Playing as Resistance in Africa

[Broetchenholer]

So, my first few play throughs, i have tried to play the game as the Resistance with a "roleplaying" set up and goal. The goal was to play as africa, unite the continent peacefully, then take car of the threats around. I am aware, that this is in no way optimal and i am not whining, that this start was, unrewarding so far. Though it has been very unrewarding

My big problem is, that i don't seem to have any chance of stabilizing any african country. Basically, all countries in Africa start a downwards spiral as soon as the cohesion debuff in 2023 hits. Unrest rest level rises in every country on the continent, except for Egypt, Algeria and sometimes Tunisia. Every other country just degrades. I quickly realized, that one of the main factors was high inequility, dropping cohesion rest level, which is raising unrest rest level. So i tried to do nothing but boost welfare in every contry i control. This might work at some point, but i am pretty sure, that it's too slow to matter. Take South Africa, great development points for an african nation, i immediately took it and put it on 100% welfare. In April 2024, inequility has dropped tp 5.4, meaing cohesion rest level is still at 0, cohesion is at 2,1 now, unrest rest level is 7.1. By the time i will have reduced inequality to levels that it does not reduce cohesion rst level any more, cohesion will already be at 0, meaning unrest will murder me. Most other nations have less investment points, meaning they can affect their inequality even less per month, despite being more wealthy. Botswana for example, has so little investment points, that they can not meaningfully counter any existing situation. So i am probably missing something, for example, Nigeria has quite a low inequality compared to other nations, so i was able to reduce it in the same time to 2.8. With that, cohesion rest level is at 3,8, this will slowly increase and drop unrest as well. But unrest rest level is still at 6,6. And i have no idea why. There is no explanation why unrest rest level is what it is. This tooltip should really be included. Without this information, you can't win because unrest will murder you. Also, all my nations lose gdp and per capita gdp. Why? And if i want to see information about the development of one of those stats, i can't, so it's making screenshots and comparing them to see how much of a dent i am majing in a specific problem. Basically, i am trying to figure out if i can fix these countries, or if the nature of an alien invasion just means that i will have to live with the fact that the numbers are all gonna go just down. But even if the game is designed as "shit is only gonna get worse", if there are sliders to decide how you spent the money on your nations, those decisions need to be completely transparent, so that you at least know whether there is a use for them or if the only reasonable strategy is to invest everything into space and ignore the socio economics of the nations you control.

Also, i think it is bad design, that economy, welfare, knowledge and unity do not scale with the size of the country. Why would Botswana have a harder time implementing public policy compared to nigeria? This should not matter for those internal policies. I get that the investment points of nations is not linear to the gdp, that is a balancing issue that makes sense from a fun perspective. You can use the greater powers to mostly provide science and a bunch of smaller nations to build stuff, meaning that the US is much better at boosting education and GDP to provide a great science outpout, while having Tanzania and Kenya as efficient ways of building boost for example compared to their usage of CP. But this means in the end, that Kenya and Tanzania will die in a fire because even completely focusing on their stabilisation will take years and years to keep them from constant civil war. Atg least without any councilor missions. My Tanzania currently can do 3,5 welfare projects a month with 100 % dedication to it, without ever having startet a space flight program or generating funding for me.

[Broetchenholer]

So it is now 1 April of 2026 and Zambia malawi has hit cohesion of 0, after having done nothing but welfare since the start of the game. government is at 5, education at 5.1, gdppp 2296 and inequality 3,95. As a consequence, unrest raises 1/month, meaning there is no way of keeping the country afloat. The only way that will 'help' here is a coup d'etat. So again, either i have not yet understood how this system works, or the system is fundamentally unfun because your only choice for some countries is to abandon them.

[Broetchenholer]

Like, i do not get it. Here is Tunisia. They are doing their thing, not causing much trouble.

Government 6.2
Unrest 5.2 Unrest Resting place 5.3
Education 6.8
Cohesion 4.2
GDP 133 GDPPP 10498
Inequility 3.2

26% of people are supporting me. Why is the Unrest Resting number 5.3? It's worse then nigeria, which has 20 times the population, half the GDPPP, 2 points less government, which seems to usually be really bad. How is the Unrest Rest value calculated? Also, why is government sometimes being redced by 0.1, without having spoils ur unity running? What is causing this? There is also no information for this in the game.

[Broetchenholer]

So, according to the wiki, unrest resting point is affected by cohesion and gdp. This cannot be true if you look at the the example of Tunisia and Nigeria. There has to be another factor, maybe government level, with Anocracies having a higher tolerance for low GDP? Don't think that makes a lot of sense the way Anocracies are treated in the game, but it might be.

Another problem i found with my little playthrough is the Central African Republic. Easily the economically worst country in Africa in this playthrough with a GDP of 4 Bn and GDPPP of 742, also, due to having only 5.7 million population only 1,61 IP under good circumstances. Currently fragemented, totalitarian with an inequality of 5,6. basically unsaveable. Statistically this little country will revolt several times in the time needed to unify it with say the nigerian confederation. The only chance i would have is to keep it artificially with 2 counsilor on low unrest for the duration of 180 days of alliance, then federation and then unification. And because the ai is a formidable opponent, probably 2 weeks before i can unify it, they will coup detat me, which is insanely easy because of how small the economy is. So i thought, maybe direct investment could stop the vicious cycle. However, direct invest on a country with 1,61 IP costs me 572, for 12,22 ip its 739. I don't know why small countries have no other choice then to die. The only chance i have is with a war and while that is not super unrealistic, it would make more sense if every nation in the game would be able to solve it's problems on it's own power if you choose so, this scenario is perfect for this.

[Rufus]

Out of curiosity, do you play Paradox grand strategy games? In these games, starting as weak nation is viable and interesting for variety and the icnreased difficulty. Maybe you're trying to do the same in Terra Invicta and it's not working because the game just isn't built for this?

[Broetchenholer]

Well yeah, i am well aware that what i am doing is not a winning strategy and maybe shouldn't be. The game is not a sandbox with a goal that only exists in my brain. I am not saying it should be viable to win with my strategy.

I am saying the game is currently is not communicating well what strategy won't work. People might have the feeling that Botswana is a good location to create a Space Agency and build up boost. It is 3.4 IP with one CP, it has a high GDPPP, looks okay. However, the game mechanisms mean that this nation will die unless you do nothing but boost equality there. Same with for example Kenya, a bit more expensive with 13 CP, good boost bonus due to the equator, decent situation in theory, super expensive to just stabilize. Basically, the only way to find out which nation can support what you want from it is by sinking hours into the game trying out whether it will work. Nobody tells you, in order to get your unrest restlevel in this country to 3 for example, you will need to raise gdp by x which is the equivalent of y days at the current IP. For a game this complex, handwafinv key features with half a sentence is not enough. The wiki is not helpful either. The devceloper should explain this better in the wiki or even better, in the codex or the tooltip. That is one thing.

The other is that i think it makes zero sense to have nations in the game that can never be unless you literally dump millions of chash reserves into them. I think that is just bad design. Most people will not care whether they can stabilize Namibia or Central African Republic. But if they exist, they should offer something. Right now they are literally only providing areas that are uninteresting for the players. Not worth taking a look at. Then you can take them out of the game.