I installed the mod expecting an all-out alien invasion, but despite the futuristic setting, there are no UFOs, just a bunch of free cities.

I was wondering why the aliens didn't show up, but you've already patched it, thank you.

@cheeseballeats: Have you thought about starting a new game in later eras?

Is there a way to make them spawn earlier? I'm usually done before satellites.

[Hotfix]
As a result of testing, the loyalty debuff snowballing was happening in places I didn't expect. A UFO is added when a Precity is created, and as a result, all civilizations on Earth are collapsing if only one Precity is created in the future era.

Angelis who Elder's leader apologized for the incident and immediately promised to seize the UFO from ADVENT and deploy the GDR (= Sectopod) to their peacekeepers instead.

Holy shit. This has been a fantasy of mine for Civ for years now. Can't wait to try this!

[Update notes]
Adjusted loyalty penalty from -15 to -5 until a more substantive solution can be found. Presumably, now the merciless invasion of the Ethereal is unlikely to happen, or even worse if left unchecked.

Incredibly based modder. Thank you. Hope all is well with you!

@ThinkingNut ~ @Wolfhound88
Forgive me for being late. Until now, due to personal circumstances, it was very difficult to access Steam. We'll fix this, and until then, we'll give you a simple edit to fix this loyalty issue.

Is anyone willing to make an edited version of this mod that doesnt have ridiculous stacking loyalty penalties since this guy clearly isnt?

So i was eager to try this one out but i'm seeing a quite unplayable challenge with the loyalty issues judging the comments. My suggestion? Maybe cut the loyalty sap to 10? or maybe make a ethereal invasion light version.

can you make the loyalty adjustable ? Its just unplayable now for me...

3/3
TLDR: Great idea, but I missed the UFO for a single turn and what that did to the world could not be corrected and as a player I had no control over what was happening to my empire. I agree with what some one people posted here, the penalty is way too high, the game became unplayable.

2/3
The next turn took the AI players forever and I could see the map change in dramatic ways. India, a thriving empire, was gone completely. A dozen City States. Half of the AI cities. And every city that rebelled spawned a UFO. When my turn came up the same happened in my empire. Even cities that were at full loyalty like my capitol were just gone. City states went from normal to Free Cities to joining my empire all at once while also spawning more UFOs that were now hanging around "my" new cities by the dozen.

1/3
I subscribed to this mod a while back, stopped playing and now started a new game. I just remembered that it was cool having a UFO and X-COM infantry so I kept this mod and Area 51. That's why I didn't immediately realize what was going on when from one turn to the other all cities in the world got a huge loyalty penalty. I changed policies, scrambled units to garrison cities, started "Bread and Circus" projects. I was so confused. Only the next turn did I see the Barbarian Camp with the UFO and destroyed it thanks to a nearby Aircraft Carrier. I thought I had it under control. Sure, the AI lost a few cities, some City States were history, but I was fine. Or so I thought. The next turn I returned to normal, consolidated my forces again and sent units to the empty spots on the map where I knew Barbarian Camps spawned from time to time. Little did I know those would be the last orders sent from my capital.

PART 2:

I'd rather see Meteor showers hit the Earth, and THOSE become the Alien spawn points that need to be captured? And just keep doing the Meteor Showers at random, or intervals, or tied to another ingame reasonin?

But the loyalty thing was just frustrating, unfightable, and fucked my 10 hour game up in a way that can't be fixed.

Ah, as the game has progressed, each AI turn is taking 5-10 minutes...so, as much as I like the concept, I've gotta give the mod a pass.

Here's been my experience: I built Area 51, used a couple of Alien units for fun, suddenly, a loyalty flip where it shouldn't happened, before the turn is even over, the territory falls back into my hands, but UFO's have already spawned in it. Next turn, that happens over the entire map, everyone suddenly loses all their land, and it's handed back to anyone else.

Again and again and again.

Suddenly, theres a hundred UFO units, I can''t attack them because my melee units just don't recognize them. And the entire world of 8 players has been reduced to 3, and all 3 of us have been randomly awarded everyone elses cities.

My input? The loyalty penalty is way, wayyyyyyy overkill, totally out of control, and cannot be reasonably countered.

I like it, but i'm finding that no units can attack UFO's, besides other UFO's, and Airplanes.

Known issue?

wow, kudos to @ThinkingNut for all the feedback haha. Imma try this out OP and look for any useful feedback, im hugely excited to see muh dear xcom merge in civ6. do you have any more infos on game settings meanwhile? like game speed, civ count, game difficulty, etc, to optimize immersion if you know what i mean.

Is this for people that don't have XCom?

Are player/AI (non-barb) owned UFOs supposed to decrease loyalty in every single city?
None of the barbs has unlocked the tech, yet lot's of cities are throwing away loyalty when I got my UFO from the Area 51 wonder

Just did a playthrough with an Ancient Era start, and got all the way to U.F.O's. I take back what I said before regarding having more ways to counteract them - it's actually almost too easy to get rid of them - just make sure I know where they are on the map, and send multiple GDR's to snipe them. Once they are gone, the loyalty pressure disappears. Almost disappointed with how easy it was to counter them after the buildup haha.

Thanks for the response, Alterd.

So is it intended that each UFO effects the entire map? If so, I think it would be better if it only effected nearby cities (I'm quite certain that there was just one barbarian camp left in my game, and yet every civ lost loyalty at the same rate).

Also, would it be possible to make it so destroying a barbarian UFO increase loyalty in all your cities?

Lastly, as ThinkingNut pointed out, it does appear that the barbarians need the tech for both alien infiltrator's and UFOs to start appearing, so I would suggest bringing them in a little earlier. Perhaps Synthetic Materials and Nanotechnology?

You're most welcome! Looking forward to your updates. I wonder if it is possible to lower the loyalty penalty from the U.F.O's while (as you say) increasing the likelihood and reliability of their spawning. From what I observed, as late as they were in arriving, once they did arrive, the whole map was pretty much completely wiped out within 10 turns. Not sure what I could have done if I was actually playing. Maybe future updates can give players more ways to counteract the U.F.O's and Aliens, or at least somewhat negate their mind control abilities? Thank you again.

@ThinkingNut
Thanks for the many reports! Detailed information about the Ethereal invasion, which has been vague so far, has been accumulated. In fact, no one kept the Barbarian alive in the late game, so there was an extremely lack of data about it.

In any case, it has been confirmed that the Ethereal invasion at this point is difficult to witness properly for most players starting from the ancient era, and the fact that the Free City => ADVENT uprising prepared as an alternative is not smooth. I'll have an update coming soon to improve this.

@Chevelle03
Thanks for sharing your success stories. And to answer your question...

1. Once UFOs start appearing, they will appear in 'all' barbarian camps on the map. (just like any other barbarian unit) and their loyalty penalty is cumulative.


1-1. In other words, you cannot improve the situation by hiring a single UFO. (Because the Elder UFOs will spawn in countless places where you can't see them!)
The only way you can survive is to completely eliminate the barbarians by clearing all barbarian camps on the map before the whole world is destroyed.

2. In the early version, the UFO loyalty penalty only applied to barbarians. However, contrary to ongoing UFO non-spawn reports, there has never been a single reported success story. That's why I was desperately forced to apply this penalty even to player UFOs.
But now that I've seen success stories, I'm not going to allow this penalty to apply to players.

Last post of the day: One thing I did notice though was that the U.F.O's came only when the barbarian tech reached Offworld Mission, not when the first player who researches Offworld Mission. This meant that the actual timing of the U.F.O would take a lot longer than point 3. of your description. I thought my previous games were bugged due to U.F.O's not appearing as soon as I researched Offworld Mission - it was because the barbarians had not caught up yet. Not sure if that is what you intended. Just an observation.

One more post: SUCCESSFUL Ethereal Invasion!!! I downloaded AI Spectator mod, and set all the AI to Mistake Era start. Your U.F.O's and Alien Infiltrators spawned as coded. So it definitely was my mods conflicting with yours. I'll slowly reintroduce my other mods back in and see which one(s) are causing the conflicts. If I know, I'll let you know so you can also warn others when they download your amazing mod. Cheers.

But that was after I disabled all my other mods apart from yours. I suspect maybe there's conflicting mods.

Good news! Just did a test run and deliberately did not do anything with my cities. It was on an Information Era start. At some point, suddenly all the cities were flipping with over -700 loyalty pressure. My own cities rebelled so I lost vision of what was going on, but I'm going to guess the U.F.O's finally landed? Maybe? Wish I could see them but I was already dead haha.

