Faction System and Other Ideas

[bigjackskid]

This probably won't happen but I love the faction system in X-Com Apocalypse. Specifically, I liked that Megapol would fight UFOs as well, and that there was the Sirius cult which were sympathetic to the Aliens and openly caused problems for X-Com. I've always thought it was a bit unrealistic that Nation-States would not have their own plans in regards to alien invasion. There is an AI ally mod for XCOM 2 which I contributed the story to on Nexus. It's pretty darn neat. Basically remnant of national militaries formed a militia which both acts on their own, and in concert with XCOM. Part of this, admittedly, is my shear fascination with AI allies in games. (if any of this happens, it would be great for faction(s) to have their own technological progression so they don't become totally outgunned as the game progresses, such as a national or supranational non-Xenonaut military organization.) Further if there is something like "France wants to buy alien corpses to study" then this might effect non-Xenonaut technology in some way.

I found the alien infiltration of the government % in X-Com apocalypse to be satisfyingly creepy and worrisome.

That being said, I would like the Geoscape to be more streamlined and simpler. I remember in X1 around Israel or very close to Egypt was kind of the optimal place to put your first base. I'm hoping you guys can have some kind of gradation. As in there are pre-defined locations which you can choose from (preferably a good number) but with logic behind them. I didn't like having to worry about exact points of longitude and latitude.

So far I haven't seen a date mentioned, but I hope it's not something like 2050 AD. A 1950's date, might be very very interesting. It's nice to have some tangible real world aesthetics in a game. Near and Far future settings are really over-saturated in games today. One of the things I liked about X1 was it was set in the past, not present.

Edited February 13, 2017 by bigjackskid

[Dagar]

Hey,

X2 will also take place in the Cold War scenario. As such, factions could be as simple as the blocks of the cold war era, with some "neutral" nations having their own agendas (e.g. collaborating with the aliens to become a global player once the sovjets and the capitalists are overthrown), but there was no mention of how the cold war era would be better integrated into the game, just that this is a goal.

NGOs with own agendas surely would be cool as well.

[Ninothree]

The best bit about factions in Apocalypse was that they all contributed to a living city. They interacted to make a working economy and history. The afterblank series had factions which were more like pure classes - robots, psychics etc but they didn't have a function other than variety. My point is that factions shouldn't just be different sides (USA vs USSR), but are more interesting if they are critically different groups (covert intelligence agencies, ground/air forces, civilian paramilitaries, cultish alien-sympathisers etc)

[bigjackskid]

I think I agree with you Ninothree. I assume NATO and USSR are pretty much allies out of necessity. historically the USSR was really good (unfortunately) at infiltration, sabatoge, and spreading misinformation. But I wasn't exactly thinking of an Alliance or Nation-state faction system. I was thinking more of agencies, ground forces, and whatnot, perhaps some private military orgs.

[bigjackskid]

TRIPODS!

I would love to see Tripods, with an old school sci-fi aesthetic, not something like the 2005 Spielberg movie which was awful imo.

Here's a crazy idea. I've already suggested a 1950's start date (I would STILL LOVE THIS.) Why not October, 1938?

That was when the original Radio dramatization of the novel was broadcast by Orson Welles, causing lots of mayhem since a fair few people believed it. My grandmother passed away in 2010. She told me long before she died, she did have a vague recollection of the original broadcast!

EDIT:

Also please some epic sci fi battle music and creepy foreboding in the geoscape or before battle. Melodic is better than ambient, imo.

Edited February 16, 2017 by bigjackskid

[Chris]

I think that's too big a change from the original Xenonauts; you're talking a complete change of the setting at that point. And the factions thing is an interesting idea but I don't really think it works on a global scale, it's something that works better when you have multiple factions operating pretty much on top of each other (e.g. when they're all sharing a city). But yes, it would be nice to make the regions feel a bit more alive somehow.

[Sheepy]

I think it is quite possible to fit a simple faction system into the settings of X-2.  In the cold war era, the two superpowers have military bases all over the world, plus lesser international players like NATO and UN.  They may fit into the pawns globe.  It's not like they didn't indirectly fight each other through proxy wars.

