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

[MadMaxHellfire]

because australia sucks and it's useless. any alien troop landing there should be automatically destroyed.

 

[Jaedar]

what this game needs

You forgot the most important part, which is some sort of a solution for the absolutely insufferable councillor micro after you've long since left the other faction in the dust. You can wreck them any time of the day, but you cannot ignore them, because if you do, they'll start stealing your control points

I honestly didn't have much issue with that. Once I meganationed everything up, and killed all the good enemy councilors, they mostly stayed out of my way. Fairly frequently ran public opinion missions, and occasionally a bit of unrest increase, but never stole any of my control points after I stopped going above admin cap. I mostly let the public opinion go where it wanted, and had 2 councilors running around on perma unrest decrease (this part was admittedly a bit tedious).

I would have liked reducing mission frequency (going down to once per month would be good), but I was still actively conquering stuff even towards the end, not just in a defensive holding pattern.

if you can melt two meganations together they're already too big for enemy agents to do anything to them.

Australia cannot be melted, and is never big enough to have this effect.

Australia can be combined with indonesia and some other random islands and a bit of SE asia. It's one of the smaller meganations (along with greater india), but it's ok I guess?

 

[thesecret1]

I honestly didn't have much issue with that. Once I meganationed everything up, and killed all the good enemy councilors, they mostly stayed out of my way. Fairly frequently ran public opinion missions, and occasionally a bit of unrest increase, but never stole any of my control points after I stopped going above admin cap. I mostly let the public opinion go where it wanted, and had 2 councilors running around on perma unrest decrease (this part was admittedly a bit tedious).

The issue is not preventing them from stealing control points. The issue is having to assign and re-assign councillors constantly to counter them. Fuck that. I want to keep all councillors on advise missions forever and never have to touch them ever again as I conquer space

 

[Alpharius]

if you can melt two meganations together they're already too big for enemy agents to do anything to them.

Australia cannot be melted, and is never big enough to have this effect.

Can't it be joined with UK into commonwealth or something like that? I didn't manage to do it cause it requires end of america project which required independent US and i couldn't release US from US federation for some reason, only US Dominion or something. Though perhaps it would have unlocked later just with dominon but i couldn't be arsed to check at that point.

 

[thesecret1]

Can't it be joined with UK into commonwealth or something like that? I didn't manage to do it cause it requires end of america project which required independent US and i couldn't release US from US federation for some reason, only US Dominion or something. Though perhaps it would have unlocked later just with dominon but i couldn't be arsed to check at that point.

Maybe? I haven't unlocked that tech... There's way too many of those, and the requirement of keeping the country independent kinda kills it

 

[Alpharius]

Can't it be joined with UK into commonwealth or something like that? I didn't manage to do it cause it requires end of america project which required independent US and i couldn't release US from US federation for some reason, only US Dominion or something. Though perhaps it would have unlocked later just with dominon but i couldn't be arsed to check at that point.

Maybe? I haven't unlocked that tech... There's way too many of those, and the requirement of keeping the country independent kinda kills it

The country needs to be independent only to research the tech, i think it should be possible to unify UK with Australia, New Zealand etc, then unify all of it with the EU. Perhaps US federation too if UK gains claim on Washington.

 

[Jaedar]

-removal of servants. either that or aliens must be nerfed 50-60% and moved to very late end game.

I kind of agree with this.

I kind of don't. I like the idea of needing to be a bit stealthy early on to avoid alien retaliation. Guerilla warfare and all that. There should probably be some early techs that let you research ways to shift blame, make it look natural and so on to reduce the threat increase to you (and potentially shift it to other factions?). Also the alien threat level should probably take much less penalty from platforms/bases and higher from ships. You having lots of mining operational is useful to them once they take over: you having ships and shipyards is a threat.

If the aliens were not vastly technologically superior to humans, the scenario as presented could not happen. If the aliens didn't greatly underestimate humanity, they would have moved in with serious forces immediately.

Right now, you hit an arbitrary MC cap and the Aliens just go "Fuck you and all your space assets."

