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Using the Cold War geopolitical setting


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From what I understand, the '70s/'80s setting is just for flavor, but in the future could it be used to affect gameplay? For instance if you have units of mixed Western and Eastern Bloc soldiers, they may not work as well together at first. While modeling loyalty/unit cohesion might be too much, maybe it just decreases some of their stats during a mission? On a strategic level, if you undertake too many missions in one region while ignoring another, you get penalized by the neglected region; this is just like in the original X-COM, except maybe this extends to not just one geographic region (like North America or Western Europe), but all of the regions of a bloc.

And just which are the current funding nations anyway? I assumed that so far it's just NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, but it looks like Australia and New Zealand are out there too. I'm curious if China or the Non-Aligned Movement countries (especially India, Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Indonesia) could send troops as well. Or what if they're kept in the dark entirely? So if you undertake missions in their territory, their local forces might compete with you, or even fire upon you.

I know all of this adds another layer of complexity and so is probably not feasible right now, but it's interesting to think about.

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Some interesting ideas but don't you think that might be making it a bit hard? Perhaps?

I guess the idea is that humanity as a whole unites together, regardless of differences, to battle a common foe. I understand the idea of getting them to still be wary of each other, I am designing something with just that in mind, and it is a very complicated mechanic to fit in.

As for the funding nations, I do believe that the entire world is divided into rough continents, and each plays a part in funding the Xenonauts

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I definitely understand that the mechanics I'm suggesting are beyond the scope of the game, at least in its current form. I'm just wondering if the Cold War setting could be used more for intrigue. Humanity is less united at this time they they would have in the '90s.

Edited by Conrad Gray
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chris,

You've set the game in the 1970s. This makes using the cold war incredibly obvious, especially because you're not using the hyper-50s stylized feel of X-Com. Your tone looks more period-authentic, which probably makes everyone think of the cold war. It jumps out at me that you're not using it: It feels like something's missing.

What if the already ever-present threat of nuclear armageddon appeared to be a constant risk. Score poorly one month, and you'll get messages about increasing geopolitical instability. In addition to the random cropcircle and storm events, there would be random events relating to the world's political situation. Wars, assasinations, terrorist strikes, and so on. They don't really mean anything, but they are an indicator that something is wrong. Aliens could have missions designed to worsen the global situation, as well. The main point is that nuclear war could save a player from a game that's doomed to failure. When the player does worse, and worse, and worse, the odds of a nuclear exchange grow higher, effectively putting the game out of its misery.

In reality, it would simply be the game saving you from a 20 hour long death spiral. It causes no real additional complication to the game... it only seems like it does. ;) It would look to the player, however, like nuclear war was the entire point of you setting it in the 1970s. The world ended. Nuclear War. Aliens caused it.

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I think the idea is that the world bands together to fight the alien threat...

Excellent! Golden words! Such a development I like much more.

But ... Despair of the possibility of nuclear conflict intensifies the atmosphere is very fragile peace, which depends on the player. And then the heart starts to pound harder. More adrenaline in the blood spilling UUUH! Scary!

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I dont wanna soapbox too hard but still, let's try to keep this forum lean so Chris can get the most out of it fastest - when posting a suggestion try to include why you think it'd be fun or what it'd bring to the game as well, not just what seemed like an interesting idea. For me, making my soldiers arbitrarily not like each other based on random luck of who I happened to recruit, or having another way to make my game auto-end, doesn't really strike me as being fun, and they'd be complex as hell to implement.

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Aliens could have missions designed to worsen the global situation, as well.

XCOM has infiltration missions where aliens send out hybrid agents to get into high ranks of human sosiety. In XCOM this is a great danger as a number of such successful missions could end in country stopping funding XCOM project by signing a secret pact with aliens.

In Xenonauts this may result in local wars/conflicts that may include such penalties as airspace being shut off (a chance to get shot down by local forces), reduced funding due to finances being put into the war or even withdrawal from the xenonauts project at all. It can also include a purely cosmetic penalty of no longer getting soldiers of warring countries due to their required presence in local war :)

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