But I feel that there is already a story being developed that make better use of the cold war background.  Not sure how factions may fit in the big picture.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Sheepy

[bigjackskid]

Alright I understand Chris.

What about Sheepy's Idea?

[Chris]

It would be interesting to give all the non USSR / USA regions have an changeable alignment to see which of the great powers they are leaning towards, and you have to balance the two superpowers against each other in terms of their geographical influence.

But the problem is there's not really any reason why the Xenonauts would control which way a region is leaning, or even what advantages you get from favouring one superpower over the other (or how the the alignment of region would affect gameplay). The upgrades in the game pretty much all come from getting hold of alien tech so I can't see having the backing of a superpower being much use.

[bigjackskid]

Alright Chris. What about a 1950s or even 30s setting? I doubt the latter would be considered but why not ask? Lastly, would you consider making a Tripod alien manned Vehicle, inspired by War of the Worlds and related aesthetics? (Preferably not based on something really modern like the tripods in Spielberg's 2005 novel.

Here some examples.

 

[Chris]

As I mentioned above, I'm not keen to move the game away from the Cold War setting because we've established a franchise and I don't think we've exhausted (or even properly used) the current time period yet.

[Ninothree]

The Cold War is infamous for one thing of relevance here: proxy wars. The US and USSR didn't directly do much fighting but they supported opposing factions within non-aligned nations. Maybe that could play into region alignment - in each region, one of the factions that the East or the West support could actually be controlled by aliens. So by fighting their proxy war, one of the major powers could be giving the aliens more ground. It is the xenonauts job to root out which factions are aliens (maybe they use clones or brainwashed humans as a front), then sabotage that faction somehow (covert strike operations). If the xenonauts are too brash then they risk retribution from the major powers, if they are too slow then the aliens take power of enough regions to begin their endgame (tripod attack )

[Dagar]

Well, let's take a step back here.

• We know the game is set in the Cold War era, meaning that the SU/USSR and the USA are the main opposing human forces.
• I think Chris wrote at one point that it is not public knowledge that there are Aliens. There are rumours about abductions and UFO sightings, but most people, including leaders of nations, do not believe in that, at least initially.
• The Aliens are here to overthrow humanity as a whole for some reason, but they are not powerful enough to do so in open warfare (a plot that is highly unlikely, but that's what it is). Instead, they try to weaken humanity with covert operations to a point where they can take over.
• Xenonauts are the only organization consistently knowing about the Alien threat and trying to prevent them from reaching their goal.

From this knowledge, there are some things that immediately come to (my) mind.

• How would the Aliens weaken us? Well, obviously, the Cold War going hot would be very efficient. Other than that, by sabotaging military equipment, replacing high ranking officers and enforcing demilitarization politics, all within the realm of covert ops.
• As such, it should be one of the strategic goals of the Xenonauts to prevent the Cold War from escalating, and thus keeping a balance of force and a pacifistic mind set in the major populace and politicians.
• With this in mind, each region could have a (public) alignment value showing where on the US-USSR spectrum their sympathy lies, and a (maybe unknown or possibly obtainable via intel missions) military readiness value condensing all the factors mentioned. Xenonauts would have to balance the first value globally, while keeping the second value as high as possible in each region or risk an alien coup there.
• Alien regions could provide them with additional infiltrator manpower and resources for their effort.

[Shoes]

Good summary Dagar. I am still not entirely on-board with the idea of the Xenonauts being a political force, but the way you structure it can make sense. How about this: instead of the aliens being a secret, what if the Xenonauts were a secret? After the first terror mission, the alignment argument would fall apart, but if it were the Xenonauts who were a shadowy illuminati force, then even when the aliens were in full invasion mode, it would make sense to run small covert missions to try and keep balance and win the war. I am reminded of both The Imitation Game, where the enigma codebreakers did not reveal they had broken the code in order to continue subverting the Germans, and X-Men First Class, where the mutants wanted to stop the Cold War without revealing themselves to public scrutiny.

