Terra Invicta #2 – Starting Out

Time to start a new game. This time, I think I know what to do to win; plus I want to document the exact “winning path”, which I did not previously.

Important steps apparently include –

• Research ALL OF the “Mission to….” techs.
• Research roughly all of the Purple techs. Some show up after the final battle tech, something to do with Exotic Matter, but those do not seem to be required.
• Keep the aliens off of the Earth.

I choose the game with just Resistance and Servants, Cinematic mode.

Rebekah is 34 years old and Dmitry is 54.

I settle on this group – two good countries, each with 5 ADM, and a persuasion 8. One of them is young too. I hold off on immediately hiring a third councilor, since I know that you will likely keep each councilor forever. But I do give them more contemporary and political names.

My takeover of Earth proceeds, and in a few years I have the EU fully intergrated, Russia under my control with most of “The Stans”, and this game I mix it up a little by moving into Asia and conquering China.

One of the little tricks playing the game this way, is frequently other players on the internet give advice to just get a nation, then abandon it. That doesn’t exactly work with just two factions – many nations never end up under faction control. The process of getting China resulted in me being stuck with Myanmar, a horribly low GDP and high unrest nation; and one control point in Vietnam. Did you know Vietnam was a rival of China ? I sure didn’t. I have abandoned it several times but the Servants never come for it.

I am moving forward with taking over India and otherwise improving all my nations.

This playthrough I am much more aggressive with the Servants, infiltrating them multiple times and assassinating their councilors as often as possible. They keep ending up with these people with zero loyalty after their predecessors got murdered, which just makes continuing the cycle easier. Unfortunately, I do not have anyone with Hostile Takover so I’m not getting any of their orgs.

I’m much more aggressive with adding mining sites this game.

I have researched Mission to the Asteroids but I’ve not probed any of them – all of my boost is going towards getting Mars up to speed. The Moon was okay and I took several sites but clearly Volatiles are going to require the Mars sites.

Due to a lack of materials my first warship has not yet been completed – to get the Alien tech – but I am ready to kill an alien councilor; this seems to be the next key step in winning the game.

If he doesn’t get him, someone’s getting abducted

But, fortunately for the citizens of Senegal, he gets him.

And, time passes, and at last October 2027 rolls around. Volatiles etc are being accumulated now, so I have some of everything as income, so it’s time to design a ship to take out one alien.

One problem. I am not sure at all that I should be creating a ship with solid rocket boosters. The material requirements are very high, including two hundred engine propellant tanks. I’ll need two of them to have more combat rating than the alien ship I see.

Eventually, I acquire enough materials, and by 2029 build two of these ships which take out the alien handily.

Now I seem to be in a pickle though. My alien hate rating has gone up to 4 – is this partly because of aggressively murdering the Servants ? Whichever it is, I need to get them to calm down as I do not have anywhere near enough assets to start fighting them.

TIWIKE – Terra Invicta Edition – #1

Things I wish I had known/understood earlier.

