Nations

(The content of this page is based on Terra Invicta Dev Diary #4: Nations part 1 and Terra Invicta Dev Diary #5: Nations part 2 as well as user experience from Terra Invicta's Demo version. It has largely been migrated from the unofficial and outdated Unofficial Terra Invicta Wiki on its first iteration since they share the devlog as source of information. Please note that the content of this page applies to the ordinary 2022 start date only.)

Introduction

Nations on Earth form the sites where conflict and espionage takes place in the game. Human factions, including the player, will compete to control nations in order to make use of their resources to fulfil their objectives since the beginning of the campaign.

Depending on the region, a Nation may represent one or more countries in a specific region. Interactions with nations is carried out using Councillors.

Regions, classification and claims

Nations are composed of one or more Regions. Regions are normally named after their most relevant city or a geographic situation. The function of regions is primarily geographical, not political; they exist to mark the locations of critical assets and armies. When new nations form or existing ones change, they are made of regions from other nations.

Events, combat, councillor activity location and the presence of launch facilities or other installations all occur in a particular region, not nationwide.

Geographic characteristics

Geographically, regions may be classed as rugged, a terrain modifier that causes armies to take longer to cross it and defending armies to have a substantial advantage during battles. Coastal regions meanwhile serve as launching and arrival points for armies with a navy upgrade; and regions on or near Earth's equator will gain more boost for a given amount of investment, as launching rockets are able to make use of Earth's greater rotational velocity there.

Claims

Some nations have claims on regions that aren't theirs. These are the regions they may acquire through warfare, secession movements, or federation and merging if possible. Several social science Projects can unlock new claims during the campaign. A claim on a nation's capital by another one opens the possibility of total conquest and unification paths, annexing entire nations into a larger one and saving significant control points cost at the expense of some investment versatility.

Control Points

Every nation has a number of control points (CP), ranging from 1 to 6, depending on their GDP. If a nation crosses certain threshold of GDP, they can have their number of control points increased or decreased. An excessive amount of control points under a faction's command (essentially being over the limit) causes a loss of influence income depending on the excess ratio.

Types and Abilities

Control points can be controlled by any faction in the game. They represent most prominent institutions of a given nation. Once controlled, each of these CPs give various benefits for the owner but only in said nation. Depending on a type of the CP these benefits, in no particular order, are:

-Mass media - Bonus to public campaign missions in this nation
-Identity blocs - Bonus to increase unrest missions in this nation
-Financial sector - Bonus to funding income from this nation
-Corporations - Orgs based in this nation cost less money
-Legislature - Bonus to Purge missions against executive in this nation; defends executive from purges if controlled by same faction
-Aristocracy - Bonus to money gained from Spoils priority
-Party - Bonus to purge missions against all control points except the executive in this nation
-Religion - Bonus to public opinion shift in our favor from Unity priority
-Oligarchs - Bonus to Coup d'Etat missions in this nation
-Security apparatus - Bonus to Crackdown, Detain, and Assassinate missions in this nation
-Trade unions - Orgs based in this nation cost less influence
-Defence sector - Our armies in this nation repair strength faster
-Bureaucracy - Bonus to Control Nation missions in this nation
-National Industries - Bonus to Hostile Takeover missions in this nation
-Executive - Access to set policy mission in this nation

Executive is the final control point in all nations and is shown with a building symbol next to it.

Besides CP specific bonuses each faction will also receive a fraction of funding, research, boost, mission control and spoils money produced by the nation. That fraction is equal to a proportion of controlled CPs versus all CPs of a nation. If there are armies controlled by the nation, getting control of CP may also grant you direct control of said armies. What each CP gives you or would give you can be seen on a tooltip by hovering your mouse over that CP in the nation screen. CPs with armies attached to them are shown with yellow star in a green hexagon symbol next to them.