[Sheepy]

1 hour ago, Shoes said:

How about this: instead of the aliens being a secret, what if the Xenonauts were a secret? After the first terror mission, the alignment argument would fall apart, but if it were the Xenonauts who were a shadowy illuminati force...

Not bad! This would also explain the low quality of the recruits, why they can't reliably shot a 7 foot tall robot at point blank range.

[Chris]

As I said, I'm all for a system that pits NATO and Warsaw Pact influence against one another. As Dagar says, we can have a setup where the following is in place:

• The aliens and the Xenonauts are both secret organisations.
• The aliens lack the power to defeat the whole planet militarily, so are trying to either covertly weaken the human militaries enough that they can do so ... or are trying to push the Cold War into a hot war (and the humans weaken each other enough that the aliens can win a war against them)
• The Xenonauts are secret at the start of the game because the aliens have enough firepower to wipe them out, assuming they can locate them. When the Xenonauts have enough power to defend themselves against the aliens, they can trigger the alien retaliation strike and remove the restrictions on their actions.

This gives three Geoscape counters:

• DEFCON counter, representing the tension between the two superpowers. Game is lost if it reaches DEFCON 0.
• Military counter, representing the combined military power of the humans relative to that of the aliens. Game is lost if it reaches zero.
• Alien alert counter, representing how much attention the aliens are putting in to locating and destroying the Xenonauts. This triggers a base attack once it hits a certain level, which ends the game if the Xenonauts lose and removes the counter if the Xenonauts win.

The only problem is the actual mechanics. Alien missions can affect the DEFCON / military counters, but if they are only affected by alien actions then the system is no more interesting than in Xenonauts 1. There needs to be some element of human politics independent of the aliens that affects these counters.

• How does the alignment of a region affect gameplay? Are there limits on the activities the Xenonauts can carry out in them depending on their alignment? Not sure that would make sense.
• How does building up a region militarily affect the DEFCON counter? If it's a straighforward increase in both counters, it's not a very interesting choice.
• What is the scope for the two superpowers to compete for influence in a certain region, and how might the Xenonauts affect that struggle? And how would it produce interesting choices for the player?

[Pave]

---
Alright, this is far too humorous to me, and I can't resist writing this: Just a fair warning, this is so heavily opposite of hard-sci-fi (I think), and I primarily write this for humour.
Also, this is super-quite-off-topical.
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Here goes (thanks a lot, "humoncomics"):

Xenonauts 2 - The Ultimate Finlandization Simulator

Play as Urho Kalevi Kekkonen, the king of Nordic Aliens, to prevent Cold War turning into a Hot one.

From his speech just before the invasion begins:
The "Extreterrials" have finally found us, and now they are driving us from this planet too. They already succeeded driving us off from the Pleiades, but this time we are more prepared.
For our look-alike-brethren do not deserve the same fate we already suffered.
Even if only for this planet, we must show these invaders they are no longer in rule / have gone too far...

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In other words, these extraterrestrials are your everyday maliceful tormentors that just lives off / on(?) the energy produced via misery until their target dies completely after which they move on to next target.

And un/fortunately to Earthlings, the Pleiadians just resemble earth-humans a lot, especially with very minimal modifications done little by little past ten-millenniums or some similar amount of time (hey, it's simply possible the ice-age was just a "cover-up").


(( Now you have a reason why the extraterrestrials do things "slow": It's all about "milking as slow as possible" by torturing for their target as long as possible (but in case of Earth, they can't tell instantly the difference between Pleiadians and Earthlings, hence they "probe"-around).))

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...Or something like that; I haven't even participated in the matriculation exams so I am fairly certain someone could write something far more inspirational (and actually "deliciously-motivational")...Or otherwise something good / better...