• Set up your game for easy ? Pick three factions and Resistance, this gives you tutorial tips and enjoyable flavor text. Easiest difficulty is Cinematic – +2 to most missions; No Alien Hate cap; and possibly other hidden benefits. You will play with the Aliens, the Servants, and your faction Resistance.
• Persuasion among your first two councilors – 9 is possible, 8 is really good, 7 is okay. Your first one is the same as the country you, the actual person, live in. The second one is a wildcard. It’s helpful if they belong to “a good country”, especially one that has good orgs tied to it.
• Game loading takes forever on my system – 1:23. However, “Save and Reload” works with this game.
• Being over your control point cap has a penalty – earn less Influence. If you (like me) end up with more of it than you can spend just go over. Be aware you also can be “Cracked Down” easier as well.
• There’s no such thing as too much science (so far). Or Control Points.
• I tend to accumulate too much influence, and Ops. Boost and Mission Control (MC) really are fantastically useful.
• You can merge nations. Sometimes you need research but the European Union is available immediately. Target France, then Europe, then USA.
• Do not attempt to turn a hellhole country into a useful place. It isn’t worth the time.
• Then again, turn a hellhole into a paradise and enjoy the process, but it won’t help you win the game.
• There are a massive number of technologies, and I don’t really get what they all do. The rumor is to go after a single type of drive – if you can figure that out, you’re doing better than me.
• The non-obvious critical techs are the “Missions” – get them all. Mission to the Moon, Mission to Mars, etc. These unlock the path the Kuiper Belt which is the path to winning the game.
• Space resources allow you to build bases ridiculously fast compared to Earth-bound manufacturing. So get the resources fast. Hit the Moon immediately once it is available.
• Your ships DO NOT cost resources to keep, just MC. Your mining bases, and floating platforms, do cost. So, strangely, a ship is sort of cheaper than a space station.
• I have never found better power tech than solar panels and fission piles. Probably exists but not easy to reach. Also, never found the fabled “Covert Operations” project for your sixth councilor.
• Other important technologies are Advanced Chemical Rocketry, High Thrust Probes (50% faster probes), Outpost Core (Build outposts on moons/asteroids/planets)
• The story is important. You unlock the path to victory via the Story. The Resistance story :
  • Easy things happen at the beginning
  • Alien Abductions
  • Research various Xenology things
  • Kill an Alien Councilor
  • Do an Autopsy (research)
  • Detain an Alien Councilor
  • Research communication
• At some point prior to the “last” purple mission, make sure you have wiped out aliens and other aligned factions so that you have at least 25% of the ships in the solar system.
• Win the game by having > 25% of the ships, moving a councilor with the Janus org to the Kuiper belt, and assigning him to the “win the game” misson.

Playthrough Terra Invicta – Endgame Revealed

Strange game. I am letting it run but I’m bored and annoyed – that’s a great way to get people to want to play your game. But I let several years run and researched every “Purple” item, December 2036 comes and I believe I’m being told the win conditions now. After researching “The Final Battle”, all five pips on the Alien hate meter light up suddenly – they were previously at two – meaning I am now at total war.

No aliens on Earth yet – so far, so good.

Destroy a lot of the enemy ships in the solar system – Not achieved yet. Obviously, I went way too light on military when I had the low alien hate. It would have been smarter to defend Mars better, especially with ships, and take out more aliens when possible.

Also, I need to get a councilor to the Kuiper belt, give him this org (Janus Section), and run a mission.

So – what have I learned now about winning the game ? First, research all “The Purple Ones” to unlock the win. Winning is dependent upon moving a councilor to the Kuiper Belt, equipped with an Org received after the final battle tech is researched. Keep the aliens off of Earth, and blow up most of their ships before the final battle.

One problem – I can’t quite tell where I’m supposed to go, in the Kuiper belt. Is this because I’m only on “Mission to Saturn” ? Maybe. The other obvious thing is, don’t research “The Final Battle” until you

I let the simulation run. The three ships I have orbiting my free Earth-bound space station are able to wreck the alien fleets that come after them; otherwise, the aliens get free reign to destroy my many asteroid-based mining complexes.

By August 2037 most of my asteroid bases are destroyed, I finish Mission to Saturn and start Mission to the Outer Planets – which apparently contains the Kuiper belt. Estimated completion July 2039.

The only problem is by October 2037 it is clear I’m finally defeated in space; two of my ships are destroyed and the third is damaged, with all of my asteroid bases destroyed, and I’m left with two lunar mining colonies. So I have to trust that I have the win and gaming methodology figured out.

So ends my first documented Terra Invicta playthrough. Next one will include thorough documentation of the “Purple Research” and other win steps.

Playthrough Terra Invicta – Wait, what am I doing again ?

The playthrough I have has reached the year 2033. I am waiting for an alien invasion of Earth, but it hasn’t happened yet. All those nukes I am building are sitting unused.

Instead, the Servants launched a ship and bombarded to destruction all of my Mars sites, then began building their own in those locations; well, that’s instructive.

