Game is almost impossible without boost. I'm having trouble trying to take Europe after I took the U.S and that's with an army or orgs and money backing me. Ive only just started mining Mars for resources.
"Countries closer to the equator get a bonus to boos generation" I love how every time when I wonder if the game models a certain facet of politics, economics, society or space travel, the answer is always yes.
Indeed, everything from elites working against you if you don't keep them happy to the equator being the best place to launch to solar collectors closer to the sun working better is modeled, the depth is insane
this makes me wonder for china I took over it and no matter what I seemingly did over about 20 years the population declined. For India the population just exploded after I took control. Could this be because the game simulates the aging population of china and the one child policy?
A deep dive guide on councilors and how to use them properly would be amazing, especially the missions that are not about public influence or CP's. But the ones about other factions councilors and sabotage, or orbit or alien assests. Also how loyalty works or telling if you have a compromised councilor.
A quick rough guide. Make sure you have :- 1 operative/spy maybe rebel someone who will focus on INV and ESP allowing them to crack, purge , detain , investigate councilor , steal etc 1 commando/officer or event dilpomat. Focus on CMD alowing them to secure/increase unrest , coup d'etat and assault assets. Diplomats work due to government trait. 1 tech mogul/scientist/astronaut . Focus on advising so needs ADM/CMD/SCI stick on your main country for nice boosts. Keep one of your persuasion agents for turning others agents and maintaining support , inspiring and general missions. After that it's how you want to focus but make sure you get some security for cumulative council bonus vs enemy missions and I would recommend having at least 1 criminal as their orgs are a great source of OPS income and not bad for ESP. Oh and 2 people who can inspire so they can inpsire each other.
I'd like to know how to take over space stations and moon/asteroid/planet bases. Human and alien. I haven't been able to do so myself, I'm expecting it to be hidden behind a research wall that I'm not aware of. But it may be something else..
@@kristianfagerstrom7011 Marines either via ship slots or interface orbit station. Tooltip also includes nearby habs but i have not got that to work yet. Maybe not close enough? You can also transfer a councilor to lead an assault if they have right missions.
There's no mention here of how to read your opening hand. You start with a random reputation in every country, including one handful where you'll have high reputation. In highly authoritarian nations like Iran or North Korea, this can be as high as 80% in October, basically handing you the country if you bother. You can check which nations like you in the Nations ledger (F5), then sort it by clicking your faction's logo on the left. Another thing to look for are Councillor traits like Demagogue, Fanatic or Media Darling. These stack and can double your persuasion score if you put your councillors in the right place. Demagogue for instance lets you get into India very easily.
Excellent points! This is one of the strengths of this game IMO: small, seemingly inconsequential and innocuous things like a personality trait of a councilor really can have a sort of emergent "butterfly effect" in this game.
Love your Humanity first playthrough. Especially funny is USA - given popular support there being basically only"X-COM" and "Imperium of Man" you can imagine the conversations there. "We should kill all those damned Xenos!" "Hey, hey. Moderation. Let's kill only those that come here!". On the other hand, very realistic this way 😀
the debate is not "if we should kill the aliens", its by what methods should we eradicate them, "nukes can be too dirty but kinetics don't usually get the whole job done"
@@cheeseninja1115 we need boots on the ground, wherever there is ground with aliens to dig out of. Now gimme some space marines and make an A10 that can work in space and ill show you some very dead aliens
Bro I buy this game because of the Long War peeps and then I go to the Steam forums and people are saying watch PerunGamingAU's tutorial and I come here and start listening and its the same guy doing the content covering the Ukraine conflict I've been listening to for 6 months now. Awesome.
@@georgeorwell8501 because the pope is the ruler of the papal states. not a part of italy. Pope gets to do what the pope wants to do. and as far as I can tell no system exists in the game to make him obey you.
Yeah, honestly I told the devs they need to use hyperlinks so that people can examine the tech tree. And they needed to improve its UI. They totally ignored me. Frankly atm, the tech tree is the most opaque thing in the entire game.
My Plan For now is Go For Antimatter Technology after all the aliens don't have that so getting the up hand for a Change is Good,however i Need to Retake Jupiter to that to work,Must Imagine the aliens Reaction When They See it.They Wake up a Sleeping Giant and The Giant is Angry.
Tech tree honestly hasn't bothered me at this point, simply because just like learning what resources & stats mean in game terms, you have to learn what your research values really mean and what you can do before you can make sense of any sort of tech tree - hyperlinked or not. And by the time you've understood that, the tech tree isn't incomprehensible imho. I don't expect to "win" on this first playthrough or two, so I honestly didn't even look at the tech tree until I was 4 or 5 years in because nothing on it would make much sense to me until I'd understood more about the game.
South Korea's another interesting middle power because it's easy to get. If you have North Korea, you get approx a +4 to taking CPs in South Korea because it's the only neighbour. Conveniently it also starts with a space program. New Zealand's also another small country that starts with a space program, so is good for spamming MC or Boost as well.
Taking both Koreas also gives you the option to unify them into a singular Korea (usually, South takes over North). A unified Korea is a pretty nice mid-power nation in East Asia and a natural ally to Japan and Taiwan to help keep China in check.
@@ThatPianoNoob If you can remove S. Korea's alliance with the US and somehow get China into the war, then yes, N. Korea + China can conquer South Korea.
Pretty interesting that the management cap seems to have gotten more harsh than it was in the demo. I used to gleefully run way way over my management cap and simply compensate with orgs that printed influence stacked on high persuasion councilors. This has been all but impossible in the latest release and honestly I'm here for it. Makes the early game much more about tradeoffs and much less about definitively doing well or doing poorly.
Yup. I remember in the demo having combined most of Europe into the EU fed, fully controlling Canada, US, Mexico and Russia as well as a handful of other random smaller countries around the world. Looks like that would be much, much harder now.
Another thing about France is it has Kourou, a province on the northern edge of South America. Since that is where their main launch facility is, I imagine that means they also get a pretty hefty equatorial boost to their boost production even though the main provinces are in Europe. The Benelux and British have stuff in the Caribbean, so should they get a space program they would be pretty efficient as well.
@Peter This is also the case in real life, and it’s because the Earth spins faster closer to the equator and you can use this momentum to launch stuff into orbit using less fuel.
I tried this and it works HORRIBLY. This is because France shares it's boost with the EU, which in the current version means you basically cannot use them to generate boost until you should already be well on your way to saving for the moon. (I don't believe you can leave federations like the EU until late september 2023. Just look in game. At game start on normal, France starts with half the boost of the USA, basically, but their actual boost income is about seven times smaller than it would be if they weren't in the EU and didn't have korou as a colony). Not sure if korou being a colonial region also matters, but France in my experience is a highly misleading trap. Basically, you spend all your early economic power on enriching your opposing factions who all hang out in Italy siphoning off your boost. You also cannot avoid it, because you cannot choose WHERE to build your boost, the game automatically does it in korou. I would argue if you just want a western European nation to spam direct investment boost in, you are MUCH Better off just going for England, even though England is not particularly good at it, they just aren't actively terrible, like France is.
@@timmietimmins3780 French Guyana is no detriment with respect to boost; it's all the EU siphoning it away. Colony status means it's not as useful economically, and it's why you can't build mission control there (or in the French holdings in the Pacific or Indian Oceans). As mentioned, Kazakhstan has the same issue with the Eurasian Union, and like the French the game assumes the nations federated at game start and have to wait out a 360 day cooldown before they can join a union or opt out. Big difference, however, is that Kazakhstan is a larger proportion of its federation, and so keeps a larger percentage of its boost, and it has more than twice the starting boost besides.
If you get ther 3rd cap point in India, the unity boost will translate into public opinion for whatever faction controls it. Meaning that if you're not the first one into India, you might even have an easier time later on taking over control. I had some hopes for this game, but now playing it - it's so frikkin great. There aren't a lot of good diplomacy/ subterfuge games out there and this in is so much fun. The space race, which got me interested in the first place, is just an added cherry on the top.
Looking forward to more guides. I'm still stuck in the early game. I've played 5 factions already. After controlling nations in a few years, I find myself not knowing what to do. Other factions would start going into space and I'm still planet side increasing public opinion lol
Yeah - taking nations really is only the very opening. After that you really need to get into space, and preferably be the first to the moon. Think the early space race would be worth looking at?