Taking control of a Control Point

To gain control over a neutral CP one must perform a successful Control Nation mission with one of their councillors. Under normal circumstances, in nations with over 1 CP, executive CP can only be controlled if you already have a point in a nation and it is the last CP to be taken. If every nation has all of their CPs controlled by factions, Control Nation mission becomes unavailable. In that case you would need to perform a successful purge mission on an enemy controlled CP. To increase purge chances, it is recommended to conduct crackdown on these CPs first. Another alternative to Control Nation is Coup d'Etat. It can either be performed with your councillor or happen naturally. Successful Coup d'Etat missions will turn all the CP from that nation to your faction, while Coup d'Etat happening on its own will reset all of CPs in the country to neutral; this allows every faction to conduct Control Nation missions. Coup d'Etat is a lot more likely to be successfully performed or occur in nations with high unrest, so boosting chances often needs Increase Unrest missions beforehand.

CP value, cap and overextension

Each CP has a value associated with it which is equal to the number of CPs in that nation. The total CP value of your faction can be found in a tooltip by hovering over your influence resource on the top of screen. Here you can also find your CP value cap. When your total CP value exceeds the cap, it will incur daily influence penalties in so called overextension. These penalties rise exponentially the more you exceed your cap. Unlike money, your influence cannot go below 0. Nevertheless, having no influence and a negative income of it causes your CPs to be an easy target for enemy crackdown missions. There are several methods to alleviate the overextension:

-Increasing your CP value cap. There are several engineering projects that increase your cap. One of them is management research. This is a repeatable project, which increases your cap by 3 every time it is completed. However, its cost after every project will rise as well. The resistance also has an engineering project called Freedom Fighters which is locked under Independence Movements global research. This Engineering project increases your cap by 10 but is not repeatable.
-Unification. Nations that have claims on others can be unified if they are in a federation and are controlled by the same faction or both parties agree to unify. In order to perform this action, one must send a councillor on a set national policy mission in either of these nations. You can check your available diplomatic actions by hovering over hand casting a ballot icon in a nation screen. Once unified, the nation has its parents GDPs combined and may have reduced upkeep in terms of CP value compared to before unification.
-Abandoning nation. This action is available on national priorities screen. It places all your CPs under crackdown, removes any benefits associated with controlling them and weakens armies from those CPs. However, you will no longer have any CP value against your cap from these points and, assuming nobody controls them in the meanwhile, you will get all these points back after 6 months.

Decreasing your GDP. If you allow your nation GDP decrease below any of thresholds listed above, it will have the number of its control points reduced by 1 and value of remaining points also reduced by 1. However, you will likely not find this method too practical as you cannot manually decrease the GDP and instead have to rely on it happening naturally.

National Stats

The prosperity and stability of Earth's nations, already tenuous in many places, has been thrown into doubt in light of the alien arrival. Different events throughout the game may alter the qualities of a nation significantly. These circumstances are tracked and made visible to the player, who can take various actions to modify them.

Nation Stats view (on an older instance of the game taken from devlogs).

The key nation-level values and their roles are:

Government

A nation's Government score measures the democratic index in a country, which represents things like civil liberties, popular selection of leaders, press freedoms, and rule of law via an independent judiciary. This impacts many things, including national stability and cohesion, research production, corruption, economic growth and the effectiveness of the military in controlling unrest.

A Government score of 0 is the most totalitarian, and 10 is the most democratic. The Government score impacts the Cohesion score. Lower Government score increases the Cohesion score resting point, while higher Government score draws Cohesion score to the mean value of 5, and simultaneously increases research production. Higher Government score also lower Spoils priority requirement to keep the national elites happy in order to avoid resetting of CPs by Coup d'Etat and boosts economic growth. Lower Government score increases the effectiveness of the military priority and armies at reducing unrest.

Government score is increased by Knowledge priority and decreased by Unity priority.

Unrest

Unrest represents violent resistance to the political, economic or cultural status quo in this nation. High unrest hampers the economy and may result in a coup or revolution, which will transfer or clear many or all of the nations Control Points at once. Unrest is fed by low Cohesion and low quality of life (per-capita GDP). Military spending and armies can reduce it, especially in non-democratic nations.

