The Gameplay of the XVI plague

[Surrealistik]

What we're looking for simply is an option to cap the activity at a managable maximum, allowing for indefinite, sandbox play assuming sufficient skill. This is because as Panthera has stated, it detracts from the player's experience to impose an unavoidable end to his enjoyment through impossible situations and inevitable defeat.

[ufogio]

For this purposes of this topic, i don't care how it looks, and i don't care about what the XVI is.  The question is, how do you fight a worldwide plague in this game?  Obviously the elite PHALANX troops aren't going to forcibly inoculate the whole world.

I think the player shouldn't be able to defeat the plague.
Maybe he could hack in XVI's computers and delete the coordinates of the Earth (indipendence day-like end).
Or he could free any EXT race, or find other alliances, so XVI will be sent back fighting other wars. In this case, other alien attacks after the end of the game will be justified.

[eleazar]

I think the player shouldn't be able to defeat the plague.

You should familiarize yourself with the storyline: especially the part at the end labeled "Key events after the start of the game" before suggesting changes to it.

[ufogio]

I don't see what is the problem.

Finding alliances could happen at this point:

- PHALANX scientists reverse-engineer the alien FTL technology. Using this technology, a manned PHALANX scoutship visits distant worlds, long since raped by XVI. This leads to the discovery of the bulk of the backstory.

By the way I think this statement is a bit obscure... I will post about it in the other topic . Can you please have a look there?

I like the storyline as it is now, it reminds me so much of Star Control. This is a good compliment, because Star Control is one of my favorites games

[Kamuflaro]

If you play the same stuff all the time it gets boring anyways. It's good to have something that makes it desireable to finish the game. In Aftermath you had the cultists taking over another land in case they get eradicated, leaving the player a thread at all times.
Also there was biomass covering large parts of the earth, which is kind of like our virus ideawise.

Well I think it's a good idea if there are ways to keep it under control if you don't mess up completely and let it go as high as 90% or whatever.
But imagine what happens if aliens take over a nuclear superpower state? Chine, Russia, USA = The End?
Well no but just consider that hostile nations are a massive thread and lead to a world war.
But in the end it's just a game mechanic so I'm not worried

[shevegen]

To be honest, if a storyline would offer no way to "win" (like in Cthulhu novels, where cthulhu and his forces always kinda win) for the player, I think it would turn down playing after a while. I mean... the aliens will return one day anyway, so a win would be temporary only or? Maybe they colonized multiple planets already...

[johnman]

Im with both. I hated the ending screen on 2.2 as i could play on no more.
But at the moment all i really want is an ending, thatr what frustrated me