Terra Invicta
WISHLIST MORE HOODED HORSE STRATEGY GAMES
the GameAn extraterrestrial probe is detected approaching Earth. Unknown to humanity, an alien force has arrived in the far reaches of the icy Kuiper Belt and has begun mining a dwarf planet to prepare for an invasion.
With Earth’s nations unable to unite to address the alien arrival, transnational groups of like-minded political, military, and scientific leaders develop covert channels to coordinate a response. With the aliens’ motives uncertain, factions emerge, driven by hope, fear, or greed.
You will control one of these factions.
- 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
A distant anomaly, a mysterious crash site, and a spike in reported disappearances. Could this truly be humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms? As your field agents investigate sightings and your scientists race to explore new fields of research, you will slowly learn the truth behind the alien arrival.
- From early sightings and UFO crash sites to rampaging alien megafauna and robotic armies, it will rapidly become clear that the other six human factions are not your sole competition. Throughout the game, illustrated events will present you with difficult choices as you investigate growing alien activity on Earth. Uncover the mystery of the aliens’ origins and motives – unless, of course, you are Humanity First, and all that matters to you is extermination.
- Terra Invicta has a global research system that creates opportunities for both competition and cooperation. Shared scientific advancement unlocks private engineering projects. Factions can choose to focus on private projects, at the cost of weakening Earth as a whole and ceding influence over global research direction to other factions with different priorities. Left unchecked, factions like the Servants or the Initiative may steer the world’s efforts toward developing methods of social control, rather than propulsion or weapon systems.
You begin on Earth as the head of a shadowy organization devoted to your chosen ideology. The aliens are coming – soon – but your first enemies (and perhaps allies) will be other human factions.
- Lead a faction united by ideology, rather than a nation defined by territory. This is a stark change from most strategy games – in Terra Invicta, you will not paint the map with the colors of some chosen nation. Instead you will rule from the shadows and compete with other factions for control points representing a region’s military, economic, and political leadership.
- Geopolitics is your sandbox – unite or break apart nations as best serves your ends, while using those under your influence to conduct proxy wars against the other six factions. Earth’s regions are modeled in detail, from educational levels and unrest to GDP and inequality. Gaining command over regions with great monetary wealth and military power can allow you to implement your will on Earth, but the war for the Solar System will not be won without also securing regions containing space launch facilities.
- Enact your will through a council of politicians, scientists, and operatives sent around the world (and even into space). The starting abilities of these councilors will improve through gaining experience and acquiring control over powerful organizations like intelligence agencies or wealthy corporations. A veteran commander may make the perfect choice to lead a tactical team under the council’s direction, while an experienced diplomat works to secure the funding needed to resist the alien invasion.
- Seek out like-minded populations and politicians and take actions to convert followers of opposing ideologies. Public opinion is modeled along multiple axes – the Servants’ alien worship and the Protectorate’s advocacy of negotiated surrender may largely align in terms of support or opposition to the aliens, but events that show the aliens can be defeated have the potential to convince followers of the Protectorate that resistance is a realistic choice.
Terra Invicta bridges the gap between our modern-day world and the vast interstellar empires of other space strategy games, asking you to take humanity’s first steps in colonizing our Solar System, where over 300 asteroids, moons, and planets in constant motion create an ever-changing strategic map.
- Take your faction beyond the confines of Earth, building space stations to act as shipyards and fuel depots, constructing mining stations to acquire advanced resources, and establishing bases to serve as research or construction facilities. Terra Invicta zooms into the strategic geography of the Solar System, presenting space not as a series of isolated stars that you order units to move to and from, but rather a rich and varied landscape of asteroids, moons, dwarf planets, gas giants, and other celestial bodies creating texture and tactical opportunities at every turn.