@@PerunGamingAU I know when I saw a lunar mining module cost 56 boost I was at a bit of a loss cause at the time it was a little more than 2 years worth of boost to me... I then got nuclear freighters and space tugs. Of course, once I got 1 mine going my boost expenses dropped massively. I don't know if I'd call it snowballing so much as a high barrier to entry. Really gotta pinch those boost pennies to get started.
@@mazazon Yeah in my first playthrough I was sending space station after space station up, and watching the other factions save up huge stockpiles of boost like "lol stupid ai"... Then we unlocked the moon, and mining, and I went "oh."
Great Guide. Think I can add public opinion can help when taking over countries. Combined with controlling points in and around the country I found it the most determining factor at the beginning for chances to get into a country. Remember persuasion is the skill used in taking control and pushing public opinion, cracking an enemy control point and stealing it are diffrent skills. Don't forget you can abandon the nations you don't need - and still controll it until somone else takes it.
Just a minor add , you may want to hold onto Mexico if you have a criminal agent. It is one of the countries that has a good few criminal orgs specific to it. Like other country specifc ones these come with a good stack of cash OPS , ESP , INF and SEC.
@@monkian its kind of fucked up how Lebanon isn't even represented as a nation on the geomap but you can still acquire Hezbollah, a paramilitary group from the south of Lebanon lmao. still a great game though.
Definitely looking forward to more guides! Been watching your series and started playing yesterday. Quite a bit overwhelmed but definitely looking forward to getting better. My vote is for early tech guide next.
Perun, I am continuously impressed by your videos...and your mind! I especially appreciate the entertainment value you add to your playthroughs, and am thoroughly enjoying your Humanity First run. As for future guides, I would definitely appreciate one about optimizing economies. It's clear you have a firm grasp of that aspect of the game and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Very informative video, covered all the major nations & power blocks I was considering to open with, except for Brazil. Already started watching the Humanity First (USA) playthrough EP 01 during my Hurricane Ian downtime, and download the rest for offline viewing for when my internet goes down. Looking forward to playing in the EA period of this game!
When playing as more humanitarian factions I sometimes end up with councilors like early scientists who can't be used for much except bad control nation rolls. In that scenario I like running around and picking up a bunch of "broken" 3rd world countries and immediately giving them up when I hit the control point cap. That let's me give the governments a tip on what they can do to get their country under control and start fixing it. Since the countries are worth so little in the early game they often stay under my "guidance" for a while even while under crackdown. Its fun, I might get a salvageable nation out of it later, and it makes me feel like I'm doing my best to make the world a better place. And honestly the cost is literally 0 if you don't have a good advise country for that councilor yet or haven't been able to get them orgs for more mission types.
OK, how about playing an Africa-focused game? They're worth little individually, but presumably you can get a lot of them, right? No nukes and no armies, so I supposed you'd need _some_ other nation. But would it be possible to build them up over time, or would some other faction just take them from you, after awhile? I just like the idea of doing that. And yeah, I prefer playing games as a humanitarian, anyway. :)
@@Bill_Garthright There are some techs that let you unify some of the African nations, so that is a possible mid-game strategy. The main thing you lack there are armies/nukes for defense and boost income, which you need to find a fix for or you’ll fall behind in the space race.
@@LasertechStudios3142 Thanks. That sounds interesting. Once I start playing the game myself (I'd like to wait until it's out of early access, but I don't know if I can), maybe I'll look for a nation which can give me a little of that without using up a ton of control points. We'll see. I know this isn't the optimal way to play the game.
@@aclassicguardsman946 Thanks. I decided to give it a try, and yes, that's the first nation I took. Otherwise, it's all been African nations south of the Sahara. Israel has one nuke and one army, which is good. And it's the only nation I have which can get boost and mission control right away. On the other hand, its economy isn't much, and there's a lot of unrest. But then, that's why it's so cheap, with only two control points. We'll see. I don't think it's going to work out very well, but this is just an experiment, anyway - and my first attempt at the game.
Good guide. In one of your videos, you mentioned doing an episode about ships. I, at least, could really use that. I just barely got my first few ships up, but really have no idea what the tradeoffs of the various technologies are, which ones are worth developing and using and which aren't, etc. So a space ship guide would be the #1 thing I'd love to see.
Started watching your playthrough yesterday morning, having never seen the game. Decided to buy it that evening and before I know it it's 2 am and I've got to get up at 6 in time to get the kids off to Kindy 😬
Thank you so much for the great content. I wouldn't have been able to figure out this AMAZING game without your help. I don't know which one of your channels I enjoy more, the gaming or the really insightful breakdowns of the military industrial complex. It must take a lot of work to generate both at the same time, thank you.
@@iaroslavagapov2671 I think the aliens need a rebalance because it's hard for me to think in a si-fi setting that any species can be on the planet in ten years. The fleet I built is never good enough because the A.I keeps taking over my stations for no reason. The marines need to be more effective and the fleet building needs to be better.
@@desertdude8274 well my main complain is that there's nothing really to do as a project exodus in the late game. You don't need to fight aliens(aside for exotics needed to buils interstellar launch facility) and you just sit there and wait until your technologies are researched
Just got this game, happened to do the USA strat on my first playthough after spending a few years on the tutorial. I guess it's all downhill from there lol. Still learned a LOT, great video man!
Another great video! Many of those points were fairly obvious in my opinion. I would really be interested in how 1) point distribution should be optimised in a nation and 2) how you can make it with a bad start (e.g. Africa challenge)
I always go for Africa after the EU. It takes a while to get down the tech tree to the point where you can unite the different sections in Africa. I’ve managed to form the Ivory Coast federation and merg it but that was over 7 years into my play through
@@rhyssmith4218 Yeah same here! I tried to rush for the unification techs but they're so much more expensive when compared to other techs at the same level. Great States tech was like 10k when other techs were around 2k
I'm definitely interested in an Africa game - I mean, when I finally get around to installing and playing Terra Invicta. It doesn't really sound like a winning strategy, but it still might be fun. Maybe I'll have to play on 'Easy' difficulty?
Hey, thanks for all your content about terra invicta (and thanks to yt algorithm, even introducing it to me) .. Just want to add few tips for others on opening.. I tried several opening around asia and settled that best start is taking : 1. India early - its hard to take over early if other faction take it first so i go for it first, taking countries that are adjacent to china too (pakistan, myanmar, himalayan states) and only to lock it down (not taking executive control points) for other factions. AI have hard time influencing china without india, if i let ai take india, it will start taking china soon too.. 2. Then i go for Rusia, transforming it into Euroasia with Kazakhstan (and Belarus when spare CP), conquering other claims - rusia is capable of taking its claims easily with little bit of advise from command councilor.. Its rather easy to contest over Russia with much smaller GDP and pop count than over India. Rusia will be millitary focused only. Also It has cheap tech for claims over east half of europe - warsaw pact - to grow even more 3. With rusia and india under my control, AI will take long time to control china, while i have easy time, first i build up popularity there (popularity gives A LOT of influence, and china with india is nearly half of the world in pop count) and then as i slowly (but with focus on it) build up CP i also start taking over china.. I tried going for china fast with small countries around it like perun shows, later even with Russia. With academy, so i used their big popularity from start. But It was always too slow to take over, took too much time, money and influence with many failed tries. In my last and best try with resistance so without any initial popularity even, i have full control over India, euroasia (not fully annexed - want to build up mission control around it first when got spare CP) and 4 control points in china at start of 2025 (its little bit under 300 CP in total) I was a bit unlucky as academy managed to get 2 control points there during 2024 - somehow they got 25 ADM / 18 PER councilor very soon so they started rolling their luck even without any popularity there :D.. India is at 500 science and growing fast, Russian military stopped being soviet tech and china is almost fixed up on inequality and ready to be developed. Btw (SPOILER) Perun does not mention it, but china has nasty event (every run) of corrupt generals, ruining you government (0.5), inequality (1) and military score (0.5 or 0.2, not sure), taking away more then year of overall development. But it can have different outcome, just ruining your government (0.5) and military (0.1) .. I got worst outcome 80% of time, maybe just bad luck. Anyway one more reason why opening up in my order and not going for china directly. Rely on china only is very slow start.
Brother Perun. A guide on spacecrafts and tech tree. I'm at the point where aliens are definitely coming and I need to arm myself to defend my space assets. But it's crazy complex to build ships. I understand that there's basically a choice for every resource and you may want to focus on building stuff you can pay for but I noticed there's for example two kinds of thrusters that use hydrogen and their stats are entirely different.
