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

[thesheeep]

I don't quite get the anti-alien sentiment here.

The aliens are our friends!

 

[Alpharius]

Is it true that unifying North America is a trap?

Seems like it requires a shitton of research.

Btw after discovering that there are +100 research t2 modules i'm thinking the most optimal strategy would be rushing that tech + mission to inner planets for mercury solar arrays. Then with 5-10k or something research it shouldn't be hard to get fusion or antimatter or whatever. Earth is only needed for mc and money then which don't depend on education level.

The first alien ship may be destroyed by a bunch of rocket engine ships with t1 missiles for alien related techs.

 

[Jaedar]

Is it true that unifying North America is a trap?

Unification is very efficient, you can cover more stuff with fewer advise, less admin cap and so on. Only drawback I can think of is that your nation might become too large for you to take back points when the servants use alien powers to yoink them.

Btw after discovering that there are +100 research t2 modules i'm thinking the most optimal strategy would be rushing that tech + mission to inner planets for mercury solar arrays.

:heavy breathing: Where is the tech for that? And can you even put those on platforms or do they only go on habs? (habs have less solar efficiency afaik).
I'm at like 3.7k earth research, but I'd love to retool both china and the us into pure military factories.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Lost two fucking habs to the Servants somehow (pure bullshit)

yeah, that's beyond retarded. in a single hit they take a station away and "reinforce" it, while IF you're lucky enough to have a 25 persuasion "control space asset" (a very rare combination with a very rare skill), yet you have no means to overcome the reinforcement, which they can and will refresh forever.
it just happened again to me, they took eur berses and gathered enough intel to halve my "unify nothern africa" project which was nearing completion, all the while i'm scrambling to try to keep them away from china: they already own india, and 4/6 of china, while i can barely keep a slightly expanded russia and a bunch of towel heads. i told you the cap doesn't affect the computer.

 

[Alpharius]

Is it true that unifying North America is a trap?

Unification is very efficient, you can cover more stuff with fewer advise, less admin cap and so on. Only drawback I can think of is that your nation might become too large for you to take back points when the servants use alien powers to yoink them.

Btw after discovering that there are +100 research t2 modules i'm thinking the most optimal strategy would be rushing that tech + mission to inner planets for mercury solar arrays.

:heavy breathing: Where is the tech for that? And can you even put those on platforms or do they only go on habs? (habs have less solar efficiency afaik).
I'm at like 3.7k earth research, but I'd love to retool both china and the us into pure military factories.

They are called research campuses i think, unlocked by a tech that is called space research and something else. Might need photonic or quantum computing though.

 

[Jaedar]

They are called research campuses i think, unlocked by a tech that is called space research and something else. Might need photonic or quantum computing though.

Turns out I already had them: I just misread them as giving 10 science each

I'm now building 1 orbital each with 6 space unis each per month. I have two threat reduction researched done, so I think I should be good until at least 100 MC, which should be a huge boost to my science income.

Meanwhile on earth, I kicked the alien armies off the planet with 0 losses. I had to reload once because the gui is ridonk deceptive for managing multiple armies (you can move multiple armies with the same button, but they don't arrive together, and if you cancel operation it only cancels for one of them, while making it look on the main screen like they all canceled), but it was fairly smooth. I also reunifed eastern america, and am going to unite it with canada (canada has capped mission control (thx protectorate, mine now) so needs a useful economy outlet). I really like the illuminati vibes of what I did to kwa, cutting it down and now building it back up in a way that suits my goals. Instead of a haphazard collection of states I shall have a war machine of purpose!

This means I control every major nation except the eu which is firmly in resistance hands, who I am keeping on tolerant terms with by bribing them with resources once per year (they're very poor, but they're also the only faction that is helping combat the aliens: worthwhile investment).

Still, both protectorate and servants have announced their goals, which in theory means they are close to winning. After I free up some control I need to go on a world tour to disarm a bunch of nukes that idiots have built, but after that I think earth will be fully secure unless future alien landings are much scarier. Then I just need to turn all this fusion research into drives, reactors and weaponry and I can teach the aliens of my peaceful ways... by force.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I'm now building 1 orbital each with 6 space unis each per month. I have two threat reduction researched done, so I think I should be good until at least 100 MC, which should be a huge boost to my science income.

Dyson Sphering Mercury with Research Campuses and Op Centers would be a very powerful strategy I think.

 

[Luka-boy]

I don't quite get the anti-alien sentiment here.

The aliens are our friends!

My pherocyte detector is beeping. Intensely.

 

[Jaedar]

I'm now building 1 orbital each with 6 space unis each per month. I have two threat reduction researched done, so I think I should be good until at least 100 MC, which should be a huge boost to my science income.

Dyson Sphering Mercury with Research Campuses and Op Centers would be a very powerful strategy I think.

