate and Servants got butthurt and started sabotaging my habs and launch sites. Also the global tech for space marines is already researched so its only a matter of time before they start trying to board my habs. Then the Initiative built the first combat spaceship and i noticed that they are at war with Exodus. Also the Initiative controlls the executive point of rusgoblins while Exodus controlls the one in US. So now i may have to do some coups before the nukes start flying, or start building colony ships (haven't researched them yet though).

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Initiative runs are fun. Its pretty much the blank slate faction of the bunch, you can pretty much do what you want with them, you don't have to fight the aliens if you don't want to, you don't have to fight with the other factions if you don't want to. Its strange because the other factions you feel like you're scrambling, Initiative is just lazy sit back watch the other factions do all the work while you take over the world behind their backs. Fun times.

 

[thesecret1]

Doing well in my Human Superiority run. Key findings so far:
1. Any first run will probably end in failure because you don't know what to look for. Afterwards, when you know the technology tree, you can start beelining for shit you want (orbitals!) and cut down the "wait for something to happen" period significantly.
2. If you wanna avoid early game boredom, start in EU. There's always something going on in EU since it's the richest area in the world, and the AI wants it as much as you do, plus it has loads and loads of nations to assimilate.
3. FUCKING. SERVANTS. And the initiative. Both of those cunts crank up the nukes production in any country that can handle it in reasonable time. All it then takes is for some retarded AI (usually controlling USA) to declare war and invade, and the country, regardless of who controls it (even independents) will launch the nukes when its capital gets threatened. That means that, if you want to avoid the consequences of that (nuked region forever shit, ecological damage hurting everybody), you need to tard-wrangle all around the world. Coup whatever nation produced the nuke, assume control, dismantle warheads, then fuck off.

 

[Irata]

but egypt can't do anything, not even attack israel?

That's just modeling reality. The Egyptians didn't want to get their asses kicked... again.

 

[Jaedar]

So I started this as academy. Took over germany and russia, then *extremists* happened and I got booted out of germany so I shifted to india. Then I used russias territorial claims to form the eurasion federation (sorry ukraine, this is more efficient to admin). Meanwhile, I'm heading the space race with 1 miner up on luna, and 2 on the way on mars, with probes going out to juicy looking asteroids.

The alien lovers feel like they are running like half the countries on the planet, so I started contesting them in europe, but while that was going on they managed to coup the us, giving them 4 of its CP, with humanity first and exodus at one each. I have tried to boot them out, but I can't do it. All the CP are defended, so the difficulty to crackdown is ~55, which is effectively impossible. Increasing unrest is easier, but as soon as I start making headway in either public opinion or unrest all 3 factions with control in the us send councilors to counteract me, and I can't compete with US defenses when it also has as many councilors on defense as I can bring in on offense.

Which is really bad, because the us is well on its way to subjugating half of south america, and I also really don't fancy the alien lovers being in control of enough nukes to destroy the entire planet. The resistence has also managed to get a controlling stake in the eu, and are using french armies to bring eastern europe into the fold, while also using japanese armies to claim stuff in the pacific.

Still, I should be able to make a large amount of ships fairly soon (and enough space resources to effectively obsolete boost), which will hopefully help... somehow? I don't really know how to leverage space control into something useful. Spam orbital research stations for bonus to research? But I'm going to run into mission control cap soon if I do that.


So... actual impressions:
The ui for a lot of stuff is slow (the game freezes for 5 seconds whenever I bring up the menus for nations/intel) and not very useful (let me filter away celestials bodies that are out of range for missions please). Research especially feels like a big mess, with dozens of different drives/weapons/batteries/etc with 0 indication of what things are good for what. The admin cap for countries feels a bit too low, and leads to a lot of sitting around, being unable to expand or meaningfully contest the other factions because doing so will cripple you.

Still, being an illuminati and puppeteering wars for profit and :agenda: is fun.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

once you get it fixed

how do you "fix" a country? i had a 25 admin guy advising the usa and its economy kept shrinking. i set the whole central america on "populist" and unrest kept raising everywhere regardless.
i spent the day wanting to go back to the game, then remembering how it is foundamentally flawed and sucks, and hurting myself playing crossout instead.
even turning a blind eye on its most glaring, obvious, whose very existence in mind-numbingly impossible to understand issues, it's infuriating that a lot could be improved with very small changes. for instance, the game is set in the first few months, whoever scores first one of the big nations is going to win (if servants don't nuke everyone. i've seen the uk nuke london), but what about letting people have their fun elsewhere? later in the game, more cores unlock. gimme some NOW! africa could hugely improve with some territorial wars from the beginning. only the most advanced and dystopic cores should be unlocked through research, like the one to part the usa. having a rival is rather useless, you can declare war, put your people in power and then get crippled by going over the admin cap (which i'm rather sure doesn't affect the computer, it just keeps getting larger and larger).