- The expansive map is constantly shifting as celestial bodies orbit the Sun. This means your space stations and forward operating bases are constantly moving as well, forcing you to plan accordingly and adapt to the evolving circumstances – your colonies among the Jovian moons could find that a once-distant alien military outpost or Initiative privateering base has suddenly become a close neighbor.
Terra Invicta explores what might be – how colonies on Mars might function, what plausible engines could power our spaceships, and the nature of how space colonization and warfare might proceed. Players may find themselves establishing a mining base on the asteroid 16 Psyche after noticing it is rich in metals – and then learn that in our world NASA is planning The Psyche Mission for the same reason.
- Exploring and eventually colonizing space will require access to many resources: water for life support and propellant, metals for manufacturing, fissiles for nuclear drives and weapons, and more. At the start, you’ll have no choice but to acquire such resources on Earth and suffer the high cost of using rockets to escape Earth’s gravity, but over time you’ll increasingly choose to instead rely on asteroid mining and other means of securing local supply.
- Spaceship design in Terra Invicta draws from the best of scientific speculation and hard science fiction. You can design your own ships, selecting from an array of weapons, drives, and other modules to place on a variety of hulls, ensuring each ship has the right mix of fuel capacity, maneuverability, and other capabilities.
- Tactical combat is built around a realistic simulation of Newtonian physics, where momentum and maneuver in 3D space are just as important as the firepower your ships carry. Fire missiles and use point defense cannons to destroy incoming projectiles; build up momentum then swing hard to bring the enemy into your firing arcs; or grapple with the difficult decision to retract radiators and sacrifice heat dissipation to achieve better armor against an incoming enemy barrage.
Terra Invicta is built with modding support in mind, and much of the game is accessible to modders without a coding background. We hope that the Solar System setting and geopolitics simulation will provide a useful framework for modders to realize their own creative visions.
Game Discussion
Steam User 118
Good god where do I even begin?
Terra Invicta is nothing short of a work of art. It stands as the single most in-depth strategy game I've played in a very long time, and there's so many positives about the game. The game is DENSE. I read a ton of guides after my first couple of failed runs and wound up super cautious (I think I missed my window to end the game earlier as a result) and it took me until 2079. But god if I didn't love every second of it and I'm sitting here shell-shocked over what I just went through.
The game is broadly broken up into 3 stages. Earth phase, early space/building strength phase, and loud phase. Similarly, the game is broken up by turn and real-time based play. You spend the Earth phase vying for control over the various countries on earth and generally building your foundation to go to space. As soon as you're in space, that becomes more the concern as you consolidate your power on earth while building the beginnings of a wartime economy. Then, once you're fully at war in space, Earth becomes almost an afterthought, mostly spending time on it trying to do fun things like reverse global warming, or paint the world while you coordinate the absolute behemoth that is your spacetime economy.
Space travel is slow, realistic, only becoming faster as you reach the upper echelons of drive tech. What this means is it's very easy to get attached to particular fleets as you set them in motion years in advance and watch them grow over time, adding officers as they win battles and becoming more veteran. There were many instances where I set things in motion months if not years in advance, waiting for the right time to come. I came out of this feeling like I just witnessed 50 years of history. I could write wikipedia articles about the Resistance Wars, the battles the Eurasian Armada fought, and the offshoot of veterans who fought a final battle at Neptune to close that front and retire above its blue surface.
Ultimately, the biggest reason why Terra Invicta stands out and hooked me so hard for 200 hours of play is it's an incredible vehicle for storytelling. If you have even an ounce of imagination, the stories that come out of this game are like nothing else. Many of the councilors I started with were the ones I beat the game with, relentlessly focusing on tech to keep them alive at all costs. But I remember the ones that died of old age too, and what they'd done to build the resistance.
I spent all of my time on experimental and one of the big things that sold me was the devs. I joined the discord and the first time I experienced an easily reproduceable crash, I posted about it in the discord--not thinking about it much just kinda hoping they'd do something. Y'all, it was fixed and pushed within 12 hours. I have gone to them numerous times with crashes and every single time they've responded and, if able to reproduce, have fixed it. The devs deserve every bit of support they get, they are by far the most responsive team I've ever encountered.
