Yes, it great. Honestly, probably the best 4x game I've ever played. Great and unironically deep mechanics. Plus it is a great Hex Wargame with a cool logistics system.
Anybody hyped for Oceania DLC? I want to play an island planet with jungles and murderous wildlife.
Knowing Vic, there is a decent chance he will redo the system to allow for this. He has teased at it a few times that MTH might not be the final implementation of the system.
The Thinking Man's game. I hope the dev ramps up his work on the oceania DLC and work on a better DLC that adds more customization to aircraft, tanks and other models. He should add stealth technology and radars.
DLC is out on the 30th, Vic said on stream it will probably be about €9.99.
Knowing Vic, there is a decent chance he will redo the system to allow for this. He has teased at it a few times that MTH might not be the final implementation of the system.
On the stream today Vic said it is his intention to eventually make ships be buildable by players and all the systems he has in place now are designed with the intention of this getting a free upgrade in the future.
>Vic said on stream it will probably be about €9.99.
Less than i expected. Positively suprised. >Vic said it is his intention to eventually make ships be buildable by players and all the systems he has in place now are designed with the intention of this getting a free upgrade in the future.
Won't happend if the game isn't financially succesful. I know VST hates paypig shills but i'm gonna have to be one for this game. I must have more Shadow Empire content. cry about it if you must.
games just take way too damn long. AI isn't great.
Try playing on the smallest map type. I know we all like it big, but if you pick the smallest map and just roll the highest possible size for that world the game runs way, way faster than the other two sizes. I have only ever finished a game against the AI on this map size.
It is definitely fun to play on big maps too though. Had a planet a little bigger than earth in my last game and organising railway logistics was surprisingly enjoyable.
1 year ago
Anonymous
I hear you, anon. But i have found that the turn times make me want to kill myself. Maybe i'm just an impatient Zigger but by god the difference is night and day.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Just get a decent CPU. It's not that hard. People are willing to pay thousands for GPUs but you skimp on the more important component?
1 year ago
Anonymous
I have an I-9900K.
I also would be shocked if the game is anything other than single threaded.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Do you have the AI set to the highest time setting? I put it in the middle after a few games and didn't notice any difference in the ai. Turns are under 30-60 seconds. The real challenge, if that's what you want, is in bumping the difficultly up. The ai will spam units and fill the map, making encirclements more difficult.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>Turns are under 30-60 seconds
If you think this is acceptable, then i am just going to self brand myself as the impatient Zigger i am.
If the very last 10 turns of a game take 30 seconds to process i'll be satisfied but ideally most turns should be below 15~ seconds to process for most the game.
I really don't think larger map with more painting to do makes for better gameplay. The tech tree gets unlocked frighteningly fast by the time you hit bureaucrat 3 or 4 anyway. >Do you have the AI set to the highest time setting?
I just select the 'give ai more time to think' on game setup screen whcih i think gives the middle option? But i feel exactly like
So wait, does the "allow AI more time" option make the AI smarter or is it just so the game is less taxing on your CPU?
Or am I moronic and it means something completely different?
couldn't tell ya if it actaully changes anything
1 year ago
Anonymous
Do you not watch the ai to see where they are moving troops? Any faster and you wouldn't be able to keep up with the intel unless you wanted to look step by step in the turn history.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>Do you not watch the ai to see where they are moving troops?
Frick no, lol. I just alt tab and browse the frickin internet.
I look at how many kills / losses on the end turn screen and then i use the turn history tool to compare what the situation was at the end of my turn and the beginning of my turn.
I can figure out everything i need to know from this, i only ever look in detail if i am curious where X casulties came from.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>Not designating surfing and gaming to seperate time slots.
I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit. What do you see when you close your eyes? Can you imagine an apple? What color is it? Can you rotate the apple, anon?
1 year ago
Anonymous
Give me a break shitter. I'm not staring at the fricking end turn screen.
There was a bug last i played that made the game crash if you viewed AI moves so i was double incentivized to not look at it.
1 year ago
Anonymous
JK. But it's faster to watch the AI moves then review the history. I only go into the history tab when I want to screenshot epic battles with good kill ratios.
I find the AI to be generally not moronic.
They have buffs when it comes to logistics and road construction, but they "mostly" play by the same rules as the player. Only part I find annoying is after taking their territory you can be left with spaghetti roads.
Generally enabling the option to increase AI turn times helps them out but it will increase turn times.
>they "mostly" play by the same rules as the player.
Why lie? The A.I. outright cheats. It doesn't play by the same rules as the player whatsoever.
Does it has a above decent ai? bad ai in strategy games is a no play for me even if the rest is perfect
The computer controlled opponents aren't all that great and tend to make moronic decisions. Most of its shortcomings are plugged by the aforementioned cheating (in every aspect of the game). Despite that, it's still fun.
I find the AI to be generally not moronic.
They have buffs when it comes to logistics and road construction, but they "mostly" play by the same rules as the player. Only part I find annoying is after taking their territory you can be left with spaghetti roads.
Generally enabling the option to increase AI turn times helps them out but it will increase turn times.
the actual game AI is not great, once you get your economy rolling you generally roll over the AI, which is the only real part holding the game back
>Getting your economy off the ground involves cheesing the otherwise seemingly random tech tree to get a specific one early
That was my impression from the general. I never get my economy reasonable
Is anyone gonna do a UI overhaul to make it less hideous?
Also it would be nice if the AI put more effort into air units. Cool dogfights are too rare.
You can't change how you interact with the UI so you can't change how menus work, you can mod most of the art assets though.
Pymous's Shadow Stratagems Artpack and Cladboy2's Sentinel Vidcom art pack get rid of most of the ugly 3d art. You can find them on the graphics mod section of the shadow empire matrix forums. Das Tactic's terrain mod makes the map easier to read too.
>Pymous
cringe soulless silhouettes
I like them. I think silhouette abstract style works for the card art.
I'm gonna have to be the contrarian here and say that i actually think the base game's horrible looking 3d art is nice.
It's distinctly Shadow Empire. Not striving for visual splendor but still having it's own style.
This. The worst thing possible for this game would be for the owner to listen to all the midwit feedback online about graphics and ui. I haven't felt this engrossed in a game since Galactic Civilizations 2 and the art fits so right with that retro feel.
I find the AI to be generally not moronic.
They have buffs when it comes to logistics and road construction, but they "mostly" play by the same rules as the player. Only part I find annoying is after taking their territory you can be left with spaghetti roads.
Generally enabling the option to increase AI turn times helps them out but it will increase turn times.
You can delete roads. Not sure if you know this.
Does it has a above decent ai? bad ai in strategy games is a no play for me even if the rest is perfect
Started a game on hard and I learned that if you don't take an enemy city fast, then they will just draft their entire population to reinforce their 16 unit max in the city. Initially they had 24k troops that I surrounded on all sides. By hammering them with artillery and then attacking I was able to inflict about 8k casualties per turn, but the ai on hard is able to reinforce a good deal of that. Nevermind that everything in the city has been destroyed and they had no industry. The ai on hard will simply draft it's entire population into service to be genocided in an epic last stand. So instead of capturing a 100k pop city, you might get a 30k pop city ten turns later. But I'm not complaining, as it's pretty fun on higher difficulties.
>UI could definitely use improvements
I wont try and convince anyone that the UI is secretly a master piece, but i would say you get used to it very quickly with muscle memory. Theres only a handful of buttons that are actaully important and many of your options are pointless or not needed to be clicked on for the majortiy of the game.
Art is awfull, road and logistick system just moronic, same as faction and council system, and stop pretending like it isn't.
>Art is awfull
Subjective >road and logistick system just moronic
It's really not that complicated. Everything comes from your SHQ in a line. It makes perfect sense when you learn it. >same as faction and council system
This is correct and i think theres honestly a bug for many versions now where newly formed leader factions will start making demands even though they haven't even partaken in electinos, sidelining your actual majority factions. It's very stupid indeed.
>It makes perfect sense when you learn it.
it may be not complicated but its still moronic
1 year ago
Anonymous
Well i guess it is moronic if you try to think of it like a real logistics 'network'
A better description is a logistics line.
I just don't see the negative here. If the system was more complicated it would filter even more people and make the game miserable to play.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>If the system was more complicated it would filter even more people and make the game miserable to play
iirc there's option which give player the same logistick system as AI have.
1 year ago
Anonymous
I think it just increases action points for trucks/trains so they reach further.
1 year ago
Anonymous
In what other game do supplies, food, ammo and reinforcements actually have to travel down road and rail networks? It's pretty epic if you ask me. Once you wrap your head around it, you can visualize the 1800 infantry and 60 tanks you just raised travelling down Hwy 13 next turn. Then only 40% make it because you consumed 1500 ammo in your last turn's artillery offensive and all your trucks were carrying ammo to the frontline. It's not even challenging once you understand it. Public truck stations in your cities if you aren't pushing out enough logistic points. Paved roads between every city. Truck stops halfway between every city. Dirt roads branch from the main highway to link any mines or what not (try to minimize this by planning main highways to cross hex assets you need). Mid game place a rail station in every city and link every city with railroads. For distant frontlines follow your offenses with paved roads and a railroad and railhead.
1 year ago
Anonymous
anon i do not mean that
i mean things like for example your trucks riding in every direction and splinting on every crossroad instead of driving there where they are needed
its fricking moronic >oh noes crossroads >lost half the convoy
1 year ago
Anonymous
Look into traffic signs. A good tip I have is to block all supplies going down roads to assets or non front lines,then uncheck "pull points" checkbox so that only the necessary amount of supplies go down that road.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Good tip: logistick fricking not work like THIS.
Trucks deliver their load where you need to, not in any direction just bcs they see a road here.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Dont think how it works in real life. Think of logistics in SE how you think about water flow. Each road is a pipe and logistic points and water flowing trough it
1 year ago
Anonymous
Just accept it for how it is anon. If you just learn traffic signs and pull points you'll always have logistics where they are needed. It's not actually that difficult. This is a system that pull points made easier to manage then release version.
Just get more capacity and remove unnecssary road junctions to prevent this from happening. Road signs should only be used to temporarily resolve supply problems.
I find I use traffic signs excessively and it is only a boon for my logistics. My friend who I'm playing against atm doesn't use them and it shows. He's struglung with supply only about 50/60 hexes from his capital and I have excess capacity about 200 hexes away.
More micro? Yes,but I believe it pays off.
Pic related is older photo from that game.
1 year ago
Anonymous
You can definently micromanage using road signs to get more total points to certain areas, but that is all you can do with it: your total capacity will remain the same and the reach will be the same regardless of whether or not you use road signs.
Uh... what? To make the trucks deliver stuff to places where they are actually needed you have to physically dig up the road so they can't escape?
Digging up unnecessary roads can be a way to prevent your system from automatically sending points where it doens't make sense. Breaking up raods cost very little by the end of the game unless its in mountains.
Anyway to try and illustrate my points better, the pull system will pretty much always guarantee that everything has what it needs (if it is in reach of your logistics grid) if you have enough points. If you have enough capacity, your units will always receive all the supplies they need.
There is a big but however: Logistics on your actual, playable turn. While your units may have all the supplies they need, you might find that roads you consider vital don't have any spare points to deploy new units / strategic move units to among other things, this is where comes in handy, road signs can help direct the flow to where it's needed the most.
But when i say
Just get more capacity and remove unnecssary road junctions to prevent this from happening. Road signs should only be used to temporarily resolve supply problems.
the point im trying to convey is that if you have enough capacity and remove excess road junctions, you don't really need to micromanage your logistics, atleast in SP; you will always have enough for what you want to do, generally speaking. I just don't think its worth microing in that situation.
1 year ago
Anonymous
I should also add to reinforce my point that road signs can't be given specific values: You can only do percentage based, meaning that you might have disproportionate amounts of stuff going to the wrong places even if you use them. If the game allowed you to specifically set how many points went in each direction at the junctions we'd have an autistic recipe for succes, however.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Just get more capacity and remove unnecssary road junctions to prevent this from happening. Road signs should only be used to temporarily resolve supply problems.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Uh... what? To make the trucks deliver stuff to places where they are actually needed you have to physically dig up the road so they can't escape?
1 year ago
Anonymous
anon i do not think you understand me
I know how it work in game and I know how to make it work in game
its still fricking moronic
1 year ago
Anonymous
What gets me is that they can carry the same amount of goods down a 1-tile road as a 20-tile road. Sorry boss, we only drive out once every two months no matter how few km we go, it's union rules.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Oh yeah >trucks can used only once in any direction per turn, no matter how long travels path is >trucks splits by half in every fricking crossroad >no dedicated trucks for army, so we must requisition them from construction and other civilian tasks >no matter how many filling station on a way, trucks use only first one
Pretty epic? No, fricking moronic.
1 year ago
Anonymous
That's not how it works. Trucks don't split 50/50 at every intersection. They do split, but it's based on demand. Nevertheless, you still want to optimize your road network to improve throughput. Like this anon is saying,
Just get more capacity and remove unnecssary road junctions to prevent this from happening. Road signs should only be used to temporarily resolve supply problems.
, you probably have unnecessary road junctions. You also probably haven't upgraded your supply stations in your cities to meet demand.
Good tip: logistick fricking not work like THIS.
Trucks deliver their load where you need to, not in any direction just bcs they see a road here.
There is a push pull system for delivering logistics. In my picture you will see that I've not used roadblocks at all. I've eliminated unnecessary junctions. You can see the farm at the one tile gravel branch demands 150 logistics and it receives 185 logistics. No roadblocks needed!
Don't be afraid to delete the existing roads and redesign them. I could dig up screenshots of my first games and show the mistakes I made by keeping the existing road networks. I honestly don't get the hate for the logistics because it's fun in an autistic transport tycoon kind of way.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Explained it better than i ever could, anon.
What do you mean about putting truck stops halfway between cities? Truck STOPS specifically or supply bases? Because i feel like putting the truck stops inside of the city is fine and using supply bases to get little extra reach if the distance between two cities is great?
1 year ago
Anonymous
Sorry, I get the terminology confused. I meant supply bases. Build one supply base halfway between each city. Build truck stations in your cities. The "perfect" distance between each city is 13 tiles, with a level 1 supply base equidistant between them, although at higher supply base levels this distance can be extended. But obviously most cities are already built and it's not a perfect world, so the general rule is just build one supply base equidistant between each city.
so how do i start this game, is there built in tutorial or will i have to waste 30h watching youtube tutorials to learn mechanics similar to paradox trash?
You'll have more fun playing your first few games blind. I do anyway with video games in general. Good thing about this game is it's deep enough that you will still be learning new things and facing challenged hundreds of hours in. Like these guys said.
I've been playing for 5 months (600 hours in Steam) and just learned some tricks with logisitcs today. But in general I understand quite well what to do. Just play the game as much as you can.
,
Only seek tutorials if theres something you don't understand i'd argue. The game isn't esoteric, many of the game concepts are similar or derived from one you might be familiar with in other 4x games.
Seek manual/youtube/Ganker/steam forums/wherever if you run into a mechanic you don't understand.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>The "perfect" distance between each city is 13 tiles
In that case you should merge them together as the perfect city is size VII. Once you upgrade to VII you can start playing colonist and recruit cards to work back down to the 300-400k optimal city size.
Remember that recruits can be sent to colonize a zone just like colonists by putting them in an SHQ, moving the SHQ to the zone, setting the zone to use the SHQ, and then downloading recruits from the SHQ as normal. I wish Vic would just make colonists and recruits act the same so I don't have to jump through all those hoops.
1 year ago
Anonymous
I hate logistics because it's unrealistic. You have a truck in Capital City X, truck carries 100 grain units, truck recieves call that 100 grain units are needed in City Y, truck drives to City Y, there's a supply station to refuel on the way and the truck delivers 100 grain units to City Y. Truck then spends the next turn returning to City X with 100 metal or whatever else City X needs.
What's happening with this "system" is that trucks go into every direction and road available looking for resources to find 24/7. Spending an entire turn driving around the countryside. As I understand it, resources in City Y must first be delivered to SHQ City X before it can be delivered to troops, even though it would be closer logistically to deliver City Y > Troops. The logistics points work like some kind of river that dries up after a few miles. A truck delivering goods is not supposed to deliver only 10 of the 100 units before it reaches City Y. It's annoying as hell, that's why I prefer building railroads, even though it's the same stupid system at least it doesn't inexplicably cuts off their "logistical points" out of nowhere.
>>road and logistick system just moronic >It's really not that complicated. Everything comes from your SHQ in a line. It makes perfect sense when you learn it.
Nobody said it's complicated, just that it's moronic. An "optimal" transport network is actually just a single line.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Well, yes and no.
It's mathematically optimal but tactically it has some problems. You'll want to split into atleast two lines near the front so that you aren't susceptible to breakthroughs and so that you can fan out into encirclements.
Being able to create supply dumps would be good though, although that might not be appropriate given the long timescale. Each turn is ~2 earth months long, so stockpiling ammo and food for a turn offensive is literal years worth of supplies in a remote place away from HQ in a world full of scavengers.
I know you can delete roads, it is just a slightly annoying 10-20 second chore to do after taking a big chunk of territory in a war. I follow it up immediately by slapping down traffic signs.
Also I appreciate the art style of the game, but I'm not a boomer so there is no nostalgia for me and I struggle to take it seriously. So, I am going to update my AI art pack and you can't stop me.
Just keep an eye on the forums. I'll probably have the Vidcom updated within a few days after Oceania releases.
Portrait pack will be a while as there is a lot more manual editing to match how the game generates faces.
Here is a link to the forum post with documentation Vic provided on graphical modding.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10623&t=362315
You can find the portraits in [.../Shadow Empire/graphics/shadow/portraits]
You can't delete groups as it will mess the game up, but you can replace the images.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Thanks. Interesting. I wonder if anyone has done the math to see how many unique faces this game can generate.
1 year ago
Anonymous
There is about 1024 variations per portrait group.
Each file (face, eyes, hair, mouth and nose) has two columns, young and old. Most columns have 4 rows.
Depending on the age of the character it will use either the young or old column, with the exception of the face and hair which are mixed using transparency.
So about 1024 variations per group, 2048 if you include young and old versions of characters, although this is technically larger as the hair will slowly get more grey and the face will slowly get wrinkles as the face and hair become more opaque over the young version.
No frick you anon. Those games had art design even when going against the limitations of their day. This game can easily be improved with some 2d shit or literally anything else other than ugly 3d models. The art should look better.
You can't change how you interact with the UI so you can't change how menus work, you can mod most of the art assets though.
Pymous's Shadow Stratagems Artpack and Cladboy2's Sentinel Vidcom art pack get rid of most of the ugly 3d art. You can find them on the graphics mod section of the shadow empire matrix forums. Das Tactic's terrain mod makes the map easier to read too.
Aye, huge time sink though, you won't even notice how a day passes if you keep playing it. Currently just waiting for the oceania update and get some comfy island gameplay. I wonder if there will be new AI factions that will be more water-focused?
The manual is hardly a guide. It's just descriptions for how game mechanics work and even then you can probably find a better answer by asking on here or steam forums.
I don't know any specific written guides, i know that some youtubers like DasTactic have some decent tutorials but they are quite long winded and take alot of time explaining mechanics you rarely interact with.
If you have a specific question about the game just ask away and i can try my best to explain.
I wish this game expanded more on all the hidden shit going on in cities like crime and cultist wars so it wasn't just in the background until 500 of your troops stationed there happen to die in a riot.
So wait, does the "allow AI more time" option make the AI smarter or is it just so the game is less taxing on your CPU?
Or am I moronic and it means something completely different?
Just posted about that. I didn't notice any difference. Even on the highest processing time the ai would occasionally do something stupid and leave a city unoccupied for me to take over. On higher difficulty, though, the ai builds ways more units it seems and I feel the challenge comes from being outnumbered. The ai will actually outflank and encircle you if you are outnumbered and can't handle it. I've had entire fronts shredded and annihilated and it was using the medium ai processing time.
