Terra Invicta #3 – Game Ruining Bugs

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Terra Invicta

Why did I get bugs in my game ? There’s at least three possibilities.

1. I have a mod active, and the mod is interfering wrongly with the game.
2. I started the game in 3.49 and updated recently to 3.59; sometimes updates break games in process.
3. There is some confluence of events creating a bug the devs should fix.

What exactly was the bug ? Well, I researched the Caliphate, and activated it. Their flag was black, so I’m immediately thinking something is wrong. When I try to bring Egypt into the Caliphate federation, Egypt becomes the United Arab League; this is unresearched, but still, then the Caliphate joins the United Arab League, instead of the opposite. When I try to bring Turkey into it, they become Turkestan even though this has not been researched. After Algeria did it too I decided to throw in the towel.

It’s all very funny. I have heard of the concept (via Dwarf Fortress) of “You enjoy and learn by losing the game.” I never thought I’d be faced with a version of that and find myself in agreement.

So – Game #4. Still going to do the same setup, will remove the mod though. Cheat mod is not really necessary to my goal which is to win by any means necessary; I just want to KNOW HOW to win. And my distillation of that is getting easier.

Cinematic has a hate modifier of .05X Hate Points. This means that the hate floor is 1000 MC used. Use all the MC you think you need, you will never be seen as a threat by the aliens. So, instead, it permits you to find the path to victory via the other game systems.

I have the exact script available (previous post) of how to win as the Resistance, and it basically means going through various research points until you have the game winning tech. Don’t do it early – only research the last one when you’re ready. And that is the part I’ve never managed, is getting to the point where “I’m ready”.

I have received the hint from a helpful person that I should build two dreadnoughts and a colony ship, and launch them from Earth to the Kuiper Belt. With the right tech, they will move fast. This is necessary because it’s possible the aliens won’t let you expand, even in Cinematic, to Jupiter’s satellites. That was my experience, maybe it’s wrong, but you can only go on what you know.

I am very likely to be able to get all the resources I need from four places. The Moon, just to start and bootstrap, Mars, Mercury, and Ceres. So I’ll try to get every location on those bodies and go from there; if that doesn’t work I could at least try and hit Jupiter’s moons which are resource rich; Io in particular seems interesting, insanely large deposits of rare metals. I have never previously paid attention to either these, Saturn’s satellites, or anything in the Kuiper belt.

Time to start over again. Come here, Europe.

Terra Invicta #3 – Resource Drain, Jupiter Block, and End

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I finally managed to start burning cash in 2031.

For a long time the game has just given me too much Influence, Money, and a good amount of ops. But that’s because I’m building out my space presence, and had a ton of MC getting converted to money. Now, I find myself in the unexpected place of negative cash flow.

Now that I own both Ceres and Mars, and have unlocked Tier 2 Defense Arrays, I built them at all my mines across Mars and Ceres. It adds up quick; a tier 1 core is 1 MC, but a tier 2 is 3. Upgrading your mining complexes also costs 1 extra. Not to mention adding the hab facilities adds a lot more money cost, and suddenly I go to negative 23 cashflow.

My criminal councilor Kevin Mitnick took control of two mafia-type organizations, and I tweaked several nations to have positive funding instead of zero, and I’m still stuck with this cashflow. Presumably the thing to do is continue building out MC and playing with funding, but that just supports my current setup. I’m not 100% sure what to do next – maybe expand out to Jupiter and put a station in a Lagrange orbit, to move me closer to the Kuiper Belt and closer to reaching the Wormhole.

On the other hand – am I ever going to burn through forty two thousand dollars ? I’m not sure but I don’t want to find out that yes, I will.

On the research front, I have detained a councilor and started on the Hydra Interrogation, and Great Nations are being researched. I am taking over to support a potential Caliphate, Southeast Asian confederation of some kind, and a greater China. My empire stretches from Europe to Singapore with the Servants in control only of India, and Iran.