But as I try to figure out what I’m actually doing to win the game, it’s becoming clearer that the key is to unlock the Story Research instead of doing anything else. It’s pretty disjointed, and a clear list will have to wait for another playthrough, but the tutorial messages and story hints keep piling up.

• Alien Ship Crashes
• Investigate Crash
• Alien Abductions happen
• “Purple Symbol” techs get unlocked
• Research the purple techs.
• Build a Space Platform
• Build a Hab Module
• Build a mine on Moon or Mars
• (Steps before this vaguely remembered)
• Detect an Alien Councilor
• Research
• Kill an Alien
• Research (Autopsy)
• Destroy an Alien ship
• Research
• Destroy an Alien Warship
• Research
• (I destroyed an Alien Warship first. After completing some research, I got a message to destroy an alien warship, and it immediately resolved)
• Detain an Alien
• Research Many Things
• Research Wormholes.

Note that none of this has anything to do with the nations of Earth – they are tools to give you the research and resources to build fleets of spaceships, etc, that defeat the aliens. Your resources also don’t seem to depend on your hab sites – none of mine went down as the Servants glassed the surface of Mars.

Here I thought that building a solid foundation on the surface of Earth would be critical, and it’s wicked fun and definitely part of the solution to winning the game – but my bet is, I can win without a single nation under my control by the end of the game. The most critical thing nations give you is research. If had no/few nations and lots of built up resources, I could probably squeak past the last research barriers – since Orgs also give you many research points.

The developers are big about “not posting spoilers”, and I get that, but I think the win path is considered a “spoiler”. That’s wrong headed and confusing for a game where you take a week to even get started. Just to complicate things, each faction has a different win path, so the path I am discovering might be substantially different for any other faction ! Clearly, the Servants will be very different since they are the “Submit to the Aliens” faction.

As exhaustion set in last night I realized I might be getting close. My scientists have figured out that a wormhole exists in the Kuiper belt which leads to the alien’s domain. I am not entirely sure what that means for me to do next.

It looks like I need to finish more Purple research; plus get Mission to Jupiter and other techs that allow me to reach the Kuiper Belt; then figure out how to reach the area. So my game tasks are to continue down that path and hopefully win; then restart the game and really figure out what matters to winning on the easiest difficulty level.

Playthrough Terra Invicta – When to Build A Navy

It is December 2029, and the accumulation of resources continues. But, when to start fighting the aliens ? I did recently kill an alien counselor and autopsied it, which is opening up more research I have not completed. I know I’m waiting for a couple of events.

• Scripted Invasion. Around 2032 the aliens will take over a country somewhere on Earth. The straightforward way to deal with it is to nuke them.
• Megafauna. If you let the xenoforming keep growing eventually it becomes huge creatures that require armies (or nukes) to deal with. You want to kill one, that lets you study it and progress something.
• Ship destruction. At some point, if you kill an alien ship, you will get some alien technology – and it’s around this time.

Doing OK with income. I have a lot of fissiles, I think, and many more mines coming online next year.

I really dislike watching videos but Youtuber Perun is doing a good set and explaining how the game works. This video taught me a lot about designing a ship(s) that I have not been able to find documented on the internet. I also learned a few simple and interesting things.

• Suggestion : Build a ship, because you need to solve a problem. Maybe it’s because a problematic faction has one. Or the above mentioned kill a destroyer.
• Trying to figure out how to successfully kill one alien, floating around Earth, has a strategy of a Copperhead armed missile frigate along with a monitor class “survivor” ship. That one is interesting. You build a ship with the specific objective of making sure it survives the battle.

I move forward, doing research and trying to get EU + Russia merged. At some mysterious point, I can absorb “The Stans” and so I do (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan). I’ve also moved up to three pips on the “Alien Danger” chart.

How dangerous the aliens think you are.