I dislike the inefficiency of op centers. Once you take into account the need for defences and power each platform is like a net +3 or +4, even in mercury orbit, which means you have a lot of "wasted" MC that brings up your alien threat. Earth based control seems like the way to go, at least until you can contest the aliens defensively in space.

Research platforms otoh are gold. A single one with defenses can easily put out like 600 science, which is the same as USA at the start of the game, and about half of what india/china will put out once fully fixed and advised by a sci25 councilor. You do want to combine this with plentiful of platforms in earth interface orbits, so you can get nice % bonuses from those labs as well (and the other bonuses you get from earth interface labs).

Edit: Guess I need to stop sphering, because my volatiles income is starting to go negative triple digit.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

perfect run. i owned all russia up to berlin, all china, all the arabic speaking countries fused into a single one. all three producing 0 unrest and a lot of money. mars was all mine (quite literally) extracting enough for every need, all my bases had 4-5 layered defenses and marines which meant they couldn't be taken.
i had to take china from servants's hands, while they just went and took it i had to bring pop support to 75 and unrest to 7 to have my max stat guy have a 26% crackdown chance. i savescummed like crazy.
then they couped the european union out of the blue. 0 unrest, 0 support. couped.
then they infiltrated the usa just like that.
they also turned india in a pinch. when i had tried to, my max stat guys converted a grand amount of 0% on a success and 1% on a crit.
then they gifted india to aliens. game over.
this is retarded.

 

[thesecret1]

None of this ever happened to me, not a single time. Are you within the CP limit? If you try to coup your own country, how large a chance do you have?

 

[thesecret1]

Also the 0% thing is misleading. It doesnt convert any pops to your side, but moves a lot of them closer to it, such as turning servant pops into academy ones and the like. Repeated attempts will start converting those to your ideology

 

[Luka-boy]

MadMaxHellfire
I'm not saying it was Aliens, but it was Aliens.

No, seriously, their agents are prone to that kind of fuckery if you don't keep them in check. It's even lore-friendly.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i know. it doesn't make it less a total bullshittery.

 

[Jaedar]

So I did the 100k research required to figure out my actual win con. It's pretty demanding. But at least I know what is necessary now. I don't even really see how some of it is possible, but I guess it must be...

Spoiler

I need to control points in nations representing at least 75% of earths population. There must be some massive control point cap researches at some point, because I am not even close even though I have 500 points of admin.

Also, unifying canada and america turned out to be a mistake, because canada had 4 miltech, the us had 6, so the federation has 5, which means my 4 us armies are now much much worse. This is not very cool. At least it freed up enough control I can go on a world tour disarming nukes.

But I got to around 9k research per month before I had to stop expanding due to volatiles shortage, so my research speed is damn fast, and I have a death grip on the direction for global techs. The aliens have gotten really upset for some reason though, took out 5 stations, and can't quite seem to decide if they should continue their carnage or not, even though I scaled back literally every anti alien op, not targeting any other faction or alien growths on the planet.

My next goal is to make a fusion powered ship with coilguns for weaponry, and start deleting all space assets of factions I don't like and that won't upset the aliens when I kill them. I considered just going after aliens, but all their stations have 6+ layered defence arrays, and if we go to total war I expect they'll outproduce, outgun and outrun me.

i know. it doesn't make it less a total bullshittery.

It's almost like the premise of the game is that humanity is being attacked by advanced aliens, and that this is a bad position to be in.

I can't wait to have enough tech that I can wipe out the servants without worrying about alien retaliation.

 

[Alpharius]

Finally built a battlecruiser with monstrously huge hairy green laser cannon and some pd but it didn't fire once for some reason while the last of my obsolete t1 missile ships and advanced 200 power alien destroyer killed each other. Also the power meter says the monitor t1 missile ship is 130 and battle cruiser is 100, wtf. Perhaps large weapons are crap?

Researching coil guns and arc lasers now, hope they'll be more useful at least.

 

[Jaedar]

Perhaps large weapons are crap?

Maybe you don't have enough power to fire it? The game could really use some more information on that in the ship designer, I never have any idea how much heat sink/batteries to put in, or if I even need any at all.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

the premise of the game

let's play a game. you build a huge house of cards, an award winning one. when you're a couple cards close to conclusion, i raze it and shotgun blast you in the balls. it must be fun since it's the premise of this game.

 

[thesecret1]

The aliens got tired of my shit and stopped fucking around. 4 simultaneous landings. FUCK!

 

[thesecret1]

The aliens got tired of my shit and stopped fucking around. 4 simultaneous landings. FUCK!

Defeated them. Pro tip: even a full health alien army of 3 cannot beat a doomstack of 18 armies bearing down on it. Still, be aware that whenever you feel you're safe and fighting the alien off no problem, what it actually means is that the alien is waiting just behind the corner waiting to kick you in the balls

 

[Jaedar]

the premise of the game

let's play a game. you build a huge house of cards, an award winning one. when you're a couple cards close to conclusion, i raze it and shotgun blast you in the balls. it must be fun since it's the premise of this game.

