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[Terra Invicta] 30% off for Gamescom, come and shoot space in the face

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Posts

  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    I turn spoils off in any country I plan on holding for a long time.

    And yea I unify alot. I just got the warsaw pact unlocked so I am starting to grab eastern europe for russia.

    I don't build armies much since Russia and China both start with a fair amount. I have so far been doing 3 pips for boost, MC, funding, and knowledge, with 2 for econ and welfare. oh and i left navy on 1 pip for russia and china so I'd get navies for all my armies.

    I get pretty discouraged at being at like 1.3 science at 2030 when perunAU who I've been watching the guide videos from when he posts them has over 3k.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited October 2022
    Boost is what is most opaque to me. I have it cranked up in the EU with a pile of nations including France and Germany and Boost just fucking won't increase at anything that seems like an acceptable pace. Honestly, it just seems like a severe balance issue at this point because it is a fucking grind getting that Boost just to get a fucking Moon mining hab going. It's honestly going to take basically a whole damn year of saving Boost to maybe get that hab to the Moon, and that's with half the USA in my pocket. In that same vein, it takes way too fucking long a cooldown to be able to declare war on a nation. I think it's a whole years or maybe even 18 months, which is just... ugh. Let me fucking invade Italy already, I don't want to wait two hours for the damn cooldown to tick over.

    Plus, I just cannot Unify these damn Balkan States for any apparent reason. I've had them most of a year, I have complete control of their territory, they're allies, they're affiliated with the EU federation... and I just continually can't Unify them. No explanation why, the option simply will not show up even though they should be able to be Unified.

    EDIT: The Federation/Unification system in general desperately needs to be simplified overall. Fuck needing to research tech to be able to Federate/Unify places, just make a straight-up timer cooldown on control time before you can put anything in a Federation, then another cooldown to Unify. And make them applicable to everything you have, so I can Unify Japan and Portugal if I want as long as I put them in a Federation first.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Mostly it just seems like I can't really like.... improve any countries? This current game I went Japan/Russia/Korea/Taiwan to start with china grabbed later, and about 8 years in Japan is basically the same stats wise as at the start and while Japan is better I am pretty sure thats mostly cause I am unifying it with other countries abunch.

    And mostly I use a customized abit resist setting. Its mostly the same I just get rid of the spoils pips since I want the countries long term. I tried adding more knowledge to try and get russia and china to be democratic but it doesn't really seem to do much.

    So I am pretty good with space stuff but I can't seem to figure out how to get the countries to do stuff I see other people saying they do.

    So theres a few things working against you here.

    First is, as others have said, that the default priority settings are horrible; they spread out funding way too much. Those countries also all start with relatively good development; increasing a country from good to great is a lot harder than, say, dragging someplace like India out of poverty. The one place they do fall "behind" is democracy but that raises incredibly slowly, to the point that I rarely bother with it myself. Lastly is that between the aliens and climate change the global GDP tends downward pretty hard, so keeping countries(particularly well developed ones) level is actually pretty good.

    If you want to see rapid change start a game with taking India and set it to like 25% economy/25% Welfare/50% unity. Once it hits 5 Cohesion switch to 25% economy/50% welfare/25% unity, lowering the unity percentage as the inequality drops. When you have ~5 Cohesion and less than 3.5 inequality switch to like 40% economy/Knowledge and 10% Unity/Welfare(to maintain them) and watch the GDP explode up until it gets ~20k GDP per capita.
    Also. UNIFICATION. This shit is key to getting stronger and faster. Unification lets you take multiple countries and make one country, freeing up a fat chunk of Cap Points plus making a nation that's easier to defend (you can fortify the whole thing in one turn) and much harder to influence by the other factions. But the tricky part is that, at the start of the game, only nations already associated with Federations can be Unified. So if you had France, Germany, and Russia, only France and Germany can be Unified under the European Union. However, if you add Kazakhstan in there, you can Unite it with Russia. Now you have two countries instead of four and you've saved a ton of Cap Points.

    What this means is, basically, focus your early attentions on Federated regions that are geographically close together. If I grab all of France, I get a bonus on getting Germany because the two are neighbors. If I have both of those, I have bonuses on every neighbor nation they touch. And every neighbor they touch can also be Unified under the EU, letting you gobble up more and more of the EU as each nation you grab can eventually be Unified to free Cap Points for another country.