I am hoping level 3 is there because I killed the alien counselor, not because of too much mission control. So far, there is no hint on the interwebs that Cinematic difficulty has an MC “hate cap”. At various difficulties, there are caps – and when you go over them you get more pips on this marker. I suppose I might at least confirm if these exist on this playthrough. Typically the lowest is level 2.

In case anyone is as dense as I am – you can directly control the allocation of points. You don’t HAVE to use the priority planners.

Click on any dot to increase it. Click on 3 dots to set it to zero. I can’t believe I missed this for two months.

But I let years go by, and we reach Jan 2032. A couple of important things happen.

• I check my “List of goals” which includes destroying a single alien ship. I don’t remember any pop up about this one.
• I succeed in the “Steal Project” mission for the first time – and it appears what I stole, did not get given to me. How sad, it’s a bug.
• I successfully detain an Alien Councilor. This opens up many story points and seems to be significant.
• I build ships according to the Perun video and move them towards each other.

Next game, my task is to blow up the Alien. Will I succeed ?

Playthrough Terra Invicta – Accumulate Resources

It takes a long, long time, but in mid 2027 I finally begin to actually accumulate things like Volatiles and Water.

The Moon (Luna) did not have a lot of good sites but Mars is doing pretty well. I have some sites being built out and others waiting for boost to accumulate so mines and nukes can be built.

I lost my double agent, but otherwise my councilors keep doing better. I’ve built up a lot of Admin on many of them, giving access to orgs and therefore lots of abilities, research, and bonuses.

Europe and Russia (Plus the good old USA) are under my control. I’m merging nations in to either as it becomes possible – Greece, having left the EU courtesy of Servants, will be coming back soon. Baltic States (That’s Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) should join the EU while Belarus will merge soon with Russia. After that, I can probably get “The Stans” under my control to start the clock to their unification with Russia.

Much of the Northern Hemisphere is controlled by the Resistance. Servants are in India / Indonesia and other scattered spots.

Halfway through 2028, I have managed to research the Warsaw Pact technology, and now the Eurasion Union is a member of the European Union.

Here’s where it is getting confusing again. Many times, I would see a nation (Say, Greece) that was part of the European Union but it did not have “a claim” and therefore could not be merged into the nation. Then, something changed and all of a sudden the claim was there. June 2028 shows a confusing set of possibilities for the nations, but most of them don’t have a claim and therefore should be not unifiable.

Do I progress, and assume that the claim block will remove itself ? Or do I stop at this point and figure out how to claim ? Or just not worry about it ? There is an amazing array of independence movements I can research which might continue to move nations into chunks I can control.

I decide to leave this post at June 30 2028 and decide what to do next later.

Playthrough Terra Invicta – Early Game

By February 2023 Europe is halfway controlled by the Resistance.

I’m watching for the events to be unlocked that Federation members (IE, European Union members) can be unified into one country. France starts out as a 4 control point country, and the maximum that the European Union (or any country, actually) can have is 6. The more you merge, the more you reduce the number of control points and create additional space to control more area.

Important items for various diplomatic statuses

The big ones are A – Have a “claim” B – 180 days in power C – Join the Federation.

In September 2023 we’re finally ready – unification is possible.

After the France/Italian/German etc unification the control points in use dropped by 150, and the European Union goes to 5 control points.

By January 2024 we have successfully prospected the moon, but don’t possess enough boost to reach it.

Not very good sites for the Moon.

Best site is Mare Tranquillitatis but not by much – get some gold and fissiles from there, but no water or volatiles which you need much more of. So it will be a priority to do the Mission to Mars to start acquiring these things. After waiting awhile I end up with the boost required and build the outpost.

Next step is “Space Mining and Refining” which is locked behind several technologies. But first, I manage to turn a Servant councilor.

I set her “Fail” to 60%. Default is 50%.

This lets me know the Servants are in a similar position to me. They have less science, less resources, less control points, stronger councilors, and more money. Interesting.

By 2025 I have unlocked the Mining Complex, and need to continue developing enough boost to mine my two moon sites. And this is where I’ll leave this post; it will take several game years until resources actually start to accumulate.