I can't wait until someone somewhere does an Africa Saves the World playthrough. At the moment, African nations don't seem to good for very much (in game), so confining yourself to that continent seems like a "fun" challenge.
Kinda just stumbled on this channel when looking for Tarra Invicta videos, and was confused as to why your voice was so familiar. Didn't know you had a gaming channel, Perun :P
Thank you for the very knowledgeable break downs, perks, strategic info video! I will be sure to leave a thumbs up on steam because its a really great strategy complex game that not many gamers can easily accomplish in a small time period. Thanks for the video.
‘Proon’. Ok. I thought it was ‘Perrin’. I came as a recent subscriber from your war analysis channel. So you have just about sold me on this game just by existing.
@@GrapeFlavoredAntifreeze Well, it's Perun. If you don't know about him, he gained a meteoritic fame from the start of the Ukraine war by making 50-70 minutes long powerpoint presentations about the war and all its aspects, and later videos about the economics and organisational aspects of waging a war, building or maintaining a military. And he's really good at it, but by his standards, 33 minutes is a real effort to remain concise
After emerging from my hole with playing this lovely game and looking for other takes, I find you via the finally useful this time algorithm. I personally never considered the US or China as an "opening" nation since you can generally leave them until you start unlocking the cp increases and level up your councilors, but I guess that's because I like the full 8 faction experience so all those neighbors and the like tend to be hotly contested. I view the nations in terms of phases, since even the toughest nut (i.e. a full Servant China in my opinion) can be cracked, especially if you don't mind a little nuclear winter. In fact, you may want to intentionally damage the world economy with a convenient apocalypse since you can control more places that way.... In any case, I like how you don't mess around and are very clear and easy to understand. I'm quite interested to see how your take on managing this game goes.
I think a quick follow-up video to this one would be to address how to boost up your Control Point cap (to grab further nations) as well as getting into formables (like East African Federation) and Balkanizing options (breaking up China or the US, perhaps?).
You are looking for two global social techs - Great Empires for formables and Fall of Empires to break apart larger ones. There are also other ones like the reforming the Warsam Pact one that grant additional claims. Speaking of claims, it is critical to understand when a nation can, and cannot annex another. By default, if you win a war you will simply gain control of all CPs in that nation, giving you control but also taking up CP cap. However, if one of the attacking nations has claims on the defender, (like russia with Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine etc.), then they will annex and absorb that nation. Certain techs will allow you to get claims for certain nations.
@@erdalguclu I’m aware of the techs and the fundamentals but I was asking more along the lines of picking nations up for what forms from them (picking up Tanzania and its neighbors to form EAF, for example). Or getting Taiwan, Balkanizing China into the warlord cliques and then sniping those into a re-unified China under Taiwanese rule…
Forgot one thing when talking about India. Unionize with Pakistan ASAP, +2 nukes and +1 army for a total of 5, means you can tackle China, even in an armed conflict.
Perun, you should add one thing about EU, because of the way the game deals with mission control, boost, build army and build navy is different from how it calculates the other investiments ( population doesn t matter as much for those I talked above ), EU don t need to rush to be formed, instead it s perfect to juice armies, boost and mission control, quite generally in a EU game just on earth I easily get above 100 mission control before the first alien invasion, so even if it has it s problems as a opener, if you hold France Hostage, and open with another superpower, you are set for flawless game. Example, with EU and USA the aliens got surprised that I had 20 armies to thrown at their heads from the get go, killed without losing any armies.
I have found that if you are playing the servants going with low priority and low investment countries in africa and the middle east is actually a decent strategy, you don't really need to get off earth as quickly as the others and can take your time to build MC and boost and primarily work on establishing the alien presence on earth itself while doing your best to hinder the opponents ability to make it to orbit, plus you will have a bunch of country actions you can do to rapidly level councilors. You end up using the techs to split up larger nations a LOT in that style of gameplay meaning you are forcing your opponents to hold more nations thereby stretching their control score, it's a very different way to play.
Good guide, I pranked myself by startin in the south east asia area, and burning time on states like Myanmar and Laos, now I've slowly shifted to aus, nz, can, mexico, and I'm making a play for the US, but man did I fall behind. Hopefully, I can catch up and make progress when I start trying to do mergers, and consolidate what I have, who knows. Anyway great guide.
What's so hilarious is that I legitimately followed "take Canada, then Mexico, then the US" before I even watched this video. It just seemed like the right choice at the time hahah.
Perun thanks for the video,Seriously you are better that the game tutorial,The Irony Through i started watching you because of you takes on the military and now i watching for games tutorial lol
I was thinking that this game would be even more awesome as a 'humanity goes into space' game with no aliens distractions to distort and detract from that concept. Perhaps mods might make that happen in the future?
Heh, heh. It's funny, but that's kind of how I feel. I mean, I love the idea of aliens. But what sounds fun for me is just taking control of nations on Earth and improving the lives of the people living there - boosting economics, research, civil rights, etc. Nuking my enemies just doesn't interest me as much. :)
@@Bill_Garthright Unfortunately Aliens are necessary in the universe of Terra Invicta because their arrival is what springs Factions into action and ppl of Earth into heavily industrialising space. Unless there is another event that can push humanity into space No-Aliens playthrough doesn't seem plausible form story perspective or forcing a singular faction like Exodus with "Earth is dying we need to escape"
@@Noxiefy Sure, I agree. Although I remember a book - _Boundary_ by Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor - where a massive space race on Earth resulted from the discovery of high-tech alien ruins on Mars and elsewhere in the solar system. It was the promise of high technology that did it, not the risk that aliens would attack (just the risk that someone else would get it first). That wouldn't be quite the same thing, of course, but it created the same kind of scramble into space. I like the idea of all of this. I'm just not particularly interested in fighting battles. Designing warships simply doesn't interest me as much as the other stuff in the game. But that's OK. There's enough there that _does_ interest me, certainly. (And I haven't gotten to the warships part, anyway - not yet - so who knows?)
Great guide! My first playthrough just puttering around I decided to take the US. I pushed Russia out of Ukraine, nuked Moscow about a dozen times, and then learned you can nuke your own territory when Russia nuked Moscow to destroy my army besieging the already charred remains.
Thanks for this guide! I'm doing it wrong in my first cinematic/tutorial game. Going to free ukraine and then see if I can pivot to actually doing my job. What a gem, absoulte classic. I'm 15, it's 2am, I'm picking a new base in the alps for my sneaky xenomorph exterminators. I'm scared. I didn't think anything would ever make me feel that way again.
Been waiting for this! I'm also trying to decide on my first hire seeing as one of my two starting counselors is trash. What's a good rating for a stat? Which stats are most important? Do I recruit entirely for Admin and Influence? Should I be hiring for resource generation? Or action options?
Influence in the early game - you can take 0 loyalty politicans, since you’ll be shoving them off the council soon enough. After nations stabilize (2024 ish), switch your focus to one or two Influence councilors who are loyal to a fault, preferably with one having good Admin as a secondary stat. Then you’ll want one “cleaner” who can get their hands dirty, do the assassinations, gather intel on or lock down enemy councilors. And for your 4th slot, you can do whatever really. A desk-slave with high admin and Science is good if you did a superpower opening. Or you can have a flex-role councilor that can do it all, just poorly. Its really up to you.
New Zealand feels like another decent MC grab - two CP, relatively small economy (~6 points a month), but pre-established space program. I pick it up decently often. You could use it for boost, but it's pretty far from the equator.
It's also good to keep synergy in mind. For example: if you go for the EU, you will get tons of science but not all that much money. If you get Saudi Arabia, you can not only compensate the funding but also use the science from the EU to discover the Caliphate. The Caliphate's claims span a massive area. Integrating all those nations would be difficult - unless you're allied to the EU and have high mil armies to fight the wars for you. Bonus points if you also put Russia into the EU - now you have two supermassive meganations that are almost impossible for your opponents to get into and you control a big chunk of the world's population while eventually also having enough CP left to grab even more real estate.