    Just keep in mind that Unification is blocked until the end of the first year, and that you have to hold all points in a nation for six months before it can be Unified.

    Unification frees up a bunch of CP because you lose a bunch of Investment points when countries unify since IP is based on a formula that involves cubing the GDP each IP requires a much higher GDP than the previous. Like France starts with ~13 IP and Germany with ~16 but if you unify them into the EU you'll only have ~18 total. Now that isn't as terrible as it first sounds since the country-effecting priorities are based on capita so those get more efficient the bigger the country is but the faction-effecting priorities(funding, boost, mission control) aren't based on capita so if you were planning on spending most of your IP there you lose out on quite a bit. The other benefit of unifying, as you mentioned, is its easier to defend a single country and your councilor's missions are more efficient so it can be good but its not always the best plan.

    Mr Ray
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    That sounds... exceptionally fucking stupid. I'm getting less Boost because I have fewer pips despite having an economic powerhouse greater than the sum of its parts? If that's intentional, it's some moronic game design given how limited Unification already is and what a grind it is to get new countries past the very early game.

    Antinumeric
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Boost is what is most opaque to me. I have it cranked up in the EU with a pile of nations including France and Germany and Boost just fucking won't increase at anything that seems like an acceptable pace. Honestly, it just seems like a severe balance issue at this point because it is a fucking grind getting that Boost just to get a fucking Moon mining hab going. It's honestly going to take basically a whole damn year of saving Boost to maybe get that hab to the Moon, and that's with half the USA in my pocket. In that same vein, it takes way too fucking long a cooldown to be able to declare war on a nation. I think it's a whole years or maybe even 18 months, which is just... ugh. Let me fucking invade Italy already, I don't want to wait two hours for the damn cooldown to tick over.

    Plus, I just cannot Unify these damn Balkan States for any apparent reason. I've had them most of a year, I have complete control of their territory, they're allies, they're affiliated with the EU federation... and I just continually can't Unify them. No explanation why, the option simply will not show up even though they should be able to be Unified.

    EDIT: The Federation/Unification system in general desperately needs to be simplified overall. Fuck needing to research tech to be able to Federate/Unify places, just make a straight-up timer cooldown on control time before you can put anything in a Federation, then another cooldown to Unify. And make them applicable to everything you have, so I can Unify Japan and Portugal if I want as long as I put them in a Federation first.

    For the balkan states i think you need to federate and unify them with each other first? I think thats what i had to do in one of my EU runs anyway

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • MonwynMonwyn Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered User regular
    That sounds... exceptionally fucking stupid. I'm getting less Boost because I have fewer pips despite having an economic powerhouse greater than the sum of its parts? If that's intentional, it's some moronic game design given how limited Unification already is and what a grind it is to get new countries past the very early game.

    It's an anti-snowball thing, otherwise the game would pretty much devolve into "who can unify the EU" and the entire early game would be built around controlling France

    uH3IcEi.png
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    That doesn't sound like decent design to me, though. The whole point of a game like this is being able to strategically build up your power to roll over the other factions individually, then collectively, then face the aliens. Punishing the player with more gameplay grind for simplifying grind is just... not good.

    And if the issue is that unifying countries in the EU imbalances the game, then the Federation/Unification system should be LESS restrictive. If I want to Unify Belize and Ireland, there should be no restrictions on that other than the time limits. At worst, something like preexisting Federations should only offer a time bonus/penalty based on who you're trying to Federate/Unify with. Then something like starting with France doesn't matter because you can start anywhere and what matters is how you prioritize things, not starting off with the biggest club you can feasibly take.

    But chunking down something like faction resources to PREVENT the player from growing stronger from taking more regions is silly. The game already has you juggling too much granular shit, being able to simplify it for at least the same resource payout should be a normal goal, not something to block.

  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    The whole point of a game like this is being able to strategically build up your power to roll over the other factions individually, then collectively, then face the aliens.

    Thats not the goal of this game though; you can never wipe out the enemy factions and they will continue to be a threat right up until you win. You have to balance the concerns of Earth-politics while building up and fighting the space war not conquer the world and then turn to space.

    Mr RayCantido
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    Last Son wrote: »
    The whole point of a game like this is being able to strategically build up your power to roll over the other factions individually, then collectively, then face the aliens.

    Thats not the goal of this game though; you can never wipe out the enemy factions and they will continue to be a threat right up until you win. You have to balance the concerns of Earth-politics while building up and fighting the space war not conquer the world and then turn to space.