The supposed actual mechanics:

Spoiler

Alien threat is a number, and it starts at 0. Every 10 threat is another threat level, and at 50+ the aliens start shooting. On normal, 40% of your MC is the minimum threat, on brutal it is 100% of MC.
Killing a hydra or destroying a facility adds 10 threat, lesser actions do less.
Actions against servants cause 0.25-0.5 of what the same action against aliens would do, depending on how far the servants have progressed their storyline.

I'm not sure what causes it to drop or decay naturally.

And well, losing some earth orbiting platforms is not a huge deal. Let the aliens throw their tantrum.

 

[Luka-boy]

Just finished a Servants campaign that I was very close to losing a few times.

First, I was cockblocked out of most major countries excrpt some EU ones. Then every time I tried to expand in space someone (especially the fucking Initiative) decided to become hostile with me and destroy most of my space assets. I was this close to just drop it and suddenly there is Civil War in the USA and I win two controls points including Legislative. Thanks to that I managed to turn things around in Earth until the Aliens started invading.

I managed to snatch some powerful countries and give them to them, but for the last 10% of population controlled I was sweating bullets. The Aliens kept conquering shitty American and African countries that kept their unrest almost to the point of Civil War and I had to spent a ton of Ops helping them keep unrest down. And Humanity First wouldn't let anyone control India.

Fortunately I barely managed to snatch a win when the Alien Administration was at 9.5 unrest.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Just finished a Servants campaign that I was very close to losing a few times.

you know that's literally impossible, right?

 

[Jaedar]

So even though I finished, I can't quite stop thinking about this game (it's a curse).

I think antimatter production is the correct way to make cash, forget about geriatrics or space tourism (and country funding seems laughable). The price per ton of antimatter on earth markets is 45k per ton. A single supercollider makes 0.1 antimatter per month, ie 4500 cash, for 750 power.
A geriatrics facility makes 180 cash per month and draws 90 power.
But of course, quick maffs tells us that you need 25 geriatrics to make up for a single, which would also drain 2250 power.
And in terms of power: colliders can be built in mercury orbit, where power is free and enemies scarce, whereas geriatrics need to be built near earth where enemies can snag them and aliens can shoot them down.

Admittedly the supercollider also has some significant upkeep costs (10 fissiles, youch), but when a single one of them will pay for the upkeep costs of your entire space empire, it doesn't seem so bad...

Potentially antimatter traps around high antimatter planets like Mimas might also be good, but unless the gui is lying to me the generation is a mere 440 micro grams per year even with the best module, which is so little it might as well be nothing.

Also, smaller mining bases seem more efficient, as mining speed vs mc cost is
100%, 2 MC -> 50% per MC
150%, 4 MC -> 37% per MC
300%, 8 MC -> 37% per MC
Although in practice t1 bases can't build proper defences, so higher tiers might be preferable for that reason alone.

 

[Jaedar]

- Project and Part Sorting Update we gotta talk about your patchnotes ben

Being able to mark research as obsolete sounds real nice, having to scroll through all the useless drives and weapons to find the one you want made me a bit crazy.

Not being able to steal projects you don't have prereqs for sounds weird. That was the only use for steal project. Unless they mean that you now can't steal plasma mk3 without plasma mk2, but you can still steal faction specific projects (like maskirovka). But those are also a bit weird because of how easy it is to steal projects, and the fact that you can steal projects from stealers, so everyone just has access to everything and there is no faction uniqueness beyond who the aliens like.

 

[Alpharius]

AI
- Start work on AI fleet aggressiveness issues. This isn't done yet.

