An extraterrestrial probe has been detected approaching Earth. Unbeknownst to humanity, an alien force has arrived in the distant, icy Kuiper Belt and has begun mining one of the dwarf planets to prepare for an invasion.

As the nations of Earth were unable to come together to deal with the alien arrival, transnational groups of like-minded political, military, and scientific leaders began communicating secretly to coordinate their responses. As the motivations of the aliens are unknown, they suffered factions motivated by hope, fear or greed.

Highlights

YOU CONTROL ONE OF THESE FACTIONS.

• The Resistance - seeks to form an alliance between nations to mount a coordinated defense
• Human Primacy - swears to exterminate the aliens as well as anyone who sympathizes with them
• The Servants - worship aliens and believe they will solve all the world's problems
• The Protectorate - argues that the idea of a negotiated surrender is the only way to avoid our total annihilation
• The Academy - hopes the alien arrival is a harbinger of an opportunity to form an interstellar alliance
• The Initiative - seeks to profit from the confusion and destruction
• The Exodus Project - plans to build a gigantic spaceship and escape the Solar System

INVESTIGATE THE ALIEN THREAT:

• Moving from early UFO sightings and crash sites to rampaging alien megafauna and robotic armies, it's clear you'll have more competition than just the other six human factions. During the game, illustrated events that you have a hard time choosing as you investigate the increasing alien activity on Earth. Uncover the mysteries of the aliens' origin and what their purposes are. At least, of course, that you are part of Human Primacy and all you care about is their extermination.
• Terra Invicta has a global research system that will create opportunities for competition and cooperation. Scientific breakthroughs that are shared unlock private engineering projects. Factions can choose to dedicate themselves to private projects at the risk of weakening Earth as a whole, or relinquish their influence in directing global research to other factions that have different priorities. If left to their own devices, factions such as the Servants or the Initiative can guide worldwide efforts to create methods of social control, rather than propulsion systems or weapons.

CONTROL DISPUTE:

• Lead a faction united by the same ideology, replacing a nation defined by its territory. This is a big change from most strategy games. In Terra Invicta, you will not paint the map with the colors of a chosen nation. Instead, you'll command your position from the shadows and battle other factions to gain control points that represent each region's military, death, and political leadership.
• You can do whatever you want in geopolitical terms: join or separate nations to serve your purposes while using the one under your influence to cause proxy wars that impressed the other six factions. Earth's regions were modeled in detail, considering their levels of education, permanence, GDP and inequality. Taking command of rich regions with large military forces will allow you to exercise your will on Earth, but the war for the Solar System will not be won without taking control of regions that had space launch stations.
• Exercise your will through a council of politicians, scientists and agents sent across the world (and even into space). These advisors' starting skills will evolve as you gain experience and gain control of powerful organizations such as intelligence agencies or millionaires. A veteran commander may be the perfect choice to lead a tactical team under the council's orders, while a seasoned diplomat will work to raise the necessary funds to resist foreign invasion.
• Seek out like-minded poor people and politicians, and take steps to convert followers of opposing ideologies. Public opinion is shaped by multiple factors: the attitude of the Servants and the desire for a negotiated surrender of the Protectorate may cause them to agree on what support or opposition they will give to outsiders, but events that demonstrate that outsiders can being defeated has the potential to convince followers of the Protectorate that resistance may be a realistic option.

EXPANSION BY A SOLAR DYNAMIC SYSTEM:

• Take your faction beyond the ends of the Earth, build space stations that function as shipyards and fuel depots, build mining stations for advanced resources, and establish bases to serve as research and construction facilities. Terra Invicta delves into the strategic geography of the Solar System to present space not as a series of basic stars to which you'll move your units, but rather as a rich and varied landscape of asteroids, moons, dwarf planets, gas giants and other bodies celestials that create nuances and tactical opportunities at every turn.
• The extensive map is always in motion, as are the celestial bodies that orbit the sun. This means that your stable stations and forward operating bases are always on the move too, and will force you to plan and adapt accordingly. Your colonies among the Jovian moons may find that a foreign outpost or an Initiative privateer base once thought to be far away has become a sorry neighbor.

HARD SCI-FI CONTROL WITH STRATEGY:

• Exploring and eventually colonizing space will require access to many resources: water for life support and propellants, metals for manufacturing, physical materials for propellants and chemical weapons, and much more. Initially, you will have no choice but to acquire these resources on Earth and pay the high costs of using rockets to escape Earth's gravity, but over time you will come increasingly to depend on asteroid mining and other means of securing your supplies.
• Terra Invicta's spacecraft designs are based on the best of science speculation and hard science fiction. You can design your own ships and select from a variety of weapons, thrusters and other modules to include in different structures, thus ensuring that each ship has a certain combination of fuel capacity, maneuverability and other characteristics.
• Tactical combat is based on a realistic simulation of Newtonian physics, where having momentum and being able to maneuver in three-dimensional space is as important as the firepower of the ships you carry. Fire missiles and use point defense cannons to destroy incoming projectiles, boost and propel yourself to bring enemies in range, or grapple with the difficult decision of removing radiators and sacrificing heat dissipation for shields better against a barrage of enemy attacks.

SUPPORT FOR MODS:

• Terra Invicta was developed with support for mods in mind, and much of the game is accessible to people with no programming experience. I hope the Solar System environment and geopolitical simulations will be a useful framework for creators to bring their own creative visions to life.