Iran is my potential target. Currently researching the +3 Crackdown tech and waiting for an opportunity where Defend Interests isn’t active.

Time passes. Fall of 2031 I manage to Coup Iran, and start Vietnam merging with its neighbors. By Jan 2032 my money loss is down to 9.5 per day, while my free Mission Control is up to 25. I kick off Mission to Jupiter.

By August 2032, Mission to Jupiter is completed and I immediately build a station in a Lagrange point around Jupiter. But something unexpected happens – the aliens immediately send a ship to the station and destroy it. Confounded Internet ! You told me the aliens would not attack until they were at 5 pips (I have 3!).

Seeking out help from the internet, it seems the typical way to reach the Kuiper Belt is from Earth with ships with a very fast drive. I just have to keep traveling the tech tree until I find one.

Until I hit a game breaking bug – presumably from the Mod.

I researched the Caliphate, and next thing I know, the Unifications are producing results that are not possible. Time to play again, without mods.

Blog Site Meta

WordPress is stupid when it comes to quote blocks. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday, but I’m leaving the below as is.

News (and Views) about Terra Invicta

On 2/9/23 the developers updated the game via Steam to version 3.59. Patch notes here. These include some things that are interesting and helpful to me personally.

There are many things related to “perfecting/improving” a nation’s stats, such as unity and cohesion, that will have some interesting gameplay effect. Time will tell.

This was jarring the first time I saw it, but it’s a good thing.

assignments button will say “enemies are planning” when AI is working and it can’t be selected

I eventually figured out that national priorities, marked in red, really don’t mean a lot. Whatever is red figures into things like coup d’etat success and so far this has been a nonissue, so I ignore it. Glad the yellow is being used now.

Updated Priorites to use Yellow text for warnings instead of red

The new UI tweak looks much better and provides better information.

Councilor Mission List UI Update

Thank you ! My save names are done manually, I ended up with “Cine-4?”, with 4 being a playthrough number and ? being a letter for 26 possibilities.

default save names will include ingame date by by default

Now this is weird – I thought this was a bug. It’s a feature. I frequently want to get rid of orgs that are in the unassigned orgs pool, but instead I have to take an org that I want to keep; move it to the pool; take the junk org and assign it to a councilor; sell the junk org; reassign the good org back to the councilor. Argh.

fix code that was supposed to prevent you from selling faction orgs from your unassigned orgs pool to the market

Thank you, it was annoying to have this tooltip constantly appear, then bug out, then reappear.

Fixed Alien Threat Tutorial not appearing

There are all kinds of notes about marine-based space combat. I vaguely remember once taking another hab away from a faction during my first playthrough, but haven’t been able to since. Recently, I haven’t even wanted to, owing to the game start conditions I’m using (Cinematic, three faction).

I did a search through the Podcast universe and discovered that Three Moves Ahead has an episode on Terra Invicta (From Sept 30), and it was interesting to hear about their experiences in the game. They are all behind where I am at, but to their credit, I suspect they are playing on a harder difficulty level than me. Many game annoyances and bugs they mention appear to have been squashed, and I’m not surprised.

I’m familiar with working on projects that get patched over time, discovering bugs, reporting them, and going through the cycle of improvement, and clearly this Pavonis group is good at that. They’re making something really good here; I’m glad I found out about Terra Invicta early.

Right now looks like the game is 20% off on Steam if you’re ready to buy it – “Early Access” applies.

Terra Invicta #3 – On to 2030

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As 2026 draws to a close, the Resistance has China, and has reconstituted the Soviet Union other than taking Georgia.

Moonbases are generating resources; not volatiles or gold, but Water, Metals, and Fissiles. Mars will come online soon and generate lots of everything.

Now, it’s time to kill an alien. I first set the ISS to build a Xenology Lab, and found another base in Low Earth Orbit to hold two more. Can’t kill them if you can’t see them, and the Xenology labs help you detect them.