This is promising. Though i fear if that the current space UI will come apart. Its currently possible to destroy most of alien fleets and defend the bases only because the AI has no idea how to win in tactical combat AND AI ship designs suck balls AND AI has no idea how to play on strategic layer.
Like i don't think i would have ever finished the game if i needed roughly 1 of my ships for each one of alien ships instead of easily winning with 1 to 10 odds without losses and mostly without controlling the fleet, cause it takes too much effort to build and command a fleet.
Or if Aliens would have gone on asteroid mining destruction spree as soon as they switched to total war mode.
Or attack low Earth orbit after most my fleet departed on several month long transfer to Neptune.
Or if they'd just sent a large fleet targeting my space docks as soon as i destroyed one of theirs.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

angry but bored, i abandoned my awesome but perpetually crashing old game and made some experiments. turns out there's only one way to have a decent, non-instantly doomed game, and it's the india-china route. if you don't, servants WILL take them. if you go any other route, ai is unable to focus its effort on taking them away from them, you're the only one who can, and you should, but then why not taking them for yourself in the first place? europe is easily contested, and even if servants or protectorate take usa, it's not such a big effort to break them with mid-high level agents, while doing the same with india and china is bordering impossible.
this definitely broke the magic for me.

solution: remove servants and/or alien magic, and move their invasions to very very late game.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

-the only RELIABLE way to win is through india and china, negating them to the servants.
-it's not true because some dude did otherwise in a video where he explained it happened by sheer chance, absolutely random, so improbable no way to repeat it.

i swear, reddit is everything that's wrong with humanity.

 

[Alpharius]

angry but bored, i abandoned my awesome but perpetually crashing old game and made some experiments. turns out there's only one way to have a decent, non-instantly doomed game, and it's the india-china route. if you don't, servants WILL take them. if you go any other route, ai is unable to focus its effort on taking them away from them, you're the only one who can, and you should, but then why not taking them for yourself in the first place? europe is easily contested, and even if servants or protectorate take usa, it's not such a big effort to break them with mid-high level agents, while doing the same with india and china is bordering impossible.
this definitely broke the magic for me.

solution: remove servants and/or alien magic, and move their invasions to very very late game.

Its also possible to intercept all the alien fleets and kill all their councillor to that they can't use mindcontrol. At least they didn't in my game (on normal difficulty). Academy held India for the whole game, i've taken China after EU and US.
Haven't even seen how it looks like. Servants can't use mind controll with their own councillors can they?

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

-the only RELIABLE way to win is through india and china, negating them to the servants.
-it's not true because some dude did otherwise in a video where he explained it happened by sheer chance, absolutely random, so improbable no way to repeat it.

i swear, reddit is everything that's wrong with humanity.

Last 5-6 games HF always held India. I would first go to Us, then China.
Servant usually skulked around in shithole countries

 

[Sranchammer]

Eurasian Union is the only way to play.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

seems like this game is being forgotten already. they need at least to diversify the factions.

 

[thesheeep]

seems like this game is being forgotten already.

Eh?

It released into EA 2 months ago.
People played it, had fun and are now waiting for actual release.

I don't think this is the kind of game you'd keep playing all throughout early access.
It's not that unlimited in its replayability.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

and that's why they failed and this game is being forgotten already.
people still keep playing eu4. hell, people still keep playing eu3. bloody hell, there must be somebody still playing eu2.

 

[Jaedar]

they need at least to diversify the factions.

I agree. The factions should at least get some unique bonuses/drawbacks and imo have predefined starting councillors.

Currently only academy are any different, and it's not huge: they have slightly better starting public opinion, start with the ISS (unclear if this is a benefit or drawback tbh) and get a negative event that steals half their control points during the first year. It's a really good start though, but every faction should have something like this, and preferable something that also lasts the entire game.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

servants are different too, but they should be erased nonetheless.

 

[Sranchammer]

Really like the game but going to wait until improvements are made

 

[thesheeep]

and that's why they failed and this game is being forgotten already.
people still keep playing eu4. hell, people still keep playing eu3. bloody hell, there must be somebody still playing eu2.

So a game is failed if it doesn't have the longevity of an EU4?

I don't know, man, that seems to be a pretty damn extreme definition of failure.
Which excludes a ton of games that were financially successful.

We'll see when the game actually releases.

 

[Jaedar]

I agree. The factions should at least get some unique bonuses/drawbacks and imo have predefined starting councillors.

Honestly, they need to allow us to hire for free our own first Councillors instead of "lol here's some randoms, fuck you".

As for the factions, yeah I agree they need their own unique bonuses and drawbacks.

I do think random is bad, but I also think each faction have premade starting councilors would be good, to help ease you into their various playstyles.