Civ has a serious new Rival

[HiRezAudio]

Has anyone else here yet heard of 'Terra Invicta' at all? I missed out on the Beta stage & Early access stage and it hit me between the eyes about a week ago.
Whatever Firaxis/2K are up to had better be good, as this new kid on the block has Civ6 and Civ7 on the ropes already & it is looking like there may be an early knockout.
I will not give spoilers as that spoils the fun, but suffice it to say the scope of the game is humongous - Full Earth and all it's Nations, as well as a fully exploitable Solar System and all rendered so well game-play is smooth & never suffers.
In short, it rarely crashes at this point.
You begin as one of a number of rival 'Shadow Organizations', each with it's own agenda (natch) and a couple of hired hands (Councillors).
Ever wanted to take over the world from within the shadows? Now you can do (or try to, at any road) just that.
Trouble is there's a complicating factor. Not only does game-play begin at September 2022, but there are these pesky UFO's that are crashing occasionally.

The game is incredibly complex, but repays investment of time in 'dummy runs' as believe me you will be overwhelmed on first play as there is just too much to learn & take in.
This is not a bad thing, although it can cause patience issues when things (inevitably) go wrong and you do not understand why (not yet, anyway).
Let's just say 'Stuff happens' and leave it at that.

You can control every aspect of your, erm, 'influenced' National Targets - what they are doing, how they spend every cent of their GDP and so on. You may be surprised how quickly things can go bad, though.
Final thing - the AI is pretty good too, and knows how to exploit the resources and does not use overkill bonuses to do so.

You'll all love it - so far Steam only, and you'll get why.
Final thing - it was developed by a couple of XCOM Modders!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1176470/Terra_Invicta/

 

[Gorbles]

Looks more similar to the Paradox games overall (big EU vibes at the very least, with all the text on the menus and long lists of things to digest). Regardless, more competition in the genre is always a good thing - great to see some folks progress from modding games to making them as well

 

[Civinator]

On September 27,2022 The_J made an announcement about that game at the CFC home page and there is the discussion thread here:

Early access: Terra Invicta, a 4X where you have to resist an alien invasion

Since Yesterday "Terra Invicta" is in early access. This is another 4X game published by Hooded Horse, who also published Old World. While still a 4X game, Terra Invicta is not turn-based, but a real time strategy game, so more similar to the Paradox Titles like Hearts of Iron or Crusader Kings...

forums.civfanatics.com

It seems at GOG that game is currently much cheaper than on steam.

 

[Angst]

I'd love to try it out.

For more classic civlike gameplay, I usually go for Old World. While it has its problems (eg performance), it's basically using the same formula as civ but fixing every problem I have with it.

 

[Kyriakos]

The gfx look way too cartoony imo.. And as Gorbles says, the maps are more of a PI type.

 

[Senethro]

Ugh, cartoony. The "floaty" of visual design complaints.

 

[Fippy]

Too expensive for early access, but could be interesting on a good full release.

 

[Zardnaar]

Heard of it could be interesting. I'll wait for full game though.

 

[TheCleanerDragon]

I don't really see the connection between this and Civ, looks a lot more like Stellaris.

 

[innonimatu]

I will not give spoilers as that spoils the fun, but suffice it to say the scope of the game is humongous - Full Earth and all it's Nations, as well as a fully exploitable Solar System and all rendered so well game-play is smooth & never suffers.
In short, it rarely crashes at this point.

I disagree. In games there is such a thing as too much.

This is civfanatics, but even the people here always have a life outside focusing on the game they're playing. Have to take breaks and come back to it later. If a computer game is too much to hold track of, it ceases being enjoyable and becomes a chore.

One of the most successful games ever was Tetris! Games are for amusement. I thing people making them sometimes lose sight of that.

 

[Tee Kay]

doesn't look anything like Civ

 

[PhroX]

I've been playing this a bit recently (I kickstarted it) and it's an interesting game so far. It's pretty feature complete for an early-access and seems to be in that state mainly for bug fixing and balancing. I do think they need to do more work on the UI though, particularly the presentation of information to the player. It's unnecessarily opaque at times, and even when information is there, it can take too many clicks to get to it.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't think Civ will stand the test of time either, fwiw
Imo full-3d isn't useful in a turn-based game.

 

[MrCynical]

I've been playing Terra Invicta a bit. Honestly it seems rather odd to describe it as a "rival" to Civ. It's not the same type of game - I'd barely even class it as a 4X. It has much more in common with Paradox's grand strategy games (not necessarily Stellaris, despite the setting).

It's a game with a lot of ambition, but it's definitely not quite there yet. In its current state the interface is irritatingly clunky, and there's serious issues with pacing. Taking even the first step into doing anything with that full solar system takes years of in game time. That wouldn't be a problem, except that there's also a mechanic where every two in game weeks, the game is forcibly paused while you have to assign a bunch of micro-managery councilor missions. And a whole bunch of pointless pop up messages to click through as the councillors tell you that yes, they're doing what you just told them to. Going through that loop dozens of times between every tiny step of expanding into space means you're looking at 10+ hours of increasingly repetitive management just to plonk down one useful module of one moon base.