 

[Jaedar]

- Recently I've learned the Power of Orgs. Orgs are good, VERY GOOD. I'm starting to think the way to go with Concillors is to upgrade them to get more Org offer and more admin for orgs, orgs can boost them. Orgs give more influence income, orgs give more money and boost and ops. Get orgs, as many orgs as you can, if you can't equip anymore, buy every org you see on the market if you can and store them for later use (or to deny orgs to enemies). Orgs >>> XP.

Yeah. Administration is the best stat, because it gives org slots, which give all kinds of great stats and effects. Stealing orgs from the AI is also great, you get to pick any one org from the targeted councilor + any unassigned org the faction has. And the difficulty is pretty low most of the time.

- So far the aliens have been content in sending the odd ship to Earth.

You haven't seen any abductions/xenofauna/etc?

how do you "fix" a country?

In this game? Invest in knowledge, since it raises democracy and cohesion. Invest some in welfare to keep inequality lowish, use councilors to reduce unrest. Spoils is awful (unless you are literally just in the country for a quick cash infusion), military/space stuff is good but hamstring development. I think it's hard to keep the economy from shrinking while fixing is happening, but once fixed it's easy to recover.

, you can declare war, put your people in power and then get crippled by going over the admin cap

Protip: check which countries have territorial claims before declaring war. If you win a war with a claim you just absorb those regions into the main country, which does increase admin cost a bit but is more effective. If you don't have a claim you have to federate, which siphons a portion of the weaker countries income to the larger one (so you can pretty safely abandon the smaller one and still get a benefit).

Being over the admin cap is not a huge deal once you get to ~2030, as you'll have filled most of your org slots and have no real use for more influence.

 

[Alpharius]

Discovered the direct investment button which instantly gives +1 point to given priority for some cash and influence. I think the most tryhard strategy would be to spoil some wealthy nations, invest into nations that you want to keep then dump the spoiled ones.


Havent figured out what influences the cost though, for some reason in my game right now investing into EU and Myanmar economy costs almost the same, but only half of that when investing into Australia. Australia has bigger democracy score than EU though. Perhaps it would be possible to turn some shithole countries that have lots of population into top countries with this trick. Also useful when you want to instantly get +1 mission control. Getting lots of boost at the start of the game without having to control Kazakhstan or US is also a possibility.

Btw what drives are you using for you space ships? I clicked through the tech tree for about a hour (there is full tech tree button that displays projects in addition to technologies) and decided go for the ones powered by molten fission core reactors for early game and get the earliest possible fusion core powered one next. Only the project for the early game drive won't unlock a year after i researched everything required for it .

Other possibilities would be to go for plasma or antimatter drives instead of fusion, or keep upgrading fission powered drives, or maybe i've missed some more possible mid-game drives. For the early game there is a shitton of different drives, no idea which is good for what.

Haven't figured out weapons yet since the tech tree doesn't give any stats.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i can't recall the specifics, but it looks like investing is worth only for the usual top 3 big nations.

 

[Jaedar]

Wait, you can STEAL orgs? Awesome!

You need someone with "hostile takeover" action, which is pretty rare but I think tycoons usually have it.

Yeah I don't get what is the point of having a rival, either.

You need to declare rivarly before you can declare war. That seems to be it.

I heard some MENA oil-producing nations are great to turn into Kolonial Kash Kows.

I think spoils gets boosted by how many "natural resource" locations are in it. So saudi arabia (2 oil field locations) is great and cheap.

then go for some smaller nations if you can afford it and then do things like either turning them into research powerhouses, prepare some big unification or Spoilsland

Small but rich nations are also great for churning out mission control.

Haven't figured out weapons yet since the tech tree doesn't give any stats.

I haven't figured out anything yet, but I'm probably going to go for nuclear engine+missiles for my first ships.

 

[thesecret1]

What early drives are best for ships? Using Grid drives at the moment, and while they give good mileage, they are slow as fuck

 

[Alpharius]

What early drives are best for ships? Using Grid drives at the moment, and while they give good mileage, they are slow as fuck

There is this 50 minute video from the dude that was doing beta videos, havent watched it yet.

 

[Jaedar]

The tech browser in this is so bad... Are there any hab/platform modules that give mission control? And if so what are they called?

I'm currently sitting at 150 boost, 100s if not 1000s of every space resource, but 22/22 mission control (I would have more but I got an event that reduced it by 25% for 6 months). So I can't really use any of it.

 

[Joggerino]

The tech browser in this is so bad... Are there any hab/platform modules that give mission control? And if so what are they called?

I'm currently sitting at 150 boost, 100s if not 1000s of every space resource, but 22/22 mission control (I would have more but I got an event that reduced it by 25% for 6 months). So I can't really use any of it.

There are hab modules that give control but I don't remember their names now. I think there are also modules that reduce control maintenance for habs.

 

[Jaedar]

Small and rich, huh?

I mean, "rich" (aka high investment point count, the top value in the left column) is sufficient, but rich and large tends to mean expensive and it's kinda suboptimal to make america build mission control when you can let israel do it. Rich+Large are better off being used for research/funding/armies/etc.