u/I_like_maps

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has made this community a great place to discuss news, impacts, and action methods related to climate change. Newer users may not remember, but a couple years ago it was hard to find a post here in which the majority of comments not downplaying the severity of climate change and the role Canada plays in causing it. Our little sub still often has posts that make it into reddit's algorithm leading to lots of outside users, but when that does happen, ignorant comments are usually corrected by users, while rule-breaking comments from trolls are either reported or removed. Large posts are no longer a problem, they've become an oppertunity for educating others. We don't always agree on everything here - posts about carbon capture often get a little heated (no pun intended) - but disagreements now come down to methods for effective action, not whether or not Canada has the responsibility to act: it does.

A little over a year ago I achieved the highest level of self-determination possible for a human form of life: reddit moderator. Jokes, aside, I would like to think I've had some kind of positive impact in making this community a better place. Almost certainly the best decision I made was asking u/CDN-Social-Democrat to join the mod team, who has since very generously contributed their time to proactively in moderate the subreddit as well as contributing substantively to discussion. I want to thank them in particular for that, but also all of our regular contributors! Please keep at it!

Hey folks, its 2030 as the academy on brutal difficulty. I have the US, half of the points in china, and based on mars and the belt. The aliens have a space station in earth's orbit, but no major fleet so far. I have about 40 mission control usage, which i think is about as high as I can get. Aliens are 3/4 hate and blew up the ISS. I see two paths forward at the moment:

1. I go loud, build a fleet that can take and protect earth. I have about 2k water, volatile and metal, so can probably get a fleet thats just strong enough around earth

2. I go towards the techs that lower alien hate from MC usage.

I suspect that folks will suggest the former, but as the academy, I wonder if i can try and keep the peace through diplomacy.

So I just finished my first game as the academy, unifying earth and making peace with the aliens. The end game text notes that the aliens want us to give them soldiers as part of the peace negotiations.

I will also note that I spoiled myself on the protectorate ending, and saw that when they do enslave the world, they demand millions of humans as soldiers every year. This is an extraordinary amount of people given how strong their military already is.

Now I know that they had their super tragic history where their homeworld was wiped out, but that doesn't necessarily explain the need for THAT MANY soldiers now. So I have a theory: I think the aliens are at war with a seperate alien faction, and are losing to them. Otherwise, the need for literally millions of human soldiers makes little sense, since it's fair to assume that their alien, dogs, and salamander troops are already better than our soldiers 1-to-1. But, if we assume they're at war right now and losing a war of attrition, it makes complete sense; those forces are taking too many casualties and they need to supplement them with more lower quality manpower. We know the main motivation for conquering earth is just to ensure humanity isnt a threat, but tje fact that they stick to this demand in negotiations with the academy after losing seems to indicate this demand is fairly central to them.

This also explains why they aren't better prepared to actually beat humanity. They have better tech, but most of their resources are devoted to the war on another front.

Thoughts? Maybe there's lore in some of the other faction playthroughs that contradict this, but I think it fits pretty well.

Hey folks, playing my second campaign, first as the academy. Its 2046, and ive knocked the aliens out of the whole system minus their kuiper belt base and control basically all of Asia and north America, plus united Arab League.

I decided early on that I didnt want to just win though, I wanted to make earth a decent place to live, and have generally succeeded in that. Co2 has leveled off around 450ppm.

Question is, how long does it actually take to lower it if im prioritizing the environment? Id ideally like the achievement but am not willing to sit around to 2100 to make it happen. Would it be more effective to put all my points into environment in the countries i control to capture the co2, or take control of new countries to stop their emissions?

It would be really easy to just make a game that simulates an alien invasion on its own, since that's already a really interesting thing. The thing is, regardless of what the aliens do, climate change is a really problem that is going to affect the globe. If you don't deal with it, earth gets weaker over time due to more weather events affecting the global economy. I really like the layer of complexity this adds.

I think climate change is a really interesting, but kind of "un-fun" problem. IRL, it will require a lot of small changes over a long period of time, with little "reward" in the interim. It's also really hard to solve, because actually stopping it requires global action - it's a classic prisoner's dilemma. This isn't easy to make fun in most games, but in TI, which is a game where you're playing with the long-term in mind, it ends up fitting in really well I think. Strategically, you can choose between getting control of big polluters like China, India, and the US to lower their emissions, or just running spoilers and living with little to no support from earth in the long-term.

I also just really enjoy the thematics/RP potential of it. If you're playing as the resistance or academy, you're more of "utopian" and want to actually address it. If you're playing as the servants, you assume the aliens will solve all of our problems and don't have to worry about it.