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If you proceed along that route, then in terms of game mechanics you see-saw between a mechanic being OP, and a mechanic being utterly useless, the periods of usefulness and uselessness being as long as the designers see fit. I'd prefer a mechanic that I can use consistently throughout the lifespan of the game.

Yeah an open warfare phase should be the main idea of the game. That I agree wholeheartedly. But I’m still wonder how would the game explain the slow increase in force of the aliens from a lore standpoint when the opening secret war phase doesn’t exist. Why would the aliens resort to using weak troops like ceasans and serbilians when they could just wipe us out using high tier units like androns and armored drones carried by battleships and carriers from the get go? That seems awfully merciful of them to give us time to develop our tech in the middle of an all out war don’t you think? Why wouldn’t they just nuke New York, Moscow and all large cities and be done with it? I think a more novel method of beginning the new all out war should start at the 1/3th mark, when you succeedes in repelling most of their scouting attacks and kill their first base. Then the aliens will just straight up reveal themselves by bombarding a large city as a show of force. Then the real war can begin. Of course it can be even better if the Iron Man mode will just have the war phase putting the player in the hard place right from the get go. This can complement the area bonus extremely well if done right. As in simulating the complex politics of the Cold War with two distrustful bloc fighting each other with Xenonauts in the middle having to be the mediator and the sole force of combating the alien menace. The bonus as suggested in the previous thread doesn’t really make sense in both in the gameplay and story perspective. It doesn’t show the difference between the two competing factions that is the US and USSR. I think each zones should also be split in influence to better simulate the situation with the panic meter being replaced with the DEFCON level. Taking faction related missions like assassinations, stealing tech and breaking up secret alien meet ups not only will give you huge funds, manpower and productivity bonuses but also increases that faction’s power in certain region. While taking mediator mission like protecting VIPs, destroying their beacons and killing alien tech smugglers can lower the overall DEFCON level. Weaken a faction enough and they will cooperate with the aliens and cut your funding (with you deciding to eliminate them or bring them back to the fold). With special missions like killing the US president or placing a nuke in Moscow. Areas like South America, Europe, South East Asia and Africa will be hugely contested by the power blocs. These areas can give specific faction bonuses along with the normal funding. For instance if you decide to help the Soviets in Latin America you can recruit Cuban personel with huge buffs in their medic and sniper skills. But if you help the US, the local forces would be heavily bolstered by troops from the dictatorships that they support with heavy armaments to boot! While doing both can only net you some benefit in funding and air defense.