In my first game (as the Resistance) I started with the EU, Russia and Kazakhstan, which led to the AI grabbing the US and China and I just couldn't get a hold on them... but then for some reason the other factions bombarded each other with dozens of coups, unrest and control flips which got me into both nations by the mid-game and let me secure all super-powers, crippling the other factions heavily. The only downside was that all the troubles the two countries went through absolutely wrecked their stats. The US was down to "Totalitarism (0)", lost over half its GDP, Inequality was at extreme and Cohesion down to fractured. Still managed to stitch the country back together and made it at least the 3nd best power economically after the Greater EU (that also absorbed Russia) and China. Was my top supplier of nukes and military though and got my other nations all the power to expand and wreck the Aliens. :D Soon I will start an Academy playthrough and I plan to focus on Japan, China and eventually all the East-Asian Great Nations-shenanigans.
You should update these :) Some other nations which are worth noting - Indonesia and Brazil which are kind of a pocket india. The middle East - Gulf States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - These are big boost generators with either population or high per capita income and resource areas.
Russia should be considered a superpower more than France, as it can confederate with other nations in their alliance and has many more clams, when you unlock Warsaw pact. In my play through I hold Russia with all its allies confederate under it, China and Japan, playing as the Project Exodus, not one of other faction has dared to challenge me all game and this my first real play through I ever played.
You know the more I hear how the economic system works the more fun I think it would be to do an Initiative run centered on taking populated equatorial Nations. Boost their economies to the moon and beyond.
A fun game I’m doing is a Japan then India game but the resistance managed to secure India so I switched to a Russia-Japan game from all the public opinion boost. Once I got Russia it wasn’t hard to annex all the core territories. One thing I don’t get is annexing territories can lower your tech level so Russia went from a 3.98 to a low 3.7 from annexing all the stans and Eastern European nations. Plus the high Japan research allowed me to control one of the global research focuses and I could push for the forward Russia focus
How feasible do you reckon an Africa playthrough is? I'm thinking it could be a fun challenge taking Africa and confederating it where possible while also going to space.
You'd need to rush some of the sociology techs to unlock the East African Federation and make that your base of operations, then continue down that path until you research Great Nations for the African Union.
can factions work together? some factions to sound like they would not absolutely go out of their way to fight each other. Defend earth defensively or attack aliens offensively seems somewhat compatible, for a time at least. Is there diplomacy between the factions like non aggression pacts?
I only know a little bit from watching Perun’s humanity first play through, but at the very least I have seen diplomacy screens that include non aggression pacts.
Yes totally, if you’re playing as the resistance then a faction like humanity first, as long as they aren’t impeding on territory you want, is better to make friends with than enemies, because their goal is to fight the aliens just like you.
The Eurasian Economic Union is a real thing. It started with specific customs treaties with Belarus and Kazakhstan but became a fully integrated economic zone like the EU in 2015.
I get China by taking Singapore for spoils then taking all non-rival surrounding countries I can. The spoils give money for full public campaigns to make it easier. China has more long term potential overall if you stack percentage boosts for development.
I did not realize who I had clicked on, then I started hearing this oddly familiar voice, but there was no PowerPoint slide. It kinda freaked me out. But its all good now. Good luck shadow govermenting all!
I turned Saudi into a money factory, producing over 300 funding PER MONTH. More than USA. I just put 65% funding into 'funding' and now it pays for all my space assets. Love it.
Dude backed them on Kickstarter for a sufficiently high amount. I've also recognized the Templin Institute, and seen others that I am _almost_ certain must be other backers.
that is a lot of knowledge i did not have for my first game. :D In my first run i managed to took over russia, and parts+government of the USA aswell as scandinavia later on, renew the warsaw pact, made russia great again etc. The academy was pretty friendly, made deals and stuff, and the servants took over germany and the UK. so ... they were annoying, i killed some of their councilors and they gone to war. The academy had china, and suddently germany developed a nuke. China asked his allies the USA and Russia to go to war against germany, humanity first took over the UK, had robot armies and started to invade random countries in middle and south america, so we attacked germany and just before we took the capital they launched a nuke and all of a sudden ... china stopped the war, allied with germany and when i checked, i dont know how, not with an army, the servants took over whole china ... started to march towards russia whos poor armies were bound fighting in europe. So ... russia had to nuke stuff ... Long story short, china, the US, india somehow got involved and russia nearly shot all their nukes on each other and now i am setteling in africa ... very interesting game so far. I expect the aliens to win. :D
Got France, Italy and Russia, all defended and in my control. Suddenly all of them get cracked out of nowhere. This game is going to drive me insane.. :)
That might have been because you were playing as the academy ( which is considered to be hardest faction ) . Since the academy wants to be equals with the Aliens , when alien military bases are detected people loose hope that the aliens will treat humanity as equals and align more towards extremist values causing all your control points to be cracked out and loose a ton of support
Someday I'll get this game and make mega-Sweden, probably by pretending the EU is the Swedish Union. When I do I'll be sure to reference this and upcoming guides. Until then I will enjoy this playthrough.
Thanks you Peru for starting making this guides, the game Really seams cool but the UI is already some what intimidating and complicated. Also, any opportunity for Victoria 3 content?
My first game, I took over the UK first, then France, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Sweeden and Portugal. This managed to get me to mars and have 3 bases there before anyone else.
Totally forget Perun has a gaming channel... Hopefully, he can teach us more about everything related to war from strategy to the economy through video games.
So... did you know you are an Organization in the game? Not a huge surprise that the guys making the most complex political science simulator I have ever seen in a game are a fan of your chanel...
I imagine as people get more familiar with this game videos like "Terra Invicta Finland Only Challenge" will start to appear.
Game is almost impossible without boost. I'm having trouble trying to take Europe after I took the U.S and that's with an army or orgs and money backing me. Ive only just started mining Mars for resources.
@@desertdude8274 you can get boost from orgs, or even try to develop a space program in Finland!!
Greece into Byzantium Empire, or Italy reforming the Roman Empire...
"Countries closer to the equator get a bonus to boos generation"
I love how every time when I wonder if the game models a certain facet of politics, economics, society or space travel, the answer is always yes.
Indeed, everything from elites working against you if you don't keep them happy to the equator being the best place to launch to solar collectors closer to the sun working better is modeled, the depth is insane
what is boos?
this makes me wonder for china I took over it and no matter what I seemingly did over about 20 years the population declined. For India the population just exploded after I took control. Could this be because the game simulates the aging population of china and the one child policy?
@@ThatPianoNoob boost is your factions ability to launch rockets and materials into space
Sounds spooky.
A deep dive guide on councilors and how to use them properly would be amazing, especially the missions that are not about public influence or CP's. But the ones about other factions councilors and sabotage, or orbit or alien assests. Also how loyalty works or telling if you have a compromised councilor.
Holy fuck I'm glad someone has the issue of not knowing how to properly utilize councilors past the early nation grabbing
A quick rough guide. Make sure you have :-
1 operative/spy maybe rebel someone who will focus on INV and ESP allowing them to crack, purge , detain , investigate councilor , steal etc
1 commando/officer or event dilpomat. Focus on CMD alowing them to secure/increase unrest , coup d'etat and assault assets. Diplomats work due to government trait.
1 tech mogul/scientist/astronaut . Focus on advising so needs ADM/CMD/SCI stick on your main country for nice boosts.
Keep one of your persuasion agents for turning others agents and maintaining support , inspiring and general missions.
After that it's how you want to focus but make sure you get some security for cumulative council bonus vs enemy missions and I would recommend having at least 1 criminal as their orgs are a great source of OPS income and not bad for ESP. Oh and 2 people who can inspire so they can inpsire each other.
Soemone else* oops
I'd like to know how to take over space stations and moon/asteroid/planet bases. Human and alien. I haven't been able to do so myself, I'm expecting it to be hidden behind a research wall that I'm not aware of. But it may be something else..
@@kristianfagerstrom7011 Marines either via ship slots or interface orbit station. Tooltip also includes nearby habs but i have not got that to work yet. Maybe not close enough?
You can also transfer a councilor to lead an assault if they have right missions.
There's no mention here of how to read your opening hand. You start with a random reputation in every country, including one handful where you'll have high reputation. In highly authoritarian nations like Iran or North Korea, this can be as high as 80% in October, basically handing you the country if you bother. You can check which nations like you in the Nations ledger (F5), then sort it by clicking your faction's logo on the left.
Another thing to look for are Councillor traits like Demagogue, Fanatic or Media Darling. These stack and can double your persuasion score if you put your councillors in the right place. Demagogue for instance lets you get into India very easily.
Excellent points! This is one of the strengths of this game IMO: small, seemingly inconsequential and innocuous things like a personality trait of a councilor really can have a sort of emergent "butterfly effect" in this game.
