Regaining lost regions?

[BuzuBuzu]

Just had a brain fart. Maybe someone suggested this before but it didn't come up in search.

Would it be possible to mod being able to regain lost regions? By having to do a number of increasingly difficult alien base missions for example (one small, one medium, and one large) in said region?

It would give another reason for players to do alien base missions.

[Nagho]

I would love if this were a possibility, but I think this is the kind of thing that will probably require source code changes unless there's something hidden deep in the corner of an xml somewhere.

I guess it all depends on whether we can find a worthy enough sacrifice to offer to Solver and Illunak.

[Solver]

I think this goes against the design and concept of the game. With X:CE, you already have time until the end of the month to rescue your relations with the continent.

[BuzuBuzu]

I agree that it would be a slightly radical departure from the game.

I haven't lost a region during play yet, but my main gripe with the mechanic is that even if you have until the end of the month to rescue a region you're still dependent on UFO's spawning there so you can shoot them down to do so. Since UFOs spawn randomly, sometimes you don't get UFO's in a particular area even though you really need them there.

The other thing is that if you're losing a regions it's probably because you don't have adequate enough coverage over it. That is likely because you're short on funds and can't afford to deploy radars/aircraft in the area. Since maintenance gets tabulated at the end of a month, there's no cost cutting measure that you can take (firing scientists and engineers, decommissioning aircraft, scrapping facilities [these do give some money back I guess] and even whole bases) that will give you more money during the month when you really need to put it to better use.

Basically, if you're losing a region it's usually a fait accompli unless you get lucky and a terror mission spawns there so you can complete it and get a big boost in funding.

I though a neat idea would be to give you the option of cutting your losses and retreating from a region to regroup and take it back at a later stage. But make the process of regaining a region extremely difficult to do (three or more alien bases to clear for example).

This would give people who don't do well or dislike the air combat portion of the game the possibility of clawing their way back from the brink instead of starting a new game. This isn't FTL where a game can take an hour. Grinding through the early part of the game to try a new strategy in a later part doesn't interest everyone.

Just a brain fart anyways, I understand not everyone's going to want to take a whiff.

[KevinHann]

I think this enabling mechanic could become viable in the future if/when enough new content is provided that goes way beyond the financial side of the game, most notably aliens using lost regions to pile further pressure on the player, unique mission types related to reclaiming lost continents, etc.

[Nagho]

It would certainly make for an interesting dynamic if when aliens took hold of a continent they would start doing all kinds of new and nasty things: ground offensives, setting up bases to act as places to launch more frequent fighter and interceptor attacks from, perhaps even if the aliens got a foothold on the ground they could start bringing in some kinds of deadly alien vehicles that they would use to launch attacks on neighboring continents to try to secure more land.

It would certainly make the game feel more like an alien invasion and less like the aliens just trying to harass Earth into submission.