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(( I really have to say this was really refreshing "mini-novel" in comparison to semi-obvious "Men In Black"-things such (and for the record, the animated-series is still excellent, and I do mean really-really-good).
Also if it wasn't too obvious already, I had too much fun writing this since I am a blatant lunatic.))
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((( Yeah, I semi-apologize if I am going too far with the "Finland-talk", but I simply couldn't miss this opportunity to write under inspiration alongside publishing the writing at least somewhere. )))
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(((( *Also insert something about Tau from "Warhammer 40K" and "Karhu" and related things from "Battletech-universe / MechWarrior Dark Ages"* )))---
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But seriously though, interesting ideas so far, even the "tripods" and the other references from "War of the Worlds"

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...Still reading?
Here are couple links to those / that drawing I was semi-referencing to:
http://humon.deviantart.com/art/Aliens-Everywhere-325649606
http://humon.deviantart.com/art/Nordic-Alien-designs-533479877

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Edited February 21, 2017 by Pave

[Shoes]

4 hours ago, Sheepy said:

Not bad! This would also explain the low quality of the recruits, why they can't reliably shot a 7 foot tall robot at point blank range.

Also explains why we can't manufacture stuff for profit, lest we destabilize the super powers. 

4 hours ago, Chris said:

• How does the alignment of a region affect gameplay? Are there limits on the activities the Xenonauts can carry out in them depending on their alignment? Not sure that would make sense.
• How does building up a region militarily affect the DEFCON counter? If it's a straighforward increase in both counters, it's not a very interesting choice.
• What is the scope for the two superpowers to compete for influence in a certain region, and how might the Xenonauts affect that struggle? And how would it produce interesting choices for the player?

My thoughts: DEFCON effects: if it's low, no-fly zones appear on the Geoscape, and NPCs have a chance of being hostile; crashed UFOs could also disappear more quickly. Military Counter effects: High military counter means better equipped NPCs on missions, and better chance of knocking UFOs out of the air; maybe better radar coverage. Alien Alert Counter effects: like you said, risks of a base assault. 

DEFCON interaction: Failing Terror missions lowers the DEFCON counter. Maybe there are special missions (akin to Council Missions from XCOM2012) that also lower the DEFCON counter. Military Counter interraction: allowing UFOs to fly around the globe uncontested would reduce the military counter. In order to increase the Military Counter, the Xenonauts can share their tech secrets with the world; doing so will jump the Alien Alert Counter. Alien Alert Counter interaction: What I just said, plus Alien Base Assault missions would also increase the counter. Maybe also a passive increase as time passes, or after each successful mission.

None of this mentions faction alignment, but that might be okay. The Xenonauts wouldn't have the presence to shape the geopolitical landscape anyway, I don't think, so it's more like they're trying to undo the Alien's influence. 

[Chris]

Probably best to ignore the alien alert counter for now, actually - it's thematic and would be a nice addition to the game, but it doesn't really matter in terms of the faction / superpower system we're discussing here except giving a bit more of a lore reason why the Xenonauts are so secretive. So we'll ignore it for now.

That leaves the DEFCON counter and the Military counter ... but you need a system that makes the choice more interesting than simply looking at which counter is in the worst state and prioritizing the actions that fix that counter up. You need extra pressures pulling in different directions.

Maybe we can borrow some ideas from the DEFCON counter in the Cold War board game called Twilight Struggle, which has some neat mechanics:

• If it ever hits zero, the player that pushed it there loses.
• At the start of each turn, the DEFCON counter improves by one (various action cards etc also raise or lower it).
• Each player has to do a certain number of military actions each turn or lose victory points, and the most effective military actions tend to degrade the DEFCON counter by one.
• Each time the DEFCON counter is degraded by one, no actions at all (military or otherwise) can be performed in an additional region of the world (e.g. if the DEFCON counter has been degraded even once, you can't conduct military operations in Europe. Another level lower adds in Asia, etc)

What's interesting about that is that players will very quickly lose the game if they don't do any actions that degrade the DEFCON counter, but lowering the DEFCON counter constrains a player's non-military options. Maybe there's something we can borrow from that?

[Shoes]

It seems like the biggest issue we're running into is the fact that the Xenonauts typically run one kind of mission: UFO Assaults. I like the idea of heavy military retaliation results in a DEFCON tick, but what else can the player do? 