    Dear God, I've been playing Warhammer all along.

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Think I am going to start over. I've only played the resistance so far, are the campaigns much different for other factions (aside from servants)? Was thinking of trying the academy on my next day off.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular
    Is there a way to remove crackdowns from your own territories via a mission, or do I just have to wait these out?

  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Think I am going to start over. I've only played the resistance so far, are the campaigns much different for other factions (aside from servants)? Was thinking of trying the academy on my next day off.

    I haven't played Academy(or Exodus) but the others are all fairly similar, you have different objective tasks and some slightly different tech but the core gameplay/strategies are the same.
    Mvrck wrote: »
    Is there a way to remove crackdowns from your own territories via a mission, or do I just have to wait these out?

    You just have to wait it out baring weirdness like launching a coup on yourself so you lose the point and retaking it.

  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    Oh yeah, unification will definitely mess up a country in the short-term. Making a mega-EU is fun, but it will also have a dogshit economy for quite some time after all of those unifications cause a bunch of unrest. It will also probably keep getting a lower and lower military tech level as France's decent tech is diluted by absorbing a bunch of less powerful nations. I made the Restored British Commonwealth for funzies but it was an objectively shit decision in the short term as my three 6.5 tech armies suddenly became five 5.5 tech armies because of Canada and Australia's worse tech. This, incidentally is why you should never unify North and South Korea; things get averaged out and the North will drag the South down from a high tech, high education democracy into a nation that's bad at everything. Its why rather than make a mega-EU right away I usually just unify France, Germany and the UK and then build up for a bit.

    In terms of small Nation vs large Nation, the thing to remember is that small nations are better at building up discrete resources, armies, navies, boost, mission control e.t.c. Larger nations are better at things that affect the whole nation; economy, welfare, knowledge, unity. As such if I'm trying to "power game", its better to keep the EU nations separate for a bit, build up their boost, MC and armies and THEN merge.

    E.g, France starts the game with 16 investment points, Germany 18 and Spain 11. Obviously France and Germany are going to be able to build a new army quicker than Spain, but not drastically so, and also Spain starts with an army 20/60 done. So if I control all three separately, I have 45 investment points to spend each month. If I unify them, I get a unified EU with about 20 investment points. Thus it would be better for me to wait until Spain and Germany have built armies, and maybe some mission control, before merging them into the EU, at which point I suddenly have a nation with THREE armies and a much larger GDP.
    Boost is what is most opaque to me. I have it cranked up in the EU with a pile of nations including France and Germany and Boost just fucking won't increase at anything that seems like an acceptable pace. Honestly, it just seems like a severe balance issue at this point because it is a fucking grind getting that Boost just to get a fucking Moon mining hab going. It's honestly going to take basically a whole damn year of saving Boost to maybe get that hab to the Moon, and that's with half the USA in my pocket. In that same vein, it takes way too fucking long a cooldown to be able to declare war on a nation. I think it's a whole years or maybe even 18 months, which is just... ugh. Let me fucking invade Italy already, I don't want to wait two hours for the damn cooldown to tick over.

    Plus, I just cannot Unify these damn Balkan States for any apparent reason. I've had them most of a year, I have complete control of their territory, they're allies, they're affiliated with the EU federation... and I just continually can't Unify them. No explanation why, the option simply will not show up even though they should be able to be Unified.

    EDIT: The Federation/Unification system in general desperately needs to be simplified overall. Fuck needing to research tech to be able to Federate/Unify places, just make a straight-up timer cooldown on control time before you can put anything in a Federation, then another cooldown to Unify. And make them applicable to everything you have, so I can Unify Japan and Portugal if I want as long as I put them in a Federation first.

    If you're not sure why you can't federate/unify a Nation, go to the Nation panel of the Federation's lead nation (I.e, France for the EU) and mouse-over their flag in the "Relations" pane:

    7h057aztxkwq.png

    In this example, they can't unify Germany because they haven't been in the Federation for long enough. For the Balkan states specifically, they don't start in the EU but can be invited in, if you control France and the Balkans. I generally leave them out of my mega-EU though as they will drag the rest of the EU down with their shitty economy, tech, unrest and government score.
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Think I am going to start over. I've only played the resistance so far, are the campaigns much different for other factions (aside from servants)? Was thinking of trying the academy on my next day off.