Playthrough Terra Invicta – Set Up For Success

I continue to try and get farther with my first goal – “How am I supposed to play this game?”. So I start it as easy as I can manage.

Very little factional conflict – it was driving me nuts my first games – to get in the way of getting to the aliens. Your first decisions are more meta, make sure you get two “good” councilors or just do a restart.

Do read the pop up windows (like the left) and the Tutorial explanation things (right)

The key first attribute is Persuasion. It’s possible to get a 9, 8 is unusual, 7 is typical, lower values are possible. Each of the 7 attributes is useful and you should aim to have a high score for the first 5 in some councilor. You can simply add the 7 together (ignore loyalty) to get an idea how valuable they are.

But at the beginning, you want Persuasion. Administration is also good. You also want the right countries. I am settling on a strategy of grabbing Europe, Middle East, USA, and Russia. Depending on where the councilor is from, will open up better things. I have one American and one Caribbean, and Caribbean is a liability. I will always get an American because….. my IP address is American or something like that. Grace totals 9/19 and Walton 20/23 – she sucks, he’s good. The pool of recruits has a couple of 8 persuasion people but they are not from the areas I mentioned. So I think I’ll restart.

7 Persuasion. 11/20 and 25/30 – now we’re talking. But Bangladesh – I’m never hitting that country. Recruits are all subpar. Saving this one and restarting.

An EU country – perfect. Persuasion 8 – Great ! Look at Tia – 24/29, Government (important), 6 ADM. But Matthew underwhelms, 15/15. Some recruits are interesting. I’m going to save this one (over the one above) and restart again.

Russian this time – still good. I aim to eventually take it over. Both with Persuasion 7. 24/28 and 17/17 – she’s great, he’s OK. Recruits include an EU councillor 16/24 with high ADM. This is the one we’re going to playthrough.

Having done all of this, nothing is unfixable – EXP lets you increase these attributes and give them traits as well. You also want to pay attention to the missions each councilor is permitted to take.

Both of my people can control nation; Georgiy can do public campaigns. Between the two of them they have excellent complementary skills, including Georgiy being a criminal and Shameka being government.

(If you’d rather craft your councilor, you can customize their names, accents, portraits etc.)

This is a useful message being displayed on the right

The tutorial messages include pop up windows and these things. Do them, as soon as you can – they tend to move you in the right direction.

As I begin the game, I have 50 influence and I’m aiming to get 60 so I can recruit the desired councilor, so I let time pass until the mission phase hits.

The advice displayed (grab a Russia control point) can be useful so try to read them. Also think about any strategy you have specifically. Since mine is to take over the EU I’m ignoring Shameka.

I am going after France, but to get there, it will be easier taking over control points in her neighbors such as Alpine States (IE, Switzerland and Austria), Germany, and Benelux (IE Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium). Georgiy will be working public opinion for additional boosts to success. So I’m having her start with Hungary.

A couple random events fire before this gets attempted, I get a lot of extra influence, and recruit billionaire Paulin Muller (French). He has high ADM so I can buy more organizations. I pass on the other recruits for the moment – they refresh periodically, I think every 15th of the month.

Now I’m on my way. Time to campaign/control while I recruit.

Time to talk about Orgs and Administration. Probably the first stat I will attempt to get to the maximum value for each of my councilors is Admin. Each point of Admin lets you buy one point of stars in an organization. The Schinhofen Books gives me influence income and two points of persuasion so it’s a perfect buy for my diplomat.

By December 1st, I have executive control over France – but the Servants are fighting me for it. France started the game with a large pro-Servant majority in public opinion, so I guess they decided to go for it. Looks like I’ll have them kicked out soon. We also took the Balkans and recruited our 4th councilor, a spy.

The playthrough has passed the setting the stage phase.

A Blizzard Of Game Mechanics

I have started up a new game – Terra Invicta. It is a fascinating and fun expansion of the idea of the XCOM universe.

