So, this long-awaited thing from the makers of XCom's Long War mods has released a Demo. By now, I've played 30-ish hour of that Demo and it's clear from that demo that they really do have a mechanically finished game that just needed to delay for polish and bugfixing.
Definitely a unique game. Easy to figure out the basics, but it's a long road to actually master all the aspects of it. In the Demo, you can play only as the Resistance faction, which is basically the classic X-Com organisation. Build up Earth's defenses to a point where Aliens can't threaten humanity anymore, and then more or less return to the world order that existed prior to arrival. But you're not the only faction of humans with ideas about what humanity should do in response to the alien Arrival.
Humanity First believes that to defeat the aliens, humanity must unite in their hatred of the alien and basically turn into the Imperium of Man.
The Academy thinks the correct path forward is to fix all of Earth's problems (inequality, civil strife and ecological damage) and pursue peaceful first contact with the Aliens as equals.
The Initiative is essentially the Illuminati who think this is a great time of opportunity and think the best way forward is to turn the solar system into the playground of a Megacorporation (owned and led by the Initiative, of course).
The Exodus Project thinks the solution to Earth's problems (both internal and with the Alien threat) is to just fuck off into space, potentially even leave the solar system.
The Protectorate is convinced that victory against the technologically advanced Aliens is impossible and that Earth should position itself to become a protectorate of the Aliens.
The Servants are alien cultists who believe the Aliens are here to fix the world's problems and create a new Utopia on Earth (and if that means destroying humanity then humanity deserves it). (I'm not entirely clear on if these guys will be playable in the full game).
There are many layers of key mechanics. Nations on Earth will (at least at the start of the game) produce the bulk of the research. And to focus that research into productive directions, you need to take control of nations through political influence. For big nations, it's even possible for control of the nation to be split: say that the Resistance controls the Mass Media and the Legislature, but Humanity first gets control of the Corporations and the Executive.
Then there's a rather involved economy system, where a Nation's GDP generates "Investment Points", that will be invested back into various aspects of the country in accordance to priorities set by the nations' controller(s), these include categories like Economy, Welfare, Knowledge, Unity and Military that slowly improve the country's own stats, but you can also choose to tell the country to invest in categories that benefit your faction more directly.
Spoil is basically kleptocratic theft of taxpayer money and reckless exploitation of natural resources. Elites of countries that have low Government (meaning: less democracy) and high inequality will demand that a certain percentage of the GDP go toward this priority (and failing to do that makes your control of the country vulnerable to Coup d'Etat by other factions). Allowing this will also get you your own cut of these profits.
Funding is more sustainable development of direct, legal funding to your faction. Slow to build up passive income, but does not damage the country in the long term, nor does it damage the global environment.
Boost is a key resource for sending stuff up into space, representing development of launch pads and aerospace manufacturing. It builds up slowly, but is absolutely necessary to getting your space assets started, though eventually you'll want to transition to mining resources in space and using those, instead of using Boost to get heavy things out of Earth's atmosphere.
Mission Control invests into the ability to manage your various space assets. It takes a significant chunk of investment, but it makes your Mission Control Cap tick up by one. Going over the cap makes your space assets very vulnerable to takeover by other factions.
And then there's producing Armies, Navies and Nukes. These also take a significant chunk of Investment Points to "finish", but provide either an Army on the map, equip an existing Army with a transport Navy (allowing them to move from any coastal province to any other coastal province), or give your nation an additional nuclear weapon barrage to launch.
Okay, well, I'm going to cut the explanation rant short here, because there's no point to effectively recreating more than a year's worth of dev diaries here.
Anyone else here played the Demo yet?
Definitely a unique game. Easy to figure out the basics, but it's a long road to actually master all the aspects of it. In the Demo, you can play only as the Resistance faction, which is basically the classic X-Com organisation. Build up Earth's defenses to a point where Aliens can't threaten humanity anymore, and then more or less return to the world order that existed prior to arrival. But you're not the only faction of humans with ideas about what humanity should do in response to the alien Arrival.
Humanity First believes that to defeat the aliens, humanity must unite in their hatred of the alien and basically turn into the Imperium of Man.
The Academy thinks the correct path forward is to fix all of Earth's problems (inequality, civil strife and ecological damage) and pursue peaceful first contact with the Aliens as equals.
The Initiative is essentially the Illuminati who think this is a great time of opportunity and think the best way forward is to turn the solar system into the playground of a Megacorporation (owned and led by the Initiative, of course).
The Exodus Project thinks the solution to Earth's problems (both internal and with the Alien threat) is to just fuck off into space, potentially even leave the solar system.
The Protectorate is convinced that victory against the technologically advanced Aliens is impossible and that Earth should position itself to become a protectorate of the Aliens.
The Servants are alien cultists who believe the Aliens are here to fix the world's problems and create a new Utopia on Earth (and if that means destroying humanity then humanity deserves it). (I'm not entirely clear on if these guys will be playable in the full game).
There are many layers of key mechanics. Nations on Earth will (at least at the start of the game) produce the bulk of the research. And to focus that research into productive directions, you need to take control of nations through political influence. For big nations, it's even possible for control of the nation to be split: say that the Resistance controls the Mass Media and the Legislature, but Humanity first gets control of the Corporations and the Executive.
Then there's a rather involved economy system, where a Nation's GDP generates "Investment Points", that will be invested back into various aspects of the country in accordance to priorities set by the nations' controller(s), these include categories like Economy, Welfare, Knowledge, Unity and Military that slowly improve the country's own stats, but you can also choose to tell the country to invest in categories that benefit your faction more directly.
Spoil is basically kleptocratic theft of taxpayer money and reckless exploitation of natural resources. Elites of countries that have low Government (meaning: less democracy) and high inequality will demand that a certain percentage of the GDP go toward this priority (and failing to do that makes your control of the country vulnerable to Coup d'Etat by other factions). Allowing this will also get you your own cut of these profits.
Funding is more sustainable development of direct, legal funding to your faction. Slow to build up passive income, but does not damage the country in the long term, nor does it damage the global environment.
Boost is a key resource for sending stuff up into space, representing development of launch pads and aerospace manufacturing. It builds up slowly, but is absolutely necessary to getting your space assets started, though eventually you'll want to transition to mining resources in space and using those, instead of using Boost to get heavy things out of Earth's atmosphere.
Mission Control invests into the ability to manage your various space assets. It takes a significant chunk of investment, but it makes your Mission Control Cap tick up by one. Going over the cap makes your space assets very vulnerable to takeover by other factions.
And then there's producing Armies, Navies and Nukes. These also take a significant chunk of Investment Points to "finish", but provide either an Army on the map, equip an existing Army with a transport Navy (allowing them to move from any coastal province to any other coastal province), or give your nation an additional nuclear weapon barrage to launch.
Okay, well, I'm going to cut the explanation rant short here, because there's no point to effectively recreating more than a year's worth of dev diaries here.
Anyone else here played the Demo yet?
