Relations (Apocalypse)

Basic Concepts

The starting relations can be consulted on the Organizations page. Keep in mind that there is a random factor added to the relations during game start, which can cause slight changes on that table.

Relationships in Mega-Primus generally follow these principles:

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend

This means that if you attack Organisation A, which is disliked by Organisation B, Organisation B will be much friendlier towards you, and vice versa - attacking A, which is liked by B, will result in B disliking you. (Organisation A will obviously be unhappy with the situation either way!)

Trying to understand these relationships can be quite difficult at first (except for the pretty obvious ones like Megapol and the Aliens), but there are ways to gauge how companies are relating to each other.

Reading the informational headlines that pop up on your information bar from time to time is a great way to see how certain companies relate to each other. Gangs in particular also employ direct air assaults on their enemies. Unfortunately, they tend to be overwhelmed by the defenders.

Love Can be Unrequited

A lot of these relationships are however one-way only. That is to say, if company A likes company B, this relationship is not mutually exclusive. Company B may feel indifferent or have a slight dislike for company A.

Case in point, every time an organisation gets fed up with X-COM and refuses to accept cash settlments because you're attacking their 'alien friends', the aliens will not necessarily feel the same way about the rebelling company. The company may continue to get upset whenever you take action against the aliens, but they will quickly change their tune if the aliens turn on them and start destroying their facilities.

The Organizations tab on Cityscape shows their opinion towards X-COM. You won't be able to see X-COM's opinion towards them though - for all intents and purposes, that's dependant on your own views.

Some Friends Are Better Than Others

Certain organisations are more important to stay friendly with or protect from alien infiltration than others. I'm sure it needn't be said, but do not bother paying out insane sums to keep the Cult of Sirius happy. It won't work. You obviously want to stay friendly with groups such as Megapol (otherwise expect random shootings in the cityscape) and Marsec if you intend on doing any business with them. The government is where you get that insulting amount of funding from, and despite it not covering your troops wages, any amount of funds are very much needed. Other factions to make sure you stay in their good books include anyone else you want to trade with. Transtellar is very important to keep away from the aliens, since if you lose their support you have no good means to transfer equipment between bases (and you will have to use your craft and agents to move things betwen bases).

In addition, bear in mind that, if hostile, Megapol and the three gangs are much more likely to raid you than the other organizations.

For more information about the starting relationships check down below and the pages of the individual organizations.

Donations/Reparations/Bribes/etc

In Mega-Primus, money is the medium that makes the cogs move. A generous helping here or there will allow X-COM free to free themselves of the uncooperative companies that are obstructing X-COM from saving the city by withdrawing their services.

There are two occasions where you can offer money to a company to improve their standings with you. You can voluntarily offer the money to a company, or the company will demand that you pay them a tribute of cash. The second option only happens if the company is decidedly hostile towards you. The Cult of Sirius for example always do this in every new game.

Both of these methods differ in their purpose.

Offering Money

When you offer cash to a company, their standings with you will improve a level. Neutral companies can go to friendly, or hostile companies will continue to dislike but will resume their services (where applicable). They will specify the amount that they will accept for this to happen, and if you pay it they will respond in a positive manner.

Bringing a company to "friendly" through this method is a temporary affair - they'll quickly find reason to drop back to neutral, or in certain cases, hostile. These "short-term" allies can be abused - for example, if you bribe Osiron and are attacked by the cultists, Osiron will potentially become hostile to your antogonists. Even if they revert to a neutral status with X-COM shortly after, they will remain unhappy with the group that fired on it's "allies".

(And given the habit of the gangs to frequently vent their frustrations on groups they dislike, relations between them are sure to quickly spiral further downwards).

Companies Demanding Money

If cash is demanded of you, this means that you have insulted the company in some way that they want you to make reparation for it. When paid, the company's general disposition will automatically be set to neutral, with perhaps some lingering hostility.

Note that if you knowingly cause a lot of damage to a building owned by a certain company and you anticipate that they'll be asking for a settlement (such as dropping them from neutral to hostile after a UFO skirmish), do not in any way offer them the money until they come asking for it. If you pre-empt it and bribe them until they are allied, the request for money will still be issued. Once paid, their standing will return to neutral. Paying them again and then buying them back until they are allied means they'll be double dipping into your funds. If you choose to not pay them, this will add further insult and make matters worse.

Companies Refusing X-COM Payments

There comes a time where a company will refuse these Public Relations Improvement Fund packages from X-COM. This can happen in two ways.

The first is through 100% alien infiltration. They become an alien-controlled organization, and so will not cooperate with X-COM.

The second is when a company loses faith in X-COM and starts to think that the aliens would be a better alternative. This generally happens if X-COM does a lot of property damage in both the cityscape and especially the battlescape. The Cult of Sirius is already at this stage when you start a new game. Note that while the company thinks this way, the aliens don't necessarily have to agree with it unless they are already friendly with the company involved.

When this happens, the only way you will be able to bribe companies in this state is when they ask for it. Beyond that, the only way to get them to like you again is to do something that'll make them happy. Such as outright attacking their enemies, or tricking the aliens to do such serious damage towards their property (in the Cityscape) that they re-think their positions.

Note that once a company starts behaving like this, they'll continue to do so even if you are the best of chums with them again. Also that due to an unfortunate selection of words, these companies will always refer to the aliens as their "friends" in the bribe screen. This is not necessarily the case.

