Terra Invicta

[Drifter Man]

I thought about having a second round of Terra Invicta after it has been recently updated. I had a good time the first time around.

TI it's a strategy game played on Earth and in the solar system in present and in the near future. An alien ship crashes on Earth but the crash leaves more questions than answers. Humanity splits into 7 factions with varying objectives. The player leads one of the factions to establish a space-based economy to gather resources and deal with the aliens... in some way.

The game was launched about 2 years ago and is still in early access, but it is a solid product and an ambitious undertaking.

I'll play for the 'default' faction - the Resistance - I kind of like it, and on Normal difficulty. The difficulty mainly controls how quickly the aliens get aggressive when your faction gets too strong or provokes them too much.

 

[Drifter Man]

The game starts in October 2022. We have decent starting councilors but I will be shopping around until I find the perfect team. This one might stay on board, but will need significant tweaks to be able to carry out public campaign, investigate councilor and crackdown missions. I prefer the 'investigator' archetype to a 'diplomat'.

The other one is an activist criminal and will probably be thrown overboard as soon as she ends up in jail or detention. I hope I can find a suitable replacement soon:

Initially, the Academy (pushing Star Trek-like ideals about an interstellar alliance) rides a wave of public support, which enables them to take control of two advanced nations - the UK and Japan - by the end of 2022.

Meanwhile, the Servants claim Russia. Two more UFOs crash in remote regions on Earth. We take Canada and get into Mexico in preparation to take over our main target - you guessed it - the USA. Having the resources of the USA early in the game is a massive advantage.

In global research we push for Skywatch and then Deep System Skywatch projects. When Deep System Skywatch is completed in January 2023, scans reveal Alien military installations in the Kuiper belt, which drives support away from the Academy and gives more room to other factions, including ourselves. They have not come in peace.

We've found a promising new member for the team. Ms Aras is joining us from Turkey, her main job for now will be weeding out any and all Alien flora that takes hold on Earth.

 

[Drifter Man]

Year 2023 in progress... stuff is happening...

We advance our faction objectives using advanced scientific methods...

And of course we terminated it. Find a new friend, kid.

More alien ships crash-land on Earth. This one is different, a proper warship, it's supposed to be on a surveillance mission in Earth's orbit.

We have taken control of 5 out of 6 control points in the USA. For the time being, we don't have the management capacity for the sixth one (we could go above capacity, but that incurs penalties I don't want to incur). USA is a mighty but fragile country at the start of the campaign. I immediately redirect most of the available economic output into Welfare, to reduce Inequality. Inequality causes low Cohesion, low Cohesion means that other factions can easily stir unrest. Unrest hurts economic and research output and can also lead to a revolution that gets you kicked out of your control points (they get redistributed among those who stirred up the most trouble). I have no need for all that, so Welfare gets the big spend. I can't do it for long though. Boost is the early game priority, and I can't afford to stay behind.

I was quite shocked to find that Humanity First had managed to take over India. How? That's a difficult country to get into, and they didn't even have much public support there. India has a great growth potential down the road.

We are reaching into space now. Other factions chose and completed the "Mission to Mars" global project before "Mission to the Moon", which makes things complicated but also more interesting. It is easier to start with Moon, mine the resources there that are needed for Mars, and then go to Mars. Shipping everything direct from Earth to Mars costs more Boost than anyone can afford so early. At the same time, it is important to claim the best mining sites on Mars as early as possible. This will lead to some difficult decisions...

 

[Drifter Man]

June 2024 (that's around "now")...

Much of our effort over the last few months went into stabilizing the USA, with mixed success initially. Massive investment in Welfare knocked down Inequality a notch, but some "misalignment of elites" or something like that went up, so the net effect on Cohesion was nil. Apparently the nation's elites aren't happy if you try to run the USA as a welfare state Who would have guessed... At the same time, I had to run round-the-clock public campaigns to fight all other factions trying to erode our public support. Eventually I managed to give myself a reprieve by prioritizing Unity for 2 months, which also let me take control of the Executive. The USA is now fully controlled by the Resistance.

Other than that, we've reached the Moon and set up base at the Shackleton Crater near the south pole - it's got water, base metals, and good amount of fissiles as a bonus. Moon is the springboard for Mars, and water and base metals are the most important space resources initially, they're heavy to ship from Earth. The hab core is complete but we don't have the technology yet for space mining, or the boost to get the hardware to the moon.

The AI factions have started declaring their nonsensical wars. Russia vs Mexico... Russia is tied up in Ukraine and doesn't have the capacity to take Mexico from the sea. That doesn't stop them from declaring a war. I'll stay out of this chaos and try to keep good relations with other factions for as long as possible.

We're fighting the spread of alien ecosystems around the planet, especially in western China.

Strange behavior indeed. Anyone who says that the aliens are peaceful should be thoroughly investigated.

 

[Drifter Man]

End of 2025. I've made some wrong decisions and will have to see if I manage to fix them - in my council makeup (I'm missing anyone capable of doing Inspire missions + I have no scientist) and in my expansion into space (I thought it would take much more boost to get to Mars than to the Moon, but actually there's no difference in boost, just in the time it takes to set up a base... so I've wasted my time and boost going to the Moon).

We've encountered the aliens on Earth, found ways to track them, the next job is to take one down... for science. I found one, but my assassin councilor isn't up to the task yet, so this will have to wait a bit.

We've found that politicians who get zapped by purple streaks during public events are likely acting under alien influence:

We've made friends with Humanity First, there's no reason why we should be getting in each other's way. I wish there was a way to build an alliance and not just a non-aggression pact.

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Alien traffic in the solar system is rapidly increasing:

They already have two bases in the Jovian system and are headed into the asteroid belt.

While we're dealing with our problems on Earth: