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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Ulterior Motives (possible Add-on Or Something)


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I was reading through the thread about throwing in military and police units, and I had an idea... People were talking about being able to sell tech to the highest bidder, and it occured to me that in most cases, X-corps, even though they come in and protect civilians from alien threats, would be willing to make such a blatantly careless move on humanity as selling off potentially life-saving and generally helpful technology to whoever "Has enough cash" as a pure means of monetary gain to sustain themselves. I wonder, does X-corps have some alterior motive? Perhapse after you beat the aliens, X-corps, after adopting and learning about all of this alien tech, and keeping most of it to themselves, basically becomes the thing you were trying to destroy through the whole game. And we all know what this means... Rebellion! So, maybe there might be another half to play, where you're the remnants of humanity trying to regain earth from the clutches of X-corps? Sort of a darth vader thing... Edited by Metalfrenchtoast
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The way I feel about the economy is pretty much what you describe - first half of the game, its a monetary setup. Second half it becomes a bartering/direct trade economy. Realizing that there may be a variance with each game session between the political and therefore money available to you (as well as game difficulty its self) - X-COM's self sufficiency beomes the next logical step. Whether this economy shifts from one to the other hinges on your overall performance as rated by the other funding nations in terms of holding the monetary part of the economy together.

 

If it slips to the other side of things, survival and self sufficiency I feel can be addressed through manufacturing requests to anyone else who managed to resist the results of the political endgame. What you make if you have workshops and engineers adds to the trade element and would be the only requirement to existing in this state.

 

From a story driven perspective, the easiest explanation for the existance of resistance groups that'd form when governments fall can be directly correlated to Psi Defense values. Presumably governments that fall to alien influence is primarily about their mind powers. It also points out that every human being on the planet in this game universe inherently has a Psi Defense value of one level or another, so a resistance that forms theoretically has average or above average defense value.

 

I look at it this way - the proliferation of alien technology and anything else you make and selling/trading it out (maybe you could lease things too like craft when its still a money driven economy) is an insurance policy of sorts. While you run the risk that the occasional outside unit may or may not help you, potentially you open up strategic areas to fall back to should a base fall for instance.

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  • 3 months later...

I like the idea that if a contributing nation/s fall to alien influence that it COULD spawn a resistance group.

 

Maybe having them show up in the list of contributing nations(although they wont contribute money) and showing their area of dominance on the planet view would be a good addition.

 

Possibly having them aid you if a UFO lands/crashes in their territory or if the Aliens launch a terror attack in a city thats inside their controlling area. <_<

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not a bad thought there rip. I was thinking something else along these lines too after what you said. What if you didn't need to see an extra good guy/bad guy unit on battlescapes or geoscape all the time?

 

What I'm getting at here very simply, is taking your idea of an "area of influence" modifier of some kind, and applying it any time you have an action to take within it. All it would mean is temporary stat or action boosts while your there.

 

While it lacks eye candy potential, it does provide a benefit without unit saturation slowing us down.

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[...] X-corps have some alterior motive? Perhapse after you beat the aliens, X-corps, after adopting and learning about all of this alien tech, and keeping most of it to themselves, basically becomes the thing you were trying to destroy through the whole game. [...]

Let me say something to the root-thought here: Why not allow you to continue to play X-Corps side of this... Strategic assignments to influence world politics, maybe even discovering clone technology to exchange political leaders with men of your own...

Then again, what if everything is discovered? Are X-Corps able to withstand whole army battalions? I don't think so.

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Then again, what if everything is discovered? Are X-Corps able to withstand whole army battalions? I don't think so.

 

Completion of the entire tech tree while you play is one area I'm conflicted about. Some games let you achieve this, others only allow for several branches but not the entire tree due to outside influences like dealing with other races. Anyway, its largely dependent on how in depth a tech tree would be vs what each branch is meant to provide vs other factors (among them whether you could win without having done a particular branch).

 

Cloning as you pointed out, is an interesting thing the old game touched on, but had no practical value for you while you played that could be resurrected in various ways. It certainly sounds great as a political tool, with some nations in support and others not that help determine who funds you for it.

 

While I can envision nations revoking funding because of an action or inaction as well as for political reasons, it doesn't make too much sense they'd go to war with you if they hadn't yet signed any sort of pact against you. I could see interferences on the battlefield every so often, but I couldn't imagine a nation's army could root out your bases without alien help.

 

That being said I think that just highlights other potential avenues for a richer tech tree along the lines of preventative measures without omitting a plausible scenario of armies facing off before that point.

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Then again, what if everything is discovered? Are X-Corps able to withstand whole army battalions? I don't think so.

Completion of the entire tech tree while you play [...]

Sorry, I think you might've got me wrong. What if X-Corps' evil plans are discoverd? What if the countries suddenly realize that they are infiltrated by X-Corps controlled clones. What if they discover that X-Corps wants to dominate the worls (for the greater good of all mankind of course.. ;) ). How will the world react? I say, they will send entire battalions to root out any and all X-Corps resistance. And how will they deal with that? Is it even possible? So, is it a good idea to incorporate such a game modus, or will it be just unrealistic?

 

As for the Tech-tree: I'm not against "linear" Techtrees (because I don't see why you shouldn't be able to reasearch everything in time), but I would opt for "preferred research lines" with bonus for "your" techline (like let's say "energy weapons" and penalties for "alien" (as in: not your special area) techlines / technologies. That could even be subdivided using a bit micromanagement, so you are a "energy weapon"-guy, but your lab in Antarctica nevertheless is quite qood in projectile weapons, whereas your euopean lab is specialized in Alien Plasma technologies and it's applications. But I guess, though fascinating, this is waaaay off-topic here... ;)

 

 

Edit: Btw, I took the liberty in changing the topic title to fix the typo... :)

Edited by Mad
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Edit: Btw, I took the liberty in changing the topic title to fix the typo...

 

Then I shall do it with yours :P

 

... X-Corps wants to dominate the world (for the greater good...

 

It would be fun to play as a country against X-Corp AND the aliens. If X-corp is killing aliens in terrorized city, let em be. Or player can do the killing to steal the alien tech before X-corps arrives. Even storm into X-Corps bases to steal technologies. Maybe player can be some underground rebel groups as well. Or if play as a country, then managing political issues so that X-Corps don't find out would be fun too.

Edited by gu35s
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Edit: Btw, I took the liberty in changing the topic title to fix the typo...

 

Then I shall do it with yours :P

 

... X-Corps wants to dominate the world (for the greater good...

 

It would be fun to play as a country against X-Corp AND the aliens. If X-corp is killing aliens in terrorized city, let em be. Or player can do the killing to steal the alien tech before X-corps arrives. Even storm into X-Corps bases to steal technologies. Maybe player can be some underground rebel groups as well. Or if play as a country, then managing political issues so that X-Corps don't find out would be fun too.

 

Sounds rather similar to the factions in X-com apocalypse. I think for the sake of the original game and trying tweek it to make it better, this might be too much to throw into the game. At least the first version of Xenocide should stay close to the original theme...

 

X-Corps vs. Aliens....the rest of the world is scared to death and/or oblivious. Leave it at that basically.

Edited by rjpeers
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Edit: Btw, I took the liberty in changing the topic title to fix the typo...

 

Then I shall do it with yours :P

 

... X-Corps wants to dominate the world (for the greater good...

 

It would be fun to play as a country against X-Corp AND the aliens. If X-corp is killing aliens in terrorized city, let em be. Or player can do the killing to steal the alien tech before X-corps arrives. Even storm into X-Corps bases to steal technologies. Maybe player can be some underground rebel groups as well. Or if play as a country, then managing political issues so that X-Corps don't find out would be fun too.

 

Sounds rather similar to the factions in X-com apocalypse. I think for the sake of the original game and trying tweek it to make it better, this might be too much to throw into the game. At least the first version of Xenocide should stay close to the original theme...

 

X-Corps vs. Aliens....the rest of the world is scared to death and/or oblivious. Leave it at that basically.

Well, keep in mind that we are discussing something which would take place after you went to Thanatos. So something which happens after UFO:EU ended.