Love your Humanity first playthrough. Especially funny is USA - given popular support there being basically only"X-COM" and "Imperium of Man" you can imagine the conversations there. "We should kill all those damned Xenos!" "Hey, hey. Moderation. Let's kill only those that come here!". On the other hand, very realistic this way 😀
Figures the USA would still have an anti Mexican policy I meannnnnn alien policy. Ya alien
"A rifle behind every blade of grass."
the debate is not "if we should kill the aliens", its by what methods should we eradicate them, "nukes can be too dirty but kinetics don't usually get the whole job done"
@@duralumin594 an orion drive behind every blade of grass...
@@cheeseninja1115 we need boots on the ground, wherever there is ground with aliens to dig out of. Now gimme some space marines and make an A10 that can work in space and ill show you some very dead aliens
Bro I buy this game because of the Long War peeps and then I go to the Steam forums and people are saying watch PerunGamingAU's tutorial and I come here and start listening and its the same guy doing the content covering the Ukraine conflict I've been listening to for 6 months now.
Awesome.
Oh, yeah. I was watching Perun's game videos long before Russia invaded Ukraine. Well, maybe not the _first_ time. :)
Note : some nations have "events" that boost their popularity with certain factions if you control them. Can help.
I still can’t figure out why the pope will endorse another faction despite my control of Italy’s CPs and highest faction popularity in the nation.
@@georgeorwell8501 Maybe he's an alien collaborator
Does Queen Elizabeth II reveal herself as a space lizard and boost Servants in UK?
@@georgeorwell8501 Sounds like you need to remove and replace him to me.
@@georgeorwell8501 because the pope is the ruler of the papal states. not a part of italy. Pope gets to do what the pope wants to do. and as far as I can tell no system exists in the game to make him obey you.
Tech tree guide would be a godsend. It's basically impossible to make any plans with it unless you got several playthroughs already
Yeah, honestly I told the devs they need to use hyperlinks so that people can examine the tech tree. And they needed to improve its UI.
They totally ignored me. Frankly atm, the tech tree is the most opaque thing in the entire game.
@@pax6833 well everybody told them the last 12 months. Hyperlinking is some effort but just a visual tree not that much.
My Plan For now is Go For Antimatter Technology after all the aliens don't have that so getting the up hand for a Change is Good,however i Need to Retake Jupiter to that to work,Must Imagine the aliens Reaction When They See it.They Wake up a Sleeping Giant and The Giant is Angry.
Tech tree honestly hasn't bothered me at this point, simply because just like learning what resources & stats mean in game terms, you have to learn what your research values really mean and what you can do before you can make sense of any sort of tech tree - hyperlinked or not. And by the time you've understood that, the tech tree isn't incomprehensible imho. I don't expect to "win" on this first playthrough or two, so I honestly didn't even look at the tech tree until I was 4 or 5 years in because nothing on it would make much sense to me until I'd understood more about the game.
@@pax6833 Did you give clear examples on how to improve the UI? Because "you need to improve your UI" is too vague.
South Korea's another interesting middle power because it's easy to get. If you have North Korea, you get approx a +4 to taking CPs in South Korea because it's the only neighbour. Conveniently it also starts with a space program. New Zealand's also another small country that starts with a space program, so is good for spamming MC or Boost as well.
Taking both Koreas also gives you the option to unify them into a singular Korea (usually, South takes over North).
A unified Korea is a pretty nice mid-power nation in East Asia and a natural ally to Japan and Taiwan to help keep China in check.
Kiwis have a space program? That's very ambitious for a flightless bird.
@@zanaduz2018 so.. it is possible for north korea to take over south korea?
@@ThatPianoNoob If you can remove S. Korea's alliance with the US and somehow get China into the war, then yes, N. Korea + China can conquer South Korea.
@@sammiller6631 Rocket Lab has a launch complex on the North Island
Pretty interesting that the management cap seems to have gotten more harsh than it was in the demo. I used to gleefully run way way over my management cap and simply compensate with orgs that printed influence stacked on high persuasion councilors. This has been all but impossible in the latest release and honestly I'm here for it. Makes the early game much more about tradeoffs and much less about definitively doing well or doing poorly.
Yup. I remember in the demo having combined most of Europe into the EU fed, fully controlling Canada, US, Mexico and Russia as well as a handful of other random smaller countries around the world. Looks like that would be much, much harder now.
Another thing about France is it has Kourou, a province on the northern edge of South America. Since that is where their main launch facility is, I imagine that means they also get a pretty hefty equatorial boost to their boost production even though the main provinces are in Europe. The Benelux and British have stuff in the Caribbean, so should they get a space program they would be pretty efficient as well.
@Peter This is also the case in real life, and it’s because the Earth spins faster closer to the equator and you can use this momentum to launch stuff into orbit using less fuel.
I tried this and it works HORRIBLY. This is because France shares it's boost with the EU, which in the current version means you basically cannot use them to generate boost until you should already be well on your way to saving for the moon. (I don't believe you can leave federations like the EU until late september 2023. Just look in game. At game start on normal, France starts with half the boost of the USA, basically, but their actual boost income is about seven times smaller than it would be if they weren't in the EU and didn't have korou as a colony). Not sure if korou being a colonial region also matters, but France in my experience is a highly misleading trap. Basically, you spend all your early economic power on enriching your opposing factions who all hang out in Italy siphoning off your boost.
You also cannot avoid it, because you cannot choose WHERE to build your boost, the game automatically does it in korou. I would argue if you just want a western European nation to spam direct investment boost in, you are MUCH Better off just going for England, even though England is not particularly good at it, they just aren't actively terrible, like France is.
@@timmietimmins3780 French Guyana is no detriment with respect to boost; it's all the EU siphoning it away. Colony status means it's not as useful economically, and it's why you can't build mission control there (or in the French holdings in the Pacific or Indian Oceans).
As mentioned, Kazakhstan has the same issue with the Eurasian Union, and like the French the game assumes the nations federated at game start and have to wait out a 360 day cooldown before they can join a union or opt out. Big difference, however, is that Kazakhstan is a larger proportion of its federation, and so keeps a larger percentage of its boost, and it has more than twice the starting boost besides.
If you get ther 3rd cap point in India, the unity boost will translate into public opinion for whatever faction controls it. Meaning that if you're not the first one into India, you might even have an easier time later on taking over control.
I had some hopes for this game, but now playing it - it's so frikkin great. There aren't a lot of good diplomacy/ subterfuge games out there and this in is so much fun. The space race, which got me interested in the first place, is just an added cherry on the top.
I enjoy your slideshows. Im looking forward to joining you on this journey to improve my ability at Terra Invicta!
Looking forward to more guides. I'm still stuck in the early game.
I've played 5 factions already. After controlling nations in a few years, I find myself not knowing what to do. Other factions would start going into space and I'm still planet side increasing public opinion lol
Yeah - taking nations really is only the very opening. After that you really need to get into space, and preferably be the first to the moon.
Think the early space race would be worth looking at?
@@PerunGamingAU I know when I saw a lunar mining module cost 56 boost I was at a bit of a loss cause at the time it was a little more than 2 years worth of boost to me... I then got nuclear freighters and space tugs.
Of course, once I got 1 mine going my boost expenses dropped massively. I don't know if I'd call it snowballing so much as a high barrier to entry. Really gotta pinch those boost pennies to get started.
@@mazazon Yeah in my first playthrough I was sending space station after space station up, and watching the other factions save up huge stockpiles of boost like "lol stupid ai"... Then we unlocked the moon, and mining, and I went "oh."
Great Guide. Think I can add public opinion can help when taking over countries. Combined with controlling points in and around the country I found it the most determining factor at the beginning for chances to get into a country. Remember persuasion is the skill used in taking control and pushing public opinion, cracking an enemy control point and stealing it are diffrent skills. Don't forget you can abandon the nations you don't need - and still controll it until somone else takes it.
Just a minor add , you may want to hold onto Mexico if you have a criminal agent. It is one of the countries that has a good few criminal orgs specific to it. Like other country specifc ones these come with a good stack of cash OPS , ESP , INF and SEC.
criminal orgs in mexico? Well I am just glad that this game is about a fictional scenario..
@@ThatPianoNoob You can even have a few Tango orgs as well , In sha'Allah.