Relationships At Game Start

As mentioned before, the initial relationships between organizations on Mega-Primus develop into dynatic and chaotic affairs as damage is inflicted to buildings and raids are conducted. It's quite possible for Megapol, for example, to ally with the gangs against the government. Moreover, there's a random element when the ratings are generated which makes each game start differently.

But it might be helpful to have a look at the initial alliances and feuds at the start of the game to have an idea how things can evolve. Keep in mind that there can be slight changes on the starting views of every organization towards others that can result in additional relationships in addition to those shown below.

A detailed list of the organizations' starting attitudes can be consulted at Organizations.

"You Will Be Brainsucked. Resistence is Futile."

X-COM Government Megapol

VS.

Alien Cult of Sirius (Transtellar)

The main story, everything else is sideshow. Aliens will try to infiltrate the police and the Senate and if that happens either your money will run out or the police cars will shoot at you. Or worse - both will happen.

Transtellar usually starts the game sympathetic to the aliens and usually turns hostile towards X-COM because they'll dislike X-COM killing their friends, along with the property damage. This makes them very susceptible to infiltration, but it is possible to prevent that from happening through large denomination bills and a close watch on their buildings.

Mine Is Bigger Than Yours

Megapol

VS.

Marsec

The rivals of Mega-Primus's military-industrial complex. Due to X-COM's ties with Megapol, Marsec will usually gravitate towards a Unfriendly/Hostile attitude which hinder access to their advanced weapons.

Superdynamics

VS.

General Metro

The fight for dominance in the transportation sector. You should look at to keeping Superdynamics on your side, unless you are planning to use a lot of ground vehicles.

Cyberweb

VS.

Nanotech

The battle of the robots against the nanobots. You both need them because of the weapons control systems for craft and the Medi-Kits.

Solmine

VS.

Energen

Energy short fuses. Solmine sells you Elerium, which is required for craft plasma weapons, so it's better to stay on their side.

Sensovision

VS.

Lifetree

Brainwashing education and entertainment industry. Neither organization is particularly important to X-COM.

Nutrivend

VS.

Evonet

"Soylent Green is people! We've got to stop them somehow!" Neither organization is particularly important to X-COM.

Technocrats

VS.

Extropians

Different political views. As far as X-COM is concerned, these organizations are of the lowest priority.

And remember: the enemy of my enemy is my friend or the friend of my enemy is my enemy or whatever.

Crime And Fun

Government Megapol

VS.

Psyke Diablo Osiron

Right from the beginning of the game the police cars will shoot down gang vehicles that get into range of their guns. And the gangs will retaliate back against the police and the government, who happen to be your allies.

Psyke

VS.

Diablo

VS.

Osiron

VS.

Sensovision

VS.

Grav Ball League

And there's always the free for all between the gangs, Sensovision and Grav Ball League. Of course, being friends with the League usually brings more soldiers available for recruitment but might piss off the others.

Scratch My Back And I'll Scratch Yours

Marsec Solmine Extropians

Offworld interests (Colonies' slave mining operations)

Sanctuary Clinic Nanotech

The doctors' cabal.

S.E.L.F. Cyberweb

Pinocchio and Geppetto.
And remember: piss-off anyone of these organizations and their buddies will not be happy.

Power To The People

S.E.L.F. Mutant Alliance

VS.

Government Megapol

The hybrids and the androids are usually friendly to one another and both will look down upon the police and the Senate (and their allies), which might make recruiting difficult.

EDITING YOUR SAVEGAME

If you want to setup your game to have the HATE relationships as listed above, you could use the Midnight Editor for Xcom Apocalypse to edit your savegame. You don't need to start a new game if you don't want to. If you do edit a new savegame, then you'll see the lovely relationships between hostile corporations and the back stabbing, and the destruction.... Lovely!

Midnight Editor

Available here:

http://devisraad.com/xcom/apoc.htm

• OPTIONAL. just a little bit of help with the editor: Select the first corp, then put sliders at neutral, then click "copy to all corporations" button. Go thru and do this for each corp in the list (except the last one. "Civilians"). Placing everyone neutral to everyone else gives you a good basis to work out who you each corp want to hate or love other. Once you do this, use the list above to tune corp relationships. (CAREFUL! NO = Transtellar vs Megapol = many destroyed transtellar road taxi).
• you MUST make X-COM hostile 100% to Aliens, and Aliens hostile 100% to Xcom or the game WILL start being stupid.
• if you make Civilians hostile to everyone else (besides Xcom), aliens and security forces will hunt down and kill the mindless civilians running around the tactical map - CAN HELP IMMENSELY when aliens have run out of Boomeroids by the time they are engaged by Xcom agents.

What do the sliders within the editor mean?

There are two sliders for each corp regarding relations (four sliders in total). The top slider of the each pair is dynamic. It moves when a positive or negative aspect impacts the two corps in question.

• eg: if Megapol accidently flattens a Superdynamics large flyer factory, then the top slider of the pair will move left (closer to 100% hostile) to denote Superdynamic's anger towards Megapol. Megapol might remain indifferent if it were accidently destroyed.

The bottom slider of the pair denotes predisposed attitude between two corps. This does not change as it is a bench mark which each corp will use against the other. eg: (same as above example) Superdynamics' hate towards Megapol has increased. SD might ask Megapol for monetary compensation to bring back relations to their formal state. If Megapol doesn't pay up, then raids and/or illegal flyer activity could be an outcome towards Megapol from Superdynamics, or from their allies.