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Edit: Btw, I took the liberty in changing the topic title to fix the typo...

 

Then I shall do it with yours :P

 

... X-Corps wants to dominate the world (for the greater good...

 

It would be fun to play as a country against X-Corp AND the aliens. If X-corp is killing aliens in terrorized city, let em be. Or player can do the killing to steal the alien tech before X-corps arrives. Even storm into X-Corps bases to steal technologies. Maybe player can be some underground rebel groups as well. Or if play as a country, then managing political issues so that X-Corps don't find out would be fun too.

 

Sounds rather similar to the factions in X-com apocalypse. I think for the sake of the original game and trying tweek it to make it better, this might be too much to throw into the game. At least the first version of Xenocide should stay close to the original theme...

 

X-Corps vs. Aliens....the rest of the world is scared to death and/or oblivious. Leave it at that basically.

Well, keep in mind that we are discussing something which would take place after you went to Thanatos. So something which happens after UFO:EU ended.

Ahhh....thats better. Basically what could happen after the big battle on Mars. Than it would be a great idea. What about Alien mop-up? There would still be aliens stuck on earth. Finding and clearing out alien bases/camps previously unknown. Maybe having this take numerous years before the Aliens start plan B. Possibly not having X-corps disbanded as the errata from TFTD made it sound. Even carrying over technology and using it.

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Ah ok Mad, misunderstood. Well, your right, this is just waxing philosophical seeing as how its just post v1 brainstorms here, but yeah, I'm generally in favor of some kind of richer type of game play than the original boasted.

 

Something else to throw into the ideas pile:

 

I've been thinking more on this areas of influence idea rip touched on. I think if the idea is to get help either from a rebel group, or for the possibility of occasionally roughing up a third party enemy, it might do to flesh this part out a little more.

 

Perhaps it'd help the territory control aspect a little here i.e. Create new sites of interest (like the way crash sites were handled with 'x' but with other symbols) where you go in to perform an objective that either delays that side's progress or completely shifts what the area of influence becomes in terms of just the third party enemies.

 

If you do nothing over a prolonged period, all enemy territories can spread ever so gradually. Do a mission or three in an area and it slows or stops that progress depending on what objective the missions were about, leaving it open to new influences.

 

Another way to handle something like this is to allow you to delegate to friendly countries to go toe to toe for you behind the scenes against these guys with their odds further boasted by whatever you can spare them in equipment and supplies.

 

Course, some of this seems more suited to an endgame/mop up/ game situation after the main campaign, but I think it has a little potential. I think there's also potential in the 'losing game scenario' i.e. where you haven't lost all your assets yet, but your definitely losing ground.

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Perhaps it'd help the territory control aspect a little here i.e. Create new sites of interest (like the way crash sites were handled with 'x' but with other symbols) where you go in to perform an objective that either delays that side's progress or completely shifts what the area of influence becomes in terms of just the third party enemies.

 

If you do nothing over a prolonged period, all enemy territories can spread ever so gradually. Do a mission or three in an area and it slows or stops that progress depending on what objective the missions were about, leaving it open to new influences.

Sounds a bit like UFO:Aftermath to me.. :) Not bad though. :)

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I haven't had the privilege of playing that game, but yeah, the principle is the same as far as giving the player a sense of accomplishment (in a territorial tug of war sense anyway) and that those actions would have some kinda meaning in the grander scheme on some level. I'm just suggesting that there could be direct and indirect ways of getting there.

 

A great example of an indirect approach could be acting as arms dealer to one of the loyal groups to your cause. A direct way would be either a mission only you could do or have greater odds of success if you did it directly to force an immediate outcome of one form or other as opposed to delegating it - such as the mission to Mars which is definitely outside the scope of something a third party ally could do or at least it should seem so.

 

I mean, you could lease a fleet of Avengers out to a group you'd also armed and gave power suits to, and delegate the Mars mission, but perhaps the only achievable thing a third party could do is weaken the aliens, or help slow down UFO traffic to Earth, but the goal of shutting them down fully at their brain compound would still rest with you.

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