I wish he would add mechanics modding support, not just graphical.
Ammo factories not existing, for example, feels like a big gap, you just end up creating it as need instead of having to manage supply with consumption.
Crude oil refining could conceivably be refined
Also I'd like to increase resource deposit sizes and decrease output of the "free" resource generation sources (soil filtration, solar, etc)
A lot of this is actually modable but it uses a cursed syntax that only really exists in the ancient game engine used by Shadow Empire.
Also this mod has an ammo factory.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10620&t=374737
>No natural borders
I know it is not your fault as the map is mostly flat but I always find it awkward to defend a border with rolling plains.
Also I hope you have traffic signs to stop unnecessary splitting of logistics on those rail roads.
Also, I didn't know how powerful nukes were until I invested in them in pic related game.
Bottlenecks are all green, fren. With a rail station in every city it's overkill. Also it's hard to see against the desert but any mine that's off the main highways is connected with gravel roads. All unnecessary branches are deleted. With this setup I barely every have to set up roadblocks.
For the open plains I like to make a few independent recon brigades customized with a full complement of motorbike infantry. 50 buggies and 300 motorbikes can really hold their own because it's all about mobility on the open plains. Encircle and destroy.
anon i do not mean that
i mean things like for example your trucks riding in every direction and splinting on every crossroad instead of driving there where they are needed
its fricking moronic >oh noes crossroads >lost half the convoy
Look at the Empire.jpg I posted. Delete your unnecessary branches. Have only one road between each city. Put a truck stop halfway between each city. Any branches off the main paved highways use gravel.
Is it possible to change how my infantry look? like make them wear coats like some of the AI empires?
focus on commerce since it makes your economy easier to manage as a newbie. your population just build private-assets that produce stuff without your input
>focus on commerce since it makes your economy easier to manage as a newbie.
Err, Government is objectively more powerful. Commerce will frick you because your public workers will end up demanding higher wages. It's not a terrible choice but i think most people will get more out of Government. It's easily the strongest profile in the whole game.
>stronger than democracy's cabinet retreat >stronger than mind's research bonus
Government is the strongest in its group but it's the least important group.
One of my favorite features of the game is how unit sprites change with the technology you upgrade them with.
>focus on commerce since it makes your economy easier to manage as a newbie.
Err, Government is objectively more powerful. Commerce will frick you because your public workers will end up demanding higher wages. It's not a terrible choice but i think most people will get more out of Government. It's easily the strongest profile in the whole game.
>stronger than democracy's cabinet retreat >stronger than mind's research bonus
Government is the strongest in its group but it's the least important group.
I agree that Democracy and Mind are crazy strong, but IMO Government touches the 3 most important parts of your game: Industry, Bureacratic points and Worker Happiness. Which makes it arguably the strongest one in the game. Also Bureaucratic Push is very strong, though not as good as Cabinet Retreat.
Anyway, i think it's fairly obvious the strongest combo is Democracy Government Mind, everything else is subpar.
True and one of the drawbacks of the game imo. Hard to balance. In my recent game I chose Meritocracy, Commerce and Heart just to mix things up. Not sure how the mechanics all work and not sure I want to know but I have had a few games in which my leaders were so fricked I to chose options that were contrary to my regime preferences. That sort of thing is fun because it forces you to make tough decisions and you can play a number of ways: optimizing leader stats, regime preference, or whatever makes the most people happy in the short-term. It's an interesting dynamic that you don't really get in other games.
Meritocracy is alright if you ask me. It's obviously not as good as Democracy, but it's decent as far as i am concerned.
Heart is one i'd love to like but i find that its miserable to play. Half the events that give heart are the 'reproach the leader for even asking' which i feel is counteractive to one of the core values of playing heart, which is the leader loyalty bonus. You will be reproaching your leaders constantly and end up having overall less loyal leaders due to lower happiness. I get what Vic was going for in the RP side of things, but i really wish it wasn't so painful to play.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Meritocracy's main downside is that there are hardly any events to raise it.
Heart is decent because by the mid game it takes leader management out of the equation, they'll all just be super loyal. There's also that morale formation card which is really strong.
Commerce simplifies the early economy which is more important now that water sales and rarecoin have been made a bit less powerful.
Ultimately the one I can't bear to play without is democracy because cabinet retreat is just so insanely powerful. I want to RP autocracy or whatever but the difference is just too much. Autocracy is probably the worst profile in the entire game.
I like how sprites change based on armor and weapon. But I don't like not being able to pick the "theme" of my units.. I just want my units to be wearing these robes
Logistics emanate from the SHQ along roads, but units can operate about 5 tiles away from a road (on flat ground) and still be supplied.
Building costs are displayed as the max per construction turn, not overall.
Don't build more 1 thing at a time early or else you'll be splitting resources across multiple projects.
Metal mining is good first building and you're guaranteed a metal deposit on lower difficulties.
You can then use that metal to get Industry 1, which will go a long way to helping your Industry Points generation which really opens up your options.
Consider lowering your recruiting per turn so that you aren't flooded with recruits that you can't feed or arm.
I did not word that well at all, holy shit.
Try 2:
Building costs are displayed as the maximum that can be spent on construction per turn.
i.e. Industry 1 costs 500 metal per turn for 3 turns at peak speed, so that's a total of 1500 metal,
I just started playing my first game. I got a class 5 leader on my second turn. I thought it wss unlikely to see even one in the entire playthrough? What do I do with him? All his stats are +60.
Fire your SHQ commander and place the Cap V in the spot.
Leader priority for Cap level should be something like:
1) SHQ
2) Interior council / Military Research / Economic
3) Govenor (Of your most powerful zone(s))
4) Other councils
5) OHQ commanders
This is the hierarchy in my head, atleast. SHQ is the highest value position for them. Either put the current one in some other job (Staff Council is the same tier of job as SHQ, so you can promise them a 'better' job and just give them that and avoid all penalties) Staff council also uses High Command, which your starting SHQ person should have.
It does not matter. Skills can be learned, and since you are placing a Cap V into the slot, they will learn extremely quickly and become better than whoever was there before likely in only a handful of turns.
Think of it like this: Cap I-V is how fast the leader can learn and the maximum potential their skills can reach.
A cap I will be shit for the entire game basically and should always be replaced. A cap V will become fantastically good at their job with very little effort on your part, all you have to do is tell them what to do.
I should add, the most important criteria when evaluating if a leader is a good pick for the spot or not is
1) Cap level, higher is better
2) Their attribute levels in related fields, eg INT for economic conucils, WAR for commanders etc.
If your candidate has a high attribute score and isn't cap I i'd say they are 'good enough'. Remeber you can always retire people later if you get better leaders to replace them.
so how do i start this game, is there built in tutorial or will i have to waste 30h watching youtube tutorials to learn mechanics similar to paradox trash?
It's surprisingly intuitive. If you've ever played any Paradox game, the Civilization series, or anything of that sort then you'll have a decent idea of what to do. There are a few obscure aspects but they're pretty easy to figure out with the manual or Google.
I've been playing for 5 months (600 hours in Steam) and just learned some tricks with logisitcs today. But in general I understand quite well what to do. Just play the game as much as you can.
Only seek tutorials if theres something you don't understand i'd argue. The game isn't esoteric, many of the game concepts are similar or derived from one you might be familiar with in other 4x games.
Seek manual/youtube/Ganker/steam forums/wherever if you run into a mechanic you don't understand.
It will never cease to amaze me how unwilling people are to read the manual. If you are even considering to play this game despite it looking like ass you are already a stinky nerd and should be able to get through few hundred pages in a reasonable time.
When you recruit reinforcements they go straight to the SHQ (and even get some experience there), and you can then make formations from them, or let them be reserves to fill in casualties.
Wish i had greater control over formation templates in this game. Why is it impossible for me to create a battalion sized formation consisting of 600 infantry, 200 machineguns and 200 rpgs?
Except, it's not. Grenadier Infantry is 800x Infantry, 100 MG, 100 RPG. HV. Grenadiers get 400x 200x 200x. Customizing an MG or RPG infantry formation gets you 800x 200x 200x
So my problem here is that i cannot have 200 of both specialist type foot soldiers and also hit a battalion size of exactly 1000 men. I either end up with 1200 or 800, depending upon if i go the customize route or heavy grenadier route. I cannot get 600 inf 200 mg 200 rpg even thoguh i really fricking want to.
You can build your desired units in your SHQ and then split off your exact unit comp into an independent battle group, although that comes with a slight combat penalty. It can be frustrating at first but eventually you'll be surprised by how versatile the game is and you could always come around to just building grenadier infantry.
Except, it's not. Grenadier Infantry is 800x Infantry, 100 MG, 100 RPG. HV. Grenadiers get 400x 200x 200x. Customizing an MG or RPG infantry formation gets you 800x 200x 200x
So my problem here is that i cannot have 200 of both specialist type foot soldiers and also hit a battalion size of exactly 1000 men. I either end up with 1200 or 800, depending upon if i go the customize route or heavy grenadier route. I cannot get 600 inf 200 mg 200 rpg even thoguh i really fricking want to.
For instance I just realized you might be able to customize heavy grenadier infantry to give it a complement of +200 infantry so it would match your exact unit composition. Would have to check on that though.
I don't think you can add more of the same model type using customization. I think i have tried everything and it makes me so mad i can't get what i want. Vic please fix.
Add 20 walkers for the ultimate rough terrain defense.
1 year ago
Anonymous
[...]
I don't time myself but I probably take 30-60 minutes on some turns and have to get up and rest my eyes in between turns lol. Have never had a front this long and packed with troops. This game is amazing, especially since there was only 2.4 million survivors. On the western front I surprise attacked this major, surrounded and captured his city. Now I've set up defenses in the ruins while leaving a gap to try to lure him in to be encircled and annihilated. On the eastern front I've been steamrolling thousands upon thousands of raiders. And earlier I screenshot a shitfight between six major empires all crammed together on the other side of the globe.Two of those rolled over Panzerstein in a two font war, but Panzerstein captured a city to the north and has managed to hold on there. Epic.
[...]
For instance I just realized you might be able to customize heavy grenadier infantry to give it a complement of +200 infantry so it would match your exact unit composition. Would have to check on that though.
qrd on how to fight properly? how to design brigades and such?
1 year ago
Anonymous
Designing brigades isn't necessary, just spam MG Infantry corps and light armor corps.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Hold line with MG+infantry. Soften up enemies with artillery. Attack with armor/mechanized from multiple tiles.
1 year ago
Anonymous
so like real life?
What about air force?
1 year ago
Anonymous
>so like real life?
No, like wargames.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Air force is complicated and janky. I usually turn it off since the AI can't use it properly so it's kind of a huge advantage for the player.
1 year ago
Anonymous
By the time you have the tech and materiel to make effective air vehicles you've probably already won.
On the other hand you can do meme drops with thopters to cut off enemy supply lines with units supplied through the air bridge which won't bother the AI at all because they'll just build roads around it for almost-free. I assume that many MP games have air forces turned off because this would be a game-breaking strategy if applied en masse
the whole formation system is fricking garbage, subunit system is less so but still trash
then there is militia system that its crap
and not even mentioning a unit creation shit
its like dev choose the most convoluted and moronic system on purpose
Anybody want an ultrahigh pop worldgen save I have?
Siwa, 5 million dissolution war survivors.
About 100,000 free folk in the immediate area of the start location alone.
Slowest Tech, Hard Difficulty.
Isn't that the used panel? It sent 16 food + 14 fuel for a total of 30 used?
My understanding is that the it uses 16 points to move food down the road and pipes for free down the road, then it goes off road so both fuel and food cost points so it spikes the cost to 30.
I could be wrong.
What does the Truck and Rail logistics do?
Also, I blocked everything but allowed pull points, but no logs were going , only troops were on the other side of the road, do they not have pull points for their operational logistics ?
This front is starting to get out of hand. This AI empire controls 40% of the globe and has already scaled up to regiments and even divisions. It looks alright now and I've managed to cut off a regiment of rpg infantry, but I wasn't able to finish them off this turn and we're getting pushed back relentlessly. Their armor outnumbers ours by 10:1, and we're taking brutal losses every turn. Lost 1200 infantry, 50 tanks and 40 artillery in one battle last turn. This planet doesn't have a single oil well so it's going to take years to ramp up biofuel production or research synthetic fuels. I'll have to fall back to the mountains while building bunkers and preparing entrenchments.
Oil is only possible if there's alien biology on the planet.
In the cases where there isn't, it's important to
a) fight over scavenge sites
b) conserve oil during peacetime.
This means sometimes going buggies early instead of light tanks. Also get physical storage for oil and consider lowering your truck station operation% if you're running a big excess.
c) beeline oil techs.
It definitely makes things like moon maps extra interesting, where you don't have the water or population for huge farming ops, and you also don't have oil deposits for the population efficient armies.
For your situation here. RPG units can thin out their armor pretty effectively. Especially in cases like the selected stack where they don't have any infantry support. You attack that stack with RPGs and you're getting insane value.
I think you just need to accept that you are going to take losses on defense against tanks though unless you want to dig out the meme defense unit that is hi-vel guns.
It might just be a strategic loss though, sometimes the AI booms up really big in a far corner of the map. I've lost a game like that even though I was pushing them, I just wasn't fast enough. Now I always choose the Survival Stress game start option. More regimes prevents one from having no neighbors and ballooning up in size.
I don't time myself but I probably take 30-60 minutes on some turns and have to get up and rest my eyes in between turns lol. Have never had a front this long and packed with troops. This game is amazing, especially since there was only 2.4 million survivors. On the western front I surprise attacked this major, surrounded and captured his city. Now I've set up defenses in the ruins while leaving a gap to try to lure him in to be encircled and annihilated. On the eastern front I've been steamrolling thousands upon thousands of raiders. And earlier I screenshot a shitfight between six major empires all crammed together on the other side of the globe.Two of those rolled over Panzerstein in a two font war, but Panzerstein captured a city to the north and has managed to hold on there. Epic.
Oil is only possible if there's alien biology on the planet.
In the cases where there isn't, it's important to
a) fight over scavenge sites
b) conserve oil during peacetime.
This means sometimes going buggies early instead of light tanks. Also get physical storage for oil and consider lowering your truck station operation% if you're running a big excess.
c) beeline oil techs.
It definitely makes things like moon maps extra interesting, where you don't have the water or population for huge farming ops, and you also don't have oil deposits for the population efficient armies.
For your situation here. RPG units can thin out their armor pretty effectively. Especially in cases like the selected stack where they don't have any infantry support. You attack that stack with RPGs and you're getting insane value.
I think you just need to accept that you are going to take losses on defense against tanks though unless you want to dig out the meme defense unit that is hi-vel guns.
It might just be a strategic loss though, sometimes the AI booms up really big in a far corner of the map. I've lost a game like that even though I was pushing them, I just wasn't fast enough. Now I always choose the Survival Stress game start option. More regimes prevents one from having no neighbors and ballooning up in size.
Update on the southeastern front. Teal has pushed forward relentlessly. In the last ten turns I'm pretty sure I've lost 20k infantry on that front and I know I've lost over 500 tanks (no tank losses on other fronts). We were able to make a fighting retreat, however, inflicting casualties as we fell back, and are now holding the mountain ranges with grenadier infantry, counter-striking with artillery and inferior armor that is continually being upgraded.
Some success on the western front as I've managed to encircle and destroy several thousand infantry and 200 tanks.
With this map being a Limos-class planet with no life, there are no oil reserves at all, and very few mines. I have three metal mines controlling 30% of the map, and no rare mines at all. Most resources come from scavenging and soil filtration. I've managed to get my industry and synthetic oil production running enough to think about going on the offensive again, but the game could swing either way, especially if too many scavenge points run out. Time is of the essence. Amazing game settings and I recommend it.
Nice, although my parabola has a better angle 😉 The impressive part is the AI putting up a challenge and launching an actual offensive. It's not like every other 4x game where the AI rolls over and dies. Still not as fun as multiplayer. Congrats on having friends.
Update on the southeastern front. Teal has pushed forward relentlessly. In the last ten turns I'm pretty sure I've lost 20k infantry on that front and I know I've lost over 500 tanks (no tank losses on other fronts). We were able to make a fighting retreat, however, inflicting casualties as we fell back, and are now holding the mountain ranges with grenadier infantry, counter-striking with artillery and inferior armor that is continually being upgraded.
Some success on the western front as I've managed to encircle and destroy several thousand infantry and 200 tanks.
With this map being a Limos-class planet with no life, there are no oil reserves at all, and very few mines. I have three metal mines controlling 30% of the map, and no rare mines at all. Most resources come from scavenging and soil filtration. I've managed to get my industry and synthetic oil production running enough to think about going on the offensive again, but the game could swing either way, especially if too many scavenge points run out. Time is of the essence. Amazing game settings and I recommend it.
You shouldn't worry too much, if you bait those tank regiments to push forward, the AI will run out of oil quick. Then you'll enter a stalemate where the front doesn't change because the AI will be busy building up oil production.
Drive me insane when a unit gets cut off and destroyed and then you go to replace it but instead of getting the original number it just takes the next in sequence so now your 2nd MG Brigade consists of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 36. And when you go to build the 8th MG Brigade they'll get 37-41 because 36 was used already.
Unit Admin/Rename. Or just accept that you got got and attach an independent armor or mot.artillery brigade to the extra space under the OHQ.
I like how sprites change based on armor and weapon. But I don't like not being able to pick the "theme" of my units.. I just want my units to be wearing these robes
I think when you get to battle dress your troops get a trench coat. Is graphics anon still in the thread? I have no idea how unit sprites are assembled but it would be cool to know and be able to mod your own units using Photoshop.
>Unit Admin/Rename
You can rename the unit but the game still knows what it was before and won't reuse that number so you have to autistically rename every unit ever after if you're going to rename one. I prefer to just make that unit go without a full complement instead.
Extension points mean your trucks have stopped at a supply base that turn. Think of it as a refuelling pit stop so they can drive further each turn. Zoom in to the black box and read the explaination in this post.
Sorry, I get the terminology confused. I meant supply bases. Build one supply base halfway between each city. Build truck stations in your cities. The "perfect" distance between each city is 13 tiles, with a level 1 supply base equidistant between them, although at higher supply base levels this distance can be extended. But obviously most cities are already built and it's not a perfect world, so the general rule is just build one supply base equidistant between each city.
[...]
You'll have more fun playing your first few games blind. I do anyway with video games in general. Good thing about this game is it's deep enough that you will still be learning new things and facing challenged hundreds of hours in. Like these guys said. [...], [...]
I believe br stands for number of branches the trucks have had so far on their route (over 4 branches entails a penalty). Not sure about that one though.
Check Details.
But if i would hazard a guess, your recon was probably low and thus your odds assessment was not accurate.
Also, that militia tank you have skewer the odds quite heavily vs what the tank can actaully do becuase on paper the enemy militia rifles can't possibly harm it. But it can only attack so much during the battle.
Low organization or supply maybe. But probably low recon, you only have about 2:1 numbers so I figure you didn't see all their guys before attacking to get 16:1.
Well, you're attacking with Militia for one.
You'll want at least an infantry brigade (note I said brigade not corps like it defaults to), and that's really the minimum. Artillery can soften them up but too much will wreck the city. Light tanks are what you need.
The odds calculator isn't perfect. Maybe you only had recon of a couple dudes at first so it over-estimated your strength? That's definitely not a 16:1 actual odds.
Set military council to high research and to look for ideas. Then once you find tank tech switch it to high researching ideas. It's ultimately RNG, though you should find the tech earlyish.
Negative, tanks are a model, they don't have any tech pre-reqs, just discovery RNG on your model design council (which you can manipulate somewhat by rushing model design council and not researching hi-vel guns or planes early)
How to quickly beeline for tanks? Heavily invest in OOB?
This your first game? You've probably been recruiting soldiers without realizing it, so go to raise formation and get an infantry *brigade* or two first to make use of the recruits you've been accumulating. And consider calling your governor to reduce your recruiting rate if you have a massive surplus.
Then go to your secretary, call them and ask for a new org. Pick model design. Best skill for it is Technician and Inventor. Put it on like 60/40 discovery/design. While you wait to discover, design a new iteration of infantry to get familiar with the system.
Yeah, this has been my first real attempt to learn and play this game.
What would be a decent recruit rate? I typically get 500 a turn.
Also, what councils should I prioritise early? I typically go interior and economy first.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>What would be a decent recruit rate? I typically get 500 a turn.
There is no one size fits all. Recruit as many as you need for your war efforts, but try to ensure your zone is still growing. >Also, what councils should I prioritise early? I typically go interior and economy first.
Interior, Economy, Military Research and Model are probably the most important ones. Again, what you need depends upon your situation. The other councils should be put up when you feel you need them or you feel you have budget to spare for them.
How do I crack this city? This is just a minor ai the spawned next to me at the start of the game. They are completely surrounded, yet continue to recuit militia that entrench rapidly.
Light tanks.
If you want to do it with the forces you have, attack once with all the independent militia and then again with the infantry corps. You're watering down their bonus when you have everybody attack at once. If you have any attack posture cards, play them on the corps.
You have a few options.
You can utilize your militia artillery with ranged attack to fire on the city. Do it every turn regardless of if you score hits or not. Attempt an attack after some bombardment.
Bring in Light Tanks as early as possible. Even 25mm Howitzer 25mm Steel Plating Light Tanks should roll all over Rifle MIlitia's.
Finally you can just attempt to bring up more units to pile into the attack, but i wouldn't take this option without atleast bombarding the city with the militia aswell.
Early cities from minors can be quite painful to take under certain circumstances but if all else fails, the light tank should solve the problem for you.
This. I'm extremely disappointed in the DLC. It's also not a good look to have a literallynothingDLC as your first DLC.
You're getting the rest of the features in a future free update one can hope.
Think of it as a support pack with some minor content attached. The 9,99 become alot easier to stomach then.
It's the best 4x game ever made. Is it flawed? Yes, very much so. And even like that it blows the competition out of the water. People who shit on it are completely missing the context that is the abysmal state of 4x gaming.
I was lucky enough to be a beta tester for this masterpiece before it got released.
I've been a big fan of Vic's games since I was a teenager. His freeware game "People's Tactics" is the reason I got into wargaming so hard.
There are bigger issues, like profiles being moronic and not optimized, also RNG dependent
No freedom to create your own OOB, models being very rigid (no flamethrowers, tank mounted quad guns, laser AT guns, basically no cool sci fi stuff etc)
This, useless bloat, people who suggest this must be unironically autistic. Especially since there is so much more that could be improved in the game
Conquering one medium-large planet is already a hassle, and you want even more of that?
By space i mean asteroid mining, space habitats, kinetic orbital strikes that kind of shit.
Would made a nice end game content.
The end could be building UCM equipped ship and going off to locate remnants of the Republic.
I think the dev should focus instead on better research for combat units. like give us the ability to design different anti-air systems, different rockets with different sizes and uses, ICBMs, Radars, Stealth tech for aircraft, different ammo types etc.
I would rather add navies, mortars, tracked trucks, wheeled APCs and tanks, ammo factories, captives and some industrial points and factories rework.
There are bigger issues, like profiles being moronic and not optimized, also RNG dependent
No freedom to create your own OOB, models being very rigid (no flamethrowers, tank mounted quad guns, laser AT guns, basically no cool sci fi stuff etc)
All of these are far better ideas than le space. A slow trickle of improvements to the core game systems like the beta branch has been doing and some major feature improvements in dlcs/major updates and this game might have a future. At the very least i hope we get to see navies.
Why my rail generates 2000 but 1800 is not sent ? I only have a single unbranching line, I created a rail in the other end, some railheads in the middle also.
Has a rail station or railhead existed for more than one turn? Because of how logistics points get assigned you won't see rail points propagate downstream correctly until the turn after the railhead finishes construction.
Also you don't need a railhead in the middle, just at the far end.
I love the details of the game, in my current game, there's a German faction, and a French faction, it changes the names of their units, the leaders names and physical appearances, it's very neat. Also each planet has their own date and time-frame, the way unit sprites vary... is there any datamining of the possible "cultures"?
Autocratic regimes have german names for their cities and units.
Republican regimes generally have french names for their cities and units.
The player has their own culture thats unique aswell, the random names of your units and cities are for you alone.
As you can see I don't think it's related to autocracy, the germans are meritocrats and goverment, the french are democracy and enforcement.
This game is actually filled with flavor like this.
Damn I thought it was random. Like this X civ was germanic, this was french, etc.
[...]
See pic related, to the left the "germans", to the right the "french(Black person)"
>Flavor
You guys realize that its just dev cannibalizing his previous works because he is a hack without originality?
1 year ago
Anonymous
Nooo.... I thought it was attention to detail... I hate Shadow Empire now.... (what games had vic done before?)
1 year ago
Anonymous
Mostly autism wargames about ww2 that play eerily similar to shadow empire
I'm vaguely aware of the cults and some of the bonuses and detractions that come with them, but is there even any real reason to promote one or even let them set up shop in the first place and not just plain suppress them? They seem like more trouble than they're worth at first glance.
Some of them are cancer, but the likes of Mystic Temple and Syndic Church can be very useful to help boost certain governing profiles. I'm a huge Syndic fan myself.
Should I ever actually attack with the OHQ or just leave it behind the front lines? It seems like a bit of a common sense thing to not do it, but I'm perhaps overthinking a bit.
>each 10x wheels carry 100x units
Yes >If I lose 1 subunit of vehicles to they still move as wheeled ?
No, they get movement points of infantry then
Also iirc 10 trucks cost 25% of manpower of 100 inf and APCs cost 33%, or was it half? I forgotten
Also the fact that there are no IFVs in the game is a crime against humanity
In Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes(which is the dev’s newer game) there’s a percentage a unit with transport vehicles get mobile status. 10 trucks means 100 infantry is motorised 100%. 1 truck less means 90% chance and so on. Wonder if that had made it into this game.
Because the game is made a by a tankwanker and infantry is borderline useless on the offensive
You have light, medium, heavy, tank destroyers and assault guns yet infantry progression is linear, its manpower inneficient and always loses against tanks, borderline good for only holding the line until micronukes
Also moronic distinction between normal inf, MG inf and RPG inf, it should be a distinction between light infantry and heavy infantry, or baseline infantry and support infantry (heavy AT, mortars etc).
Not to mention that you cant even specialize infantry, no marines, paratroopers, irregulars, militias etc
Really the more you play this game the more you start to hate it for all the wasted potential of a proper ground based postapo/scifi 4x/wargame
>Really the more you play this game the more you start to hate it for all the wasted potential of a proper ground based postapo/scifi 4x/wargame
glad i am not the only one >Also moronic distinction between normal inf, MG inf and RPG inf, it should be a distinction between light infantry and heavy infantry, or baseline infantry and support infantry (heavy AT, mortars etc). >no mortars squads(opposite of MG so good on offensive, bad on defensive) >no light guns(that don't slow infantry down)
I found motorcycle inf good at attacking but they can't get into hvy armor
similar to Shadow Empire?
sadly i don't thinks there is one, that is the part of the problem but also reason why people praise it
there is practically nothing on similar scale with similar gameplay
Would have to be PBEM, try and get your turn done within 48 hours of receiving but I'm really not sweating it. I did PBEM once before and was fun but ruined by a discord tyranny. I want a chill old school Let's Play blog type vibe. I'll probably do light roleplay/shitposting since that makes shadow empire more fun.
There's an empty game room (#9) in Def of Many Bones discord probably safest bet in case thread gets nukes but I'm open to other options. I'll roll up a map towards end of next week. His discord: https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb
Bullseye. I shared in a thread ages aago: pretty much had just used discord to play online games with old friend occasionally until then, joined that server and naively asked if anyone was up for a game. As we rolled the map he tells me he's actually a girl "teehee". I was confused and just assumed it really was a girl (even said "wow I've never seem a girl into strategy games, cool"). Anyway we played like 20 turns in a 3 player match until he got rekt by raiders and quit. I was kinda sour from the experience and just bowed out too.
>I did PBEM once before and was fun but ruined by a discord tyranny.
How? isnt PBEM a peer to peer shit?
Nope it's super simple, we just send the save file to each other (you drag and drop it into your shadow empire save game folder) and play just like a single player game. Only difference is game prompts each of us to set up a personal password on our first turn which you need to enter to play your turns going forward (so use something super simple). Click end turn and then log out, drag and drop save file back into discord so next guy can play.
>Anyway we played like 20 turns in a 3 player match until he got rekt by raiders
Wall maybe it was a real girl after all, no man sucks as much in strategy games
Cool man, I am down for it. Be gentle as I just won my first game and I never played wargames before.
Nice we already got enough for a solid game. If many more join can easily divide ourselves into 2 groups. Anyone else interested yea just join the discord chat (as its kind of a waiting room now) and say "hi" we can talk logistics and roll maps later next week.
Regarding my skill level its pretty basic, and haven't even bought DLC yet so quite probable I'll invade you and send troops that will all starve day 1.
You're still good to join the noobie PBEM, join the group - https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb - and say hi in game room #9. If anyone else is interested please hop in as we're just planning to roll up maps tonight and start playing probably tomorrow or next day.
We already have a full game's worth of people so more people would help get a nice sized second game going. If not we may have to discuss options/research the mod to have 5 players.
Any anons playing Oceania? Whats the most fun new map type in your opinion?
Shit, I've been in this thread for weeks but didn't join the discord until now.
Do they get the same move mod as light tanks? I wonder if they can go into the light armor formations to replace normal MG+APCs.
My Mech Quad MGs have an overpowered engine with +20% move mod. Unfortunately I don't think they are part of any OHQ formation. Like recon units, they must be built in independent formations.
What's the ideal Infantry OOB setup? Are machineguns worth it if you prefer your infantry to be flexible for both attack and defense? Any cool custom setups anons running?
I've noticed that infantry and walkers are the only types not to get negative movement and attack modifiers in thick vegetation and mountains, so I use walker-infantry in rough terrain.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>Unfortunately I don't think they are part of any OHQ formation. Like recon units, they must be built in independent formations.
you know you can attach two indie formation to each oho?
Island PBEM game is a-go on the fair island planet of Zesalo. This planet is 94% ocean! 4 players marked in pink, and we had 3 additional interested people spill over into Room #10 still getting organized if anyone was toying with the idea of joining in PBEM.
https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb
Don't think I'm gonna win this one boys
Locke bros....
1 year ago
Anonymous
I don't own the game yet but after I buy and learn I'd be down for PBEM >god i hate discord 🙁 >you better be vaguely normal/ultraautistic
1 year ago
Anonymous
Now's a good time to pick it up tbh, playing single player with continents should be great. But I agree you should have won at least one war against an AI major regime before dabbling in PBEM.
>https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb
Expired link.
Thanks for letting me know, apparently good for 7 days. New link: https://discord.gg/34g4dysm
1 year ago
Anonymous
I bought the base game and have been happily dicking around losing/building unsustainable economies stuck in the middle of the desert/learning the logistics. It's a blast but yeah, give me a few days
Does anybody know what the "hidden" requirement is to discover "Light Armor Grenadier Army"?
I have models developed for light armor, trucks, infantry, artillery, MG, and RPG. I have discovered every other formation type (basic infantry, motorized, mechanized, armor, etc) for which I have the prerequisites, including both Light Armor Assault Army and Light Infantry Army. I have met all the apparent prerequisites for Light Armor Grenadier Army, yet the Staff Council reports that no discovery is possible.
This happens every game and I don't understand it. Normally he'll just discover it seemingly at random somewhere in the late double-digit turns and I'll carry on. There must be some hidden trigger, does anybody know anything about it?
For reference, the formation trees: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10620&t=352634&sid=7923a3aadf237f30dd66ae1af3a817b5
i think there is limit how many new formations you can have found but not researched, so research some so you can make space for new
the for formation in this game is fricking moronic anyway, like complete shit
It's not "discovered but not researched" limit, if I research a new formation the council is happy to discover multiple new formations that the other one unlocked. There's some special trigger for armored grenadier army, presumably because it's the most populous formation and therefore the highest concentration of force.
Turn 111: the staff council has discovered Light Armor Grenadier Army. There were no changes to models or discovered/operationalized formations in the preceding several turns. It's got to be a turn lock, to prevent people from rushing straight to the strongest formation and ignoring all the others. I'm playing on "slower" development so it's probably more like 50 or 60 on normal speed.
I'll reload some turns and see when it went from "a discovery is not possible" to "no discovery this round", I'm guessing turn 110 but it's possible that it became available for discovery on 110 which means 111 is the earliest it could be researched. The staff council had several thousand BP saved up for discovery so it wouldn't surprise me if he got it on the earliest possible turn.
Update: I reloaded recent saves until I figured it out. The chart at https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10620&t=352634&sid=7923a3aadf237f30dd66ae1af3a817b5 is wrong, Armored Grenadier Army depends on Armored Assault Army and Armored Infantry Army. LAGA unlocked for discovery one turn after he completed LAAA which was three turns after he completed LAIA.
No, Armor formations don't have the Heavy alternates like infantry formations do. Armor formations are either the basic Armor type only, or the Infantry/Assault/Grenadier which comes with Trucks, or Mechanized Infantry/etc which comes with Armored Transport.
Sad. Would've been really cool. I still just wish we could customize the formations from the ground up to get exactly what we wanted instead of being forced to adapt the existing templates.
Will planes be rebalanced? I feel like I can't even use a token force early game because they're a useless expense due to their ultra short early and mid game hex range, you'll spend more time building airbases on the advancing frontline than using planes. Some completely redudant plane design choices too, such as wing sizes and cargo space. Big plane = big cargo space, Big plane = big wings, no mad man will put tiny wings on a x8.
Depends on your atmosphere. I've been able to get 11-14 hex range on some pretty good fighter-bombers. Then again I usually recon, bomb, artillery, and then crush the enemy over and over until they are shattered. Then I advance in pincers, cutting off the remnants and destroying them during a broad offensive. Hence there's less continual advancing. More like ten turns of pulverizing followed by a broad rush. Helps get the most out of airbases.
I always try to roll my planets with Earth-like atmosphere or at the very least, modest, but real. Lower gravity helps with plane range but it also lowers the atmospheric pressure. I think the equillibrium for best flying units is around 0.5-0.7 g, and then rolling the geology to get a thick atmosphere.
Being real though, planes are kind of a meme. I think each airbase level should only take 1 turn to build upwards, just increase the cost of them every step.
Alternatively, don't bother with fixed wing aircraft. Use helicopters until you can get thopters.
I never research helicopter engines, thopters are so much better and only take slightly longer. Air forces in general don't add combat power like a ground formation would for the same resources, so I usually don't bother with them at all though.
1 year ago
Anonymous
What this anon said.
Jet Air power might be better on an Oceania map for force projection, but I haven't bought the DLX yet.
Helicopters are alright on slow or slowest tech where you've got time to build up insanely large forces but otherwise by the time you've got the heavy industry and rare metals to crank out machines to build them, there's almost certainly better options researched.
Maybe if you've got an insanely mountainous map you could get some value out of the helis. Use them as close support across the range or Airbridge supply some insurgent style troops to frick up your enemies logi.
1 year ago
Anonymous
I never research helicopter engines, thopters are so much better and only take slightly longer. Air forces in general don't add combat power like a ground formation would for the same resources, so I usually don't bother with them at all though.
Nah you haven't experienced what cheap lightweight planes can bring. Rough terrain with heavy forests? Recon mission with scout planes to locate your enemy. Artillery bombardment? Scout with planes to get 400 recon and double the effectiveness of artillery. And with good fighter-bombers you can reduce most enemy stacks to very low readiness. Group units merely mop up and destroy at that point.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Ultra budget recon planes are one of the few things from air forces that ARE worth it because they offer something you can't get as easily from ground forces.
Your point about fighter bombers is true, but ground formations can do the same thing for a lower cost and with higher overall flexibility. Air forces remain mostly, a meme.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Pity he nerfed artillery.
Light recon planes (aka drones) and artillery represents the war in Ukraine so well.
>Regular AI already has overseas "ports" at turn 5 >turn 15, still waiting for cargo card >the AI that spawned on the 3 times bigger semicontinent already took it over and has combat armour and automatic rifles while I still have stock shit turn 20 >he already landed on my island with a stack because the fricking indie crabs keep perching eggs on my coast >can't do anything about the crabs since they scurry back into the sea after fighting >all the while fighting a war with another Major that started on my island and already has 8000 of advanced machinegun in his capital
It's so over. My only hope is that MTH will cut off the ports because of good relations, or will i be israeliteed?
Maybe fall back a bit on red? That 8000 is all one unit so you could try to bait it out of the capital? Just a thought.
Failing that I guess just barricade them into their corner with MGs of your own and pivot south.
Theres definently a problem with utilizing the MTH's right now for the player.
First you need to setup the liasons, which cost credits. Ok fine, i can deal with that.
Then you need your economic council and devote budget to the MTH liasons task
Then you need to roll the card you want to play
Then you need to have the PP on hand to play the card.
Then you have to have the credits for the contract you are trying to setup and all of this is just too fricking much.
I feel like the contract cards should be avalible always without RNG, and simply be dependent on your status with the MTH if you can play them or not.
I do like that credits are more valuable overall with the DLC, but i really wish there was a way to actaully buy and sell resoucres in meanginful quantities without the price of shit inflating so hard. It feels like the credit economy is stacked against you and it isn't fun to participate in.
This game has the most insane learning curve. I quit months ago because I didn't understand how to do anything, but as soon as I came back today I had an epiphany and began to understand the method behind the janky madness, feels good man
Is it possible to move your capital deliberately (as opposed to letting it get conquered)? My capital city is a tiny little village in the dirt and rocks on the very bottom edge of the map and I want to merge it into a larger city which is more centralized and also in the vegetation zone. But it turns out you can't merge a zone which has the "regular capital zone" type.
Save editing? Or maybe if I delete all the city assets and keep recruiting / making people angry / playing colonist & recruit cards I can eventually get the population down low enough that it will poof out of existence?
How do I cheat, I just finished a game and went to start a new one. Starting from the beginningand having to make all my logi networks and industry is tedious bullshit. Can I just cheat in resources somehow to get a jumpstart on construction
After reading your posts, I decided to play the campaign with "Allow AI more time" option turned off.
It's like heaven and earth, now you need to wait not 10 minutes for one move, but a minute, maybe two. It's more fun, although perhaps AI has become more stupid
Probably all Major/minor regimes leaders, including you
It's hard for me to say. I am not yet involved in any large scale war.
At first glance, the behavior is slightly different. But I think its only worth it if you're playing on a large planet.
Join here[...]
A little awkward question, but it's impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
Good advice but I am shocked the road split penalty is still in place, staggeringly garbage game design IMHO. I get the idea is to keep players from spamming relatively cheap roads everywhere and basically have perfect logistical coverage with redundant backup roads, but there are so many less intrusive options.
I'd prefer something like Civilization Levels but for road/logistics network where every 50 or so road tiles you place you advance to the next tax bracket basically and lose increasing amounts of industrial points, metal, and money just to maintain infrastructure. Maybe with an additional hefty penalty if your Road Level exceeds your capital's civilization level.
This could lead to people building intense spiderweb defenses, but it would be at the cost of going wider into new territory.
[...] >impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
I really don't know and don't have the time to figure it out. If you can test it do so and let me know (feel free to say hi in discord, maybe someone else is willing to help you), or better yet just buy the indie game and support Vic, also then 3+ people don't have to roll the dice on an update ruining a fun ongoing game.
>A little awkward question, but it's impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
The DRM doesn't go that far. Yes it is possible as long as your versions are compatible.
>Probably all Major/minor regimes leaders, including you
But why would you fight among yourselves? Aren't all major/minors part of the nano-swarm hivemind?
