Entere the alien embasy

[Solarius Scorch]

That's fine. Not entirely consistent, but what fiction is?

TBH I don't exactly see what it's inconsistent with, but it's not really important.

I'll try paying extra attention to the lore, maybe something needs a review.

The embassy mechanic was kinda convoluted.

By golly, yes it was...

My point was and is, this is not the beginning and the end of infiltration. You could just add a chance to kill infiltration if the player is able to consistently intercept and shut down infiltration missions. Then you could point e.g. ashtroboy79 to that fact, ask if he had enough air power, and say that it's his fault for not focusing on that. Even though realistically he couldn't actually have had enough, it'd give the illusion of there being a choice, and that he picked the wrong one. Not the current undertone of "Haha, so you wasted a month's worth of evenings? Just as planned!" Indeed, later on there actually would be a choice.

But it already works like that! (It should, anyway...)

Edit: Or, well, ramp up the special infiltration mission's trigger chance as the game goes on. Then it'd actually be a timer, even if it's ultimately just the timer for a bad-looking funding report.

Can be done, but honestly, I don't feel like it's worth the effort.

Alien embassy... I've just finished off STR_ALIEN_BIG_BASE -- a red square on the globe, an obsolete mission that appeared as a rudiment of Alien embassies that were thrown away, I suppose. Got Tritanium knives from it. They fall into X-COM tech category of weapons. But X-COM sees them for the first time. Also a rudiment? Not a bug?

I think the only way to obtain these knives is from MiBs. They tend to not care about rules.

[Juku121]

But it already works like that! (It should, anyway...)

Only for retaliation, not infiltration or other missions.

If that also applied to infiltration, a lot of the 'inconsistency' would go away and players would again have an actual chance to interact with the mechanic. And the reasons for losing a country would be somewhat more transparent (all them naked sectoids flying around and crashing government parties, with nary a soul thinking of the children... ).

TBH I don't exactly see what it's inconsistent with, but it's not really important.

Well, from my POV (probably from krautbernds's as well, to some degree) X-Com can thumb its nose at the Council with just score penalties several times, pulls off wildly implausible (in anything even remotely resembling RL 90s, anyway) things to shut down the four cults and monsters, and generally messes up the aliens plans a lot. I also think that regaining a lost country needs a lot more setup, but losing one just like that, no warning, no ability to do anything about it, no messages from 'friends on the Council', no nothing... Just feels off. YMMV, obviously.

Can be done, but honestly, I don't feel like it's worth the effort.

Probably true. Balancing an effective timer into a WIP project is a massive PITA.

[Solarius Scorch]

Only for retaliation, not infiltration or other missions.

Well:

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_ALIEN_INFILTRATION
    endlessInfiltration: false

This should be doing what you said, unless I just don't know what I'm talking about.

Well, from my POV (probably from krautbernds's as well, to some degree) X-Com can thumb its nose at the Council with just score penalties several times, pulls off wildly implausible (in anything even remotely resembling RL 90s, anyway) things to shut down the four cults and monsters, and generally messes up the aliens plans a lot. I also think that regaining a lost country needs a lot more setup, but losing one just like that, no warning, no ability to do anything about it, no messages from 'friends on the Council', no nothing... Just feels off. YMMV, obviously.

Like you said, YMMV. To me, these things look far more plausible, considering the backing you have. But directly influencing heads of state goes way more beyond what the Council stands for, mostly because it's not part of the "shadow war", but relatively public.

[Juku121]

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_ALIEN_INFILTRATION
    endlessInfiltration: false

This should be doing what you said...

That one just disables 'full-region' infiltration. What I meant are the 'interruptPercentage' entries in alien mission data that can completely eliminate an ongoing infiltration mission.

To me, these things look far more plausible, considering the backing you have. But directly influencing heads of state goes way more beyond what the Council stands for, mostly because it's not part of the "shadow war", but relatively public.

My view of this is that such things were and mostly still are flat out impossible, no matter the backing. Unless there actually is some kind of world government with powers exceeding even modern-day China. In which case there's no need for 'shadowing' the war, what the government says, goes.

And influencing heads of state may or may not be on the table, but the infiltration thing is mostly about messing with the alien part of it. No alien negotiators, no infiltration.

Also, I kinda liked the mission itself, no matter its background.

[Hadriex]

Wow this thread got a bit spicy at points. And I'm late to seeing it, but I still want to give my 2 cents.

I kinda feel as far as game design losing countries permanently puts more pressure on the player, consequences for failing to stop those pesky UFOs and disrupting their efforts, instead of just 'eh. whatever, I'll get it back later.' Makes it a real war.

That said, The idea of Xcom taking out alien sympathizers and placing leaders who are more 'sympathetic' to Xcom's cause doesn't strike me as unlikely. Especially with their connections and powers. Perhaps it would involve more of an investment then knocking down an embassy but it seems reasonable. Shadow wars are all about regime changes and shady shit like that. But I really do prefer 'countries leave permanently' from a gameplay perspective, though ideally with a bit more leeway for the players to counter it.


Actually I'd take it a step further, the aliens F the countries up. I mean mass alteration of the population, mind control, putting stuff in the food and water, etc. Make it clear that this country has fallen, and when the war is over it will a long and difficult process to undo what has been done to the population. The aliens didn't come all this way just to replace a few political leaders after all.


Dunno if the engine could handle it, but what if new countries joined in the funding after a certain point in the game. As the threat becomes more apparent the council brings in more people.

Or even weirder, after you make nice with leaders in shogg they start offering monthly resources (here's some gold bars you can sell). Things like that really bother the council (that don't want you to become beholden to non-human powers) but grant you some leeway as human nations fall.

[Mrvex]

Or even weirder, after you make nice with leaders in shogg they start offering monthly resources (here's some gold bars you can sell). Things like that really bother the council (that don't want you to become beholden to non-human powers) but grant you some leeway as human nations fall.

Handouts from non-council sources does actually sound really cool. I would have expected that corporations would also start funding XCOM when countries start to fall and they can see the writing on the wall that if XCOM is gone, so is Humanity. And mainly, there wont be any customers and money to be made if everyone is dead or enslaved.

MAGMA without a doubt seems to be most symphatetic towards XCOM, Shogg Kingdoms, the underwater arc created corporation (by XCOM !) could be sending some of its profits back to its daddy, Blackops and UAC could start supporting XCOM if you eliminated the Cult of Apocalypse and Syndicate. And even some secret groups like Illuminati and MJ12 could start supplying XCOM with cash.

That is, if its even possible to add new countries as corps and groups of interest that will start giving you money once you finish an arc or make a certain research. These non-countries would also give a static income and couldnt be infiltrated. This would also reward the player for finishing story arcs AND give him some sort of safety net when his biggest sources of money get infiltrated.

[Fomka]

Consider the small amount of countries' funding for X-COM compared to their Gross Domestic Products. They spend very little on X-COM. One of the reasons — it's a secret project. So yes, some corporations can fill the gap of countries fallen off together with their tiny pouches of money.

Japan right now in my game (mid 1999) spends 3,4 mln USD on X-COM, it is only 0,0000075% out of its 4562000 mln USD of GDP.