Also, shouldn't the UFO that I hired increase loyalty in my cities instead of decreasing it?

I believe I have had a 'successful' invasion. Alien infiltrator's appeared and I was able to hire a UFO from a barbarian camp. How exactly are UFOs meant to effect loyalty? In my game every single city on the map lost the same amount of loyalty (the location of the UFO seemed to have no effect, in fact the only UFO I ever spotted on the map was the one I bought). Thanks

What about setting the modifier condition to an even earlier tech - maybe Rocketry? That way, the AI will have an easier time getting it, so the Free Cities should also get it faster -> U.F.O's will spawn as intended.

+@ Please tell us about a successful Ethereal invasion. Most of the information I can come across is that there are no barbarians or free city UFOs appearing during play.

In any case, I'll fix this "again". The only hint is that Free City's technology does not automatically follow the major civ, unlike Barbarians, and the condition for UFO appearance is triggered when 'Free City' acquires satellite technology.

It hasn't worked well so far, but I'll try to change the modifier condition to "future Era".

@ThinkingNut
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2807950295

In fact, I'm feeling extremely confused. In my case, there is an extremely serious alien invasion that concerns the lifespan of the computer, but 100% of what is reported doesn't change anything.

HoQ is this possible? Why do they only start invading on CIV 6 on my computer, and not having any effect on others??

Just went for a science game - despite some Free Cities popping up late game after each era, no U.F.O's after Satellites, unfortunately - only late game units. What else can be done here?

Nvm got it to work so no problem

@matthewwor
Unfortunately, this mod doesn't affect game art. It is presumed that the error occurs in some other mode.

Great! Can't wait to test this. Thank you!

[Update Notes]
Now, after satellite technology, not only alien infiltrators but also 'U.F.O' will spawn in Free City. What this means is that a late-game Loyalty Depleted Rebellion can lead to a chain of civilization collapses.

so I have an issue regarding the wonder i dont know if I should refer back to the area51 mod but i built the wonder and then it just disappeared. On top of that no aliens spawned after the exoplanet was created sooo i dunno what happened im going to try again

That would be awesome. Thank you.

@ThinkingNut
I am considering using LUA code to solve this problem. The moment you enter the future Era, a barbarian unit is randomly added somewhere on the map.

Hi, just a quick update: I tried an Ancient Start game and won a Science Victory. I deliberately left the Barbarian Clans mode off so that the barbarians had a higher chance of surviving in the late game. Despite a couple of camps still present in the late game, I did not see any UFO's after Offworld Mission, and this time no Alien Infiltrators either. Did I miss something here? Cheers.

Ohh, what about tweaking barbarian and barbarian camp spawn rates, specifically post-information era? Are there settings that allow you to tweak that?

Got it. I'll leave the matter in your expert hands then. Looking forward to your evil plans for world annihilation!

@ThinkingNut
It's not impossible to spawn UFOs like Zombies from the Zombie Game Mode. However, in that case, the entire Earth was destroyed in just one turn after UFOs appeared in the ancient era. This is because zombies in the zombie game mode are not classified as 'unit class', but spawn specific units unilaterally.

I'm thinking of other ways to provoke the barbarians.

First of all, thank you very much for being so responsive and enthusiastic with your hotfixes. I really love the concept of this mod, which is why I'm reporting what's happening with the player experience so frequently. Hope you do not mind the constant updates. Really want this to work in accordance with your vision.

Sadly, I just had an unsuccessful online-speed game on Mistake Era start. No barbarian camps spawned, so no Alien Infiltrators nor UFO's appeared even after researching Offworld Mission. Just a thought: would it be possible to code the game so that the aliens and UFO's spawn regardless of the presence of existing barbarian camps? That way the Ethereal apocalypse will be more reliable. Could the way they spawn be similar to Zombies from the Zombie Game Mode?

[VeryHotFix(temporary)]
Classified the U.F.O as a Barbarian Recon unit. This change definitely exponentially increases their chances of appearing later in the game!

According to my advice: JUST RUN

Anyway, unlike my test play, the appearance of UFOs is lukewarm, so I'm going to make some dramatic adjustments. Apparently, the justification for giving you the XCOM squad is growing...