All of them have only a part of the shadow core and have more or less independence, but not as part of the shadow, but rather as puppets.
And as i can see only through wars can the entire planet be united under one leader.
Its not perfect but this game still makes you realize how shit paradox """"gsg""""""" games are, filled with pointless clicking, abstract bullshit mechanics like mana and bloat which makes no sense
Haha yeah no pointless clicking or mana in the shadow empire [clicks through every tab of every zone every turn to see what needs to be constructed] [clicks through every council in the organization tab every turn to make sure no organization is wasting bureaucracy mana on something pointless like helicopter engines or motorized light infantry] [clicks the recruit card a few times, clicks over to the personnel:reserve report to check who got hired, then clicks zero/bronze retirement a few times to fire all the new T1/2 leaders] [scrolls back and forth across the map dozens of times to strategic move some battalions from one border to another after ending the war by clicking the "propose peace" card only to wind up in another war because the AI suicidally declared war on a protectorate] [clicks to stop the trucks from driving down a dead-end road branch in the middle of nowhere instead of toward the army located along the other branch of the road].
[...]
Would have to be PBEM, try and get your turn done within 48 hours of receiving but I'm really not sweating it. I did PBEM once before and was fun but ruined by a discord tyranny. I want a chill old school Let's Play blog type vibe. I'll probably do light roleplay/shitposting since that makes shadow empire more fun.
There's an empty game room (#9) in Def of Many Bones discord probably safest bet in case thread gets nukes but I'm open to other options. I'll roll up a map towards end of next week. His discord: https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb
You get a bonus to logistics. Truck stations, rail stations, and supply depots all do more. It's very helpful if you're constantly struggling with logistics.
Do my cities get a defensive bonus, the terrain is listed as agricultural, so if I am attacked will it simply play out with agricultural terrain modifiers to combat
?
Construct bunkers.
As a logistics game Shadow Empire falls deeply into the best defense is a good offense territory, so it's probably not worth the effort.
Is there any way to build fortifications, I'm not talking about the entrenchment value on tiles, I mean some Maginot line type of deal.
Cheers
Check out the sprites for high level bunkers. They are pretty cool. Closest thing to the Maginot line I've seen in a game. Problem with bunkers in this game is the ai simply won't attack unless it has good odds. I suppose that's a good thing. But I've not seen ai attack my bunkers once.
How is the artillery in this game? Lurking on /misc/ watching Urkanians and Russian fight with drones and Artillery barrages exclusively makes me want to play the same strat in some cool 4x game.
There's literally a unit feat of recon drones that improves artillery. But I feel like artillery was nerfed recently. Does anyone know if this is true? In all my other games I remember artillery gaining recon for every barrage and decimating enemy infantry. In my latest game artillery has sucked on all fronts, attacking infantry in the open while they are not entrenched. It's not that my artillery stats are bad: have had good rolls with them. Maybe it's because I haven't researched advanced sensors or because I'm playing hard difficulty now? Recon doesn't increase at all during rounds of artillery bombardment and I start with 100 recon or more.
I only play against AI, and am fully aware the AI is dogshit and must cheat. I still use it for roleplay, build my armies for RP instead of max efficiency so the AI still gets some minor victories on some fronts.
Anyways chatgpt makes this kind of fun when I tell it to act as a new agency then give it some recent events that happened
Holy shit dude. Do you know how to write events for this game? Events with text like this would make an amazing mod pack for additional flavor in game.
How do I stop logistics from sending 400 points down a shitty side road for a tiny mine? I can use traffic signs, but I have dozens of intersections I would have to do this for. Is there no mass stop sending shit to tiny mines option?
Delete all the unused roads: an effective logistics line has the smallest possible number of intersections. Build roads that snake around from one asset to another to maximize the effect you get from splitting off those LPs. Also just build rail through your cities and then you can stop worrying about where every little truck LP goes. If you're at the point where you can't afford to build a rail between your cities, then you're at the point where micromanaging your logistics is part of the game and you should get used to it.
Show us your logistics system (zoom out and use bottleneck view). Here's mine around turn 100, 4 total traffic signs including one temporary while I grab one final hex of unowned dirt in the middle of the map, 2 blocking roads that lead to another major (I just deleted the roads because they were pointless so those signs went away) and 1 that I can't find so it must not be important. I never build higher than truck station level II because any logistics problem larger than that needs rail.
Good advice but I am shocked the road split penalty is still in place, staggeringly garbage game design IMHO. I get the idea is to keep players from spamming relatively cheap roads everywhere and basically have perfect logistical coverage with redundant backup roads, but there are so many less intrusive options.
I'd prefer something like Civilization Levels but for road/logistics network where every 50 or so road tiles you place you advance to the next tax bracket basically and lose increasing amounts of industrial points, metal, and money just to maintain infrastructure. Maybe with an additional hefty penalty if your Road Level exceeds your capital's civilization level.
This could lead to people building intense spiderweb defenses, but it would be at the cost of going wider into new territory.
It's hard for me to say. I am not yet involved in any large scale war.
At first glance, the behavior is slightly different. But I think its only worth it if you're playing on a large planet.
[...]
A little awkward question, but it's impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
>impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
I really don't know and don't have the time to figure it out. If you can test it do so and let me know (feel free to say hi in discord, maybe someone else is willing to help you), or better yet just buy the indie game and support Vic, also then 3+ people don't have to roll the dice on an update ruining a fun ongoing game.
How is the artillery in this game? Lurking on /misc/ watching Urkanians and Russian fight with drones and Artillery barrages exclusively makes me want to play the same strat in some cool 4x game.
Meritocracy gets cards to pull high experience or high capacity leaders. Democracy just gets the regular recruit junior etc. But democracy gets cabinet retreat which makes capacity and starting experience much less important.
the theory is that your starting leaders will have better stats if you pick meritocracy over democracy as your starting decision, im not sure if its true just saw some guy claim it in youtube vid, seems dubious but did few rolls myself to test it and meritocracy got better rolls most of the time.
I feel like you also get better leaders when you roll juniors while having high meritocracy, though that could've been just very good luck on my part. Cap 5 leaders just seem to be rolling out on meritocracy.
>build port on a peninsula >aquatic creature steps onto the peninsula, cutting off the port >kick it out >the port is now its own zone since it was cut off
How do I remerge this back into Omicron zone?
I believe just click "zone" button on the right side panel (near bottom I think) while your cursor is in the zone you wish to expand, then click the upper border tiles you want to expand into.
Will planes be rebalanced? I feel like I can't even use a token force early game because they're a useless expense due to their ultra short early and mid game hex range, you'll spend more time building airbases on the advancing frontline than using planes. Some completely redudant plane design choices too, such as wing sizes and cargo space. Big plane = big cargo space, Big plane = big wings, no mad man will put tiny wings on a x8.
Depends on your atmosphere. I've been able to get 11-14 hex range on some pretty good fighter-bombers. Then again I usually recon, bomb, artillery, and then crush the enemy over and over until they are shattered. Then I advance in pincers, cutting off the remnants and destroying them during a broad offensive. Hence there's less continual advancing. More like ten turns of pulverizing followed by a broad rush. Helps get the most out of airbases.
If air-to-ground combat didn't continue for the full 10 rounds even after the enemy has fully retreated/hidden I would be much more willing to engage in it. When I hit end turn I can alt-tab and do something else, if I want to do air-to-ground attacks I have to wait for 7 turns of nothing after 3 turns of effective attacks for as many stacks of air units as I was willing to construct.
>90% of patchnotes are "fixes"
Dev should really hire some help at this point
Or actually use a modern game engine like Unity or Godot not whatever ancient tech SE is running on
It's a single boomer dev who's using his personal game engine that's folded 1000 times.for decades.
He probably can't use modern game dev flow even if he wanted.
I have a shitload of units in a tile, is there a way to select an entire brigade at once? Or do I have to move them all out one by one into a tile so I can group move them
miranda from mass effect
funny how she's supposed to be genetically perfect but has a man jaw 5head and could use bigger boobs and ass overall to be perfect
Prod - How much was produced
In - How much came into the zone stockpille
Cons - Consumption, how much was used by the zone
Stock - How much is stockpilled in the zone
Everything "out" goes to SHQ, Zones have limited stockpille ability on their own, Water, oil, electricity and IP get transported at no logistical costs while everything else costs logi points.
This is how i once realized why my logi network is dead, farms produced 5k food per turn and it needed 5k logi points to get transported to nearest Zone and then to SHQ.
Planes are super painful to use until you do some of the linear technologies to improve performance. Get Lightweight Alloys and the efficiency tech for the engine you are going to be using. They will substantially improve your potential range.
mad max tech level 0 starts were an option on one of the dev's surveys for what the 2nd DLC should be about, lost out to focusing on mid and late game
Here's my idea for playing as Mad Max style raiders. There is a new map mode for viewing the logistics of OTHER empires down their roads. You park your raiders on those road and your income in cash, supplies, food and oil is a percentage of logistics you are intercepting. You get recruits from free towns you occupy and you have the option to draft cities you capture into slavery. Victory consists of defeating wvery major and plunging the world deeper into its dark age.
Does the AI just cheat its field testing, seems kind of bullshit how other majors are always at 90% field testing and shitting out improved models constantly when the only thing I have been able to find and fight are some xenos
I'm inclined to believe that the AI is just so incompetent at fighting that it can't help but blast its field testing up due to fighting massive, constant, inconclusive battles with every neighbor.
This is most likely it. The ai likes to empty it's cities into generic infantry and thus will undoubtably have alot of field testing. Just outtech them and their testing advantage won't really matter.
Losses advance field testing at something like triple the rate as kills. To simulate failings of the equipment being discovered so that the next model can fix it.
Combine that with an AI that tends to favor short term aggressive objectives vs long term strategy, and you get a lot of deaths and thus a lot of field testing.
As for the speed at which they develop models, they have fewer BP sinks so it's spread around less. I don't know exactly how much their BP formula is simplified or what counterweights exist, but I know they don't use cards, so presumably no PP generation or card council budgets.
>Research, discover and develop mechanized quad MGs. >The base stat roll isn't great: 93. But it's good against infantry and I'm up against DIVISIONS of infantry. >Build 5 independent battalions of Mech Quad MGs because they're as cheap as light tanks. >That's 250 of these things for almost nothing. >Next turn. >Kill 3800 infantry in a SINGLE attack. >Have 5 battalions of these and they make multiple attacks each. >Field testing is 68% finished after one turn. >Did I mention these are as cheap as light tanks?
Seems kind of overpowered but it was fun obliterating an entire front.
You can't really call any tech the "best" as MSF, Heavy Industry, and Hi-Tech Industry are all critical to success. To your question, economic technology balance hasn't ever changed.
You can't really call any tech the "best" as MSF, Heavy Industry, and Hi-Tech Industry are all critical to success. To your question, economic technology balance hasn't ever changed.
The question is less how strong the techs are, which they all are incredibly strong.
The real question is, when do I need it and can I actually unlock and research it?
If you are playing on a map with lots of ruins, or you find a lot of metal deposits, then the need for those techs is lessened, with the opposite being true.
However the biggest challenge is actually ensuring you can unlock these core techs when you need it. When you research three techs in a tech category, you will unlock the ability to discover any tech in its adjacent tech categories. This means if you are not conservative you can end up unlock half the game's techs but never discover Metal Soil Filtration.
>which they all are incredibly strong
This is objectively false, numerous techs like serpentinization, two out of three of methane synthesis/deep core mining/synthetic fuel, atmospheric membranes, or water purification are essentially useless. I don't even research them unless I need to unlock the next tier.
Losses advance field testing at something like triple the rate as kills. To simulate failings of the equipment being discovered so that the next model can fix it.
Combine that with an AI that tends to favor short term aggressive objectives vs long term strategy, and you get a lot of deaths and thus a lot of field testing.
As for the speed at which they develop models, they have fewer BP sinks so it's spread around less. I don't know exactly how much their BP formula is simplified or what counterweights exist, but I know they don't use cards, so presumably no PP generation or card council budgets.
AI BP generation appears to be fricked because on "slower" progression I'm mopping up the tech tree at turn 100 while the AI is still using combat armor and automatic rifles. I assume they're putting all their metal and population into constructing poorly armed infantry rather than putting it toward high-level bureaucratic offices like me. It doesn't help that they love to spam new zones while expanding into wildlife areas which just breaks up their populations rather than concentrating them into a few massive zones (V+) which is the meta play.
>barely holding onto a defensive line >running out of recruits >it is a good day when I can send 50 tanks to the frontline >enemy forces are still massing up, in army sized formations
THAT ENEMY CAPITAL BE SEIZED >refusal has penalties
this is bullshit. Refusing, but still bullshit
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the tooltip is out of date on faction demands.
Pretty sure that now refusing just causes happiness drop, you only lose word score if you agree and then fail.
The "seize enemy city of someone you've neutral towards who you just met in a completely unreasonable number of turns" requests are silly though and should probably get another balance pass.
Is there a page in the manual that lists what a units combat mode is? >Example
Infantry get infantry combat modifiers on some terrain.
Tanks get tank combat modifiers on terrain.
What do buggies use, what do motorcycle infantry use, etc?
well I think i found what you are asking, I dont think its shown anywhere other than in the pre-battle screen and even then, its a bit hidden.
there may be another way to find this info, but the ui isnt very intuitive to begin with so idk.
Cheers
I think during attacking, artillery can attack on first turn while other attacking unit is still advancing. I don't know where i read about it. Not sure how effective it is without sufficient recon at early phase.
I believe Missile Artillery can be situationally useful to participate in direct assaults, because their niche is they fire all their artillery attacks in the first two turns unlike regular artillery. Meaning they can fire off their attacks before the regular combat starts and then withdraw.
What's the ideal Infantry OOB setup? Are machineguns worth it if you prefer your infantry to be flexible for both attack and defense? Any cool custom setups anons running?
I also made that mistake. I thought it would be cool having a coastal highway. Next thing I know an entire army is cut off because some eels flopped onto the sand
I didn't even think i made a mistake. Running along the coast was the best way to save IP because my terrain is mountainous and forested. The coast has no mountains and regular patches of forestlessness.
I think this is just a problem that needs to be fixed. I can't seriosuly be expected to garrison every single tile of coast. Vic please fix.
For the people playing their 1st game use cheat engine to give yourself infinite credits, bp, fp so you can get comfortable with the UI and mechanics first.
For the people playing their 1st game use "robinson crusoe" planetary history class so you can get comfortable with the UI and mechanics first without being a cheating moron.
Rail station can send and receive supplies. Rail heads can only receive supplies. Hence build rail stations in every city, and rail heads close to fronts that need to receive supplies.
Shit, I've been in this thread for weeks but didn't join the discord until now.
[...]
My Mech Quad MGs have an overpowered engine with +20% move mod. Unfortunately I don't think they are part of any OHQ formation. Like recon units, they must be built in independent formations.
[...]
I've noticed that infantry and walkers are the only types not to get negative movement and attack modifiers in thick vegetation and mountains, so I use walker-infantry in rough terrain.
>mountains
Speaking of infantry and mountains, holy hell are they difficult to dislodge once they entrench. What the frick.
A station or a railhead will allow the full LP to propagate to them. >what if the rail splits
You need a railhead or station at both ends of a given section where you intend for the full rail station LP to propagate.
Governmentbros on suicide watch after Oceania. Literally the water israelites won't stop calling me to buy my IP and my only answers are +Enforcement or +Commerce with almost no additional +Government options from events in the DLC. I can't fricking play what i want anymore. Governemnt was already the hardest profile to keep high and at this point you can just fricking forget it. Haven't been able to get up to even Worker's Rights since it dropped.
This DLC is pretty shit, not only can't you do anything with the water you now also have ocean animals bee lining your roads from the water all over the place, as if it wasn't bad already.
I want to like it so much but so much of the DLC is shittily implemented. Why can't i sign a PERMANENT contract for transportation? I need to renew that shit and if i forget bye bye that entire supply line. Why can't i just setup a per turn agreement?
And the aforementioned water creatures fricking your supply lines and being unable to chase them down.
Player controlled navies can't come fast enough. i'll fricking shit on those water israelites for making what should be a fun part of the game into a slog.
I'm here complaining because i presume that the request for wanting navies in the game has been very thoroughly communicated to Vic and my complaint about the Transport Contracts is likely either a design choice or an engine/game limitation. So b***hing and moaning here is the best i can do but maybe i'll put it in the suggestions forum. Couldn't hurt i guess.
Probably because navies tacked onto larger games are almost always ass. I pray Vic never adds ships I have to manually build, upgrade, and push around.
It's competently done wargame (for those who an't swallow umptienth WW2 themed one) and rather poorly done 4X, with nice random planet gen. Horrendously random too, besides combat. YMMV, wait for sale.
Check our Emperor of Fading Suns if you're looking for something in similar vein,and ambitious albeit old and clunky.
The part of the game consisting of moving chips around the hexagonal board and keeping them supplied is done reasonably ok. Even AI is not that bad at it.
Where it starts falling apart is when all the other elements come in. Unless you mean aircrafts, but frankly I haven't gotten around to playing mp with them a lot when I had interest in this gme, and in SP AI can't handle it.
New to Shadow Empire, it's a constant learning process, I keep making stupid mistakes and paying for it. Also turned out my neighbours to the west were arachnids and I had no idea, they've declared war but haven't done anything. I found a troop of 10 cataphract laser tanks early on that completely destroy anything fortunately.
>Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me? >These are great days we’re living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we’re gonna miss not having anyone around that’s worth shooting. >I don't like the name, Lawrence, only homosexuals and sailors are called Lawrence. From now on you're GOMER PYLE.
It's pure gameplay, there's almost no downside to raising taxes so there needs to be some block against the player just selecting the highest tax rate.
there doesn't need to be gameplay everytime you want to adjust a tax
that's like asking for every slider in the game to have a 'roll to fail' chance or every move by your soldiers has a chance of 'uh oh we lost all of our supplies, can't move anymore for a turn!'
this makes even less sense since you can call the gov and tell the guy what you want the public budget to be and without fault he'll do it 100 percent
Guys I gotta say I like this game but rolling a die to file paperwork is really fricking stupid
This is why characters have skill values and why you can play cards to make rolls better. Just have a bonus that's naturally higher than the roll you have to make and you don't have to worry about chance.
>there doesn't need to be gameplay everytime you want to adjust a tax
I don't mean that clicking a button is gameplay, I mean that resistance to tax changes is purely for gameplay purposes rather than realism/roleplay as otherwise there would be no barrier to raising taxes immediately to a high value and never worrying about money.
I would be happier to see the interior council control taxes by turning BP allocated to "taxes" into the actual tax rate every turn, as the barrier to raising taxes super high would then be the fact that your interior council wouldn't be prospecting and generating personnel cards instead.
Organizing or reforming taxation would be a major undertaking for a post-apocalyptic or primitive polity. Modern states with big bureaucracies make it look easy, but in a disorganized society you would have a lot of trouble deciding what exactly is taxed by who exactly based on what exactly.
>major undertaking
Which is why the idea of the guy saying "darn it I just couldn't figure out how to raise taxes today" typically followed by the player demanding that he try again and again, possibly all in the same turn until he says "yep I did it, we're charging more income tax now" is so stupid. I can only accept the system as-is because I understand the meta, not because I'm willing to accept that me telling the councilman to raise taxes three times in a row with a 50% chance of success each time is a reasonable representation of the complexities of creating a global bureaucracy from scratch.
1 year ago
Anonymous
The card system is shit, it should be just an option to tell your councilman to raise taxes and he keeps trying automatically until he does it, if you want to lower relations you tell your diplomat to keep trying automatically until he does it. Gating basic interactions with your state and other states behind fricking yugioh pack openings is nightmarish.