Terra Invicta, you were a dream. I can't wait to see you again on full release.
Steam User 67
To be clear: I like this game, I have spent a long time playing this and I recommend it if you are an experienced player. Also the game is still in early access, although in a relatively complete state, so the devs may change some of this by the time you are reading it.
To start with the good:
- This game is amazingly detailed, and,o my knowledge, there is no other comparable experience out there.
- The community is supportive, and there a lot of resources to help you learn the ropes of the game.
- Space strategy is fun and the resource race for mining sites and positioning is a really enjoyable mechanic.
- The dev team, despite being on the smaller side, is constantly improving and refining the game.
- The AI is way better than it used to be, human factions can seriously pose a threat to you in the early and mid game
That being said this game has some serious "flaws" that anyone interested in this game should be aware of. I have never completed a full campaign because of these dragging my enjoyment of the game down. I get that some people like the challenges these create, but I personally don't find them fun nor engaging.
The ugly:
Early game impact: How you start the game can have a serious impact on how your faction does later in the game. Knowing how to get into large countries, what technologies you should be prioritizing, the importance of establishing control of interface orbits on earth, etc. are all very important. You can survive without doing well on these, but if you don't have the time to sit down and learn it, you are probably going to have trouble getting your feet underneath you. Also; in your first game you have a high chance of failing, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be pretty discouraging.
Lack of Earth Stabilization: The early game is all about the faction intrigue and jockeying for resources and position, which is fun for a while. However, by the time you are getting into the late game it can be a chore, even with the councilor automation. As I see it this can be broken down into a number of issues:
- Diplomacy: There is no way to make a lasting alliance or really do much by way of complicated diplomacy. Additionally, weaker factions, even if ideologically aligned with you, will break non-aggression pacts and target you to get ahead even if they are stable with several major nations. This means by the time you are getting ahead of the rest of the pack you are fighting with and being targeted by 3-4 of the other factions, and potentially all 6. Unfortunately those same factions all get the same 6 councilor slots that you do, so it turns into a 6 vs 18-36.
- Whack-a-Mole: You will constantly be checking back on Earth to watch out for what the other factions are getting up to. Part of the problem is that Earth never really settles down to the point you can ignore it to focus on the aliens. Part of this is that the game lacks serious end-game technologies to basically lock-down Earth. The devs seem to be really intent on not making this a map painting game, so I can understand the lack of a "united earth government" as much as I would enjoy that, but even if you try consolidating the existing mega-nation projects you quickly run into problems with national cohesion, even a full EU has trouble with cohesion unless you keep inequality really low. This might be realistic but I feel that there could be end game techs that allow you to consolidate larger nation just to make the end game a little less of a drag.
- Faction Persistence: You can't destroy factions. I get the reasoning behind this: they are less organizations and more ideologies, but at a certain point I just find it annoying to keep having to deal with a faction that I have repeatedly beaten into the ground. It would be nice if there was a option in the settings to enable factions to be destroyed. Even if the devs don't want to make factions capable of being wiped out, some very late end-game techs to help trivialize heavily beaten factions would be an appreciated quality-of-life change
Split Gameplay: Earth and Space feel like two different games. By the mid-late game Earth is basically a Mission Control and Research factory if you have played well, and I think this is a major contributing factor to why I find having to manage Earth to just not be fun in the late game; there is no "reward" for continuing to maintain Earth, you are just avoiding being punished by losing things that you put effort into accomplishing. The earth mission phases also take you out of the space gameplay loop so you are constantly being interrupted by pauses to go manage Earth.
All that being said, I want to reinforce that I like this game, I write this because I want the game to be the best it can be. Also I don't doubt that there are people who will disagree with what I wrote, these comments are just what I would like to see, and you may fully enjoy the game in spite of these.
