Saturday Morning Gaming: Terra Invicta has entered Early Access on Steam
Back in 2017, we discussed XCom 2. In 2018, we discussed the expansion: War of the Chosen. In 2020, I got around to The Long War expansion.
Each one of those games is that rarest of things: A game worth full price. What’s amazing about the Long War mod is that it is 100% free. Just download the mod!
Well, the original publisher of XCom 2 wasn’t behind the Long War mod. It was a little feisty company called “Pavonis” that put it out. They figured out some of the stuff that was so much fun to play in the original XCom 2 and said “you know what’s better than cake? Bigger cake. But not, like, taller cake. *WIDER* cake.” And they managed to take a fun 25 hour game and turn it into a fun 60 hour game.
Well, instead of putting out Long War of the Chosen, they decided to make their own game: Terra Invicta. The only thing I knew about it until recently was that it was going to be a similar theme of XCom (strategy, alien invasion, humans have to figure out how to fight against the aliens, tech trees, tech trees, tech trees) and I was looking forward to it based on nothing more than the fact that they proved themselves trustworthy with the Long War mod.
Well, Terra Invicta has gone into EARLY ACCESS!!! AND THEY HAVE A RELEASE TRAILER!!!!!
HOLY COW THAT LOOKS AMAZING.
The main difference between this and the XComs is that you’re not running a nation (or alliance of them) but an IDEOLOGY.
From the page:
- The Resistance works to form an alliance of nations to mount a coordinated defense
- Humanity First vows to exterminate the aliens alongside any who sympathize with them
- The Servants worship the aliens and believe they will solve all the troubles of the world
- The Protectorate advocates negotiated surrender as the only means to avoid annihilation
- The Academy hopes the alien arrival heralds the opportunity to form an interstellar alliance
- The Initiative seeks to profit from the chaos and destruction
- Project Exodus plans to build a massive starship and flee the Solar System
Holy cow. This implies that there are, like, at least seven different win conditions and guessing, at a glance, at least 3 different ways to play: Emphasis on War, Emphasis on Diplomacy/Spying, Emphasis on Trade. Heck, maybe more.
I’m really looking forward to this. The build is currently at 0.3.18 which tells me that we will continue to be in Early Access for a while (assuming that we’re going to travel through 0.4 to 0.9 on the way to 1.0).
But this is exciting news. This looks like it’s going to be *REALLY* good.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is a screencap from the announce trailer.)
I have concerns about this being a strategic game with no tactical level, but I wish-listed it in anticipation. (Pavonis did make Long War of the Chosen, though.)
I’ve been playing TONS of Blood Bowl 2. I created a human team made up entirely of linemen (no “skill” players). It’s been fun building a team literally from the ground up. It’s like playing as Oklahoma or Nebraska from the 80’s: can’t really throw the ball but I can knock you down and run past you. It’s fun against the AI because the AI is terrible, but I don’t think it would work against peopleReport
Pavonis says that they didn’t.Report
See, there I go making assumptions. Thanks for the correction.Report
I’m pretty sure that a couple of the Pavonis guys worked on it on evenings and weekends because they couldn’t help themselves.
It just wasn’t, you know, *OFFICIAL*.Report
Got this game on 9/27. I currently have… *checks* 55 hours in.
Yep, it’s that good. Might have to uninstall it, it’s so good.Report
Ooof. Could have done without that information…
I was planning on waiting until 0.8 or something. It’s that good?
Ooof.Report
It’s that good. Don’t let the version number fool you, even if they said they were done with development tomorrow it’d be worth the $30 or whatever.
The game is basically feature complete and just going through balancing and interface changes at the moment. I haven’t spent much time on the Hooded Horse forums so I don’t know what the plan is, but if they’re still working on it? That’s astonishing.
The game is basically two games. The first one is X-Com meets Crusader Kings. This is how you colonize the solar system. Then, once you’ve got your space economy humming, they add a pausable RTS fleet combat, all hard-scifi with Newtonian physics. Objects in motion stay in motion. Interplanetary transits require delta V. Fail to bring enough propellant and your crew will just float off to their eventual demise. Bring too much and your lumbering hulk of a ship won’t have the speed or maneuverability to survive in combat. I haven’t got the ship design figured out yet, but the trial and error is FUN, in the Dwarf Fortress sense of the word.Report
How many ideologies have you played?Report
So far just Resistance and Humanity First. I’m considering an Exodus playthrough next, but TBH I keep restarting around 2030 as I learn new things in the game. It’s a bad habit I have of trying to minmax/perfect my run; I frequently did the same in XCOM, to the point where I only ever finished it once. So I want to finish a “standard” anti-alien campaign, for better or worse, before I start messing with the more difficult/advanced factions.
I can confirm that the various factions each have their own stories, a unique story research tree, flavor text, and voiceovers. It’s super cool.Report
I was immediately drawn to The Academy and The Initiative. (The Servants looks fun too, but I imagine that that will be most fun as a 5th or 6th playthrough instead of a first one.)Report
The academy has the easiest start, but once the world starts to figure out that the aliens are not our friends, things get much harder for them.
I’ll probably give the Initiative a go, not sure exactly what their victory conditions are. The tricky thing about Initiative and Exodus is that for you to make good progress in achieving your goals, you kind of have to hamstring the Earth’s various defense movements. So I’m not sure how the Initiative plans to deal with the aliens, ignore them, etc. Whats the point of being the richest men in the world when the world is run by aliens?Report
Okay, I’ve downloaded it.
I’ll try it out tonight.Report
Narrator: And the libs rejoiced, for Jaybird was never heard from again, and the trolling of the libs, once so common at OT, ceased at long last.Report
No politics.Report