1 year ago
Anonymous
it's a fake argument because people just go 'it's realistic!' when in the same game you can give the budgets for every department of government and they will function no problem but raising taxes for whatever reason has to be a die chance
there's no reason for it to be implemented like this. tie it to buildings or unrest but it should be changed
1 year ago
Anonymous
The die chance for raising taxes is only a problem if you let your secretary do it, though? Even a completely unskilled Interior Councillor will do it correctly every time.
have raised taxes add to unrest or cause strain on the state and require gov buildings. literally anything other than 'paperwork roll' because that shatters the suspension of disbelief
>there doesn't need to be gameplay everytime you want to adjust a tax
I don't mean that clicking a button is gameplay, I mean that resistance to tax changes is purely for gameplay purposes rather than realism/roleplay as otherwise there would be no barrier to raising taxes immediately to a high value and never worrying about money.
I would be happier to see the interior council control taxes by turning BP allocated to "taxes" into the actual tax rate every turn, as the barrier to raising taxes super high would then be the fact that your interior council wouldn't be prospecting and generating personnel cards instead.
I assumed higher taxes removed money from the private economy, so I always kept my empire a libertarian tax haven. My cities are always full of private buildings, so I assume it works. If I'm correct than the real meta play is to not tax at all and basically run your empire as a lean corporation on a deficit and only selling resources to stay positive.
I can imagine if an actual studio made Shadow Empire 2. Steel division/ WARNO style battles with auto resolve for the battles that don't matter that much, detailed order of battle. Scavanging laser and plasma rifles and handing them out to glorified bandit warbands as, slowly over the turns you go from Mad Max to a modern armed forces. Alien unit models, genetic modification of populations that change the characteristics of different groups. Expand the private sector to randomly generate companies that can produce cars, guns and aircraft that you can order or centralise your state establishing state industry and research. There is so much that can be done with this concept. There is the potential for a masterpiece here.
Idiot, the gameplay and UI is a masterpiece. Any game studio more contemporary than 2001 but have shit this up with 3D homosexualry (which you prefer).
>he wants AAA company to make SE2
therers no way any corpo team would make such thought out system and put so so much soul into it (I read manual recently and was amazed how much work he put into everything)
At best you would get usual paradox trash, maybe good music/art but incoherent game design and shitty gameplay with mandatory focus trees cause it sells to normies.
[...] >auto resolve for the battles
half of the reason i like SE is the fact combat is good and not fully abstracted like in civ or pdx games.
This guy gets it.
>major undertaking
Which is why the idea of the guy saying "darn it I just couldn't figure out how to raise taxes today" typically followed by the player demanding that he try again and again, possibly all in the same turn until he says "yep I did it, we're charging more income tax now" is so stupid. I can only accept the system as-is because I understand the meta, not because I'm willing to accept that me telling the councilman to raise taxes three times in a row with a 50% chance of success each time is a reasonable representation of the complexities of creating a global bureaucracy from scratch.
The dice are a function of chance. That event in particular isn't written very well, but think of the years of political BS and back and forth that has gone on with Biden proposing to raise taxes and hire 87,000 additional IRS agents. Tons of shit can and will happen with tax raises, and it's reasonable for initiatives to fail. Kind of difficult to encapsulate all of that into a text event and make the event seem unique each time, especially when you can, you know, use your imagination.
>I assumed higher taxes removed money from the private economy
They do but private constructions are terribly inefficient compared to the ones you can construct, so there's not much point in having the government gimp itself so that the private economy can flourish.
No. State economy has its purpose but so does private. Private economy is just a 'wet and forget' system which works just as well if you're not going to be autistic about micromanaging. More over people typically get the shits working in a sterile and static economy where they have no control over anything - which is a reasonable response.
Seeing how Democracy-Government-Mind combo is the strongest in the game, yes.
Commence profile is fricking shit, why try to rely on private light industry that produces maybe up to 1k IP per turn when you can build gov owned one that shits out 5k each turn?
Not to mention that private industry doesnt generate BP (most important resource in the game) nor can build metal extractors (most important economic building besides IP factories)
Seeing how Democracy-Government-Mind combo is the strongest in the game, yes.
Commence profile is fricking shit, why try to rely on private light industry that produces maybe up to 1k IP per turn when you can build gov owned one that shits out 5k each turn?
Not to mention that private industry doesnt generate BP (most important resource in the game) nor can build metal extractors (most important economic building besides IP factories)
No.
Yes, public are more 'efficient'. FOR YOU. The STATE. The whole point of private enterprises is that you DON'T control them. So isn't it actually capitalist that they are less 'efficient' for you, since you don't own them?
Infact the game has many weird economic concepts regardless of your profile, like citizens giving IP points with a 'service tax' and private resource producing enterprises providing a medieval-style 'due' tax of their resoucre output, not just their monetary profits.
Ultimately however, the game is a state of constant war economy. Therefore
>How is that the case when unemployment in my cities is already low?
Doesnt matter, private economy only siphons workers in this game. I can see that you with that private economy was viable in this game, and im sorry to break it to you but its not. It underperforms compared to everything else and id generally more of a nuisance than help. Im not against private economies irl but this is just how the game works
has the right idea. Public assets just are better because you can control them directly.
1 year ago
Anonymous
I should also add that while Commerce is kind of poopy for getting IP and stuff, utilizing Commerce to get the private economy to provide your citizens with Education, Health, Security and Entertainment services so you can focus on building your mines and factories can save you quite alot of IP and Metals. Commerce is probably the one that arrives the most comfortably in the mid-game. Sure, Government can be stronger if played right but it's very easy to stumble if you can't find all the resources you need to make it a reality. Enforcement is also pretty sweet if you like to blitz your neighbors, the tax bonus can give you some great benefits if you can rapidly expand your taxable population early.
1 year ago
Anonymous
the commerce profile is incredibly good at doing 2 things. Increasing population happiness and making you money. Spamming the prof 1 private investment card to have a strong private economy develop practically overnight means you can tax your behemoth of economy much more and not have your population flip out thanks to the infinite QOL.
Like other posters said, commerce is suited for a peace time economy when you dont need a gigantic military industrial complex, and since this is a war game its total war all day. Government wins out with the extra bureaucracy and enhanced industrial output for said wars. I would say losing the slight perks from government buildings is a downside but the megacorporation building labs offsets one, and barracks should be built anyway for the training and importance of security QOL for events and stuff
1 year ago
Anonymous
>Yes, public are more 'efficient'. FOR YOU
if I nationalize that factory, will your profits die?
1 year ago
Anonymous
Your profits will probably go up because worker income is taxed by you and also feeds into the private economy. The economy in-game isn't a closed system, credits get semi-magically created and spent and the more money workers have to spend (because you're paying them) the more money everybody has to spend, including you.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Efficient isn't necessarily better because private assets are "free." You gain income through service tax and get increased QoL without having to pay and feed any workers yourself. Just because public assets produce more doesnt make them better because you actually have costs for them. Anyway this is the only game where you even have an option to the promote private sector so im glad it's there.
You know, Meritocracy isn't too bad after all. I miss the PP bonus from Democracy and Grand Convention is in no way a replacement for Cabinet Retreat, but it's not too bad.
Also, Commerce is kind of good, actually. I can completely ignore building QOL stuff unless i specifically need the Research bonus from Universities or the training bonus from Barracks.
Meritocracy is annoying though with the riot events. Democrats can pay people off and Autocrats can just suppress them by force. But Meritocracy has to either ignore them half the time or attempt a negotiation roll that almost always goes badly. Annoying, but it's still a fairly decent profile.
This. Not having any QoL public assets is a hugh boon. Private economy is efficient in the sense that it frees public jobs to focus on more important industries.
These are some of my new favorites cards from this playstyle. Given that i'm drowning in cash, i can utilize a half decent bribery economic councillor to just shovel cash into rebellious cities to make them very happy again. Private Investment and Investor Backing allows me to develop city QOL without ANY resoucre cost what so ever and Plea of Friendship + Accomplished Envoys diplomacy rolls bonus allowed me to put nearby farmers under my protection early, allowing me to focus on fighting early wars with majors and expand my economy in my capital. Overall quite a fun time. I like this combo quite a lot now. It's also pretty easy to keep Meritocracy and Commerce high. Sitting comfortably at 91 Meritocracy and 90 Commerce.
What events are you getting that let you stay that high for meritocracy and commerce?
1 year ago
Anonymous
>What events are you getting that let you stay that high for meritocracy and commerce?
Oceania is literally filled to the brim with Commerce events. If you also enable Corporations you are basically guaranteed to have it maxxed out permanently.
Several of the cults are a good match for Meritocracy and Commerce and Mind.
As for having meritocracy high, all it requires is that you don't pick democracy option or autocracy option during strikes and riots even if it is painful. If you strictly adhere to the rules of picking +Meritocracy when its avalible and picking -Democracy and -Autocracy whenever possible, and never picking any + to those 2 if it can be avoided it is possible to keep it high. It is pretty painful though and you will have some problems with cascading unrest, but security points and good happiness can help offset things.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Ah. The strike events suck because not only do you get unrest for ignoring them, but theres a huge production malus afterwards.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Yeah it definently sucks ass, but keeping Meritocracy high IS possible.
Government, on the other hand...
While that may be true, I like running with little overhead. I don't have as many workers to pay and keep happy. I merely build offices, factories and mines and the private sector takes care of itself. Love that and the labor allocation in this game. Since most things are labor intensive, it forces you to choose what buildings you want.
>I merely build offices, factories and mines and the private sector takes care of itself
You could build more offices if you built hospitals, barracks, universities, and vidcom, due to raising your civilization level more quickly instead of waiting for the private economy to build oil wells on every oil tile first.
1 year ago
Anonymous
How is that the case when unemployment in my cities is already low? No point in constructing more buildings if there will be labor shortages. Does civilization level boost population growth? Just checked my capitol and civilization seems pretty high with level III private assets in most sectors. Nothing Public that isn't an office, factory, mine, or truck or rail station.
1 year ago
Anonymous
What turn are you on? Of course if you give them 200 turns to build everything they'll achieve a high civ score. But with only 70k workers it seems like you probably don't have high level constructions of MSF, nuclear plant, high-tech industry, and heavy industry, things that you could have achieved much earlier if you'd pumped your civ score so you could build high level offices much earlier to blast through the tech tree.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Turn 100. City had three refugee camps in the zone for the longest time before I split off two to surrounding cities that were struggling.
Also I assume the 100 scores on the left are relative to my other cities? There are all 100 because my capitol is on top in my empire?
1 year ago
Anonymous
>Also I assume the 100 scores on the left are relative to my other cities?
No. QOL is equal to the points divided by the city level, or something. 100 is the max.
1 year ago
Anonymous
High health points increase population growth iirc
1 year ago
Anonymous
>How is that the case when unemployment in my cities is already low?
Doesnt matter, private economy only siphons workers in this game. I can see that you with that private economy was viable in this game, and im sorry to break it to you but its not. It underperforms compared to everything else and id generally more of a nuisance than help. Im not against private economies irl but this is just how the game works
i think about it as you having to convince people to tax increase, lower values are easy but the higher you go the more resistance you get and sometimes takes you multiple months (1 turn = 2months) to push change
He was planning to add them months before release but said it would be a free update after the DLC came out because it is difficult.
Honestly I don't care all that much, what I do care about is a new model design screen. Holy frick the current model design is DOGSHIT.
The right question is not whether it's good, the right question is could have it been much better if it wasn't made by a code monkey. The loss of potential hurts me.
I can imagine if an actual studio made Shadow Empire 2. Steel division/ WARNO style battles with auto resolve for the battles that don't matter that much, detailed order of battle. Scavanging laser and plasma rifles and handing them out to glorified bandit warbands as, slowly over the turns you go from Mad Max to a modern armed forces. Alien unit models, genetic modification of populations that change the characteristics of different groups. Expand the private sector to randomly generate companies that can produce cars, guns and aircraft that you can order or centralise your state establishing state industry and research. There is so much that can be done with this concept. There is the potential for a masterpiece here.
>he wants AAA company to make SE2
therers no way any corpo team would make such thought out system and put so so much soul into it (I read manual recently and was amazed how much work he put into everything)
At best you would get usual paradox trash, maybe good music/art but incoherent game design and shitty gameplay with mandatory focus trees cause it sells to normies.
I can imagine if an actual studio made Shadow Empire 2. Steel division/ WARNO style battles with auto resolve for the battles that don't matter that much, detailed order of battle. Scavanging laser and plasma rifles and handing them out to glorified bandit warbands as, slowly over the turns you go from Mad Max to a modern armed forces. Alien unit models, genetic modification of populations that change the characteristics of different groups. Expand the private sector to randomly generate companies that can produce cars, guns and aircraft that you can order or centralise your state establishing state industry and research. There is so much that can be done with this concept. There is the potential for a masterpiece here.
>auto resolve for the battles
half of the reason i like SE is the fact combat is good and not fully abstracted like in civ or pdx games.
>half of the reason i like SE is the fact combat is good and not fully abstracted like in civ or pdx games.
Anon... Shadow Empire has auto resolve battles. You know what Auto Resolve means right?
Do lasers break the 'high velocity' 'howitzer' trend, or is there some other weapon that fills the roll of howitzer later on? I got lasers pretty early, and I'm just slaughtering every
What the frick am i meant to do about this? It only gets MORE difficult when i fail and the penalties are causing me problems i'm struggling to resolve.
Yes. Public budget is invested into private economy, so it's basically an investment to get more credits over time. Or, at least, that's what I think it does, I don't know how many credits you get from private buildings to be tbh
I see, thanks. Do the buildings only give credits then, and no trickle of the resources themselves?
>Does the private market build privately-owned buildings on their own?
Yes. >Can I encourage that?
Yes, by going down the Commerce profile. >Is that even a good thing to do?
In some ways, yes. It helps simplify your early econ because the private sector will help develop your nations services for you. That being said, private enterprises are not as efficient as state owned ones (for YOUR needs, atleast!) and they will drive up the salary you have to pay your workers in order to have them not leave. It's a double edged sword but it's an ok strategy to go for i would say. Just don't be afraid to nationalize critical resource mines because the private economy got ahead of you in building on the deposit.
>Yes, by going down the Commerce profile.
Does the public budget affect this as well or is that something entirely different? >they will drive up the salary you have to pay your workers
Now while that seems obvious in hindsight, I still didn't really expect that to exist though. The game is suprisingly nuanced.
>Does the public budget affect this as well or is that something entirely different?
Commerce profile just boosts the output of your private economy. It also gives you access to cards that allow you to inject credits into the private economy.
Public Budget is something you set under the Zone Orders tab. It's a flat credit value that you can put into the private economy to help them build stuff. Generally, i'd say investing in Public Budget isn't really worth it other than a single token 1 Credit, as this will give you +1 population happiness per round in your cities.
If you are serious about the private economy, try to follow the Commerce profile.
>Generally, i'd say investing in Public Budget isn't really worth it other than a single token 1 Credit, as this will give you +1 population happiness per round in your cities.
huh, thanks for the tip
>Does the private market build privately-owned buildings on their own?
Yes. >Can I encourage that?
Yes, by going down the Commerce profile. >Is that even a good thing to do?
In some ways, yes. It helps simplify your early econ because the private sector will help develop your nations services for you. That being said, private enterprises are not as efficient as state owned ones (for YOUR needs, atleast!) and they will drive up the salary you have to pay your workers in order to have them not leave. It's a double edged sword but it's an ok strategy to go for i would say. Just don't be afraid to nationalize critical resource mines because the private economy got ahead of you in building on the deposit.
Raise up enough troops to reinforce your losses. Build extra so recruits can drill in the capital (they gain about 4 experience per turn, more if you station veterans there too). If you have an uprising event in any city, make sure you have enough troops there before you try to put them down using the autocracy option.
I thought I had things figured out but I hit a logistical cluster frick at about turn 50 and couldn't figure out why my troops weren't getting food and oil.
The problem is that you didn't build rail between your zones. By turn 50 resource production is ramping up and you might be recruiting hundreds or thousands of soldiers and colonists, all of which take a lot of LP to move around.
>I don't have rail researched
How do you not have rail researched? You start with it by default, it doesn't even have an entry in the tech tree to research.
Uh... I'm moronic. Well, I upgraded some truck stops and that was enough to stave off complete collapse until I could get railroads up between my main cities. Now I'm at war with a major but I can't raise troops at the nearest city because of logistic issues even though I have the resources, which is bad because I have plenty of trucks and armor there but I need a meat wall of soldiers to form a line so I can get behind the enemy front and cut them off proper. I'm in an awkward spot because I have a massive chunk of of free territory full of giant alien monsters below me and a minor I'm at war with right below the south east city. Should I just start upgrading rail stations?
This is what I would do if I had unlimited metal and IP. Obviously you don't but you should try to work toward something like this.
1. Nearby zones should always be merged together as high level assets are hugely more efficient than low level assets.
2. Minimize extraneous road links, you want a line not a net. Same with rail, by merging the SW city into the central city you can cut that part of the rail system out which will allow a single rail station in the NW city to reach all the way down to the SE city (it won't have full LP by the time it gets there but it will still be plenty).
Update: They spammed light tanks and I got absolutely ass-fricked because I designed my army to fight infantry.
I've found that Shadow Empire has a similar gameplay loop to FTL, you start a new game, do better than you did before, get ass raped, start again
The art and UI are fine I have no idea why people ITT are moaning. The only thing I don't like is the blank square for unknown units, that looks ugly imo but who cares.
It bothers me that I always wind up in a battle for global supremacy before turn 50 because the AI will declare war at random and never accept peace. Either I lose and that's the end or I win and there's no challenge anymore because defeating a major almost always results in enough territory and population gain that nobody can stand against me. Why does the AI relation constantly tick down such that I never get to use any cards besides open contact?
>Choose Boreas class planet, thinking it'd be relatively easy with the unlimited supply of water >I spawn onto a hell planet with no breathable atmosphere, with marauders, radiation, and aggressive wildlife EVERYWHERE >There's at least two engagements every single turn >I can't amass enough resources to get anything done, it all needs to go to reinforcements
At what point do you just give up and start a new game?
What the private economy does in the long term is irrelevant because stacking +QOL in the short term in order to build higher level Bureaucrat Offices is the #1 priority. The private industry is eventually going to build high level +QOL buildings no matter how you tax them, which means that taxing them as high as possible is the optimal strategy because you'll still achieve a high +QOL (due to building public +QOL constructions) with no downsides.
Light tanks are must have for bulling early game infantry and raider/weak aliens. They are cheap and economically viable but fall off by mid game.
Medium tanks are kind of meh, all rounders that can bully light tanks and stand on their own sometimes,mostly good for offensive actions
TD and AG - specialized units, they get bonuses to fighting tanks and infantry respectively. They are more specialized medium tanks
Heavy tanks - Absolute must have for any kind of serious war, especially in PVP if your economy allows you to build them get as many of them with laser cannons, they wipe the floor with all other tank types. Just be sure to have logistics in mind as they hog fuel like crazy
I'm beginning to think from my own anecdotes that giving the AI more time to think does actually make it play better. I've had it on normal processing for a few games now and the AI consistently underperforms, even on not that dangerous worlds on hard difficulty.
My next game onwards i'll probably try the slowest AI processing settings to see if it becomes better.
I'm beginning to think from my own anecdotes that giving the AI more time to think does actually make it play better. I've had it on normal processing for a few games now and the AI consistently underperforms, even on not that dangerous worlds on hard difficulty.
My next game onwards i'll probably try the slowest AI processing settings to see if it becomes better.
Apparently if you give the AI more time to think, it just allows the AI to use algorithms that take longer for it to complete in-game.
So you're not necessarily making the AI smarter, you're just giving the AI more options when deciding what to do.
Why is the Private Economy not constructing anything? It has tons of cash and there is enough unemployed population to work new jobs? I'm experimenting with Commerce right now and trying to get them to develop newly placed cities for me and i don't know why they won't build
There aren't enough people to run a farming dome so they won't build it, even though they want to. You need a few thousand more.