It takes until July 2027 until I have positive income on all of the space resources.

By 2028 I unlock the Inner Planets, and build bases on all the points on Mercury unlocked. Now I have a massive metal income and a lot of resources built up.

Late 2028 I unlock three key things – Tier 2 space cores (but not settlements, they still are locked), both Tier 1 and 2 Point Defense modules, and Tier 2 Xenology. Getting those up helps reveal an alien on an Earth mission.

So now, to assassinate him. I did a pretty cheesy thing – I have one councilor who can assassinate, but his espionage is pretty low, making him an ineffective murderer. But he’s young, I will just keep building the stat up. In the meantime, I savescum until my 13% assassinate chance fires successfully and I’ve cleared that rung of the winning ladder. I am playing the game pretty straight – I did cheat myself additional control points, took over the United States and advanced in the West Indies, but have refrained from many of the other cheat tools available.

The Servants launch a small spacecraft, a 12-sword power Corvette, so I respond by initiating a build of a Copperhead based Corvette. Mine has a much higher sword power. It will be important to keep ships around Moon, Mercury, and Mars – to keep them protected along with building Layered Defense Arrays, to avoid the instant destruction after alien hate is no longer manageable.

During 2029 Asteroids get unlocked, and I immediately take all the Ceres base points. So now I have, roughly, Mars for Volatiles, Mercury for Metals, and Ceres for Water. My MC is pretty much eaten up, yet now is the time I need to start defending and building bigger bases, which require more MC.

The first quarter of 2030 passes, we are researching many faction projects and unlocking various “Arrival Law/Independence/Society” techs, and am waiting to research many items that boost control points. This playthrough is going well.

Terra Invicta #3 – The Great Swedish Shadow War

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By the end of 2024, the Resistance has constituted much of the European Union, and taken over Russia. Russian satellites are coming under our control and we’re thinking about China and the USA. No cheats in effect.

The Servants pulled one good trick. They tried to interfere, and they did slow us down a bit, in unifying much of Europe. But they have tightfisted control of Sweden, and none of my councilors can break in.

Better not declare war on them, or India and USA could interfere. Their public opinion has eaten the several points I put into getting some; the only option is to wait until May 2025 when their Defend expires.

Managed to probe Mars and establish three bases there; not enough boost yet to begin building mines. I need to amass an amazing 42 boost at a time when our daily income is .18. The Servants have joined me with one base on the moon.

I turn a Servant councilor after determining my entire team is loyal (10 or higher loyalty), and look for an opportunity to really use him, and it’s pretty obvious that I should use him to get Sweden.

The Great Swedish Battle was joined on May 16th, 2025, when their Defend Interest expires. I send two councilors on purge missions with maximum influence added for decent chances – and one succeeds ! The other should have succeeded, but he aborted his mission since he targeted point #1 instead of #2.

Okay then – May 31, 2025. I target a raft of Servant councilors and Sweden, lots of extra resources involved, and they send three councilors to oppose us. Resolution order ends up this way :

• Resistance (Adams) Defend Interests resolves June 1
• Servants (Aspau) Defend Interests resolves June 2
• Resistance (Ning) Detain Councilor Aspau resolves June 5
• Resistance (Mitnick) Assassinate Councilor Duong resolves June 6
• Resistance (De Groot) Public Campaign resolves June 8
• Servants (Munson) Set National Policy resolves June 10
• Servants (Duong) Purge mission resolves June 14
• Resistance (Wei) Purge mission resolves June 15

Defend interest on both sides gets off successfully; this reduces Resistance chance of a successful purge down to 3%, blast it. But Councilor Aspau gets detained and Duong gets assassinated ! Very pleased to get Duong, he was a very effective councilor.

As expected, Munson takes Sweden out of the European Union and therefore successfully delays its unification by about a year. But then, something unexpected happens. I check Wei’s purge mission chances and they’ve jumped to 79%. As the days tick by the percentages keep changing and settle on 54% before the mission fires, and she is successful ! Whatever caused that – legitimate gameplay effects or some weird bug – we now own a hostile Sweden (84% Servant opinion).

