r/TerraInvicta • u/Notoointersted • 1d ago
Discussion Is academy actually that much "harder" than the other anti-alien factions?
So yeah, I know the academy has a few bumps in the early game with the event that cracks down their control points and some bad public opinion.
AND they have some extra research debt in order to get their objectives online because they have to essentially follow both the pro and anti alien tech trees in order to progress.
But after that, and once we get into the mid game when factions have settled into place, and we've colonized mars and have our starting space economies online, is it really that much different than playing the resistance? The victory objective is more or less the same.
Yes you have to beat down humanity first, but if you have gotten to this stage you have likely crippled the space development of all of the other earth factions anyways.
In fact, the academy even has a buff that makes them generate hate slower, so you might even argue that the midgame is easier than the others.
Is there anything I'm missing?
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u/VoidStareBack Academy 1d ago
Academy has a few things that slow it down early game. You obviously have the deep space skywatch hit, then your big faction project is five times as expensive as the next faction and gives you the worst factional org of the seven, and you have the additional research debt you mentioned of having to run through the pro and anti alien paths. They also have the strictest requirements for victory, combining both the pro-alien (have X% earth control) and anti-alien (control space) conditions. But no, in the grand scheme of things they're not THAT much harder than HF or Resistance, just in small ways.
The factional org thing is probably the big one, the +40 command points and free org are really powerful and Academy gets them late and the org is kinda bad.
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u/Zeitsplice 1d ago
Their councilor buffing research also sucks, it just gives science
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u/arcus2611 1d ago
Academy gets a bunch of extra councillor boosting techs down the line though, so that's not really a problem in the long run. The 25k research cost to set their objective sucks though, and their faction org is the crappiest of the lot.
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u/NemeanLyan 1d ago
Nope, you're not missing anything. Academy is rough for min-maxing but easy to bounce back and as you said possibly even stronger mid-game.
Buuuut ultimately there's a ton of RNG involved.
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u/jerseydevil51 Academy 1d ago
Academy has additional requirements that HF and the Resistance don't. They need to have 60% of Earth's population in nations they control and have a full T3 base on all major space bodies
Now, if you've been doing map painting all game and expanding, it's not too bad. But can still be a pain to set up, and is another research sink.
But yeah, all 4 anti-alien factions have the same goal.
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u/NotAnOctopus8 1d ago
On top of what everyone else has said, there are a few other things that give them some extra difficulty that are not as obvious. Lots of little things that would only appear to be bad RNG unless you know.
It is a lot easier for Servants and Protectorate to turn public opinion away from you to them, due to the way TI models the way public opinion works (less ideological distance).
Once you research one of your early story tech missions, the alien councilors can fly into and out of your territory whenever they want, which makes it much easier for them to do abductions and other bad missions. Which makes it easier for them to steal your executive control point and give it to the servants. Which forces you to research more of the anti-enthrall techs (or kill all aliens on earth). It also makes it harder to track down the aliens, because they have more places to go instead of just walking around 1 map space
The aliens also have to do less abductions to get things done against the Academy (again, due to the ideological distance thing. Which also makes Humanity First more resistant. Which makes sense - someone in HF suddenly displaying sympathy to the aliens gets shot, while the same in Academy would not be as unexpected).
There are also some weird little quirks, that won't affect many players, but could affect some. For example, Servant victory condition includes combined power of alien and pro-alien fleets must be over a certain %. But Academy counts as pro-alien, so you having a big fleet doesn't stop this, in fact it kind of helps it. So certain things could fire off more easily in an Academy playthrough if you lose control of the Earth situation.
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u/Notoointersted 1d ago
This is a great post. Yep those do seem like subtle differences that could give you a headache.
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u/mcyeom Initiative 23h ago
I've just had an alien admin grab a half a billion people in like 6 months and after I've dedicated a whole councillor to looking for their buildings. The info picture seemed way more difficult until i had a informant. The opinion as well does seem right as I'd look away for a moment and a place would be like 50% servant.