The alternative explanation, based on having no idea what the situation around that city is because you didn't provide any information, is that they dropped a farming dome community but you blocked the road with a traffic sign so it's not getting any LP and can't finish construction.
You know, Meritocracy isn't too bad after all. I miss the PP bonus from Democracy and Grand Convention is in no way a replacement for Cabinet Retreat, but it's not too bad.
Also, Commerce is kind of good, actually. I can completely ignore building QOL stuff unless i specifically need the Research bonus from Universities or the training bonus from Barracks.
Meritocracy is annoying though with the riot events. Democrats can pay people off and Autocrats can just suppress them by force. But Meritocracy has to either ignore them half the time or attempt a negotiation roll that almost always goes badly. Annoying, but it's still a fairly decent profile.
These are some of my new favorites cards from this playstyle. Given that i'm drowning in cash, i can utilize a half decent bribery economic councillor to just shovel cash into rebellious cities to make them very happy again. Private Investment and Investor Backing allows me to develop city QOL without ANY resoucre cost what so ever and Plea of Friendship + Accomplished Envoys diplomacy rolls bonus allowed me to put nearby farmers under my protection early, allowing me to focus on fighting early wars with majors and expand my economy in my capital. Overall quite a fun time. I like this combo quite a lot now. It's also pretty easy to keep Meritocracy and Commerce high. Sitting comfortably at 91 Meritocracy and 90 Commerce.
I really fricking hate state of Militia in this game >can't hand them equipment(even if you could in early patches) >they suffer malus to experience levels(why?) >can't attach them to any formation(like indie units) >can't form their own command or formation >their units are totally rigid(they should be like Battle/Combat, groups more fluid) >can't integrate them into main military
Current.recent conflicts really showed importance of well organised and supplied militia units both in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.
What Militia should be >able to rearm them from state weaponry >able to upgrade them into regular soldiers >get rid of exp penalty >they come in Battlegroups and can be attached to regular formations >you can form militia formation(only HQ) to which you can attach militia units
Otherwise they suck donkey balls and are only good as garrisons
You can upgrade them into regular soldiers, disband them and recruit the citizens they become. This is where militia shine, they're mobile colonists that you get for free.
Ultimately the reason they're not as good as real military units is so you have to build real military units.
>get meritocracy high >start getting events about a major on a flank I havent paid any attention to >options are +200000000000000 democracy to stay nice, or choose to piss them off >dont want them to declare war on me >have to accept democracy
This is bullshit. Democracies are not the only form of government that plays nice with other nations.
The game is moronicly pro democracy, it's annoying. I'm doing autocracy for roleplaying fun and it's strictly inferior even after the "buff" of having Fear impact Autocratic regime cities like 40% less, that's all Vic added.
That huge level 1 democracy bonus to political points is just OP.
Mods are easy to install but I don't know about making them. I looked at the toolkit Vic put out and it went over my head but I'm really not into that sort of thing so can't say.
im convinced democracy has hidden leader debuff, i recruited like 30 leaders in my current democracy run game and only one was cap 4 rest are 80% cap 1 and 20% cap 2
Yeah it's just RNG. The good part about Democracy is that you can use your PP bonus to spam recruitments and just sort out the trash using Zero and Bronze retirements. It's also easy to swap in new leaders and just gold/silver retire older members who are no longer good enough.
>retire older members who are no longer good enough
The real power of democracy is when you realize that thanks to Cabinet Retreat, you don't have to.
1 year ago
Anonymous
True enough but Cabinet Retreat spamming a Cap I will still never ever be as good as Cabinet Retreat spamming a Cap V. It's always good practice to clean up your useless buggers unless they've been around for a really long ass time.
This has nothing to do with being nice with other nations. The profiles you gain from events related to other Majors is based upon what that other major's own regime profile is. If your options were pro democracy, it would be because the major in question was democratic themselves. Typically you get + to whatever their profile is when you accept their demand/try to interfere in their politics and you usually just get heart or fist if you choose to do nothing.
That being said, being peaceful with other majors is basically impossible. It's a wargame after all and the AI will find a reason to attack you at some point.
>new >frick around with a bunch of different random worlds before just doing a Beginner difficulty Siwa-class like Dastactic recommended (except at lowest tech setting) >learn the bulk of mechanics but realize where I've made some mistakes (not building BOffices asap) >ok great >new planet, regular difficulty >start next to a major faction >encircled and captured by turn 5 >now steamrolling the minor next to them
whats the trick for firing Cap I leaders? Staff council gives retirement strategems? What is the difference between a TD and Assault Gun?
>whats the trick for firing Cap I leaders? Staff council gives retirement strategems?
Interior Council. Retirement cards come in 4 tiers going from 0 credits to 1000 credits offering. Seniority level affects how hard it is to retire someone, but if you spam enough silver or gold cards they will eventually lose enough seniority to retire willingly.
If the person you want to retire is already employed, i recommend reliveing them and promising them a 'better job' (to avoid penalties) and then just retiring them, side stepping any problems from not keeping the promise. >What is the difference between a TD and Assault Gun?
Assault Gun is a medium chassis and suffers hard attack penalties when attacking, but is otherwise identical to Medium Tank except costing way less IP.
Tank Destroyer is a heavy chassis with a (smaller than AG) hard attack penalty when attacking, but substantially higher hard defense than Heavy Tanks, but otherwise identical in performance.
Basically:
Assault Guns are Medium Tanks that have an offensive penalty, but function identically on defense and cost less.
Tank Destroyers are Heavy Tanks that have an offensive penalty and a defense buff (against hard targets) but otherwise functions identically.
If you mount the exact same armor, weapons and engine of course.
I only think the manual states vaguely that turretless tank types have reduced offense, but that's it. My source was a post on the Matrix Forums. Here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=364984
And both AGs and TDs are useless because the ai isnt going to attack into you with poor odds anyway. They'll just flank your armor and attack into infantry.
>machine gun brigades
i slowly start to think independed MG are shit, they are good as defensive unit but half the size of normal infantry batalion which is cheaper and a lot more useful at attacking
>whats the trick for firing Cap I leaders?
Firing an experienced leader is generally expensive in PP and credits, so you might not be able to do it until you're a bit into the game (where you might find that it's not worth the bother, e.g. firing the capacity I secret service council guy is probably pointless because he still generates spy cards and succeeds at using them). Firing freshly-hired guys is easy, just play Zero Retirement on them from lowest seniority up.
If you're early in the game and really want somebody gone you might have to devote an entire turn to getting rid of them, as you will have to fire them (5-15 PP depending on how mad you want your other leaders to get), then potentially fail multiple silver/gold retirement cards to get them to a low enough seniority for a cheaper bronze card to get rid of them. You only pay the credit fee if the retirement succeeds so failing at silver retirement is an easy way to make it cheaper in terms of credits. Zero retirement is free in credits but much more expensive than the others in PP. You don't have to retire them but they'll get really mad if you promised them a new job and will potentially rebel.
Remember that seniority ranks are always spread out from 1-100 so firing your lowest ranking leaders (clearing the trash out of the reserve pool) will make all your other leaders have lower seniority ranks (except the highest seniority guy in the empire) which makes it easier to get rid of them.
Dev made a dev post of sorts, gives some brief hints as to where the game's going and asking for feedback, there's also a poll for what people would like to see in the game.
https://www.vrdesigns.net/?p=2207
QRD >intends to share a development outline of the game in 1 to 2 weeks from now >plan is to fix or address major community issues >>new blueprint UI, hopefully next week
economic snowballing >>more planet-gen options >>AI development to use aircraft and optional rules that force the AI to interact with the logistics system more >new DLC soon???
>a new “midcore” Logistics rules option that will be usable by the AI
that's definitely huge, I would be willing to play with more simplified logistics if it means the AI plays by the same rules
economic snowballing
I'm interested to see what this means. Snowballing is the point of this kind of game, otherwise there's no benefit to becoming bigger/stronger.
I don't disagree, but the game loses alot of its fun factor when the weight of your economy becomes so crushing that victory is legitimately only a question of time.
>see report, close it and they find appropriate menu to do stuff with it, i feel like he could just add button GOTO in every menu to just to save my headache of doing ti >constant swapping between assets and zone menu to see important information what to build next >when i finally figure out what to build next i still need to click through 2 other menus to build them >still cant mouse scroll in multiple important menus have to click tabs with numbers >0 customization with hotkeys/mouse sensitivity, no hotkey to jump between towns/zones >to upgrade units is relative easy you have to click upgrade but vehicles for some reason require you have to use replace button, which is not even usable unless you have units build in SHQ first. >model design menu is atrocity
90% the things you do during turns could easily be gathered logically on one side of the screen instead it gets scattered randomly around behind layers of shitty menus which require you to do 20 clicks everytime you want to do most basic stuff.
i hope one day it all will be fixed but i doubt it
If its under 90, I will re reroll it. 100+ is preferred, but I wont care if it is 90+.
When I want to RP some elite specops infantry then I care about getting 100+ rolls
And with absolutly no fanfare the dev just dropped a blueprint management system into the game on the latest beta. Picrel
You can create a blueprint of any unit you have and it'll tell you exactly what impact each choice will have on the units stats, you can then import the blueprint into your model creation to automatically start researching it.
And with absolutly no fanfare the dev just dropped a blueprint management system into the game on the latest beta. Picrel
You can create a blueprint of any unit you have and it'll tell you exactly what impact each choice will have on the units stats, you can then import the blueprint into your model creation to automatically start researching it.
This is pretty cool. Do you develop your new model now or wait another turn for your armor piercing or other applied technology to go up? I absolutely love that about this game and the blueprint system will help visualize how much better your new models will be. Although i though their were several dice rolls with each new model (engine, armor, weapon) so hopefully the blueprints are just estimates and not exact.
Yes, it great. Honestly, probably the best 4x game I've ever played. Great and unironically deep mechanics. Plus it is a great Hex Wargame with a cool logistics system.
Anybody hyped for Oceania DLC? I want to play an island planet with jungles and murderous wildlife.
the dlc would be good if it let you build your own ships instead of paying some merchant israelites to transport your shit
Knowing Vic, there is a decent chance he will redo the system to allow for this. He has teased at it a few times that MTH might not be the final implementation of the system.
Legit one of the worst UI I've ever come across
i despise hexshit strategy games on a principle.
lame
On what principle Anon?
uncreative and limits possibilities.
The Thinking Man's game. I hope the dev ramps up his work on the oceania DLC and work on a better DLC that adds more customization to aircraft, tanks and other models. He should add stealth technology and radars.
DLC is out on the 30th, Vic said on stream it will probably be about €9.99.
On the stream today Vic said it is his intention to eventually make ships be buildable by players and all the systems he has in place now are designed with the intention of this getting a free upgrade in the future.
>Vic said on stream it will probably be about €9.99.
Less than i expected. Positively suprised.
>Vic said it is his intention to eventually make ships be buildable by players and all the systems he has in place now are designed with the intention of this getting a free upgrade in the future.
Won't happend if the game isn't financially succesful. I know VST hates paypig shills but i'm gonna have to be one for this game. I must have more Shadow Empire content. cry about it if you must.
I bought this game before it was listed on anything other than Matrix. Don't tell me what to buy VIC. I'll come back to it if/when I feel like it.
Amazing game but the investment does wear you down and certainly makes me hesitant to jump back in.
Try playing on the smallest map type. I know we all like it big, but if you pick the smallest map and just roll the highest possible size for that world the game runs way, way faster than the other two sizes. I have only ever finished a game against the AI on this map size.
It is definitely fun to play on big maps too though. Had a planet a little bigger than earth in my last game and organising railway logistics was surprisingly enjoyable.
I hear you, anon. But i have found that the turn times make me want to kill myself. Maybe i'm just an impatient Zigger but by god the difference is night and day.
Just get a decent CPU. It's not that hard. People are willing to pay thousands for GPUs but you skimp on the more important component?
I have an I-9900K.
I also would be shocked if the game is anything other than single threaded.
Do you have the AI set to the highest time setting? I put it in the middle after a few games and didn't notice any difference in the ai. Turns are under 30-60 seconds. The real challenge, if that's what you want, is in bumping the difficultly up. The ai will spam units and fill the map, making encirclements more difficult.
>Turns are under 30-60 seconds
If you think this is acceptable, then i am just going to self brand myself as the impatient Zigger i am.
If the very last 10 turns of a game take 30 seconds to process i'll be satisfied but ideally most turns should be below 15~ seconds to process for most the game.
I really don't think larger map with more painting to do makes for better gameplay. The tech tree gets unlocked frighteningly fast by the time you hit bureaucrat 3 or 4 anyway.
>Do you have the AI set to the highest time setting?
I just select the 'give ai more time to think' on game setup screen whcih i think gives the middle option? But i feel exactly like
couldn't tell ya if it actaully changes anything
Do you not watch the ai to see where they are moving troops? Any faster and you wouldn't be able to keep up with the intel unless you wanted to look step by step in the turn history.
>Do you not watch the ai to see where they are moving troops?
Frick no, lol. I just alt tab and browse the frickin internet.
I look at how many kills / losses on the end turn screen and then i use the turn history tool to compare what the situation was at the end of my turn and the beginning of my turn.
I can figure out everything i need to know from this, i only ever look in detail if i am curious where X casulties came from.
>Not designating surfing and gaming to seperate time slots.
I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit. What do you see when you close your eyes? Can you imagine an apple? What color is it? Can you rotate the apple, anon?
Give me a break shitter. I'm not staring at the fricking end turn screen.
There was a bug last i played that made the game crash if you viewed AI moves so i was double incentivized to not look at it.
JK. But it's faster to watch the AI moves then review the history. I only go into the history tab when I want to screenshot epic battles with good kill ratios.
games just take way too damn long. AI isn't great.
Does it has a above decent ai? bad ai in strategy games is a no play for me even if the rest is perfect
I find the AI to be generally not moronic.
They have buffs when it comes to logistics and road construction, but they "mostly" play by the same rules as the player. Only part I find annoying is after taking their territory you can be left with spaghetti roads.
Generally enabling the option to increase AI turn times helps them out but it will increase turn times.
>they "mostly" play by the same rules as the player.
Why lie? The A.I. outright cheats. It doesn't play by the same rules as the player whatsoever.
The computer controlled opponents aren't all that great and tend to make moronic decisions. Most of its shortcomings are plugged by the aforementioned cheating (in every aspect of the game). Despite that, it's still fun.
The AI in this game cheats more than any other strategy game I've played in my entire life. On the normal setting as well. It's atrocious.
I think so. Main issue is not having a multiplayer option besides PBEM, shame.
no
it can quite fun tho
no.
also holy shit the art needs redoing so badly.
>Not using graphical mods
>AI generated art pack
now that's amusing
the actual game AI is not great, once you get your economy rolling you generally roll over the AI, which is the only real part holding the game back
>Getting your economy off the ground involves cheesing the otherwise seemingly random tech tree to get a specific one early
That was my impression from the general. I never get my economy reasonable
>you should have to fix the game for the developer
nah
Mod source?
Cladboy2's Sentinel Vidcom art pack.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=393422
I'm gonna have to be the contrarian here and say that i actually think the base game's horrible looking 3d art is nice.
It's distinctly Shadow Empire. Not striving for visual splendor but still having it's own style.
This. The worst thing possible for this game would be for the owner to listen to all the midwit feedback online about graphics and ui. I haven't felt this engrossed in a game since Galactic Civilizations 2 and the art fits so right with that retro feel.
You can delete roads. Not sure if you know this.
Started a game on hard and I learned that if you don't take an enemy city fast, then they will just draft their entire population to reinforce their 16 unit max in the city. Initially they had 24k troops that I surrounded on all sides. By hammering them with artillery and then attacking I was able to inflict about 8k casualties per turn, but the ai on hard is able to reinforce a good deal of that. Nevermind that everything in the city has been destroyed and they had no industry. The ai on hard will simply draft it's entire population into service to be genocided in an epic last stand. So instead of capturing a 100k pop city, you might get a 30k pop city ten turns later. But I'm not complaining, as it's pretty fun on higher difficulties.
Art is awfull, road and logistick system just moronic, same as faction and council system, and stop pretending like it isn't.
the graphics are soulful but the UI could definitely use improvements
>UI could definitely use improvements
I wont try and convince anyone that the UI is secretly a master piece, but i would say you get used to it very quickly with muscle memory. Theres only a handful of buttons that are actaully important and many of your options are pointless or not needed to be clicked on for the majortiy of the game.
>Art is awfull
Subjective
>road and logistick system just moronic
It's really not that complicated. Everything comes from your SHQ in a line. It makes perfect sense when you learn it.
>same as faction and council system
This is correct and i think theres honestly a bug for many versions now where newly formed leader factions will start making demands even though they haven't even partaken in electinos, sidelining your actual majority factions. It's very stupid indeed.
>It makes perfect sense when you learn it.
it may be not complicated but its still moronic
Well i guess it is moronic if you try to think of it like a real logistics 'network'
A better description is a logistics line.
I just don't see the negative here. If the system was more complicated it would filter even more people and make the game miserable to play.
>If the system was more complicated it would filter even more people and make the game miserable to play
iirc there's option which give player the same logistick system as AI have.
I think it just increases action points for trucks/trains so they reach further.
In what other game do supplies, food, ammo and reinforcements actually have to travel down road and rail networks? It's pretty epic if you ask me. Once you wrap your head around it, you can visualize the 1800 infantry and 60 tanks you just raised travelling down Hwy 13 next turn. Then only 40% make it because you consumed 1500 ammo in your last turn's artillery offensive and all your trucks were carrying ammo to the frontline. It's not even challenging once you understand it. Public truck stations in your cities if you aren't pushing out enough logistic points. Paved roads between every city. Truck stops halfway between every city. Dirt roads branch from the main highway to link any mines or what not (try to minimize this by planning main highways to cross hex assets you need). Mid game place a rail station in every city and link every city with railroads. For distant frontlines follow your offenses with paved roads and a railroad and railhead.
anon i do not mean that
i mean things like for example your trucks riding in every direction and splinting on every crossroad instead of driving there where they are needed
its fricking moronic
>oh noes crossroads
>lost half the convoy
Look into traffic signs. A good tip I have is to block all supplies going down roads to assets or non front lines,then uncheck "pull points" checkbox so that only the necessary amount of supplies go down that road.
Good tip: logistick fricking not work like THIS.
Trucks deliver their load where you need to, not in any direction just bcs they see a road here.
Dont think how it works in real life. Think of logistics in SE how you think about water flow. Each road is a pipe and logistic points and water flowing trough it
Just accept it for how it is anon. If you just learn traffic signs and pull points you'll always have logistics where they are needed. It's not actually that difficult. This is a system that pull points made easier to manage then release version.
I find I use traffic signs excessively and it is only a boon for my logistics. My friend who I'm playing against atm doesn't use them and it shows. He's struglung with supply only about 50/60 hexes from his capital and I have excess capacity about 200 hexes away.
More micro? Yes,but I believe it pays off.
Pic related is older photo from that game.
You can definently micromanage using road signs to get more total points to certain areas, but that is all you can do with it: your total capacity will remain the same and the reach will be the same regardless of whether or not you use road signs.
Digging up unnecessary roads can be a way to prevent your system from automatically sending points where it doens't make sense. Breaking up raods cost very little by the end of the game unless its in mountains.
Anyway to try and illustrate my points better, the pull system will pretty much always guarantee that everything has what it needs (if it is in reach of your logistics grid) if you have enough points. If you have enough capacity, your units will always receive all the supplies they need.
There is a big but however: Logistics on your actual, playable turn. While your units may have all the supplies they need, you might find that roads you consider vital don't have any spare points to deploy new units / strategic move units to among other things, this is where comes in handy, road signs can help direct the flow to where it's needed the most.
But when i say
the point im trying to convey is that if you have enough capacity and remove excess road junctions, you don't really need to micromanage your logistics, atleast in SP; you will always have enough for what you want to do, generally speaking. I just don't think its worth microing in that situation.