Higher values increase Coup d'Etat chances and reduce investment points. Its resting point is increased by having low cohesion and low Per-Capita GDP (PPP). Unrest can be increased by councillor Increase unrest and reduced by stabilize nation assignments. It is also reduced by military priority and armies, both of which work better in nations with lower government score.

Unrest changes relatively quickly if it is not at its resting point. It's generally better to reduce unrest resting point before reducing its value with councillors and military priority. That is because reducing unrest below resting point makes it grow back naturally and quickly. In order to have a prosperous nation, having below 2 unrest is a good start, as it grants the best investment point potential. And, of course, the nation will be more resistant to coups. Every 0.1 point of unrest above 2 will decrease your investment points by 1%, capping at 80% at 10 unrest.

Naturally occurring coups can happen on high levels of unrest. Those can be countered through spoils and military investments. The spoils priority may be ignored if the level of unrest in a country is sufficiently low, even if the indicator appears red.

Unrest is also increased should unification between two nations occur.

GDP and PPP

GDP, or gross domestic product, is a measure of the annual economic output in US dollars a nation produces. Having higher GDP increases the national CP amount from 1 to 6 after thresholds are exceeded. It also increases the number of investment points and decreases chances of certain missions, such as Control Nation, from succeeding. GDP is not directly influenced by economy priority, which affects PPP instead. It must be noted that a significant economic growth in a nation may also carry negative consequences to the planet's climate stability.

Unification combines both nation's GDPs.

Miltech

A nation's Military Technology value represents the capability of the nations' armed forces. Each tenth of a point in Miltech represents a 10% improvement in combat capability. This applies to both army strength, which changes together with national Miltech level, and regional defence power. At the start of the game, Miltech is capped at level 5, but this can be increased with certain Global Research Projects. Increasing the overall score by 1 number transitions the technological age of the army, which also alters army appearance in the game.

Miltech is increased by military priority, and unification between two nations balances the overall miltech score based on the former 2.

Education

A nation's Education value is scored based on the average years of schooling of a citizen in this nation. Nations with higher education scores produce more research and are more resistant to extreme propaganda but gain less cohesion from the Unity priority.

Cohesion

A nation's Cohesion represents the level of unity or conflict among the people of the nation. This includes cultural, ideological, ethnic and religious similarities and differences.

High values describe a unified society that brooks little deviation or dissent. Middle values represent a diverse society that has both internal conflict and a healthy, creative counterculture. Middle-low values represent a high degree of political polarization, and the lowest values mean the nation's people are fragmented or even tribal.

High values keep unrest in check and increase the nation's ability to resist occupation, while middle values provide a bonus to national research production, representing a robust (if messy) marketplace of ideas.

Cohesion is lowered by high inequality, anocracy, having lots of regions or a large population, destruction of armies, and a large difference between public opinion and the ideology of the control point owners. Cohesion is increased by wars, autocracy, and the Unity priority. Democracy pulls it towards a middle value.

Inequality

A nations Inequality score is a measure of how wealth and income is distributed in the nation. High values represent a more unequal society. Inequality grows by as a product of normal economic activity (the Economy Priority) or significantly more because of corruption (the Spoils Priority). Resource regions in a nation can contribute to inequality as well.

High inequality reduces Cohesion by causing division among the population. It is countered by use of the Welfare priority.

Investment Points

Investment Points, or IP, represent the nation's economic surplus that can be distributed by factions with Control Points in the Priorities tab. The value is set by the nations GDP and reduced by the number of armies it fields and by high levels of unrest. The Priorities tab on a Nation shows where the nation and faction want Investment Points to be spent.

Direct Investment can be done in one or more national stats to improve them directly. Direct Investments cost Money and Funds to perform. There are also technologies that can be researched to reduce the cost of a Direct Investment point. Investing in Unity while your faction controls a CP in a nation also improves your factions popular opinion in the nation.