    None of the campaigns are radically different, honestly, but some are more different than others. I.e, Exodus can afford to be a lot more passive since all of their objectives can be met by mostly just turtling up and researching their way to victory and nobody really hates them. Humanity First is similar to Resistance except you get some fun "extremist" responses to events everyone will hate you. Academy are one of the hardest because of that event that happens early on, and the fact that their unique tech tree is the longest of all of the factions by far. Servants, obviously are quite different since you don't have to worry about the whole "fighting the aliens" thing, and frankly don't even really need to go into space if you don't want to.

    In terms of difficulty, I would say it probably goes Academy > Initiative > Humanity First > Resistance > Servants > Protectorate.

    As for my game, I think I'm finally nearing the end. I started this run over a month ago in beta, so I've had a bit of a head start. Its 2050 and my ships are able to fight the alien's ships one-for-one, I'm just working on putting my space economy into overdrive so that I can start mass producing them and start pushing the aliens back. I also finally have a few ships with MORE delta-V than the aliens, meaning I can actually chase the bastards down when they come at me with their "hit-and-run" tactics, sending individual ships to bombard bases and then running away. I control the USA, Commonwealth including Canada, NZ and Australia, EU, China, Japan and am in the process of taking Greater Indonesia. The other factions have mostly faded into irrelevance on the world map, they all hate me and I just have to keep playing "whack a mole" with their councilors occasionally, making sure that none of them are able to level up a Councilor with enough ESP to assassinate my dudes.

    The state of the world:

    The British Commonwealth is a scientifically advanced but not particularly rich nation with a strong army. They and Japan have been the USA's main allies in any large-scale wars. The USA is... the USA, largely as it is today except I fixed their little democracy problem and kept pumping money into the military. They remain the "world police" and first line of defense against any alien landings. The EU I only recently took possession of, and its time in AI hands was not kind to it. It is no longer a Democracy instead having slid into "Anocracy", its education level is not great and is even poorer than the UK. On the bright side, its army is probably as strong as the USA's if not quite as advanced, and their spaceflight prowess long ago surpassed the USA's and is now the best in the world. The Eurasian Union sadly gobbled up Ukraine, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan early on, and is controlled by Humanity First who have turned it into about what you'd expect; a dirt-poor military dictatorship with waaaay too many armies. China has been my Research farm, high pop nations being good for that, and has been slowly democratizing over the last two decades, and is now finally an "Anocracy" and making its way towards being an actual democracy. It has an army on par with the Eurasian Union's except without the dogshit economy. India is controlled by the Initiative and they've also done exactly what you'd expect from the faction; squeezed it for every last drop of resources, leaving it still pretty poor and destitute. Japan has re-militarized (but without turning into a dictatorship) and now has a very potent and high-tech army for its size, though its economy has suffered as a consequence. South America is unstable keeps flipping to the aliens every so often which has prompted several mass-imports of FREEDOM from the USA and allies. Shout out to the Japanese Central Army, which gave their lives in the defense of Chile. Indonesia and the whole South China Sea area has also been pretty unstable, but I'm currently attempting to take it over and course-correct. Indonesia has a HUGE population, and I've previously used it as a research farm ala China to good effect.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited October 2022
    Cripes, that is some opaque interface design, I must've spent two hours minimum trying to find that info. My own gripes about gameplay mechanics aside, the game desperately needs some major passes on un-fucking the primeval deadly jungle that is the interface on this game. Trying to find out where research items are in the trees can be hard enough, then you have to try and figure out what the upgrades even fucking do without researching them to find out. I still don't have a damn clue what the numbers besides the Priority pips do, other than kick out an army/navy when you hit their threshold value.

    The research tree in particular seems like 90% complexity for the sake of complexity and about 10% stuff that's actually useful. For fuck's sake, what is even the point of having so many types of ship engines with such minor variations in stats? That's seriously something like 40 research items you could strip out and lose nothing of value.

    And forget about the nightmare of the organization of the tech tree. Pulling up that full tree is like looking at a web made by fifty spiders running on borderline-lethal doses of meth while strapped to a bottle rocket, half the time you can't even properly follow which lines are going which way.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular
    Okay my next question:

    I keep getting my stations around Earth captured by other factions, but don't see a way to snag them back. Or rather, I have a Council member who has a "Capture Space Objective" mission or whatever if I send him up into orbit, but it's not letting me target the stations. Does he have to be on an actual ship and not sent to the station itself?