I should also add to reinforce my point that road signs can't be given specific values: You can only do percentage based, meaning that you might have disproportionate amounts of stuff going to the wrong places even if you use them. If the game allowed you to specifically set how many points went in each direction at the junctions we'd have an autistic recipe for succes, however.
Just get more capacity and remove unnecssary road junctions to prevent this from happening. Road signs should only be used to temporarily resolve supply problems.
Uh... what? To make the trucks deliver stuff to places where they are actually needed you have to physically dig up the road so they can't escape?
anon i do not think you understand me
I know how it work in game and I know how to make it work in game
its still fricking moronic
What gets me is that they can carry the same amount of goods down a 1-tile road as a 20-tile road. Sorry boss, we only drive out once every two months no matter how few km we go, it's union rules.
Oh yeah
>trucks can used only once in any direction per turn, no matter how long travels path is
>trucks splits by half in every fricking crossroad
>no dedicated trucks for army, so we must requisition them from construction and other civilian tasks
>no matter how many filling station on a way, trucks use only first one
Pretty epic? No, fricking moronic.
That's not how it works. Trucks don't split 50/50 at every intersection. They do split, but it's based on demand. Nevertheless, you still want to optimize your road network to improve throughput. Like this anon is saying,
, you probably have unnecessary road junctions. You also probably haven't upgraded your supply stations in your cities to meet demand.
There is a push pull system for delivering logistics. In my picture you will see that I've not used roadblocks at all. I've eliminated unnecessary junctions. You can see the farm at the one tile gravel branch demands 150 logistics and it receives 185 logistics. No roadblocks needed!
Don't be afraid to delete the existing roads and redesign them. I could dig up screenshots of my first games and show the mistakes I made by keeping the existing road networks. I honestly don't get the hate for the logistics because it's fun in an autistic transport tycoon kind of way.
Explained it better than i ever could, anon.
What do you mean about putting truck stops halfway between cities? Truck STOPS specifically or supply bases? Because i feel like putting the truck stops inside of the city is fine and using supply bases to get little extra reach if the distance between two cities is great?
Sorry, I get the terminology confused. I meant supply bases. Build one supply base halfway between each city. Build truck stations in your cities. The "perfect" distance between each city is 13 tiles, with a level 1 supply base equidistant between them, although at higher supply base levels this distance can be extended. But obviously most cities are already built and it's not a perfect world, so the general rule is just build one supply base equidistant between each city.
You'll have more fun playing your first few games blind. I do anyway with video games in general. Good thing about this game is it's deep enough that you will still be learning new things and facing challenged hundreds of hours in. Like these guys said.
,
>The "perfect" distance between each city is 13 tiles
In that case you should merge them together as the perfect city is size VII. Once you upgrade to VII you can start playing colonist and recruit cards to work back down to the 300-400k optimal city size.
Remember that recruits can be sent to colonize a zone just like colonists by putting them in an SHQ, moving the SHQ to the zone, setting the zone to use the SHQ, and then downloading recruits from the SHQ as normal. I wish Vic would just make colonists and recruits act the same so I don't have to jump through all those hoops.
I hate logistics because it's unrealistic. You have a truck in Capital City X, truck carries 100 grain units, truck recieves call that 100 grain units are needed in City Y, truck drives to City Y, there's a supply station to refuel on the way and the truck delivers 100 grain units to City Y. Truck then spends the next turn returning to City X with 100 metal or whatever else City X needs.
What's happening with this "system" is that trucks go into every direction and road available looking for resources to find 24/7. Spending an entire turn driving around the countryside. As I understand it, resources in City Y must first be delivered to SHQ City X before it can be delivered to troops, even though it would be closer logistically to deliver City Y > Troops. The logistics points work like some kind of river that dries up after a few miles. A truck delivering goods is not supposed to deliver only 10 of the 100 units before it reaches City Y. It's annoying as hell, that's why I prefer building railroads, even though it's the same stupid system at least it doesn't inexplicably cuts off their "logistical points" out of nowhere.
Filtered
gay, please.
>>road and logistick system just moronic
>It's really not that complicated. Everything comes from your SHQ in a line. It makes perfect sense when you learn it.
Nobody said it's complicated, just that it's moronic. An "optimal" transport network is actually just a single line.
Well, yes and no.
It's mathematically optimal but tactically it has some problems. You'll want to split into atleast two lines near the front so that you aren't susceptible to breakthroughs and so that you can fan out into encirclements.
Being able to create supply dumps would be good though, although that might not be appropriate given the long timescale. Each turn is ~2 earth months long, so stockpiling ammo and food for a turn offensive is literal years worth of supplies in a remote place away from HQ in a world full of scavengers.
I know you can delete roads, it is just a slightly annoying 10-20 second chore to do after taking a big chunk of territory in a war. I follow it up immediately by slapping down traffic signs.
Also I appreciate the art style of the game, but I'm not a boomer so there is no nostalgia for me and I struggle to take it seriously. So, I am going to update my AI art pack and you can't stop me.
Based, frick these walking corpses and their "retro nostalgia". It's fricking ugly.
are you gonna update it somewhere?
Just keep an eye on the forums. I'll probably have the Vidcom updated within a few days after Oceania releases.
Portrait pack will be a while as there is a lot more manual editing to match how the game generates faces.
Nice, I've been looking for these files. Care to share the location? Would love to make my Ebonian comrades disappear 🙂
Here is a link to the forum post with documentation Vic provided on graphical modding.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10623&t=362315
You can find the portraits in [.../Shadow Empire/graphics/shadow/portraits]
You can't delete groups as it will mess the game up, but you can replace the images.
Thanks. Interesting. I wonder if anyone has done the math to see how many unique faces this game can generate.
There is about 1024 variations per portrait group.
Each file (face, eyes, hair, mouth and nose) has two columns, young and old. Most columns have 4 rows.
Depending on the age of the character it will use either the young or old column, with the exception of the face and hair which are mixed using transparency.
So about 1024 variations per group, 2048 if you include young and old versions of characters, although this is technically larger as the hair will slowly get more grey and the face will slowly get wrinkles as the face and hair become more opaque over the young version.
No frick you anon. Those games had art design even when going against the limitations of their day. This game can easily be improved with some 2d shit or literally anything else other than ugly 3d models. The art should look better.
I like it because it reminds me of fallout 1 and 2
>He doesn't like the 2 frame animation your dudes make when you take over a region
NGMI
so he went through the trouble of modeling all that and captured only 2 frames wtf?
absolute kino
>Official sound track of this gif along with accompanying 90s cgi art.
Yes AND no
Is anyone gonna do a UI overhaul to make it less hideous?
Also it would be nice if the AI put more effort into air units. Cool dogfights are too rare.
You can't change how you interact with the UI so you can't change how menus work, you can mod most of the art assets though.
Pymous's Shadow Stratagems Artpack and Cladboy2's Sentinel Vidcom art pack get rid of most of the ugly 3d art. You can find them on the graphics mod section of the shadow empire matrix forums. Das Tactic's terrain mod makes the map easier to read too.
>Pymous
cringe soulless silhouettes
I like them. I think silhouette abstract style works for the card art.
>Pymous's
did he finished his character art replacement?>
You can get alien units on your side wtf?
you need to science-languagemaxx with natives
Yes
I still need to do that marathon Shadow Empire into Aurora run some day...
Aye, huge time sink though, you won't even notice how a day passes if you keep playing it. Currently just waiting for the oceania update and get some comfy island gameplay. I wonder if there will be new AI factions that will be more water-focused?
Are there any good written guides for this game besides the 370 page manual?
The manual is hardly a guide. It's just descriptions for how game mechanics work and even then you can probably find a better answer by asking on here or steam forums.
I don't know any specific written guides, i know that some youtubers like DasTactic have some decent tutorials but they are quite long winded and take alot of time explaining mechanics you rarely interact with.
If you have a specific question about the game just ask away and i can try my best to explain.
Nice, thanks man. Guess I'll start with DasTactics one video guide and see if that'll get me going
I wish this game expanded more on all the hidden shit going on in cities like crime and cultist wars so it wasn't just in the background until 500 of your troops stationed there happen to die in a riot.
So wait, does the "allow AI more time" option make the AI smarter or is it just so the game is less taxing on your CPU?
Or am I moronic and it means something completely different?
Just posted about that. I didn't notice any difference. Even on the highest processing time the ai would occasionally do something stupid and leave a city unoccupied for me to take over. On higher difficulty, though, the ai builds ways more units it seems and I feel the challenge comes from being outnumbered. The ai will actually outflank and encircle you if you are outnumbered and can't handle it. I've had entire fronts shredded and annihilated and it was using the medium ai processing time.
I wish he would add mechanics modding support, not just graphical.
Ammo factories not existing, for example, feels like a big gap, you just end up creating it as need instead of having to manage supply with consumption.
Crude oil refining could conceivably be refined
Also I'd like to increase resource deposit sizes and decrease output of the "free" resource generation sources (soil filtration, solar, etc)
A lot of this is actually modable but it uses a cursed syntax that only really exists in the ancient game engine used by Shadow Empire.
Also this mod has an ammo factory.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10620&t=374737
Admire my empire.
>No natural borders
I know it is not your fault as the map is mostly flat but I always find it awkward to defend a border with rolling plains.
Also I hope you have traffic signs to stop unnecessary splitting of logistics on those rail roads.
Also, I didn't know how powerful nukes were until I invested in them in pic related game.
Bottlenecks are all green, fren. With a rail station in every city it's overkill. Also it's hard to see against the desert but any mine that's off the main highways is connected with gravel roads. All unnecessary branches are deleted. With this setup I barely every have to set up roadblocks.
For the open plains I like to make a few independent recon brigades customized with a full complement of motorbike infantry. 50 buggies and 300 motorbikes can really hold their own because it's all about mobility on the open plains. Encircle and destroy.
Look at the Empire.jpg I posted. Delete your unnecessary branches. Have only one road between each city. Put a truck stop halfway between each city. Any branches off the main paved highways use gravel.
Also holy shit that's a lot of armor.
So i bought this on sale, trying to watch some videos before i start a game
Any tips?
Is it possible to change how my infantry look? like make them wear coats like some of the AI empires?
focus on commerce since it makes your economy easier to manage as a newbie. your population just build private-assets that produce stuff without your input
>focus on commerce since it makes your economy easier to manage as a newbie.
Err, Government is objectively more powerful. Commerce will frick you because your public workers will end up demanding higher wages. It's not a terrible choice but i think most people will get more out of Government. It's easily the strongest profile in the whole game.
>stronger than democracy's cabinet retreat
>stronger than mind's research bonus
Government is the strongest in its group but it's the least important group.
One of my favorite features of the game is how unit sprites change with the technology you upgrade them with.
>Democracy mogs you.
I agree that Democracy and Mind are crazy strong, but IMO Government touches the 3 most important parts of your game: Industry, Bureacratic points and Worker Happiness. Which makes it arguably the strongest one in the game. Also Bureaucratic Push is very strong, though not as good as Cabinet Retreat.
Anyway, i think it's fairly obvious the strongest combo is Democracy Government Mind, everything else is subpar.
True and one of the drawbacks of the game imo. Hard to balance. In my recent game I chose Meritocracy, Commerce and Heart just to mix things up. Not sure how the mechanics all work and not sure I want to know but I have had a few games in which my leaders were so fricked I to chose options that were contrary to my regime preferences. That sort of thing is fun because it forces you to make tough decisions and you can play a number of ways: optimizing leader stats, regime preference, or whatever makes the most people happy in the short-term. It's an interesting dynamic that you don't really get in other games.
Meritocracy is alright if you ask me. It's obviously not as good as Democracy, but it's decent as far as i am concerned.
Heart is one i'd love to like but i find that its miserable to play. Half the events that give heart are the 'reproach the leader for even asking' which i feel is counteractive to one of the core values of playing heart, which is the leader loyalty bonus. You will be reproaching your leaders constantly and end up having overall less loyal leaders due to lower happiness. I get what Vic was going for in the RP side of things, but i really wish it wasn't so painful to play.
Meritocracy's main downside is that there are hardly any events to raise it.
Heart is decent because by the mid game it takes leader management out of the equation, they'll all just be super loyal. There's also that morale formation card which is really strong.
Commerce simplifies the early economy which is more important now that water sales and rarecoin have been made a bit less powerful.
Ultimately the one I can't bear to play without is democracy because cabinet retreat is just so insanely powerful. I want to RP autocracy or whatever but the difference is just too much. Autocracy is probably the worst profile in the entire game.
I like how sprites change based on armor and weapon. But I don't like not being able to pick the "theme" of my units.. I just want my units to be wearing these robes
Quick rundown on how to play this game?
It seems like one of those autism games which, while they are good, have piss-poor ui and explanation to why things work the way they do
Logistics emanate from the SHQ along roads, but units can operate about 5 tiles away from a road (on flat ground) and still be supplied.
Building costs are displayed as the max per construction turn, not overall.
Don't build more 1 thing at a time early or else you'll be splitting resources across multiple projects.
Metal mining is good first building and you're guaranteed a metal deposit on lower difficulties.
You can then use that metal to get Industry 1, which will go a long way to helping your Industry Points generation which really opens up your options.
Consider lowering your recruiting per turn so that you aren't flooded with recruits that you can't feed or arm.
I did not word that well at all, holy shit.
Try 2:
Building costs are displayed as the maximum that can be spent on construction per turn.
i.e. Industry 1 costs 500 metal per turn for 3 turns at peak speed, so that's a total of 1500 metal,
I just started playing my first game. I got a class 5 leader on my second turn. I thought it wss unlikely to see even one in the entire playthrough? What do I do with him? All his stats are +60.
Fire your SHQ commander and place the Cap V in the spot.
Leader priority for Cap level should be something like:
1) SHQ
2) Interior council / Military Research / Economic
3) Govenor (Of your most powerful zone(s))
4) Other councils
5) OHQ commanders
This is the hierarchy in my head, atleast. SHQ is the highest value position for them. Either put the current one in some other job (Staff Council is the same tier of job as SHQ, so you can promise them a 'better' job and just give them that and avoid all penalties) Staff council also uses High Command, which your starting SHQ person should have.
I see, thank you. I'll do that right now. Does it matter if they don't have a high command rating?
It does not matter. Skills can be learned, and since you are placing a Cap V into the slot, they will learn extremely quickly and become better than whoever was there before likely in only a handful of turns.
Think of it like this: Cap I-V is how fast the leader can learn and the maximum potential their skills can reach.
A cap I will be shit for the entire game basically and should always be replaced. A cap V will become fantastically good at their job with very little effort on your part, all you have to do is tell them what to do.
Alright! That makes sense. Thanks again.
I should add, the most important criteria when evaluating if a leader is a good pick for the spot or not is
1) Cap level, higher is better
2) Their attribute levels in related fields, eg INT for economic conucils, WAR for commanders etc.
If your candidate has a high attribute score and isn't cap I i'd say they are 'good enough'. Remeber you can always retire people later if you get better leaders to replace them.
so how do i start this game, is there built in tutorial or will i have to waste 30h watching youtube tutorials to learn mechanics similar to paradox trash?
It's surprisingly intuitive. If you've ever played any Paradox game, the Civilization series, or anything of that sort then you'll have a decent idea of what to do. There are a few obscure aspects but they're pretty easy to figure out with the manual or Google.
I've been playing for 5 months (600 hours in Steam) and just learned some tricks with logisitcs today. But in general I understand quite well what to do. Just play the game as much as you can.
Only seek tutorials if theres something you don't understand i'd argue. The game isn't esoteric, many of the game concepts are similar or derived from one you might be familiar with in other 4x games.
Seek manual/youtube/Ganker/steam forums/wherever if you run into a mechanic you don't understand.
It will never cease to amaze me how unwilling people are to read the manual. If you are even considering to play this game despite it looking like ass you are already a stinky nerd and should be able to get through few hundred pages in a reasonable time.
When you are raising formation, you have an option to use SHQ troops, but what or how can I affect the troops inside the SHQ itself?
When you recruit reinforcements they go straight to the SHQ (and even get some experience there), and you can then make formations from them, or let them be reserves to fill in casualties.
Wish i had greater control over formation templates in this game. Why is it impossible for me to create a battalion sized formation consisting of 600 infantry, 200 machineguns and 200 rpgs?
That's Grenadier Infantry.
Except, it's not. Grenadier Infantry is 800x Infantry, 100 MG, 100 RPG. HV. Grenadiers get 400x 200x 200x. Customizing an MG or RPG infantry formation gets you 800x 200x 200x
So my problem here is that i cannot have 200 of both specialist type foot soldiers and also hit a battalion size of exactly 1000 men. I either end up with 1200 or 800, depending upon if i go the customize route or heavy grenadier route. I cannot get 600 inf 200 mg 200 rpg even thoguh i really fricking want to.
You can build your desired units in your SHQ and then split off your exact unit comp into an independent battle group, although that comes with a slight combat penalty. It can be frustrating at first but eventually you'll be surprised by how versatile the game is and you could always come around to just building grenadier infantry.
For instance I just realized you might be able to customize heavy grenadier infantry to give it a complement of +200 infantry so it would match your exact unit composition. Would have to check on that though.
I don't think you can add more of the same model type using customization. I think i have tried everything and it makes me so mad i can't get what i want. Vic please fix.
Confirmed that it does indeed not work.
Add 20 walkers for the ultimate rough terrain defense.
qrd on how to fight properly? how to design brigades and such?
Designing brigades isn't necessary, just spam MG Infantry corps and light armor corps.
Hold line with MG+infantry. Soften up enemies with artillery. Attack with armor/mechanized from multiple tiles.
so like real life?
What about air force?
>so like real life?
No, like wargames.
Air force is complicated and janky. I usually turn it off since the AI can't use it properly so it's kind of a huge advantage for the player.
By the time you have the tech and materiel to make effective air vehicles you've probably already won.
On the other hand you can do meme drops with thopters to cut off enemy supply lines with units supplied through the air bridge which won't bother the AI at all because they'll just build roads around it for almost-free. I assume that many MP games have air forces turned off because this would be a game-breaking strategy if applied en masse
the whole formation system is fricking garbage, subunit system is less so but still trash
then there is militia system that its crap
and not even mentioning a unit creation shit
its like dev choose the most convoluted and moronic system on purpose
Question in picture
Oh shit, is it because of pic related?
Anybody want an ultrahigh pop worldgen save I have?
Siwa, 5 million dissolution war survivors.
About 100,000 free folk in the immediate area of the start location alone.
Slowest Tech, Hard Difficulty.
Isn't that the used panel? It sent 16 food + 14 fuel for a total of 30 used?
My understanding is that the it uses 16 points to move food down the road and pipes for free down the road, then it goes off road so both fuel and food cost points so it spikes the cost to 30.
I could be wrong.
Sure
What does the Truck and Rail logistics do?
Also, I blocked everything but allowed pull points, but no logs were going , only troops were on the other side of the road, do they not have pull points for their operational logistics ?
This front is starting to get out of hand. This AI empire controls 40% of the globe and has already scaled up to regiments and even divisions. It looks alright now and I've managed to cut off a regiment of rpg infantry, but I wasn't able to finish them off this turn and we're getting pushed back relentlessly. Their armor outnumbers ours by 10:1, and we're taking brutal losses every turn. Lost 1200 infantry, 50 tanks and 40 artillery in one battle last turn. This planet doesn't have a single oil well so it's going to take years to ramp up biofuel production or research synthetic fuels. I'll have to fall back to the mountains while building bunkers and preparing entrenchments.
Woah this looks cool. I imagine it would take a long time to resolve your turn in this game.
I don't time myself but I probably take 30-60 minutes on some turns and have to get up and rest my eyes in between turns lol. Have never had a front this long and packed with troops. This game is amazing, especially since there was only 2.4 million survivors. On the western front I surprise attacked this major, surrounded and captured his city. Now I've set up defenses in the ruins while leaving a gap to try to lure him in to be encircled and annihilated. On the eastern front I've been steamrolling thousands upon thousands of raiders. And earlier I screenshot a shitfight between six major empires all crammed together on the other side of the globe.Two of those rolled over Panzerstein in a two font war, but Panzerstein captured a city to the north and has managed to hold on there. Epic.