In XCOM, you have alien ships attempting to invade earth in a 1970s style milieu – mysterious aliens doing things you can’t understand. You blow up the ships; use ground forces to attack aliens; research and eventually go to an end battle. Great fun.

In Terra Invicta, the basic idea is there but it has been expanded massively.

• Shadow Government – You play as one of humanity’s factions, and begin shadow government operations on nations across the world
• Factions – Makes me think of Alpha Centauri. The Servants, who welcome the aliens. The Resistance, who fight them. Humanity First, who want to exterminate them. Et cetera.
• Research – because what game doesn’t. But it makes sense, you need to upgrade your capabilities to meet the alien threat.
• Space Combat – I am not yet very familiar with it.
• Fighting through the Solar System – the entire thing is represented. I’ve made a hobby of knowing the various bodies out there in the solar system, but there are many more things in the game than I had ever heard of; small moons and asteroids, basically.

The main game screen. I am zoomed into Earth.

There is a series of notifications on the left side. I find most of them valueless but occasionally one is important. You can clear them, but they reappear when you reload.

The documentation in the game is severely lacking – the typical modern gamer lament. But I’ve played a lot of games and am making progress actually understanding it. The game systems seem to be newbie friendly and never force you into a “counted out” spot – or maybe I have yet to experience it.

Resources and menus

Earth based resources include :

• Money
• Influence
• Ops – like “Operations”, war
• Boost – ability to overcome gravity and send things into space
• Mission Control (MC)
• Science
• Control Point Capacity

By far, I pay the most attention to control points. These represent how much of the nations you are able to control. The more nations you control, the more of various resources you get – but it also depends on quality and other factors.

Space based resources include :

• Water – A good one; everything about searching through space in the real world is about water.
• Volatiles – “Highly reactive substances”.
• Base Metal
• Noble Metal – I think of this as gold, especially given the icon.
• Fissiles – IE, nuke stuff. Uranium.

The obvious ways to get space-based resources are mining for them. Their storage seems to be abstracted, once you store them they are just “there”. Base metals are easy, you don’t worry about them at all. Water and Volatiles are fairly easy. The hard one is really the Gold. I’ve only needed tiny amounts of fissiles.

The commands menu :

• Earth – warps you to Earth, obviously.
• Solar System
• Council – shows you Councillors. You don’t act directly, you tell these people to take actions for you.

This is by far the easiest part of the game to deal with, so I stop here.

• Nations – gives you a summary list of all your nations that you have control points in. Very helpful.
• Habs – If its a space structure, or base on a planet/moon/asteroid, that is a hab. You can view them here.
• Fleets – These are your space ships.
• Reasearch – You do research here. There are two types, technologies (these unlock for all factions), and projects (unlock faction by faction).

Top row is “Shared” research – with all the other factions – and bottom row is only for your faction.

The final one is Intel. This is a really well done set of screens that should have its own post.

It’s broken down in obvious ways – Aliens, factions, and space bodies.

I’ve gotten very familiar with the Nation screen.

When I started, I just worried about Public Opinion and controlling nations. But it turns out the game systems will force you to treat nations differently.

The national attributes include

• GDP – by far the most important piece.
• Democracy -10 is full democracy and 0 is totalitarian.
• Unrest – 0 is peaceful and 10 is civil war.
• Control Points – Turkey has four. The left three are less important than the fourth, which is the Executive point, and allows you to control the nation.
• Miltech – 2 is Industrial Age. 3 is Atomic Age. 4 is Information Age. I’m sure there are others, but I doubt anyone is at miltech 1.
• Nukes – you are definitely going to use nukes in this game, and all nations have the opportunity to acquire them.
• Navies – These get paired with land forces to move them from one region to another.
• Investment Points – how much you can invest into various national priorities I will post later. Turkey has 12.
• Money – Turkey provides 49 per month. 25% to each owner of a control point.
• Research, Boost, MC
• Education – High education feeds a lot of items, but makes it harder to unify/diversify a country.
• Cohesion – 10 is super conformist. 5 is healthy diversity. 0 is tribal/fragmented.
• Per Capita GDP – Super important. You want this high.
• Inequality – the lower the better, aka 10 means rich people and peasants, and 0 means society is basically a middle class.
• National relations – you can have nations At War, Allies, or Rivals.