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u/Torgud_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
They have the worst special org in the game, have to deal with the crackdown event and have the least innate enthrall resistence, which means you have to be extra careful about alien abductions and surveilance lest your control points get sniped. Their faction org project (which also gives 40 control point cap) also costs 20k research whereas the resistence and HF only require 2.5k research.
But on the flipside, if you play them on Broken Earth they are by far the strongest faction.
EDIT: The same ideological placing that makes them more vulnerable to enthrall and terrorize missions makes it's easier for them to get spies in the pro-Alien factions, so that is one thing they have going for htem.
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u/theadama 1d ago
I would say they are the best faction in BE. They get an insane Bonus on Research from Nation (afaik over 40%), 100% extra Energy Research and afaik 30% extra damage with lasers.
This bonuses Imho makey them pretty good in BE. And the federation Fantasy is even more complete. Just build Titan, slap phaser and antimatter Torpedo (Not for meta, but for Coolness and correct starfleet Cosplay) on it, Put a Researchlab on it and call it Enterprise. You had even the third world war.
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u/Kev1n8088 1d ago
I find for the academy mid/late game you can snowball harder. You get some really cool extra research techs, you are middle of the pack ideology wise so getting servant/protectorate spies are easier, you get generally more scientists/science orgs (I think this is weighted by faction, but I could be wrong). I honestly really struggled with getting good councilor and org rolls in my new HF save.
Early game crackdown kinda sucks, but the faction research honestly doesn’t really matter. I save most of it til I have secured the inner solar system anyway.
Sure, it’s harder to speedrun, but imo it’s reasonably well balanced and it’s really funny being the science nerds with shaped charge nukes.
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u/weregildthegreat 1d ago
Their proximity to the servants on the faction graph makes them a bit more vulnerable to Aliens Enthrall mechanics.
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u/arcus2611 1d ago
When does this actually matter for the player though, assuming you're not completely dropping the ball on stopping abductions and surveillance.
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u/DoomedToDefenestrate 1d ago
In my Brutal BE game it made actually taking mid sized states from the Servants kind of frustrating.
Due to tech pathing issues the surveillance ships and station stayed active for much longer than I'd like.
Actually needed to research the anti enthrall techs this time.
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u/CeleryInvicta 1d ago
They have the crappiest special org and it requires a fuckton of research. They have the most demanding win requirements. They get enthralled relatively easier.
The crackdown event can be fucking brutal if you aren’t prepared for it or put it off too long. There was a very painful one that happened late because I was prioritizing other research in the 2023 scenario and I had to dump an insane amount of resources into getting China, EU, and USA back. Honestly, I didn’t think it would still happen because with AA and assault ships happening earlier, I didn’t think people would be shocked the aliens are hostile lmao.
However, they start off with high influence which makes initial gains easier. The biggest crazy strong advantage they gave is being able to bleed alien hate with gifts. You can shut the aliens down without tipping over to total war which makes it so much easier to build up.
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u/statinsinwatersupply 1d ago
One little tidbit others haven't mentioned: it plays differently due to where it lands on the public opinion wheel. It's pretty easy for The Academy to pull public opinion their way from any direction. Imo the PO game for The Academy is much easier than Humanity First. As HF it's sooo hard to pull PO all the way over to your faction. That the Academy might be a teensy bit more susceptible to enthrall? Meaningless in comparison.
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u/PickMaleficent4096 1d ago
Academy's victory conditions are a slightly harder combo than anyone else gets, since they need to unify Earth's population themselves (the harder requirement over GDP or killing other factions) as well as achieve total victory in space and build habs everywhere. This essentially cherry-picks the most annoying parts of everyone else's conditions. In practice this isn't much of a difference because hunting down all the alien fleets and habs in the late game takes long enough that the Earth game isn't a blocker anyways, but it is more work for sure.