  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    Mvrck wrote: »
    Okay my next question:

    I keep getting my stations around Earth captured by other factions, but don't see a way to snag them back. Or rather, I have a Council member who has a "Capture Space Objective" mission or whatever if I send him up into orbit, but it's not letting me target the stations. Does he have to be on an actual ship and not sent to the station itself?

    Hmm, no, you should be able to target it from inside the station itself, assuming you have enough Mission Control to actually take the station. Confusingly, there's a difference between "Assault Space Asset" and "Control Space Asset" so it depends on which you're trying to do. Assault is where your councilor leads space marines to take over the hab by force, and requires that there be marines at your councilor's starting position. I don't know if you can assault an asset in orbit from another station in the same orbit, but you can definitely assault any hab on a body's surface from an interface orbit. Now Control Space Asset... I'm going to be honest here, Control Space Asset is utter bullshit that probably just needs to be removed from the game, period. Its where your councilor goes up to an enemy space station, gives a nice speech, and the entire space station switches sides on the spot. The AI factions like to do this to you a lot. Its telling that one of the more popular mods on the workshop right now is "No Control Space Asset", and another is "Harder to Control Space Asset".

    In terms of what you can do right now to mitigate this, assuming you don't want to install the mods, your Councilor's collective loyalty affects the odds of Control Space Asset succeeding, so having a Councilor with "Inspire" give everyone a few rounds of Inspiration wouldn't hurt. There are also several techs, easiest of which to get it under "Arrival Security", which increase the difficulty of controlling a space asset. As of the most recent patch, a Marine barracks also increases the difficulty of taking a given hab. Finally, the base difficulty of taking a hab is based on the number of crew, so you can avoid building the T1 stations around Earth and just wait until you can build orbitals instead.

    In addition to this, I can strongly recommend keeping a ship with a Marine Assault unit on it in orbit at all times, then any time one of your stations decides to defect you can just take it back immediately. Both Marine Barracks and Marine Assault Units are quite early in the tech tree under "Militarization of Space".

  • TerrendosTerrendos Decorative Monocle Registered User regular
    Cripes, that is some opaque interface design, I must've spent two hours minimum trying to find that info. My own gripes about gameplay mechanics aside, the game desperately needs some major passes on un-fucking the primeval deadly jungle that is the interface on this game. Trying to find out where research items are in the trees can be hard enough, then you have to try and figure out what the upgrades even fucking do without researching them to find out. I still don't have a damn clue what the numbers besides the Priority pips do, other than kick out an army/navy when you hit their threshold value.

    The research tree in particular seems like 90% complexity for the sake of complexity and about 10% stuff that's actually useful. For fuck's sake, what is even the point of having so many types of ship engines with such minor variations in stats? That's seriously something like 40 research items you could strip out and lose nothing of value.

    And forget about the nightmare of the organization of the tech tree. Pulling up that full tree is like looking at a web made by fifty spiders running on borderline-lethal doses of meth while strapped to a bottle rocket, half the time you can't even properly follow which lines are going which way.

    From watching PerunGaming on Youtube play, his perspective on the extensive Tech Tree is that you basically never research more than half on any given replay. But depending on your strategy, you won't be researching the same half of the tree. He specifically talked about engines: you can go down fission which is faster and cheaper, based on existing tech, or if you don't have a need for ships for a while, you can go down the fusion path instead, which requires heavier research investment but is overall better (and I think doesn't need the fissiles to construct? Not sure about that).

    Without playing it myself, and just watching one guy playing, I can't say whether or not it actually accomplishes that goal of giving the player options.

  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    I still don't have a damn clue what the numbers besides the Priority pips do, other than kick out an army/navy when you hit their threshold value.
    Its that categories progress, eg: if it says "mission control 14/25" That means you've put in 14 out of the necessary 25 investment points to gain another point of mission control.
    And forget about the nightmare of the organization of the tech tree. Pulling up that full tree is like looking at a web made by fifty spiders running on borderline-lethal doses of meth while strapped to a bottle rocket, half the time you can't even properly follow which lines are going which way.
    If you left-click a tech it will highlight the paths and also turn the connected tech names orange. If you right-click a tech it will remove everything other than that tech's requirements and dependents.

  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    I got the furthest I have ever been on this current run. Shot down my first alien ship! So I am slowly making progress.