TLDR: This game is great if you have the time, experience and patience to learn it, however it can also be very frustrating at times.
Steam User 41
If you want a spread sheet economics/war/space combat simulator in a modern alien invasion hard sci-fi setting, I cannot think of a game that will do it better. It has become one of my favourite games of all time and a must buy if you have any amount of autism.
Steam User 37
I previously posted a review giving the game a thumbs down as the game was crashing to desktop 100% of the time. The devs were very responsive and we quickly determined the culprit was OneDrive. Once OneDrive was troubleshot the game came up without further incident. I am pleased to report the game itself was not at fault.
Steam User 28
Geopolitics? Check
Space? Check
Outposts and colonies on moons, planets and even asteroids? Check
Interesting aliens? Check
Slow, strategic space battles? Check
Honestly, give this game a go.
Steam User 30
This recommendation comes with a heavy disclaimer: This game delivers a unique, fascinating, and rewarding experience, but not for the casual player (meant not as a pejorative, but simply, if you don't want to invest a lot of effort to get to the enjoyment).
While Pavonis is best known for the well loved "Long War" and "Long War 2" mods for Xcom/Xcom2, this is nowhere near the same genre. This time, instead, you fight the alien invasion as the shadowy "Chairman" you take orders from in XCOM. For those familiar with Paradox games, it is best understood as a mix between their historical titles and "Stellaris".
A huge part of the game unfolds on a globe-style map of Earth (beginning with realistic political and economic stats in 2022), with EU4/HOI/CK-style divisions into provinces, Nations etc. You play not as a nation, but as an organisation, with a handful of agents that can in turn control nations and contest rival organisations' control of them via crackdowns, coups, and purges. Once controlled, you can fine tune where the nation puts its resources (Economy, welfare, military spending, space programs, nukes, etc.).
Control of national resources enables you to interact with the game's other pillar by making it possible to build a presence in space, starting with a meagre station on the moon or in earth's orbit and expanding into the solar system as the game goes on. You'll be able to design spaceships, weighing the pros and cons of different drives, weapons, reactors etc.
All the while you'll be contested by the aliens, fist by infiltrators doing abductions and trying to wrest control of nations from you, then by surveillance ships, fleets (which you can manually engage with your fleet in space battles) and finally escalating to an all out war across the solar system (if you didn't choose to play as one of the alien collaborator factions, that is). This way, the game achieves one of the rarest feats in the genre: An engaging endgame.
While i wholeheartedly recommend this game to everyone who has the time and patience to learn its intricate systems, if you shudder at the thought of doing math, optimizing processes, and, most of all, losing a bunch of times until you understand the game systems, you should look elsewhere.
Steam User 33
TLDR Rating: 88 / 100.
I have to preface that the game is generally complex. Not something that is extremely difficult but it will take some time to understand its mechanics (e.g. how nations work, how alien hate works, ship building mechanics, space combat mechanics ...etc). This is not the type of game that is meant for "I have a spare weekend - let's pick some space combat stuff". It's more appealing for someone who dedicates a bit more time into strategy games. Someone that has the mindset to play "Stellaris", "Europe Universalis" or "Civilization 5".
At the time of this review, I have over 1k hours. I played across multiple versions with 6-12 months breaks. So I've seen the evolution - which is/was in my opinion in a good direction. That said, there are still some things that were problematic 2 years ago and still problematic today. Breakdown:
Positives
- Mechanically, this is a challenging game. It has multiple layers (e.g. councilor management, faction management, earth economy, base economy, space combat mechanics). Depending on your strategy, there is still a fair amount of approaches that you can take and have a successful campaign.
- The factions differ in their ideology and a campaign with one faction can turn into a significant different strategy (especially if we are considering the extreme ones). Combined with different strategic layers, this makes campaign replayability quite high.