By March 2026 it was still pretty bad, 36/44 in favor of the Servants, but eventually it should all be Resistance. I next took over much of China (4 control points) and hit my CP cap. This game session ended soon after.

Terra Invicta #3 – Cheat Like Hell

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The mod that I downloaded basically puts a ton of research tweaks in front of you.

Lots of possible tweaks to the game

I begin early 2022 with the typical strategy of grabbing EU countries next to France, then France, and continuing after all possible control points.

Early 2023 is spent expanding over Europe and waiting for timers to cool down. After almost running out of faction projects I tweak research to globals, and finally start Outpost Habs (Mission to ….. precursor) and Orbital Shipbuilding.

2023 ends with the formation of the European Union; the Mission to Moon; and a scramble to get boost started to allow a Moonbase to be created.

Terra Invicta #2 – Learning Experience

Looks like I’m done with this playthrough.

First, the tech tree is IMMENSE, and it’s not at all clear when to start building a fleet and attack the enemies. What instead happened is, the Servants came after me. We blew them out of orbit but it’s obvious, if I’m playing the super-easy mode, that I should be the one picking on them moreso than the opposite. Combine this with the new knowledge of how much hate you can generate on cinematic before the “floor” mechanic puts you over, and I clearly didn’t think through my expansion plan well enough. I should be building ships and marines to menace them as soon as possible.

The various celestial bodies end up very empty owing to the game setup I’m choosing, so I think the best strategy is to pick a good number of “the best” sites on the Moon, Mars, and Mercury; and grab the entire surface of Ceres. Asteroids are probably non starters.

The hate mechanic makes the most important thing managing hate with regard to The Servants. It’s a binary thing – it’s either on at 5 pips, or off at 4. So it’s not clear the best level to leave it alone at; I’ve never seen it at one pip, but do you want to leave it at 2,3,or 4?

Then there’s base building. After consulting the wiki and building a spreadsheet, I discover very important clues about how I should actually be doing it. Both base cores, and mining complexes, count towards Mission Control, and the amount of power you can generate and various items to add to your bases should all be considered. The three tiers are clearly shown on the wiki, and I think I should build most of this stuff and tie it all together; combine smart base building with a few platforms.

Bases are tricky. You probably want one core, and one mining complex. How much defense do I need ? Are the science modules worth the hassle ? What size should I start considering farms, which reduce the resources you need to keep the crew alive ? I need to figure out the answers to these questions next.

And, from the wiki – There is a soft limit on the number of mining bases you can have. Starting at 13 mines on different celestial bodies, extra MC is charged for each new one. As far as the mining limit is concerned, every base on e.g., Mars counts as one base only. This makes asteroid mining more expensive in terms of MC than mining on larger objects.

Another consideration is, how much fun am I having ? I don’t much like the empty Earth not controlled by any faction, and let’s face it, the Shadow President game is most of the fun. As I tried to figure out a solution for this I realized people create mods, and I found one that will let me increase my Control Points to a really high number. So I’ll use that and get a better feeling for wars, Great Nations, and struggling against the opponents. I’m not feeling good about a typical game with all those opponents yet.

Wars are interesting. The Servants build a complex web of alliances to make it harder for me to just war with them and take their states. But sometimes that’s the best thing to do, and combine that with the fun mechanic of going to war with two nations you control simply to unify them, and there’s a lot to learn and digest here.

It’s super amusing that this game, and Dwarf Fortress, both “came out” at about the same time. I’m sensing the same fun mechanic here, in that losing is half the fun. Although what I’ve done a dozen times is quit and restart, the idea is the same, and it’s awesome fun each time. But no, I’m not going to buy Dwarf Fortress quite yet.

TIWIKE – #2

This is the path to the game winning tech “Final Battle”.