Here's an idea. If the Xenonauts are supposed to be secret, you would expect them to conduct missions at night. In X-1, it was always a bad idea to do that, and players hardly played at night. In regards to the DEFCON counter, doing a mission during the day would be "bad" and would degrade the counter, but doing it at night would not. Something about the public outrage of a non-governmental entity conducting military operations in their country. If more options like this can be thought of, then maybe there would be enough substance to put it in the game. I liked my idea of the no-fly zone, and maybe that can be worked in here too: the Xenonauts could choose to attack UFOs using weaker airplanes that go undetected by countries, or by bigger warships that do go detected - it's a bit of a stretch... EDIT: Maybe the use of Nuclear warheads, which can be detected by other countries, could be the "big" military ticket, and using non-nuclear is the weaker, but safer option. In that sense, getting to Alenium would reduce the DEFCON while being as strong as nuclear.

The game might have to be changed a fair amount in order to run this DEFCON idea, but at the same time this idea seems to make the most of the Cold War setting. How meta, to be faced with such an interesting decision.

[Ninothree]

I like any idea that makes use of night missions!

Had think about DEFCON - it specifically related to the US's readiness for nuclear war and more generally to their perspective on the Soviets' capability to make that first strike. So, surely it makes sense for an in-game DEFCON counter to be a function of two things: intelligence regarding what arms the enemy can use to strike and fear of how likely they are to do so.

This could relate to strategy on the geoscape by choosing which regions to protect in the air war: you have to protect Earth's military but you can't allow either side to consolidate too much force in a region because when that forces reaches some critical mass they'll build missile silos and raise the stakes of a nuclear war, moving the DEFCON counter closer to zero. Thus, you have some trade-off between the military and DEFCON counters which you influence with the way you fight the air war. Equivalently, if one side gains the alignment of regions geographically nearer the enemy's home (e.g. Cuba and the US mainland), then that adds to the fear of strike capability, so you must react accordingly to swing alignment the other way i.e. allowing the aliens to reduce the insurgent military force.

The counter could also relate to ground combat. The amount of alien tech you leave at a crash site (i.e. that you don't destroy or recover) would eventually be captured by the local forces. They'd surely do their own research into it - perhaps if they acquire enough then they could build a doomsday device (black hole generator > nukes) which would terrify the other side and lower the DEFCON counter. Consequently, your play style would have to alter with additional secondary objectives. You could have special missions dedicated to sabotaging or stealing Earth's superweapons so that the US and USSR don't blow each other up, these would be night missions (obviously), and the more lethal force you used the more it would affect the military counter. Again, a trade-off.

One more idea is that the aliens are using psychic power to influence the DEFCON counter and that you have to tackle this through a separate route of research/special missions/building specialised defences.

[Shoes]

You make some good points! Having secondary objectives in missions that influence the DEFCON or military counter is a great approach. In my version of things, the aliens would want the DEFCON counter to reach zero, so I don't think there would be missions that can be beneficially ignored, DEFCON-wise - but probably military wise. Instead, I would see the aliens wishing to destabilize the Cuba/US situation, and the Xenonauts have to intervene, lest the DEFCON counter drops. 

The psychic aspect I think is worth exploring.

[TrashMan]

I see DEFCON and military strength as opposites - the stronger the US gets, the more wary USSR would become, and vice-versa.

Obviously, you will need independent tracking of relations and military for big power blocks/countries. I can't see a simple way of doing this, if you want any depth to the system.Countreis should act differently depending on their military power, DEFCON status, relation towards another country, relation towards Xenonauts and their assessment of alien threat. Quite a few variables to track for each country.

 

What about countries that weren't part of the two blocks?

 

But what about the aliens? Are they too weak? How can the alien keep their secrecy if they fly around with UFO's and conduct terror raids? I can see no way for them to maintain secrecy for more than a few days. Why aren't they deploying the best stuff they have from the get-go?

Are they just the vanguard, preparing for the arrival of the main force? Frankly, this makes more sense to me then being secret.