@@monkian its kind of fucked up how Lebanon isn't even represented as a nation on the geomap but you can still acquire Hezbollah, a paramilitary group from the south of Lebanon lmao. still a great game though.
Definitely looking forward to more guides! Been watching your series and started playing yesterday. Quite a bit overwhelmed but definitely looking forward to getting better.
My vote is for early tech guide next.
L
Perun, I am continuously impressed by your videos...and your mind! I especially appreciate the entertainment value you add to your playthroughs, and am thoroughly enjoying your Humanity First run. As for future guides, I would definitely appreciate one about optimizing economies. It's clear you have a firm grasp of that aspect of the game and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
His Humanity last Russia playthrough on his main channel is depressing as hell though.
Very informative video, covered all the major nations & power blocks I was considering to open with, except for Brazil. Already started watching the Humanity First (USA) playthrough EP 01 during my Hurricane Ian downtime, and download the rest for offline viewing for when my internet goes down. Looking forward to playing in the EA period of this game!
When playing as more humanitarian factions I sometimes end up with councilors like early scientists who can't be used for much except bad control nation rolls. In that scenario I like running around and picking up a bunch of "broken" 3rd world countries and immediately giving them up when I hit the control point cap. That let's me give the governments a tip on what they can do to get their country under control and start fixing it. Since the countries are worth so little in the early game they often stay under my "guidance" for a while even while under crackdown.
Its fun, I might get a salvageable nation out of it later, and it makes me feel like I'm doing my best to make the world a better place. And honestly the cost is literally 0 if you don't have a good advise country for that councilor yet or haven't been able to get them orgs for more mission types.
OK, how about playing an Africa-focused game? They're worth little individually, but presumably you can get a lot of them, right? No nukes and no armies, so I supposed you'd need _some_ other nation. But would it be possible to build them up over time, or would some other faction just take them from you, after awhile?
I just like the idea of doing that. And yeah, I prefer playing games as a humanitarian, anyway. :)
@@Bill_Garthright There are some techs that let you unify some of the African nations, so that is a possible mid-game strategy. The main thing you lack there are armies/nukes for defense and boost income, which you need to find a fix for or you’ll fall behind in the space race.
@@LasertechStudios3142
Thanks. That sounds interesting. Once I start playing the game myself (I'd like to wait until it's out of early access, but I don't know if I can), maybe I'll look for a nation which can give me a little of that without using up a ton of control points. We'll see. I know this isn't the optimal way to play the game.
@@Bill_Garthright
Israel might be a good shout for that.
@@aclassicguardsman946
Thanks. I decided to give it a try, and yes, that's the first nation I took. Otherwise, it's all been African nations south of the Sahara.
Israel has one nuke and one army, which is good. And it's the only nation I have which can get boost and mission control right away. On the other hand, its economy isn't much, and there's a lot of unrest. But then, that's why it's so cheap, with only two control points.
We'll see. I don't think it's going to work out very well, but this is just an experiment, anyway - and my first attempt at the game.
Good guide. In one of your videos, you mentioned doing an episode about ships. I, at least, could really use that. I just barely got my first few ships up, but really have no idea what the tradeoffs of the various technologies are, which ones are worth developing and using and which aren't, etc. So a space ship guide would be the #1 thing I'd love to see.
Started watching your playthrough yesterday morning, having never seen the game. Decided to buy it that evening and before I know it it's 2 am and I've got to get up at 6 in time to get the kids off to Kindy 😬
damn it Perun, you got me hooked onthis series, WHERE IS THE NEXT PART
Thank you so much for the great content. I wouldn't have been able to figure out this AMAZING game without your help. I don't know which one of your channels I enjoy more, the gaming or the really insightful breakdowns of the military industrial complex. It must take a lot of work to generate both at the same time, thank you.
_It must take a lot of work to generate both at the same time_
No kidding! I have to wonder if Perun ever sleeps! :)
Early game is definitely a struggle. This helps a lot, thank you.
I spent more effort taking America than needed. But I'm catching up by mining on Mars.
Well and late game is definitely borong, especially as project exodus
@@iaroslavagapov2671 I think the aliens need a rebalance because it's hard for me to think in a si-fi setting that any species can be on the planet in ten years. The fleet I built is never good enough because the A.I keeps taking over my stations for no reason. The marines need to be more effective and the fleet building needs to be better.
@@desertdude8274 I didn't realize I needed a hab structure for probes, I got america and am soooo behind even still..
@@desertdude8274 well my main complain is that there's nothing really to do as a project exodus in the late game. You don't need to fight aliens(aside for exotics needed to buils interstellar launch facility) and you just sit there and wait until your technologies are researched
Just got this game, happened to do the USA strat on my first playthough after spending a few years on the tutorial. I guess it's all downhill from there lol. Still learned a LOT, great video man!
Another great video! Many of those points were fairly obvious in my opinion. I would really be interested in how 1) point distribution should be optimised in a nation and 2) how you can make it with a bad start (e.g. Africa challenge)
i've been playing games like this since i was 17 and none of this was obvious to me.
I did not realize until now that you are Perun of military analysis and ingame org fame. This makes so much sense now.
I was trying to place his voice on the Steam page playthrough. It was minute before I placed it.
"Operation whatever freedom" literally crying laughing
Oh please do a Africa playthrough. I've been trying to make it work with the Initiative like 5 times now and I refuse to give up!
I always go for Africa after the EU. It takes a while to get down the tech tree to the point where you can unite the different sections in Africa. I’ve managed to form the Ivory Coast federation and merg it but that was over 7 years into my play through
@@rhyssmith4218 Yeah same here! I tried to rush for the unification techs but they're so much more expensive when compared to other techs at the same level. Great States tech was like 10k when other techs were around 2k
I'm definitely interested in an Africa game - I mean, when I finally get around to installing and playing Terra Invicta. It doesn't really sound like a winning strategy, but it still might be fun. Maybe I'll have to play on 'Easy' difficulty?
When I play the initiative, it's always support in countries that are war torn like Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq.
oh boy, you have a gaming channel, and you are covering TI ... subbed!
I just purchased TI solely based on watching you play as Humanity First. The dev better up your pay my man. Well done.
Hey, thanks for all your content about terra invicta (and thanks to yt algorithm, even introducing it to me) ..
Just want to add few tips for others on opening.. I tried several opening around asia and settled that best start is taking :
1. India early - its hard to take over early if other faction take it first so i go for it first, taking countries that are adjacent to china too (pakistan, myanmar, himalayan states) and only to lock it down (not taking executive control points) for other factions. AI have hard time influencing china without india, if i let ai take india, it will start taking china soon too..
2. Then i go for Rusia, transforming it into Euroasia with Kazakhstan (and Belarus when spare CP), conquering other claims - rusia is capable of taking its claims easily with little bit of advise from command councilor.. Its rather easy to contest over Russia with much smaller GDP and pop count than over India. Rusia will be millitary focused only. Also It has cheap tech for claims over east half of europe - warsaw pact - to grow even more
3. With rusia and india under my control, AI will take long time to control china, while i have easy time, first i build up popularity there (popularity gives A LOT of influence, and china with india is nearly half of the world in pop count) and then as i slowly (but with focus on it) build up CP i also start taking over china..
I tried going for china fast with small countries around it like perun shows, later even with Russia. With academy, so i used their big popularity from start. But It was always too slow to take over, took too much time, money and influence with many failed tries.
In my last and best try with resistance so without any initial popularity even, i have full control over India, euroasia (not fully annexed - want to build up mission control around it first when got spare CP) and 4 control points in china at start of 2025 (its little bit under 300 CP in total) I was a bit unlucky as academy managed to get 2 control points there during 2024 - somehow they got 25 ADM / 18 PER councilor very soon so they started rolling their luck even without any popularity there :D.. India is at 500 science and growing fast, Russian military stopped being soviet tech and china is almost fixed up on inequality and ready to be developed.
Btw (SPOILER) Perun does not mention it, but china has nasty event (every run) of corrupt generals, ruining you government (0.5), inequality (1) and military score (0.5 or 0.2, not sure), taking away more then year of overall development. But it can have different outcome, just ruining your government (0.5) and military (0.1) .. I got worst outcome 80% of time, maybe just bad luck. Anyway one more reason why opening up in my order and not going for china directly. Rely on china only is very slow start.
Hell yeah right as I wake up... Time to learn about stuff
Ahhh I was waiting for the playthrough
The neighbour CP bonus seems to apply overseas as well. I got the bonus from the Netherlands and France when expanding into the UK.