    Gonna try uniting North and central america as my next goal i think.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • SeGaTaiSeGaTai Registered User regular
    At a rough point in my game where I'm just sitting around waiting for a outpost to travel to mars; control USA; and every councilor action is just so meaningless feeling but still sucks up time

    PSN SeGaTai
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    I spent that time inspiring people for later in the game. Also since my inf gain was pretty good put a couple people on advise forever so they didn't pop up each turn to do stuff.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    SeGaTai wrote: »
    At a rough point in my game where I'm just sitting around waiting for a outpost to travel to mars; control USA; and every councilor action is just so meaningless feeling but still sucks up time

    General rule of thumb, if you don't have anything more important to do with your councillors, just leave them doing "Advise" somewhere you want to build up. If you click "Permanent assignment" they'll just keep doing it until you tell them to stop instead of prompting you to give them new orders each turn.

  • SeGaTaiSeGaTai Registered User regular
    I have some of them on advise and there is still semi useful things for them to be doing, it's just hard to tell with this game if I just put them all on snooze for a year, would it really make a difference

    PSN SeGaTai
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    edited October 2022
    I've unifies the EU and will soon complete the tech that let's the EU claim a bunch of stuff that would not normally be considered part of the EU. I'm not sure what I really need all this boost for now that I have full fledged space industry? And I am just trying to get good enough ships in sufficient quantities to actually take a shot at one of these alien motherfuckers hanging around in orbit.
    Also Guatemala got wrecked by a kaiju so that was cool.

    Good game.

    HamHamJ on
    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    I was perplexed by the giant alien attacks, but it turns out they're one of those "Early Access" items that aren't really complete. Supposedly more is going to go into how to deal with them, which is good because after my first one I realized there is basically no benefit to stopping them myself if they're attacking somewhere not mine or somewhere not important. In a game sense, so what if I take out the kaiju ASAP so it can't wreck some small useless nation? I get zero bonus for it despite sending my military to do the job. Every one of those attacks should be a penalty to the pro-alien groups and a defeating the alien should be a bonus to the anti-alien groups.

  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    I've unifies the EU and will soon complete the tech that let's the EU claim a bunch of stuff that would not normally be considered part of the EU. I'm not sure what I really need all this boost for now that I have full fledged space industry? And I am just trying to get good enough ships in sufficient quantities to actually take a shot at one of these alien motherfuckers hanging around in orbit.
    Also Guatemala got wrecked by a kaiju so that was cool.

    Good game.

    You'll still need boost to setup stations/bases on new planets unless you want to send out colony ships. You can also build hospital/tourist stations to turn boost into cash.

  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    edited October 2022
    Bahahaha. Thanks to current events, i.e, that bridge in Crimea that just blew up, someone has already raised a feature request to remove the adjacency between Sevastopol and Rostov-On-Don. Since we're still just before the game's start date, and that bridge was the only thing connecting them...

    Mr Ray on
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    I was perplexed by the giant alien attacks, but it turns out they're one of those "Early Access" items that aren't really complete. Supposedly more is going to go into how to deal with them, which is good because after my first one I realized there is basically no benefit to stopping them myself if they're attacking somewhere not mine or somewhere not important. In a game sense, so what if I take out the kaiju ASAP so it can't wreck some small useless nation? I get zero bonus for it despite sending my military to do the job. Every one of those attacks should be a penalty to the pro-alien groups and a defeating the alien should be a bonus to the anti-alien groups.

    The issue I have with the game is that there are no like, historical graphs to look at to let me see what the trends are in my nation. How democratic was I a year ago? What about India under the servants? Is anyone else doing anything about this xeno growth? What will happen if I stop attacking it? Does me attacking it make people like me?

    Effectively, add graphs and historical data. Make it 100% clear why GDP is falling if it is falling etc. Add more tools for addressing climate change early on which reflect our current capabilities. I'm the secret world government. If I want to build wind farms, I could reduce CO2!

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • MonwynMonwyn Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered User regular
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    I've unifies the EU and will soon complete the tech that let's the EU claim a bunch of stuff that would not normally be considered part of the EU. I'm not sure what I really need all this boost for now that I have full fledged space industry? And I am just trying to get good enough ships in sufficient quantities to actually take a shot at one of these alien motherfuckers hanging around in orbit.
    Also Guatemala got wrecked by a kaiju so that was cool.

    Good game.

    Sell your excess boost to an ally for good orgs.