- It's a SCI-Fi game but it models quite realistic structures (geopolitical, technological, engineering, historical). This does have some downsides but I think it creates quite an immersive gameplay.
- Immersion is not something I would expect/look for in a grand strategy game. But the story and especially soundtracks are creating the feel that you are in a war. You can YT the combat soundtrack "Indestructible" and you can easily envision an Earth fleet in a combat space.
- I was quite impressed by the space combat. The first part of game you are tackling the nations and geopolitical issues. And this seemed the "main" part of the game. So when I reached space I was expecting something more "simplistic". Definitely not an environment where you can move on all axis, with different thrusts, accessing over 50 different engines ...etc. And while it will take you maybe 100 hours to build a massive fleet of capable battleships, the space combats where 70 ships clash offer a gaming experience that not many games nowadays can.
- Community is very helpful. Given that the game is difficult and you are bound to run into mechanics questions, it's quite detrimental to not spend a lot of time on forums figuring things out. Most of the mechanic questions that I put on Discord were answered immediately (and I had a LOT of them).
- The game development seems quite active. There are consistent patches with balance and bugfixes. Even 6 month break and I saw a lot of improvements when I decided to go for another campaign.
Neutral:
- The game has some performance issues for me. I encountered (and still do) crashes. I did receive a lot of feedback and the devs were very responsive. I did receive good and immediate support and not "reinstall your whole Windows and programs" type of suggestions that I saw in some other gaming companies. Some root causes were determined and addressed. I can use the default autosave when the crash happens so it's not a showstopper but it would be nice to have such problems.
- The research tree is massive - which is a positive for me. However, some research doesn't have much applicable value. There are 50+ drives. You probably need like 3-4 across your campaign. Some research are extremely expensive for what it offers that it will be research only when you have pretty much "won". So this creates a bit of "Get it ASAP" and "Press obsolete tech as soon as you see it" type of scenario. This can be quite overwhelming - especially for someone who doesn't have deep knowledge of mechanics (which is probably the vast majority of players).
Negative:
- Probably my biggest negative point is the way the difficulty is handled. I would rate it as "Difficulty through obscurity". The main challenge is not "Big danger is coming and I need to have a solution - let me evaluate my strategic options" but rather "I have no clue when the danger is coming - if I figure that out and maybe manipulate it a little bit, I win". Once you have an understanding on how hate mechanic works, I think even the hardest difficulty doesn't pose a real challenge. Not knowing the mechanics, even "normal" difficulty can turn into a brutal experience.
- The end-game has quite a bit of micromanagement. Chasing lone gunners across solar system to complete the main objective or permanently assassination of other faction councilor to keep yours safe feels like a "whack-a-mole" situation.
- There is a lot of imbalances. Some nations are just "the best" and a such represent the primary and the best opening strategy (hello Kazakhstan). Some orgs are extremely strong, others are just noob traps (like the CIA). Some weapons are just outright better. Building 10 missile ships instead of, let's say 10 infrared laser ships (same tech cost and level), will let you combat an enemy 4x - 5x stronger. It's not even close.
- Some exploits like controlling cracked nations or running a 400 MC overcap can make even brutal difficulty easier than normal.
- Some mechanics don't make sense. You can't realistically intercept early game (even with 4g engines). This makes the whole variety of thrust drives early almost useless. Some space modules (like nanofactory) don't serve a good part of their purpose. Nanofactory improves building speed of your modules. But it takes 3x time to build than any other module. So you are going to build a new orbital, nanofactory will be the last module that complete - hence negating one of its benefits.
As a final note: I bought the game because it was made by the team that made XCOM LW mod. XCOM1 Enemy within is probably my most played strategy game. I was to cheap back in the days and I never made a donation. So when this game came out, I bought it as a sign of "thank you for XCOM modding" rather than the game appeal. Despite the game being done by a small team, it competes in strategy and depth with big franchises that had an army of development behind. Kudos to JL and his team. Thank you for making good games.