 

[Shoes]

I agree that aliens won't be a hidden threat, but Xenonauts could be a hidden response. One distinction I would see for the DEFCON/Military counters could be that the Military counter would affect the DEFCON counter only if it were greater than the Alien Military Counter (not a thing, but you get the point). If a country is too capable in defending itself, then the opposing countries could get worried. This would play up the idea of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". While the superpowers both want to defeat the alien threat, each one wants to come out stronger than the other. 

I bet if someone wrote a fleshed out proposal, we could get some pretty good discussion out of it!

[Rhishisikk]

UFO: AI runs a plotline similar to this.  PHALANX (their Xenonauts) is a UN organization.  

Why aren't you better funded?  Because each nation spends the bulk of its resources defending itself.  Gain that nation's trust, and you'll get better funding (A series of ally/adversary relationships means if you are seen selling too much alien tech to one power, other powers will hate you.)  Balancing your efforts between the major powers, minor powers, and "third world" (more to prevent them from seeking alien assistance) is its own minigame, and you might just have to face that saving everyone just isn't practical or even possible.  The bones of such a mapping are easy enough to work out, especially if we keep to the cold war time period (where such things are recorded, as well as say, which nations want food or industrial works or such).

Why are you limited to so few soldiers?  Because A) each nation tends to keep its best and brightest and B) they have to pass through clearance of several nations to get to your recruiting desk.  (This also means that personnel, not just money, is a potential reward from grateful nations.)

Maybe the nations themselves aren't doing so hot.  Plagued by internal rebels armed with alien equipment, rumors of leadership under mental domination, industrial cities laid to ruin (or undergoing costly repairs) - maybe they aren't collecting as many taxes as they're used to.  Combine this with the need to house refugees, maybe treat victims of alien viruses, and otherwise keep things together in a war where anywhere can become a battlefront with only a few hours notice, and it's a miracle there's any kind of cooperation at all.

I like the idea of a Xenonauts where there has to be a decision between how much to spend on military, how much on diplomacy, and how much on repairing and eventually improving the world you're fighting to save.  One of your early-game goals could even be getting enough worldwide acknowledgement to legally operate globally under a UN charter (maybe you only get personnel and funding from your founding nations until this goal is reached).  If XNO (Xenonaut Organization) was primarily founded by collusion between the US and USSR, particular opponents could be China, Turkey/Arab Nations, African nations, and I can even see a case for Europe to be hot under the collar.

Instead of a DEFCOM tracker (or maybe in addition to), maybe you can only execute night missions or send smaller teams into nations that don't support you.  Maybe you can't enter their airspace, or (worse) have to fight border aircraft.  Maybe a nation will let you shoot down alien craft freely, but they lay full claim to the alien craft once its on the ground.

Initial proposal

- Hatred:  The nation actively opposes XNO operations in their territory, and maybe in their neighbors as well

- Dislike:  They will allow you to cross over their airspace, but not engage in hostilities and bring down alien attention upon them.

- Reluctance:  You may conduct air operations, but not ground operations.

- Neutral:  You have the standard option of letting the nation send in ground forces, and they keep the tech but compensate you for it in money.

And haven't gotten into the various stages of "we like you" and what you gain.

Again, you should have less able covert aircraft.  Maybe even ability to engage with normal aircraft, but only during night-time hours.

 

Oh, and a proposal for out-of-base facilities:  Maybe cities require food, which explains why early alien missions focus on farmland.  You have to support the cities, because those are the major sources of monetary income for a nation.  If they can't afford to fund XNO, then you're in trouble.

You also want friendly cities because as your tech advances, those are places where you can put factories, or hospitals to treat the alien plagues, or even extra research centers (for the free autopsy techs, for example).  Maybe the noncombat training proposed in another thread requires the resources of a full military base (found only in major cities).  Maybe different nations/bases specialize in different attributes, skills, or special training.  Universities for producing and training scientists.  Radar stations, aircraft refueling bases, SAM sites, and so on.  Maybe ocean salvage is only possible within a certain range of a port city.

Which begs the question of an XNO navy to go out and GET those lost alien craft.  But maybe the aliens can survive for a limited time underwater...  

Or maybe the aliens have amphibious and aquatic races as well...