Hi, everyone.
After eight months, I finally won my long-running Terra Invicta game! My “state of the game 2026” impressions probably deserve a full post; I think the game has fulfilled every ounce of potential I saw back in Early Access.
After I battled to victory the long way, I also shipped my first Terra Invicta mod, “Quick Victory”, which speeds up the victory conditions for four of the game’s seven factions (the Academy, the Resistance, Humanity First and the Initiative). The goal is to reduce endgame grind: if players can fulfil their “main” condition, I think they deserve to win.
I’d like to iterate on this: for example, speeding up Project Exodus’s victory condition in a future version, which would round out the anti-alien factions, and a separate Vanilla Lite mod that stays closer to the vanilla victory conditions while reducing the thresholds. Watch this space…
Meanwhile, I picked up the roguelite deckbuilder Fogpiercer, which reminds me of Into the Breach: combat takes place on a grid and the game reveals what the computer will do on its turn, which lets you move out of the way, shield yourself, prioritise threats, and move enemy units out of position. I quite enjoyed my first run, although I haven’t been in a hurry to play again.
Besides that, I’ve been continuing to play old (and new) favourites. I’m building a lovely underwater town in the new DLC for Pokopia, slowly building the new DLC Hippodrome in Anno 117, trying different civ and leader combinations in Civ VII, gradually racking up more successful runs in Hades 2, and dusting off the stylish Raidou Remastered.
New releases: Star Wars Zero Company
Star Wars Zero Company, a squad-based tactics game, is out to rave reviews.
Upcoming releases: Afterworld, Humankind 2, Civ VII: Earthrise
Big couple of weeks for strategy game announcements:
- Paradox announced Afterworld, a new IP set in a post-apocalyptic North America, and helmed by Dan “podcat” Lind of Hearts of Iron IV fame. The first two dev diaries are out, and Leana Hafer at IGN has published an early preview.
- Amplitude announced Humankind 2. Notably, it is self-publishing this rather than going through Hooded Horse. I am excited about this one — I loved Humankind and spent a lot of time with it at launch, although I don’t think it ever reached its potential. I’ll be curious to see how (or whether) Amplitude is able to improve on, and fix the flaws in, the first game.
- Hot off the press, Firaxis announced a new Civ VII expansion, “Earthrise”, as well as a new major update, “Arc of Tomorrow”. “Earthrise” will focus on astronomy and the space race, while “Arc of Tomorrow” will add a fourth era to the game, the Atomic Age. Both are set for 2027.
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I found the endgame grind in Terra Invicta exhausting, to the point that I can’t imagine wanting to play it again. On Earth, despite running essentially the entire planet I still had to fight all the factions as they took the occasional country (I suppose I could just have let them), requiring non-stop activity while waiting for the very slow construction and travel time of my final, alien-bashing fleet. I had researched essentially everything and maxed out my mines etc.
I thought the game concept and most of the execution brilliant but it really needed to deal with that. Maybe I’ll try your mod! But for the moment my only thought is ‘glad I played that but never again’
Ps – thanks for your blog, I’ve enjoyed it for years!
Thanks, glad you’ve enjoyed the blog! I love TI despite the long endgame, but if/when I play it again I will definitely use my own mods…
The Humankind 2 mention caught my attention. It’s interesting to see how many strategy games are now trying to rethink the 4X formula rather than simply adding more content to an established series. I’m especially curious about how Humankind 2 will differentiate itself from Civilization VII once we know more about its actual mechanics.
The Paradox post-apocalyptic project is another one I’ll be keeping an eye on. Paradox has plenty of experience with complex systems, so the setting could work really well if they manage to combine that sandbox approach with a convincing survival and exploration layer.