    You can also eventually build space hotels that effectively exchange boost and a tiny bit of space resources into cash.

    uH3IcEi.png
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    I have even more excess cash than I do boost. And all my councilors are maxed out on orgs.

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    I have even more excess cash than I do boost. And all my councilors are maxed out on orgs.

    Sounds like you need more stations with research labs to turn that cash into sweet sweet science.

    Mvrck
  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    edited October 2022
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    I have even more excess cash than I do boost. And all my councilors are maxed out on orgs.

    That will change once you expand into space more and are trying to support dozens of large stations and outposts along with several defensive fleets. Early game cash is plentiful and boost is scarce, late game it flips around. I actually think the balance of resource scarcity vs each other is really well done; I've had shortages of pretty much everything at some point that I've had to specifically work to fill. Except influence... that really does only seem useful early game, late game you'll have more than you can usefully use.

    Anyway, the year is 2050, and the Resistance has won its first offensive operation against the alien menace. Jupiter has been a bit of a battleground for a while; the aliens have bases on Io and Ganymede, and I've taken Calisto and Europa. My Calisto and Europa bases have been subject to constant attacks, as I slowly build up forces and move them in from Mars. My ships are equipped with Fusion reactors and engines, many of them have spine-mounted plasma cannons that rival the alien's, and the newest of them are equipped with the latest long-range "Phaser" laser weapons and point defense. Also, a shitload of nukes. The enemy bases still look far too tough to take on directly, but the aliens have a number of smaller fleets in orbit of Ganymede that I hope I can pick off individually. So I launch to Low Ganymede orbit, hoping to provoke an attack by the aliens. I am immediately successful and the aliens launch a fleet to cut me off about halfway between Calisto and Ganymede. Its a relatively small but "heavy" fleet; nothing smaller than a Destroyer, two Dreadnoughts and a Mothership, which I haven't encountered before. And so the (first) battle for Ganymede begins:
    6yhtbgei4i8z.jpg

    Pew pew pew!
    qxr02lrm7mpy.jpg

    Pew! Pew pew pew pew!
    dmhehqfj0xka.jpg

    Nukes authorized, fire at will!
    l8y0n28dyicr.jpg
    j690zrbcspyh.jpg

    Concentrate fire on that Mothership!
    o8bxwlrz33nd.jpg

    Boom!

    58rncy10rfek.jpg
    naf1asz13itg.jpg
    6agocs8g7tyy.jpg

    Victory!
    y0a9ip0w61k4.jpg

    I also only now realize that the Battle for Ganymede was in fact fought on the 108th anniversary of D-Day, which seems oddly appropriate. The fleet was pretty battered after that exchange and had expended most of its missiles, so I decide to return them for Calisto for resupply. Unfortunately the aliens didn't like this idea very much and launched two fleets to intercept from Io. My ships are equipped with the latest Fusion drives which give them delta-V comparable to the aliens, but their actual acceleration is still much lower (i.e, they can go just as far on a single tank of gas, but they're still not as fast), so the aliens are able to intercept before we've even left Ganymede and are waiting for our transfer window. This fleet is much lighter, only a single Battlecruiser and a lot of Destroyers and Corvettes. Damaged and depleted of ammo as we are, our victory costs us another five ships.
    ijarely68mtg.jpg

    The third and final fleet intercepts us just as we've started our transfer from Ganymede to Calisto. This one is relatively small, but so is our surviving fleet at this point, and it does feature another Mothership. We attempt to flee, but the fleet is a mix of newer and older generation ships, and we're held back by the lower delta/V of the older ships who are unable to spare enough delta/V to outrun the aliens. The third fight is nasty, and basically consists of me throwing everything at the largely indifferent mothership (with our missiles all gone at this point the few plasma cannons still working are the only things that can really scratch it). Eventually we deal enough damage to make it retreat, at which point the aliens are suddenly prepared to accept a withdrawal, so we do exactly that. But not before the Mothership plows right through one of my battlecruisers like it isn't there:
    hr29i6zkvgkw.jpg

    Only ten of the original twenty-one from the original expeditionary fleet survived, so its something of a Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless. We wiped out two alien fleets including a mothership, chased off a third, and gathered enough alien materials to ensure that the next generation of Resistance warships all have hybrid Diamandoid-Exotics front armor at least. The important thing is, we've finally taken the initiative and gotten the aliens on the back foot for a change. They've been so busy dealing with my Jupiter shenanigans that Earth and Mars have been left pretty much undisturbed for years. The next step will be developing my space economy (and probably taking a few more shots at Ganymede and Io) so that I can start mass-producing ships to start pushing the aliens back to where they came from. Glory to the Resistance!