• Investigate the first alien crash site. The others give you bonuses but the first is required.
• Research Alien Signatures.
• Research We are Not Alone
• Surveil where a crash site happens and discover Alien Lifeforms
• Research Orbital Shipbuilding
• Advanced Chemical Rocketry
• Mass Drivers
• Outpost Habs (Mission to Mars etc)
• (High Thrust Probes and Nuclear Freighters are also good things to get about this time)
• Mission to the Moon
• Outpost Core
• Investigate an area where an alien abduction has happened. This will unlock “Alien Methods”, then research this.
• Space Mining and Refining
• Alien Operations
• Xenoflora Defoliants
• Kill an Alien
• Salvage an alien Ship
• Hydra Biology
• Alien Technology
• Salvage an alien Warship – May fire immediately depending on what “Alien Ship” you took out.
• Pherocytes
• Alien Containment
• Detain an Alien
• Exotic Materials
• Communicate with Alien
• Interrogate the Alien
• Their Purpose
• Wormhole
• The Choke Point
• The Final Battle

Terra Invicta #2 – Stabilized Earth

It is now June 23 2032. I am concerned about an alien invasion, as told by many other players, but I see no signs of this happening. Otherwise, the Earth is in a pretty stable place.

Europe and Asia is mine.

The Resistance controls Russia – China – India – European Union. Also a few other less useful places. I am in the process of creating The Vietnamese Federation (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) which will tick down my control point usage. I plan to have Russia conquer Armenia, the same as they conquered Georgia and Azerbaijan.

But the game is very stable. All my countries are in great shape and ticking upward, providing important Boost, Mission Control, and Research. I think all the blockers are out of the way (capturing and killing aliens etc) and it’s a matter of research and building a navy.

I plan to wait on building a better navy until tech advances. I have finally researched Battlecruisers so I’m sort of ready, but I’ve got myself in a pickle with the alien hate. It ticked down to 3 pips, and went back to 4 after I took Cambodia and Laos from the Servants. So it’s time to leave the Earth alone and wait for this to go down.

Annoying. Why does this not update more frequently ? Answer: It updates when you scan alien councilors, or when they scan you.

By October 2032 it goes down to 3 pips. I decide to keep researching down the “Purple” tech path. I also begin the Mission to Jupiter research.

By year end 2033, it hasn’t gone down much. I’m getting frustrated and I start googling, and I find some interesting info.

Alien hate is effected first of all by Mission Control usage, which establishes a floor for alien hate. Normally it’s zero, but the more MC you use the higher it goes. The aliens hate you when the hate level reaches 50. Each month the alien hate will go down by 1.

There is only a token floor when playing in Cinematic difficulty – .05 times the MC used. The floor for my current 76 MC used thus becomes 3.8 ! Nothing to worry about. The remainder of the points appear to be from opposing the Servants. I think this is getting tweaked as the developers go along. Assassinations probably increase hate, but others dispute that. Clearing Alien Growth also increases hate. I am seeing takeovers of Servant countries generating hate quite clearly, by either Purge mission, or by military conquest. Even better, each time it happens it’s against a country they have abandoned !

The Servants seem to follow a specific strategy – take over a country; tweak some settings; then abandon it. Rinse and repeat until many countries are nominally Servant. This might be an interesting thing to try in my super-easy playthroughs, but it would sure make turn-by-turn operations annoying as the nations “come back” automatically to my faction.

In July 2034 I finally achieve it – the Final Battle tech is unlocked. So are all the darned Independence movements – I slipped up and the Servants managed to control one Global tech, and they picked it. In addition, the hate meter gets back to 2 pips, so I am likely correct with my analysis above.

After building out some of my Tier 2 buildings I am realizing a big part of the game is understanding all of the power, maintenance, and mining numbers. There is for sure a point at which building a mine, will just cost you instead of bringing your numbers up, so it’s time to research on that.