Pact Recovery through base destruction.

[Talonos]

Prior to one of the patches (1.1, I think?) it was possible to "recover" from alien pacts. I'm not sure what the mechanism was. The fact that it was removed in later patches makes me think perhaps it was a bug. But if I were to implement such an option, I would make it so destruction of the base that was built at the end of the infiltration mission "frees" the country from alien control, perhaps with some penalty (such as funding resuming at half the normal starting rate).

Would this be hard to implement? If not, perhaps it could be one of those options in the "advanced" menu? (Alongside other rules such as alien containment limits, etc.)

Thoughts?

[Shoes]

I believe it wouldn't be too hard to add. When a base gets destroyed, and if there are no other bases in the country, then funding resumes. This would allow people to play for extremely long times, which may be against the spirit of the game.

I am too busy with my mod stuff to really look closely though

[Danny]

Well the countries signing a pact were convinced by the aliens to join them.

Maybe you should be able to send diplomats in order to convince them back with very low chance of success, when you get Psionic diplomats it becomes easier. ^^

[kharille]

I suppose, its easy to fail and lose a country.  Ought to be hard to reverse that.  I had weird ideas of a more difficult multi level mission but nah...  Maybe an xcom assassination mission in an urban area with lots of 'humans' ...  men in black with plasma....  Somehow resembles the new 2012 version....

Oh, remember they said that aliens disguised as humans infiltrated?  So what about using the human model, and using some green blooded corpse, or something like an inside out floater or something... 

Of all the aliens, maybe the muton is the closest humanoid to humans, all their infiltrators probably look like 'fat men'....

[Solarius Scorch]

While I'm not a big fan of recovering from a secret pact with aliens, I would be happy to see some additional layer of missions regarding broadly understood diplomacy. I've always wanted a covert operation against alien supporters: no armour allowed and you can only take pistols/knives.

[Talonos]

Ah, see, this is all really cool, but I was going for ease of implementation...

Back when I was young and was playing the unpatched version, I didn't know what made countries come back after the pact, but I figured it was linked to the destruction of the base that was built. In my mind, I had justified my theory by assuming that the alien pact was partially based on psionic coercion. Destroying the base (which I assumed had some giant psi-amp or something) weakened that psionic coercion, and the leaders of the country would "come to their senses" and rejoin the project as a natural consequence of the destruction of the base.

Being able to rescue countries would make the game longer, indeed, but my proposal to apply a funding "penalty" mitigates it somewhat. Because funding changes due to good performance are based on a percentage of the current funding, if you start the funding again at half the level of the starting funding, it will take several months of good performance to even restore the country to the point it was at at the start of the game. You would have to baby the country back to full participation. It would be a helpful increase in income over *no* funding, but you will probably never get as much funding as you once did from that country. It also means you wouldn't have to store the prior level of funding anywhere, simplifying implementation.

Besides; I make most of my late game funding from laser cannon manufacture and sale anyway. I mostly want to rescue countries to feel like a good guy. They could come back at a tenth normal funding for all I care. I just want to save India from the aliens. 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Actually, I meant to ask the core question here - IS it supposed to be possible to recover countries that have signed pacts.  I've always seen RUMORS that it can be done but never seen anyone post anywhere ever that they actually had succeeded in doing it, so I've always questioned whether it was even possible.  So IS there code in the game to allow it or is it all just bugs and delusion?

[moriarty]

AFAIK signing a pact is final, and I seem to remember warboy saying that somewhere - I think he knows the original code best.

still, I also like the idea of winning countries back, but it should be really really hard, something like ten alien bases in that country with really tough opposition that you need to wipe out within a month (and you don't get the goodies when you win, because you cannot do a recovery operation in enemy territory - just so this doesn't get exploited).

maybe a mod could make this possible...

[Talonos]

Actually, I meant to ask the core question here - IS it supposed to be possible to recover countries that have signed pacts.

In prepatched version, it is possible. I have done it. I have a screenshot (and saved game) to prove it. Even the UFOpaedia wiki (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Pact) mentions that it was previously possible. However, because later patches kept you from recovering from pacts, the mechanism by which pacts are nullified remains unexplored, because nobody cares. I had always assumed it had something to do with the destruction of the base, but perhaps it was just a memory management bug or something.

Are you *supposed* to be able to? No, I suppose. Patched versions prevented you from doing so. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was an unintended bug, perhaps the mechanism was buggy in other ways, so they removed it as a "partially implemented feature", or perhaps it was a conscious decision made for balance purposes. Whatever it was, it is something I miss (having never played a patched version until this month.) I suppose what I'm asking here is akin to begging about skyranger windows; perhaps it was never meant to be, but I considered it a valuable feature and thought I'd at least ask. If implemented, it should be a config option. Many people seem attached to permanently losing countries.

You guys are on a feature freeze, right? Does that mean that if I download the source code, by some miracle am competent enough to understand it, and submit a patch, it will not be included until after 1.0? (I'm more of a java guy than a C++ guy, and have never worked on a codebase this large before, but if nobody but me cares, I could at least give it a shot.)

Edit: As for the rumors, I think they started because unpatched people reported it, and they were never confirmed because the people who confirm rumors are also the people responsible enough to test with a patched, up-to-date game.

[yrizoud]

Gaining back countries is one of those features that needs explanatory text. Then it needs to be translated in all the supported languages.

[Shoes]

You guys are on a feature freeze, right? Does that mean that if I download the source code, by some miracle am competent enough to understand it, and submit a patch, it will not be included until after 1.0? (I'm more of a java guy than a C++ guy, and have never worked on a codebase this large before, but if nobody but me cares, I could at least give it a shot.)

From what I have been told, yes. If you make up an option, it would either get added to the base game, or to Warboy's War mod, which would include everyones patches. Sort of like an exapnsion pack!

[Warboy1982]

AFAIK signing a pact is final, and I seem to remember warboy saying that somewhere - I think he knows the original code best.

sadly i'm only familiar with the 1.4 sources, i have no idea what the conditions were for reversing the situation. as for speculation over why it was taken out, i'd put it down to the "ticking clock" to try to financially cripple xcom into a game-over situation in mid 2000.
personally i prefer this approach to an arbitrary "oh, look at the time, you lose" type scenario.

as an interesting side note; whether by accident or design, Russia would never sign a pact.

[KiethSomataw99]

I believe that a country should have a chance of breaking the pact with the aliens if there are no alien bases within their borders and XCOM activity is significant in that country. Having a XCOM base in that country increases that chance as well. The chance is applied each month, starting with the month in which all alien bases are removed. The message will read

"(Country's name) is quite impressed with your overall performance in combating the alien threat and has agreed to nullify the pact with the aliens and start funding the project again."

Of course, a pact being broken means an increase in funding from $0, which resulted in signing the pact in the first place.

[hszp]

There could be terror missions against hostile countries. I mean, for a change, XCom would terrorize them. Would not want to look like a bunch of ****s that anyone can mess with unpunished, right?

[Solarius Scorch]

There could be terror missions against hostile countries. I mean, for a change, XCom would terrorize them. Would not want to look like a bunch of ****s that anyone can mess with unpunished, right?

Attack military bases! Blow up enemy HWPs! Yay!