Policies

Policies are actions the executive faction of a nation can take to dramatically alter the course of the nation. A councillor can use the Set Policy mission to enact policies. Possible policies include:

-Declare War
-Seek Peace
-Federation
-Leave Federation
-Unification
-Grant Independence
-Cede Territory
-Disband Army
-Disarm Warheads
-Declare Independence

A symbol of a hand casting a ballot, found in the top right corner of overview screen, prompts a tooltip in which the available national policies are listed. Here one can also find cooldown periods for countries, with whom diplomatic actions may become available after the timer expires

All of these policies may only be taken by sending your councillor to a Set National Policy mission, although, as it is with many missions, you can stack multiple councillors in a same nation to cruise through these policies. Control over the executive CP in that nation is always required.

One thing to note here is that national relations with other countries are not listed here as they are changed by relations menu on the bottom right corner of nation screen. This does not include war and peace treaties, as they are national policies.

International Relations

Nations at peace can be in one of three states with one another: allies, rivals, or neutral.

War-capable allies - those with armies or nuclear weapons - will join wars to defend each other when attacked by default. Allies may also send armies to each othe's regions during war or peace. Rival nations that may go to war with each other via the Set Policy councillor mission.

International relations view (on an older instance of the game taken from the devlogs).

In nations where they have executive control, factions may spend Influence to change their bilateral relations with other nations. Any action that improve relations - from rivals to normalized relations, or normalized relations to allies - requires the consent of the other nation. Actions that improve relations also trigger a cooldown between the nations for improving relations again.

There are a few restrictions on who can ally and become rivals. Two nonadjacent nations with only one or two control points may not form alliances or rivalries unless one also has a navy. Nations allied with breakaway nations cannot ally with the breakaway's parent nation, and vice versa.

Federations

Federations are groupings of closely aligned nations that are pledged to provide mutual defence and share space program funding and boost. They are led by the predetermined member with the most significant international ambitions.

To join a federation, a nation must have claims on its territory by at least one of the federation's member nations, be allied with one of the members, and not be a rival or at war with any members. Nations may apply to join a federation using the Set Policy mission; the lead nation will approve or disapprove the request. The lead nation may also invite qualifying nations to join.

At the game start date there are two pre-existing federations:

-The European Union which is comprised of France (lead), Germany, Italy, Spain, Benelux, Alpine States, Finland, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Northern Balkan States, Baltic States, Sweden, Greece, Slovakia.
-The Eurasian Union which is comprised of the Russian Federation (lead), Kazakhstan, Belarus. Kyrgyzstan, Armenia.

Other Federations may be created early in the game due to relevant claims between nations, for example:

-The United Kingdom, a federation between the United Kingdom (nation) and Ireland.
-The Republic of the Southern Cross is a federation between Australia and New Zealand.
-The Republic of Korea is a federation between North Korea and South Korea.
-The Indonesia federation is between Indonesia and the Pacific States, and possibly Borneo (if made independent).
-The African Union is a federation between Somalia and Ethiopia.
-The Venezuelan Federation is a federation between Venezuela and Guyana.
-The Sudanese Federation is between Sudan and South Sudan.
-The Central American Confederation may form between Guatemala and Belize.
-The Indian Federation may form between India and Bangladesh.
-The Pan Asian Combine may form between India and China

Completing relevant Global Research Projects and Faction Projects will increase the number of claims, and thus federations will be able to be created as the campaign progresses.

Unification

It is possible to Unify two or more nations together to form larger nations which may eventually span continents as the campaign progresses. This requires one nation to have a claim on another nation's capital region and your Faction requires executive control of both nations.

The larger unified nation will likely have fewer CP overall, which aids in their defence, but it reduces the number of Investment Points compared to separate countries, resulting in less efficient resource acquisition army expansion.

Nations that can unify early in the game include:

-The European Union nation can form out of France and other EU nations
-The Eurasian Union nation can form out of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyszstan, and other states with Eurasian Union claims on them.
-Czechoslovakia can form from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (even if they're both within the EU Federation).
-The Northern and Southern Balkan States can unify into Yugoslavia (even if they're both within the EU Federation).

To unlock further claims, and thus the ability to federate and then unify, some Global and Faction research projects can be completed.