I decline to play this game with you.

The aliens got tired of my shit and stopped fucking around. 4 simultaneous landings. FUCK!

Defeated them. Pro tip: even a full health alien army of 3 cannot beat a doomstack of 18 armies bearing down on it. Still, be aware that whenever you feel you're safe and fighting the alien off no problem, what it actually means is that the alien is waiting just behind the corner waiting to kick you in the balls

Yeah. Quantity>quality when it comes to armies.

 

[Raapys]

The Mercury research module hab strategy seems to be pretty much mandatory if you have solar arrays and can afford the MC cost. Even just a single base, with modules "wasted" on defenses, can match the best Earth nations.

 

[Jaedar]

The Mercury research module hab strategy seems to be pretty much mandatory if you have solar arrays and can afford the MC cost. Even just a single base, with modules "wasted" on defenses, can match the best Earth nations.

Not really. A good earth nation with an advisor can push out 1.3k+ science per month. Even with no defensive modules, I think a research hab will never push out more than 900.

900 is still an insane amount of research. I have like 4k science from earth, and 5k hab farm. This has made my research speed insane, so I'm actually just going around trying to unify as many countries into india/russia/china as I can (unifying stuff into kwa is too pricy so far, but I'll get there at some point.)

The Mercury research module hab strategy seems to be pretty much mandatory if you have solar arrays and can afford the MC cost. Even just a single base, with modules "wasted" on defenses, can match the best Earth nations.

Does that actually work? I heard if you pump MC to 100, the Aliens go nuts and destroy your entire space presence.

There are techs to make the aliens less aggro about your space presence.
----

So how does one prevent the ai from pilfering your techs left and right? I've got 15+ security on everyone, and one tech that gives -2 to stealing but the AI is still pilfering me fairly frequently.

 

[Raapys]

The Mercury research module hab strategy seems to be pretty much mandatory if you have solar arrays and can afford the MC cost. Even just a single base, with modules "wasted" on defenses, can match the best Earth nations.

Not really. A good earth nation with an advisor can push out 1.3k+ science per month. Even with no defensive modules, I think a research hab will never push out more than 900.

900 is still an insane amount of research. I have like 4k science from earth, and 5k hab farm. This has made my research speed insane, so I'm actually just going around trying to unify as many countries into india/russia/china as I can (unifying stuff into kwa is too pricy so far, but I'll get there at some point.)

1.3k seems quite excessive for a single nation, surely that's a very late game thing? I've owned the US since the first year(now 2034), had an advisor on it for most of that time, been doing 3x knowledge priority on all CPs, and it's still just churning out roughly 700. Meanwhile, the nations I don't own only produce 200-300. Seen in that light, a single station that produces potentially 900 is quite absurd.

The Mercury research module hab strategy seems to be pretty much mandatory if you have solar arrays and can afford the MC cost. Even just a single base, with modules "wasted" on defenses, can match the best Earth nations.

Does that actually work? I heard if you pump MC to 100, the Aliens go nuts and destroy your entire space presence.

There are techs to make the aliens less aggro about your space presence.
----

So how does one prevent the ai from pilfering your techs left and right? I've got 15+ security on everyone, and one tech that gives -2 to stealing but the AI is still pilfering me fairly frequently.

Have you tried going to ground on the agents you have that show a lot of "detected by" icons? For me it's particularly been a problem with the ones who are stuck in a single nation, eg for Advise.

Re the MC making the aliens go nuts, you're just paying 3 MC per research station. That is, 3 MC per 600-900 monthly research points (depending on defense preferences).

 

[Jaedar]

1.3k seems quite excessive for a single nation, surely that's a very late game thing?

I had it in 2030 with India. I assume you can do the same with china, probably easier to set up assuming you manage to claim control.

I've owned the US since the first year(now 2034), had an advisor on it for most of that time, been doing 3x knowledge priority on all CPs, and it's still just churning out roughly 700.

The US is good, but its population is what.. 340 mln? It can't compete with 1.5 bln of india. Iirc the US also starts out close to its maximum research potential, since it has high democracy and high education. India is pretty bad at start, but shines with investment.

Meanwhile, the nations I don't own only produce 200-300. Seen in that light, a single station that produces potentially 900 is quite absurd.

Oh yeah for sure. Most AI factions in 2035 for me were making sub 1k science total, so the fact that a single station outproduces that is absurd. I except they'll nerf them before EA ends.

Have you tried going to ground on the agents you have that show a lot of "detected by" icons? For me it's particularly been a problem with the ones who are stuck in a single nation, eg for Advise.

I do occasionally do that, but checking every 2 weeks if anyone has icons and then grounding them is a lot of micro :/. Especially since a single detected icon is sufficient to get stolen from. Maybe I need to dump all my project granting orgs on a single councilor, and make sure the mule also has 25 security.