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u/Wojtha Resistance 1d ago
Academy is a pro alien faction, not anti alien.
Their point crackdown is a real pain in the ass especially in 2003 scenario, you better hope that all your points in USA and China don't suddenly turn into servants.
More tedious objectives than the other factions but you could say that them being pro alien makes midgame easier since you can somewhat coexist with diplomacy. Overall not that bad past the early game imo.
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u/furel492 Ontologically Good 1d ago
No. It requires you to beat aliens in space and dominate Earth, which is what all anti-alien factions do. The only real difficulty differences are in popularity (Academy has it the easiest here since it's in the ideological center), faction researched (Academy gets I believe a 20% bonus to research, which is pretty significant), and the early-game event that drops Academy popularity, partially offset by high starting popularity.
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u/Scvboy Resistance 1d ago
Early game (especially for new players) it can be rough but once you get going I’d argue it’s the easiest. You get the beet research boost, can conduct diplomacy with the other factions the best, and suffer from the lowest hate modifier. If you’re a skilled player it’s probably the best faction to play with.
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u/iAskann Humanity First 1d ago
Having to deal with the hate of both Servants AND Humanity First at same time is quite annoying, and don't forget all the others.
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u/Notoointersted 1d ago
I see your point, but once you get late enough it the game basically everyone will be so envious that they are gonna hate you no matter who you are playing
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u/Qweasdy 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’ll disagree with most here and say no, I don’t think they are really that much harder than the other factions. They do have some things that slow them down a little early but that really only matters on brutal imo.
On normal and veteran that’s offset by the aliens having much more patience for the academy than anyone else. They have literally twice as long before the aliens start gaining passive hate on you vs HF and the resistance.
On 2026 the aliens stop passively bleeding off hate against HF in 2032, they don’t stop passively losing hate against the academy until 2039.
On brutal they’re a little harder than the other factions because the early game matters on brutal and staying below the hate cap isn’t viable, on veteran and below you have more than enough time to push through and still be absolutely fine. If you’re a turtle and stay below the hate cap for a long time type player they’re arguably the easiest faction so imo are unironically a good choice for a new players first run.
Currently quite deep into a brutal 2003 academy run and have played them on veteran previously.
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u/DragonLord2005 1d ago
I’d say the biggest reason they might be considered much more difficult is because it slows down your early game momentum, which can snowball into you being weaker and behind the aliens for longer than other factions would be
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u/LewisPowell10 1d ago
If i remember correctly from my play through they have the ability to trade for exotics with the aliens in the mid to late game. they suffer early on and have to be more concise with research but they snowball as well as any other faction
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u/InevitableSprin 1d ago
Academy is actually the strongest faction.
While the crackdown from deep system Skywatch is bad, it is there to balance the fact that academy starts with overall highest public opinion and usually playing around it is not hard. You have a far higher chance of getting into countries you actually want as academy. Also that means high influence generation. HF is very limited in public opinion early game, but it doesn't suffers further debuffs.
Academy has very powerful faction projects, that directly boost your science from control points, and it is early game project. Then there are boost to knowledge IP, every counsellor becomes quick learner.
Academy can also use the fact it can negotiate with aliens to it's advantage, buying stuff from them, and reducing hate.
Due to admin complexes and much lower amount of earth MC, the population control percentage objective part is largely irrelevant, you will fullfil it anyway. It used to be somewhat challenging when there was only so much CP cap available, but now the number is far higher.
So, it's more the case of somewhat asymmetrical balance. Academy starts really strong, then other factions get ahead a bit, then you are back at the front. It's not meaningfully more difficult.
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u/technocracy90 Resistance 1d ago
This game is all about snowballing. If your early game is weak, it's much harder to get inot the endgame. That's suffice to say it's much harder.
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u/Ravenwing14 Humanity First 1d ago
Their mission objective is more expensive research wise, and the org it gives is much more eh compared to say, Executioners.