While France is adjacent to the UK, Benelux isn't. And while there is a boost for controlling larger allies, Benelux is smaller than the UK.
@@boobah5643 You still get the bonus. That was the whole point I made.
It's a federation thing, not physically connected thing. I'm sure you could get italy and get a bonus for uk
Brother Perun. A guide on spacecrafts and tech tree. I'm at the point where aliens are definitely coming and I need to arm myself to defend my space assets. But it's crazy complex to build ships. I understand that there's basically a choice for every resource and you may want to focus on building stuff you can pay for but I noticed there's for example two kinds of thrusters that use hydrogen and their stats are entirely different.
I can't wait until someone somewhere does an Africa Saves the World playthrough. At the moment, African nations don't seem to good for very much (in game), so confining yourself to that continent seems like a "fun" challenge.
What a fantastic video! Very well done and put together. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this.
HM, ()
Kinda just stumbled on this channel when looking for Tarra Invicta videos, and was confused as to why your voice was so familiar.
Didn't know you had a gaming channel, Perun :P
Thank you for the very knowledgeable break downs, perks, strategic info video! I will be sure to leave a thumbs up on steam because its a really great strategy complex game that not many gamers can easily accomplish in a small time period. Thanks for the video.
thx a lot. i enjoyed your first series about the game and look forward to much more^^
‘Proon’. Ok. I thought it was ‘Perrin’. I came as a recent subscriber from your war analysis channel. So you have just about sold me on this game just by existing.
Planning on starting a playthrough over a long weekend, very helpful! Now wondering if my experience in the demo was influenced by starting in the US
over long weekends* one will get you to mid game lol
A quick guide...33 min...i love it and look foward to more guides.
Yep, say hi to Perun style
@@samarkand1585 I mean if you think about his explanation it is a quick guide, this game is just insane lmao
@@GrapeFlavoredAntifreeze Well, it's Perun. If you don't know about him, he gained a meteoritic fame from the start of the Ukraine war by making 50-70 minutes long powerpoint presentations about the war and all its aspects, and later videos about the economics and organisational aspects of waging a war, building or maintaining a military. And he's really good at it, but by his standards, 33 minutes is a real effort to remain concise
@@samarkand1585 I didn’t not know that, where can I go to watch those presentations?
@@GrapeFlavoredAntifreeze just search for 'Perun'
After emerging from my hole with playing this lovely game and looking for other takes, I find you via the finally useful this time algorithm. I personally never considered the US or China as an "opening" nation since you can generally leave them until you start unlocking the cp increases and level up your councilors, but I guess that's because I like the full 8 faction experience so all those neighbors and the like tend to be hotly contested. I view the nations in terms of phases, since even the toughest nut (i.e. a full Servant China in my opinion) can be cracked, especially if you don't mind a little nuclear winter. In fact, you may want to intentionally damage the world economy with a convenient apocalypse since you can control more places that way....
In any case, I like how you don't mess around and are very clear and easy to understand. I'm quite interested to see how your take on managing this game goes.
I think a quick follow-up video to this one would be to address how to boost up your Control Point cap (to grab further nations) as well as getting into formables (like East African Federation) and Balkanizing options (breaking up China or the US, perhaps?).
You are looking for two global social techs - Great Empires for formables and Fall of Empires to break apart larger ones. There are also other ones like the reforming the Warsam Pact one that grant additional claims.
Speaking of claims, it is critical to understand when a nation can, and cannot annex another. By default, if you win a war you will simply gain control of all CPs in that nation, giving you control but also taking up CP cap. However, if one of the attacking nations has claims on the defender, (like russia with Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine etc.), then they will annex and absorb that nation. Certain techs will allow you to get claims for certain nations.
@@erdalguclu I’m aware of the techs and the fundamentals but I was asking more along the lines of picking nations up for what forms from them (picking up Tanzania and its neighbors to form EAF, for example). Or getting Taiwan, Balkanizing China into the warlord cliques and then sniping those into a re-unified China under Taiwanese rule…
Gosh, please do the Africa challange, i would love to see that
Forgot one thing when talking about India.
Unionize with Pakistan ASAP, +2 nukes and +1 army for a total of 5, means you can tackle China, even in an armed conflict.
Perun, you should add one thing about EU, because of the way the game deals with mission control, boost, build army and build navy is different from how it calculates the other investiments ( population doesn t matter as much for those I talked above ), EU don t need to rush to be formed, instead it s perfect to juice armies, boost and mission control, quite generally in a EU game just on earth I easily get above 100 mission control before the first alien invasion, so even if it has it s problems as a opener, if you hold France Hostage, and open with another superpower, you are set for flawless game. Example, with EU and USA the aliens got surprised that I had 20 armies to thrown at their heads from the get go, killed without losing any armies.
Great guide, just to thing i'm looking for to learn this game. Hope you do more small countries, regions and more strategies for those countries too
I have found that if you are playing the servants going with low priority and low investment countries in africa and the middle east is actually a decent strategy, you don't really need to get off earth as quickly as the others and can take your time to build MC and boost and primarily work on establishing the alien presence on earth itself while doing your best to hinder the opponents ability to make it to orbit, plus you will have a bunch of country actions you can do to rapidly level councilors. You end up using the techs to split up larger nations a LOT in that style of gameplay meaning you are forcing your opponents to hold more nations thereby stretching their control score, it's a very different way to play.
This was a greeat idea. id love to se more tips and strategy tips like this.
North Korea: "What is my purpose?"
"You pass nukes."
North Korea: "Oh my god."
Love your HF content! You are an org by the way! Owned by none other than HF in my Initiative game!
Good guide, I pranked myself by startin in the south east asia area, and burning time on states like Myanmar and Laos, now I've slowly shifted to aus, nz, can, mexico, and I'm making a play for the US, but man did I fall behind. Hopefully, I can catch up and make progress when I start trying to do mergers, and consolidate what I have, who knows. Anyway great guide.
What's so hilarious is that I legitimately followed "take Canada, then Mexico, then the US" before I even watched this video. It just seemed like the right choice at the time hahah.
it's uncanny how this video would fit a power point presentation. You should consider it!
Now Ukraines terrorists kill more piople in Russian sity Red Leeman. USA sponsered terrorists in Ukraine
Perun thanks for the video,Seriously you are better that the game tutorial,The Irony Through i started watching you because of you takes on the military and now i watching for games tutorial lol
I was thinking that this game would be even more awesome as a 'humanity goes into space' game with no aliens distractions to distort and detract from that concept. Perhaps mods might make that happen in the future?
Heh, heh. It's funny, but that's kind of how I feel. I mean, I love the idea of aliens. But what sounds fun for me is just taking control of nations on Earth and improving the lives of the people living there - boosting economics, research, civil rights, etc.
Nuking my enemies just doesn't interest me as much. :)
@@Bill_Garthright Unfortunately Aliens are necessary in the universe of Terra Invicta because their arrival is what springs Factions into action and ppl of Earth into heavily industrialising space. Unless there is another event that can push humanity into space No-Aliens playthrough doesn't seem plausible form story perspective or forcing a singular faction like Exodus with "Earth is dying we need to escape"
@@Noxiefy
Sure, I agree. Although I remember a book - _Boundary_ by Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor - where a massive space race on Earth resulted from the discovery of high-tech alien ruins on Mars and elsewhere in the solar system. It was the promise of high technology that did it, not the risk that aliens would attack (just the risk that someone else would get it first).
That wouldn't be quite the same thing, of course, but it created the same kind of scramble into space.
I like the idea of all of this. I'm just not particularly interested in fighting battles. Designing warships simply doesn't interest me as much as the other stuff in the game. But that's OK. There's enough there that _does_ interest me, certainly. (And I haven't gotten to the warships part, anyway - not yet - so who knows?)
Great guide! My first playthrough just puttering around I decided to take the US. I pushed Russia out of Ukraine, nuked Moscow about a dozen times, and then learned you can nuke your own territory when Russia nuked Moscow to destroy my army besieging the already charred remains.
Thanks for this guide! I'm doing it wrong in my first cinematic/tutorial game. Going to free ukraine and then see if I can pivot to actually doing my job. What a gem, absoulte classic. I'm 15, it's 2am, I'm picking a new base in the alps for my sneaky xenomorph exterminators. I'm scared. I didn't think anything would ever make me feel that way again.