Your investment priorities

Is your head spinning yet ? Let’s make it more confusing.

Those 12 investment points Turkey has get divided up by control points (3 per), and these points get divided up by the faction that controls them. You don’t control each by amount or directly, you select a Priority Template to dictate how your points get allocated. Each line has various effects.

• Economy. As Economy increases, GDP goes up, Greenhouse gases go up, Inequality goes up. There are modifiers based on the country’s regions; and its Democracy score (higher is better), and Cohesion score (5 is best).
• Welfare. Decreases Greenhouse and Inequality.
• Knowledge. Increases Government, Education, and moves towards middle score for Cohesion.
• Unity. Unify the country. This increases Cohesion (literal increase, not moving to the middle), decreases government, and moves public opinion to the nations that control points.
• Military. Increases Miltech and decreases Unrest. The Democracy score modifies, low is full effect, and 10 reduces it. If Unrest is zero, Miltech increases faster.
• Spoils. This means something like crime and corruption. Spoils increases Money, increases Inequality, decreases Democracy, and increases Greenhouse.
• Funding. Increases Money. A lot lower increase than Spoils.
• Boost.
• Mission Control.
• Navy
• Nuclear Weapons

That is one complex feedback loop to navigate. The “Template” system could be done better – I gave up on every one of the default templates and just played with it. And I keep giving up on my games as I discover more and more and just want to restart.

I believe I’ll cover this with additional posts – the Intel screen (hidden gem), an early playthrough, Things I Wish I Knew Earlier, and other possibilities.

If any of this sounds interesting, this is a game you should buy. The elevator pitch is “Dwarf Fortress in Space” – you enjoy it even when you lose, and it’s not about winning. Sounds about right.

Steam Achievements – Fun With Statistics

I have always gotten a kick out of the achievements system in Steam. It’s fun to unlock them and it’s fun to have more than your friends. It’s also fun to highlight the ones you treasure the most.

So I’ve set up my profile to show most of these things –

The first block is the choosable achievement showcase where I put all the ones that I like, for whatever reason. The Rarest achievements is auto generated.

As you can see, I have a number of achievements that are tied to the defunct game Marvel Heroes Omega. There’s a couple reasons why they’re so rare. The biggest one, is probably that these were added at a late date in the game’s life, so anybody achieving these would have had to run the game closer to its end of life for them to update.

And for some time, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to push these achievements off the list. That’s the main reason the Civilization 5 achievements are on there – I deliberately set out to get them. It’s never going to happen, because I’m not that good at most games to get .6% or less achievements. I have two that are .2% and the rest are mostly .4%, with the last one showing being .6%.

There’s a third party tool called the Steam Achievement Manager which will manipulate achievements, but this doesn’t work with Marvel Heroes. Apparently server-run games like an MMO report back to Steam what the achievements are and thus can’t be manipulated. Whereas a single player game will let you unlock achievements and it gets reported to Steam somehow.

No can do.

At least the tool helped me figure out something. There’s a horrible game named Gettysburg, Armored Warfare – supposedly a re-imagining of Civil War battles with armored soldiers and tanks. Kind of a Warhammer type thing. The reason it’s achievements are so rare is because you must play an online game to get them to fire, and nobody is going to go online with you and play this one.

So that’s why I can’t get these achievements.

Reports from the community are that even deleting games from your library does not affect your Steam Achievements, so I can’t just delete the game and rarest would reset.

Neither am I the only one to try and figure out this question. I get a kick out of how the people who responded to this don’t see the point (largely).

So my rarest achievements are sort of fun. I have a whole bunch that nobody can ever get at this point, and they’re very unlikely to change since I don’t seem to earn ones that other people haven’t earned. Instead, back to trying to earn more and pass up that guy with more than me.