A Shared Earth by Joror
A Shared Earth
We saw their signals coming in for over 30 years, and have built up a sense of them.
Our leaders and elders agreed, they are a sentient, intelligent species.
In many ways like us. But we did not expect them...
This was supposed to be an empty planet for us to build a new home on.

Controls
- :mousethreebutton: Grab and drag the globe with left mouse button
- :scroll: Use scroll wheel to zoom
- :gem: Click on actions to schedule them
- :information_source: Hover or click on nations to get information
- :computer: Escape to go to menu
- :chocolate_bar: Space bar to skip ahead of text
Tips
- Find nice spots for your embassies
- Keep an eye on your :gem:s and upcoming fleets
- There are multiple routes to success
| Post Jam Version (web) | https://joror.itch.io/a-shared-earth |
| Post Jam Version (win) | https://joror.itch.io/a-shared-earth |
| Old Jam Version | https://yarr.me/ludum-dare/ld54/ld54-a_shared_earth.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/a-shared-earth |
Ratings
| Overall | 424th | 3.719⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 551th | 3.469⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 183th | 3.875⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 651th | 3.516⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 589th | 2.839⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 523th | 3.583⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 26🗳️ | 45🗨️ |
I like how streamlined you kept it this time. It doesn't seem overwhelming at all and you can play it on your lunchbreak, but the core of what makes strategy fun is still there. Story is also interesting -- may have been done before, but not nearly as much as you'd expect given the rich themes involved.
- When zooming in and out on the menu you can still 'select' countries (well, color them green briefly...) :wink:
- (At first:) It isn't _entirely_ clear to me what establish colony and settle fleet is -- and what is gained from separating these actions. (Later:) No, I get it now. Still feels a little bit clunky that you need a colony and _then_ they can't just settle off themselves, but this fits both the story better and has more crunchiness to it (good, because it needs at least a _little_ even if streamlining).
- It seems set up so that at least _some_ actions need to be aggressive (or willingness to live through years where the fleets are just dying...), I don't think there's a good path where the err, 'native population' is always pleased that doesn't end up with the first few fleets dead of starvation.
- (Later) ... except if you make a mortal enemy of Antarctica .. see screenie :stuck_out_tongue:

- There's a nice spot between India and China where you can capture about 40% of the world by population with a single embassy (and chuck in Pakistan and Nepal for good measure...).
- A pox on you Antarctica! Don't destroy my Colony! (How did they do that?)
- (Web/PostJam version at least, I'm on Linux Manjaro running an updated version of Firefox)
> "Your Rotation has enced, Overseer ... Are you ready?"
-> Well, yes, (I'm ready to face the consequences...) but you won't let me select an option.
Dev-console: Logs seem to be spammed a lot, but if I limit it to errors, I see `'USER ERROR: Unknown event id: EndRotation2'` every time I click the 1st option.
I might do an aggressive play later, but I dislike playing the baddie, so maybe not :sweat_smile:
(You're well aware of this, but I can't help but note:) Don't forget to rate others'! You know how hard it is if you start a week later...
Gameplay, look and feel, ambiance, sound design, story telling, I am very impressed.
I tried to play nice but... had to change some plan in order to survive ^^
I will definitively play this one again to try different strategies, great entry!
I ended up losing millions of aliens due to starvation (I'm not very good at managing), but enjoyed the gameplay anyway!
Thanks for the game, keep up the good work!

I was only able to do this with a bug. It was still a fun challenge though, as in this state as it seems just barely possible. The embassy balance is pretty fine in this region, too many and people starve, too few and colonies get destroyed.
Anyway, the bug is that Establish Covert Base, Establish Embassy, and Claim Colony can be done without the required resources. The resources are still spent if you have them. Also, Trade Minerals for food and Negotiate Colony only check the resources at the start of the turn. This meant I could do two Trade Minerals with 10 stored minerals and receive 20 food. It is also possible to do Negotiate Colony twice with only 15 minerals banked, although I ended up not using this since Claim Colony is mostly free. With this in mind my strategy was as follows:
- Trade my first 10 minerals for 20 food.
- Place embassies in countries I will want to claim colonies in, ensuring all my embassies overlap Brazil (there is a spot which covers Ecuador and Brazil).
- Claim about five colonies as the first ships start to arrive, because this action is only free when you have zero minerals and settlement generates minerals.
- Combine early fleet settlement with Mine Asteroids, to give me at least 10 minerals to turn into 20 food next turn. Otherwise large fleets will starve when they arrive.
- Claim colonies here and there when my minerals hit zero, filtering in extra embassies when countries get a bit too hostile.
- Make sure I can settle large fleets in one go, as they drain a lot of food in orbit.
I might have found two other bugs, or they might have been intentional. The first is that fleets in orbit seemed to cost food and starve even if they are being settled that turn. This contradicts the Elder text that says fleets will starve unless settled. The other possible bug is that doing two settle actions with two fleets in orbit will only settle one fleet. The second action seems to do nothing. Oh, and the UI seems to break a bit. I sometimes had a country tooltip stuck in the top left of the screen, and things that I didn't mean to place would sometimes end up under the buttons in the top right.
In spite of all this, I still spent a few hours playing around and trying out different approaches. So the game holds up underneath. Using the real earth is a nice touch as it lets people use their geography knowledge.