    Mr Ray on
    tanni0AxenMegaMan001
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    I won my first space victory against the invaders! Research into the salvaged technology has begun. My problems now are that I have run out of mission control and hydrogen to actually build and operate my fleet. The best drive I have still seems pretty shit and requires way too many propellant tanks to get decent dv.

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
    IanatorAxen
  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    Aliens listen, listen. We hairless apes went from barely being able to leave our own atmosphere to having tech comparable to yours in 50 years. What do you think’s gonna happen in another 50 years? What I'm saying is y'all are probably gonna want to study defense in depth because I think you're gonna need it sooner rather than later.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    edited October 2022
    The best way to get Mission Control fast is to find a nation with a lot of regions but not too large of an economy and then just use Direct Investment to build it instantly; Canada and Australia are good choices for example, and they're easy to grab. Maximum MC is capped by number of regions and the populations within those regions, and Direct Investment cost is based on (I believe) national GDP, so its cheaper to plop down a bunch of mission control stations in Australia than the U.S or China, for example.

    Long-term you'd ideally want to build MC in the EU though because it has soooo many regions, giving it a massive capacity for MC. In my current game I've maxed out Canada and Australia long ago and am currently building MC in the EU and China... though not by Direct Investment because they have massive economies and that would be super expensive.

    Mr Ray on
  • TerrendosTerrendos Decorative Monocle Registered User regular
    Axen wrote: »
    Aliens listen, listen. We hairless apes went from barely being able to leave our own atmosphere to having tech comparable to yours in 50 years. What do you think’s gonna happen in another 50 years? What I'm saying is y'all are probably gonna want to study defense in depth because I think you're gonna need it sooner rather than later.

    To be fair, that tends to be the running theme for XCOM games: master the alien's tech, then you become the monsters. So it's not surprising that a game built by a bunch of XCOM fanboys would have a similar throughline.

  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Hmm think my current game might be unwinnable. Aliens got china as their first country and they are wrecking my fleets and orbitals around earth. Kinda seems like destroying two ships to get the objective and they go welp fuck earth now.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    Terrendos wrote: »
    Axen wrote: »
    Aliens listen, listen. We hairless apes went from barely being able to leave our own atmosphere to having tech comparable to yours in 50 years. What do you think’s gonna happen in another 50 years? What I'm saying is y'all are probably gonna want to study defense in depth because I think you're gonna need it sooner rather than later.

    To be fair, that tends to be the running theme for XCOM games: master the alien's tech, then you become the monsters. So it's not surprising that a game built by a bunch of XCOM fanboys would have a similar throughline.

    Oh I know. What I'm imagining is a counter invasion by Humans of the alien home world with significantly better tech than the aliens posses within a century of first contact at this rate.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    edited October 2022
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Hmm think my current game might be unwinnable. Aliens got china as their first country and they are wrecking my fleets and orbitals around earth. Kinda seems like destroying two ships to get the objective and they go welp fuck earth now.

    The good news is, the way the alien "hate" mechanic works, they will back off for a while after destroying some of your stuff so you're not completely doomed. My main stations around Earth and Mars had to be rebuilt several times each before I was able to tech up enough defenses to reliably keep the aliens at bay, so there may be an element of forcing the aliens to play "whack-a-mole" with your stations early on. Remember that this is the XCOM Long War devs; you're expected to take heavy, maybe even crippling losses, but there are also systems in place to let you recover if you keep at it.

    Without spoiling too much, there is also a "Total War" mechanic, where basically if you piss the aliens off sufficiently they'll take the gloves off and go into full rage mode forever, but this can only be triggered past a certain number of years, dependent on what difficulty level you're playing on. Spoilers if you want to know the specifics:
    20 years on Cinematic
    15 years on Normal
    10 years on Veteran
    0(!!) years on Brutal

    Perun also posted a guide on managing alien threat recently, which you may or may not consider spoilery, I personally don't as its all good info that I think players should be aware of:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paTHtv6rgCw

    Mr Ray on
    Elvenshae
  • AntinumericAntinumeric Registered User regular
    Why do investment points decrease when you unify countries?

    Also I'm going to make a diagram of all the hoverable tooltips in this game because it's so much easier knowing where they are.

    In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
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