Been waiting for this! I'm also trying to decide on my first hire seeing as one of my two starting counselors is trash. What's a good rating for a stat? Which stats are most important? Do I recruit entirely for Admin and Influence? Should I be hiring for resource generation? Or action options?
at the start you deftly want good influence. a least 2 with a 7 is good.
Influence in the early game - you can take 0 loyalty politicans, since you’ll be shoving them off the council soon enough. After nations stabilize (2024 ish), switch your focus to one or two Influence councilors who are loyal to a fault, preferably with one having good Admin as a secondary stat. Then you’ll want one “cleaner” who can get their hands dirty, do the assassinations, gather intel on or lock down enemy councilors. And for your 4th slot, you can do whatever really. A desk-slave with high admin and Science is good if you did a superpower opening. Or you can have a flex-role councilor that can do it all, just poorly. Its really up to you.
New Zealand feels like another decent MC grab - two CP, relatively small economy (~6 points a month), but pre-established space program. I pick it up decently often. You could use it for boost, but it's pretty far from the equator.
It's also good to keep synergy in mind. For example: if you go for the EU, you will get tons of science but not all that much money. If you get Saudi Arabia, you can not only compensate the funding but also use the science from the EU to discover the Caliphate. The Caliphate's claims span a massive area. Integrating all those nations would be difficult - unless you're allied to the EU and have high mil armies to fight the wars for you.
Bonus points if you also put Russia into the EU - now you have two supermassive meganations that are almost impossible for your opponents to get into and you control a big chunk of the world's population while eventually also having enough CP left to grab even more real estate.
Great guide, looking forward to the next part of Humanity First.
PLEASE keep making these.
In my first game (as the Resistance) I started with the EU, Russia and Kazakhstan, which led to the AI grabbing the US and China and I just couldn't get a hold on them... but then for some reason the other factions bombarded each other with dozens of coups, unrest and control flips which got me into both nations by the mid-game and let me secure all super-powers, crippling the other factions heavily. The only downside was that all the troubles the two countries went through absolutely wrecked their stats. The US was down to "Totalitarism (0)", lost over half its GDP, Inequality was at extreme and Cohesion down to fractured. Still managed to stitch the country back together and made it at least the 3nd best power economically after the Greater EU (that also absorbed Russia) and China. Was my top supplier of nukes and military though and got my other nations all the power to expand and wreck the Aliens. :D
Soon I will start an Academy playthrough and I plan to focus on Japan, China and eventually all the East-Asian Great Nations-shenanigans.
You should update these :) Some other nations which are worth noting - Indonesia and Brazil which are kind of a pocket india. The middle East - Gulf States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - These are big boost generators with either population or high per capita income and resource areas.
Russia should be considered a superpower more than France, as it can confederate with other nations in their alliance and has many more clams, when you unlock Warsaw pact. In my play through I hold Russia with all its allies confederate under it, China and Japan, playing as the Project Exodus, not one of other faction has dared to challenge me all game and this my first real play through I ever played.
"A quick guide" said perun, uploading a 32 min video.
Not that I'm complaining!
Just started the game and this guide is very helpfull !
You know the more I hear how the economic system works the more fun I think it would be to do an Initiative run centered on taking populated equatorial Nations. Boost their economies to the moon and beyond.
Guides! Yes! This is wonderful!
A fun game I’m doing is a Japan then India game but the resistance managed to secure India so I switched to a Russia-Japan game from all the public opinion boost. Once I got Russia it wasn’t hard to annex all the core territories. One thing I don’t get is annexing territories can lower your tech level so Russia went from a 3.98 to a low 3.7 from annexing all the stans and Eastern European nations. Plus the high Japan research allowed me to control one of the global research focuses and I could push for the forward Russia focus
cool explanations! thoroughly, but entertaining and interesting, thank you!
How feasible do you reckon an Africa playthrough is? I'm thinking it could be a fun challenge taking Africa and confederating it where possible while also going to space.
You'd need to rush some of the sociology techs to unlock the East African Federation and make that your base of operations, then continue down that path until you research Great Nations for the African Union.
@@CantusTropus Thank you!
can factions work together? some factions to sound like they would not absolutely go out of their way to fight each other. Defend earth defensively or attack aliens offensively seems somewhat compatible, for a time at least. Is there diplomacy between the factions like non aggression pacts?
I only know a little bit from watching Perun’s humanity first play through, but at the very least I have seen diplomacy screens that include non aggression pacts.
Yes totally, if you’re playing as the resistance then a faction like humanity first, as long as they aren’t impeding on territory you want, is better to make friends with than enemies, because their goal is to fight the aliens just like you.
The Eurasian Economic Union is a real thing. It started with specific customs treaties with Belarus and Kazakhstan but became a fully integrated economic zone like the EU in 2015.
I get China by taking Singapore for spoils then taking all non-rival surrounding countries I can. The spoils give money for full public campaigns to make it easier. China has more long term potential overall if you stack percentage boosts for development.
24:34 Certified "rules for rulers" behaviour right here
I did not realize who I had clicked on, then I started hearing this oddly familiar voice, but there was no PowerPoint slide. It kinda freaked me out. But its all good now.
Good luck shadow govermenting all!
I turned Saudi into a money factory, producing over 300 funding PER MONTH. More than USA.
I just put 65% funding into 'funding' and now it pays for all my space assets. Love it.
“What makes me, uh… a good demo man?”
Perun points at my country, Brazil, "... The Meh nations..." never was i so offended by something I think is absolutely true XD
Nice, that they named an organization Perun, located in Sydney.
Dude backed them on Kickstarter for a sufficiently high amount. I've also recognized the Templin Institute, and seen others that I am _almost_ certain must be other backers.
Australia also starts with 40 points invested in a Navy
So far this game looks like a love child between Stellaris and XCOM
that is a lot of knowledge i did not have for my first game. :D
In my first run i managed to took over russia, and parts+government of the USA aswell as scandinavia later on, renew the warsaw pact, made russia great again etc.
The academy was pretty friendly, made deals and stuff, and the servants took over germany and the UK. so ... they were annoying, i killed some of their councilors and they gone to war.
The academy had china, and suddently germany developed a nuke. China asked his allies the USA and Russia to go to war against germany, humanity first took over the UK, had robot armies and started to invade random countries in middle and south america, so we attacked germany and just before we took the capital they launched a nuke and all of a sudden ...
china stopped the war, allied with germany and when i checked, i dont know how, not with an army, the servants took over whole china ... started to march towards russia whos poor armies were bound fighting in europe. So ... russia had to nuke stuff ...
Long story short, china, the US, india somehow got involved and russia nearly shot all their nukes on each other and now i am setteling in africa ...
very interesting game so far. I expect the aliens to win. :D
Got France, Italy and Russia, all defended and in my control. Suddenly all of them get cracked out of nowhere. This game is going to drive me insane.. :)
There are a couple of things that could cause that. did you have defend interests active and are there aliens active?
That might have been because you were playing as the academy ( which is considered to be hardest faction ) . Since the academy wants to be equals with the Aliens , when alien military bases are detected people loose hope that the aliens will treat humanity as equals and align more towards extremist values causing all your control points to be cracked out and loose a ton of support
@@razorback8300 Ah.. that would explain it 🤔 Thanks for the info!
@@PerunAU Nope all fully defended and protected, but the other comment informed me it might be because im playing academy 😄
@@FarsightAE no problem !
Very Informative guide
Someday I'll get this game and make mega-Sweden, probably by pretending the EU is the Swedish Union. When I do I'll be sure to reference this and upcoming guides. Until then I will enjoy this playthrough.
the video we needed not the one we wanted
Thanks you Peru for starting making this guides, the game Really seams cool but the UI is already some what intimidating and complicated.
Also, any opportunity for Victoria 3 content?
Awesome video!
I just wish you'd continue your playthrough. Maybe only do a tutorial video once a week?
My first game, I took over the UK first, then France, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Sweeden and Portugal. This managed to get me to mars and have 3 bases there before anyone else.
Question, what are the affects of a nation holding unclaimed territory, such as EU unifying with Russia and gaining Siberia territory?
Totally forget Perun has a gaming channel... Hopefully, he can teach us more about everything related to war from strategy to the economy through video games.
So... did you know you are an Organization in the game?
Not a huge surprise that the guys making the most complex political science simulator I have ever seen in a game are a fan of your chanel...