Oil is only possible if there's alien biology on the planet.
In the cases where there isn't, it's important to
a) fight over scavenge sites
b) conserve oil during peacetime.
This means sometimes going buggies early instead of light tanks. Also get physical storage for oil and consider lowering your truck station operation% if you're running a big excess.
c) beeline oil techs.
It definitely makes things like moon maps extra interesting, where you don't have the water or population for huge farming ops, and you also don't have oil deposits for the population efficient armies.
For your situation here. RPG units can thin out their armor pretty effectively. Especially in cases like the selected stack where they don't have any infantry support. You attack that stack with RPGs and you're getting insane value.
I think you just need to accept that you are going to take losses on defense against tanks though unless you want to dig out the meme defense unit that is hi-vel guns.
It might just be a strategic loss though, sometimes the AI booms up really big in a far corner of the map. I've lost a game like that even though I was pushing them, I just wasn't fast enough. Now I always choose the Survival Stress game start option. More regimes prevents one from having no neighbors and ballooning up in size.
Update on the southeastern front. Teal has pushed forward relentlessly. In the last ten turns I'm pretty sure I've lost 20k infantry on that front and I know I've lost over 500 tanks (no tank losses on other fronts). We were able to make a fighting retreat, however, inflicting casualties as we fell back, and are now holding the mountain ranges with grenadier infantry, counter-striking with artillery and inferior armor that is continually being upgraded.
Some success on the western front as I've managed to encircle and destroy several thousand infantry and 200 tanks.
With this map being a Limos-class planet with no life, there are no oil reserves at all, and very few mines. I have three metal mines controlling 30% of the map, and no rare mines at all. Most resources come from scavenging and soil filtration. I've managed to get my industry and synthetic oil production running enough to think about going on the offensive again, but the game could swing either way, especially if too many scavenge points run out. Time is of the essence. Amazing game settings and I recommend it.
>500 Tanks Lost in 10 Turns.jpg
You think this is impressive?
Try killing 11 000 tanks in 30 turns
this is from a PvP match
Damn homie the planet doesn't even have enough metals for this
Nice, although my parabola has a better angle 😉 The impressive part is the AI putting up a challenge and launching an actual offensive. It's not like every other 4x game where the AI rolls over and dies. Still not as fun as multiplayer. Congrats on having friends.
You shouldn't worry too much, if you bait those tank regiments to push forward, the AI will run out of oil quick. Then you'll enter a stalemate where the front doesn't change because the AI will be busy building up oil production.
Drive me insane when a unit gets cut off and destroyed and then you go to replace it but instead of getting the original number it just takes the next in sequence so now your 2nd MG Brigade consists of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 36. And when you go to build the 8th MG Brigade they'll get 37-41 because 36 was used already.
Unit Admin/Rename. Or just accept that you got got and attach an independent armor or mot.artillery brigade to the extra space under the OHQ.
I think when you get to battle dress your troops get a trench coat. Is graphics anon still in the thread? I have no idea how unit sprites are assembled but it would be cool to know and be able to mod your own units using Photoshop.
>Unit Admin/Rename
You can rename the unit but the game still knows what it was before and won't reuse that number so you have to autistically rename every unit ever after if you're going to rename one. I prefer to just make that unit go without a full complement instead.
AP is action points of the trucks, what does the ext and br means?
Extension points mean your trucks have stopped at a supply base that turn. Think of it as a refuelling pit stop so they can drive further each turn. Zoom in to the black box and read the explaination in this post.
I believe br stands for number of branches the trucks have had so far on their route (over 4 branches entails a penalty). Not sure about that one though.
Yeah, BR is branching.
Nice, thanks, motherfrickers!
Why does this unit has pick up issues? It is in green op range, the road where the pick up started still has a lot of logitics points left over.
The green is rail, only a small portion of that is directly available to troops, and im not sure that industry tile has train head to distribute it.
Bottleneck further upstream.
Right, I forget this comes from the SHQ, shit, I was loking at the log points on that city over there.
I had 16:1 odds in my favor? What am I doing wrong?
CHECK DETAIL
Check Details.
But if i would hazard a guess, your recon was probably low and thus your odds assessment was not accurate.
Also, that militia tank you have skewer the odds quite heavily vs what the tank can actaully do becuase on paper the enemy militia rifles can't possibly harm it. But it can only attack so much during the battle.
Low organization or supply maybe. But probably low recon, you only have about 2:1 numbers so I figure you didn't see all their guys before attacking to get 16:1.
Ran out of action points? Were they low when you attacked?
Well, you're attacking with Militia for one.
You'll want at least an infantry brigade (note I said brigade not corps like it defaults to), and that's really the minimum. Artillery can soften them up but too much will wreck the city. Light tanks are what you need.
The odds calculator isn't perfect. Maybe you only had recon of a couple dudes at first so it over-estimated your strength? That's definitely not a 16:1 actual odds.
How to quickly beeline for tanks? Heavily invest in OOB?
Set military council to high research and to look for ideas. Then once you find tank tech switch it to high researching ideas. It's ultimately RNG, though you should find the tech earlyish.
Negative, tanks are a model, they don't have any tech pre-reqs, just discovery RNG on your model design council (which you can manipulate somewhat by rushing model design council and not researching hi-vel guns or planes early)
This your first game? You've probably been recruiting soldiers without realizing it, so go to raise formation and get an infantry *brigade* or two first to make use of the recruits you've been accumulating. And consider calling your governor to reduce your recruiting rate if you have a massive surplus.
Then go to your secretary, call them and ask for a new org. Pick model design. Best skill for it is Technician and Inventor. Put it on like 60/40 discovery/design. While you wait to discover, design a new iteration of infantry to get familiar with the system.
Yeah, this has been my first real attempt to learn and play this game.
What would be a decent recruit rate? I typically get 500 a turn.
Also, what councils should I prioritise early? I typically go interior and economy first.
>What would be a decent recruit rate? I typically get 500 a turn.
There is no one size fits all. Recruit as many as you need for your war efforts, but try to ensure your zone is still growing.
>Also, what councils should I prioritise early? I typically go interior and economy first.
Interior, Economy, Military Research and Model are probably the most important ones. Again, what you need depends upon your situation. The other councils should be put up when you feel you need them or you feel you have budget to spare for them.
Just put it on 100% design, and then don't design anything. Unused design points go to to discovery.
How do I crack this city? This is just a minor ai the spawned next to me at the start of the game. They are completely surrounded, yet continue to recuit militia that entrench rapidly.
Light tanks.
If you want to do it with the forces you have, attack once with all the independent militia and then again with the infantry corps. You're watering down their bonus when you have everybody attack at once. If you have any attack posture cards, play them on the corps.
Shoot them with your militia artillery for a few turns and get a couple independent buggy battalions.
You have a few options.
You can utilize your militia artillery with ranged attack to fire on the city. Do it every turn regardless of if you score hits or not. Attempt an attack after some bombardment.
Bring in Light Tanks as early as possible. Even 25mm Howitzer 25mm Steel Plating Light Tanks should roll all over Rifle MIlitia's.
Finally you can just attempt to bring up more units to pile into the attack, but i wouldn't take this option without atleast bombarding the city with the militia aswell.
Early cities from minors can be quite painful to take under certain circumstances but if all else fails, the light tank should solve the problem for you.
One more day, Shadowbros.
>Look up feature list
Wow its literally nothing
This. I'm extremely disappointed in the DLC. It's also not a good look to have a literallynothingDLC as your first DLC.
You're getting the rest of the features in a future free update one can hope.
Think of it as a support pack with some minor content attached. The 9,99 become alot easier to stomach then.
What the frick was Vic thinking? Why not just add actual navies? He added airplanes, ships can't be much harder.
If the AI wasn't easily outclassed by a competent player I'd be a bigger fan
It's the best 4x game ever made. Is it flawed? Yes, very much so. And even like that it blows the competition out of the water. People who shit on it are completely missing the context that is the abysmal state of 4x gaming.
What even are some decent 4x games that have came out recently? I cannot think of any.
>inb4 stellaris
No.
what map are you guys going to play first? one of the ocean presets? just random generation and keep rerolling until you get a decent amount of ocean?
Proteus or Tethys
I was lucky enough to be a beta tester for this masterpiece before it got released.
I've been a big fan of Vic's games since I was a teenager. His freeware game "People's Tactics" is the reason I got into wargaming so hard.
what was the general mood of the testers during beta? that was before the logistics traffic sign overhaul right?
Im still waiting for the Naval and Space update...
I hope Space update will never be a thing.
Should just make it you can build a ship then bring a select assortment of your military to another planet and beat their ass too.
Conquering one medium-large planet is already a hassle, and you want even more of that?
Imagine you have not moronic control systems to whom you can delegate control of sphere of government.
There are bigger issues, like profiles being moronic and not optimized, also RNG dependent
No freedom to create your own OOB, models being very rigid (no flamethrowers, tank mounted quad guns, laser AT guns, basically no cool sci fi stuff etc)
By space i mean asteroid mining, space habitats, kinetic orbital strikes that kind of shit.
Would made a nice end game content.
The end could be building UCM equipped ship and going off to locate remnants of the Republic.
I think the dev should focus instead on better research for combat units. like give us the ability to design different anti-air systems, different rockets with different sizes and uses, ICBMs, Radars, Stealth tech for aircraft, different ammo types etc.
All of these are far better ideas than le space. A slow trickle of improvements to the core game systems like the beta branch has been doing and some major feature improvements in dlcs/major updates and this game might have a future. At the very least i hope we get to see navies.
I would rather add navies, mortars, tracked trucks, wheeled APCs and tanks, ammo factories, captives and some industrial points and factories rework.
That too.
I wish he would add the ammo/food system and improved combat engine to Advanced Tactics Gold.
This, useless bloat, people who suggest this must be unironically autistic. Especially since there is so much more that could be improved in the game
Why my rail generates 2000 but 1800 is not sent ? I only have a single unbranching line, I created a rail in the other end, some railheads in the middle also.
Has a rail station or railhead existed for more than one turn? Because of how logistics points get assigned you won't see rail points propagate downstream correctly until the turn after the railhead finishes construction.
Also you don't need a railhead in the middle, just at the far end.
I love the details of the game, in my current game, there's a German faction, and a French faction, it changes the names of their units, the leaders names and physical appearances, it's very neat. Also each planet has their own date and time-frame, the way unit sprites vary... is there any datamining of the possible "cultures"?
>a German faction, and a French faction,
What do you mean by this?
Autocratic regimes have german names for their cities and units.
Republican regimes generally have french names for their cities and units.
The player has their own culture thats unique aswell, the random names of your units and cities are for you alone.
Oh, that's neat.
Damn I thought it was random. Like this X civ was germanic, this was french, etc.
See pic related, to the left the "germans", to the right the "french(Black person)"
As you can see I don't think it's related to autocracy, the germans are meritocrats and goverment, the french are democracy and enforcement.
This game is actually filled with flavor like this.
>Flavor
You guys realize that its just dev cannibalizing his previous works because he is a hack without originality?
Nooo.... I thought it was attention to detail... I hate Shadow Empire now.... (what games had vic done before?)
Mostly autism wargames about ww2 that play eerily similar to shadow empire
It's calledd 'Imperium' though, which denotes it being a militaristic/autocratic empire. That gives them the german names.
Wish I had found this game earlier so I didn't have to drop like $100 on hoi4 dlcs.
I'm vaguely aware of the cults and some of the bonuses and detractions that come with them, but is there even any real reason to promote one or even let them set up shop in the first place and not just plain suppress them? They seem like more trouble than they're worth at first glance.
Some of them are cancer, but the likes of Mystic Temple and Syndic Church can be very useful to help boost certain governing profiles. I'm a huge Syndic fan myself.
Are the politics any good or is it mostly just annoying busy work that you have to get through to enjoy the wargame?
Should I ever actually attack with the OHQ or just leave it behind the front lines? It seems like a bit of a common sense thing to not do it, but I'm perhaps overthinking a bit.
anyone found the new DLC cracked yet?
Cracked? There is universal crack for all matrix games that works, and you need to change registry values after that too, works like a charm
I know how to apply cracks/make them myself. I just can't find the clean files
It's on gog.
How mechanizing/motorizing infantry works, each 10x wheels carry 100x units ? If I lose 1 subunit of vehicles to they still move as wheeled ?
>each 10x wheels carry 100x units
Yes
>If I lose 1 subunit of vehicles to they still move as wheeled ?
No, they get movement points of infantry then
Also iirc 10 trucks cost 25% of manpower of 100 inf and APCs cost 33%, or was it half? I forgotten
Also the fact that there are no IFVs in the game is a crime against humanity
In Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes(which is the dev’s newer game) there’s a percentage a unit with transport vehicles get mobile status. 10 trucks means 100 infantry is motorised 100%. 1 truck less means 90% chance and so on. Wonder if that had made it into this game.
Why is he developing other games, I kill him. He should make SE better.
Shit too hard to fix, easier make new game.
>Makes an actually unique and popular game
>instead of supporting it, goes back to Meme War 2 shit
frick this guy, glad I haven't bought SE yet
>Instead of hiring help and making Shadow Empire 2 he continues to pump out same shovelware as he did for the last 20 years
Terminal boomerism
Good evening lads
Any good video tutorials to learn the ropes? its been a long time since I last played and I want to get stuck back in.
Cheers
thank you
>beginner
>10 billion crutches enabled
>mods
No.
>really want to design my troops rifles
>can't
why the dev didn't add this yet?
Because the game is made a by a tankwanker and infantry is borderline useless on the offensive
You have light, medium, heavy, tank destroyers and assault guns yet infantry progression is linear, its manpower inneficient and always loses against tanks, borderline good for only holding the line until micronukes
Also moronic distinction between normal inf, MG inf and RPG inf, it should be a distinction between light infantry and heavy infantry, or baseline infantry and support infantry (heavy AT, mortars etc).
Not to mention that you cant even specialize infantry, no marines, paratroopers, irregulars, militias etc
Really the more you play this game the more you start to hate it for all the wasted potential of a proper ground based postapo/scifi 4x/wargame
>Really the more you play this game the more you start to hate it for all the wasted potential of a proper ground based postapo/scifi 4x/wargame
glad i am not the only one
>Also moronic distinction between normal inf, MG inf and RPG inf, it should be a distinction between light infantry and heavy infantry, or baseline infantry and support infantry (heavy AT, mortars etc).
>no mortars squads(opposite of MG so good on offensive, bad on defensive)
>no light guns(that don't slow infantry down)
I found motorcycle inf good at attacking but they can't get into hvy armor
The AI has so many cheats for "difficulty" it breaks immersion.
No. It has some concessions but it also loses on bonuses. It is not as cheaty . You can still encircle them and shit.
Haven't played in about 2 years. Is the game still fun?
No, and DLC made it worse.
homie explain more
Is this worth picking up or is it just morons that have never played a war game before praising it?
When it works it works but it's boomer verison of eurojank.
what's a good wargame/4x game then?
similar to Shadow Empire?
sadly i don't thinks there is one, that is the part of the problem but also reason why people praise it
there is practically nothing on similar scale with similar gameplay
Cause it's the first game to take interesting wargame combat mechanics and put them in a 4x instead of a generic WW2 setting.
Gladius
Its janky as hell and full of weird design choices or borderly moronic mechanic implementation
still it can be fun if you have some form of autism
Can't wait to play Oceania, I've heard it helps a lot with the Micro heavy late game/unit messiness. Gonna wait a few days for patches though.
Anybody wanna do a micro island MP game next week? Nooby level fine, I was never great and haven't played in a year.
Yes but if I win you have to be my friend hehe.
And if I win...
Would have to be PBEM, try and get your turn done within 48 hours of receiving but I'm really not sweating it. I did PBEM once before and was fun but ruined by a discord tyranny. I want a chill old school Let's Play blog type vibe. I'll probably do light roleplay/shitposting since that makes shadow empire more fun.
There's an empty game room (#9) in Def of Many Bones discord probably safest bet in case thread gets nukes but I'm open to other options. I'll roll up a map towards end of next week. His discord: https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb
>I did PBEM once before and was fun but ruined by a discord tyrann
Tell me more. Let me guess, War of the Worlds server?
Bullseye. I shared in a thread ages aago: pretty much had just used discord to play online games with old friend occasionally until then, joined that server and naively asked if anyone was up for a game. As we rolled the map he tells me he's actually a girl "teehee". I was confused and just assumed it really was a girl (even said "wow I've never seem a girl into strategy games, cool"). Anyway we played like 20 turns in a 3 player match until he got rekt by raiders and quit. I was kinda sour from the experience and just bowed out too.
Nope it's super simple, we just send the save file to each other (you drag and drop it into your shadow empire save game folder) and play just like a single player game. Only difference is game prompts each of us to set up a personal password on our first turn which you need to enter to play your turns going forward (so use something super simple). Click end turn and then log out, drag and drop save file back into discord so next guy can play.
Yes i know what PBEM is and how its played.
Im just wondering how can discord trannies can ruin it for you..
>Im just wondering how can discord trannies can ruin it for you..
"Trannies" live rent free in the heads of some people, literally obsessed
No, trannies simply wont frick off and always have to make their degenerate ass the center of attention.
>Anyway we played like 20 turns in a 3 player match until he got rekt by raiders
Wall maybe it was a real girl after all, no man sucks as much in strategy games
some games had that built in game client, vic should add it imo
>I did PBEM once before and was fun but ruined by a discord tyranny.
How? isnt PBEM a peer to peer shit?
>go on discord to find/organize a game
>act surprised when the morons you found on discord to play with act like morons from discord
Cool man, I am down for it. Be gentle as I just won my first game and I never played wargames before.
PBEM or normal?
I'm up for it. Is it gonna be on here or discord?
Nice we already got enough for a solid game. If many more join can easily divide ourselves into 2 groups. Anyone else interested yea just join the discord chat (as its kind of a waiting room now) and say "hi" we can talk logistics and roll maps later next week.
Regarding my skill level its pretty basic, and haven't even bought DLC yet so quite probable I'll invade you and send troops that will all starve day 1.
I'm interested in this if this is still alive
You're still good to join the noobie PBEM, join the group - https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb - and say hi in game room #9. If anyone else is interested please hop in as we're just planning to roll up maps tonight and start playing probably tomorrow or next day.
We already have a full game's worth of people so more people would help get a nice sized second game going. If not we may have to discuss options/research the mod to have 5 players.
Also interested in this.
Shit, I've been in this thread for weeks but didn't join the discord until now.
My Mech Quad MGs have an overpowered engine with +20% move mod. Unfortunately I don't think they are part of any OHQ formation. Like recon units, they must be built in independent formations.
I've noticed that infantry and walkers are the only types not to get negative movement and attack modifiers in thick vegetation and mountains, so I use walker-infantry in rough terrain.
>Unfortunately I don't think they are part of any OHQ formation. Like recon units, they must be built in independent formations.
you know you can attach two indie formation to each oho?
Island PBEM game is a-go on the fair island planet of Zesalo. This planet is 94% ocean! 4 players marked in pink, and we had 3 additional interested people spill over into Room #10 still getting organized if anyone was toying with the idea of joining in PBEM.
https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb
Locke bros....
I don't own the game yet but after I buy and learn I'd be down for PBEM
>god i hate discord 🙁
>you better be vaguely normal/ultraautistic
Now's a good time to pick it up tbh, playing single player with continents should be great. But I agree you should have won at least one war against an AI major regime before dabbling in PBEM.
Thanks for letting me know, apparently good for 7 days. New link: https://discord.gg/34g4dysm
I bought the base game and have been happily dicking around losing/building unsustainable economies stuck in the middle of the desert/learning the logistics. It's a blast but yeah, give me a few days
>https://discord.gg/qdu2r2nb
Expired link.
how long is a given campaign in this game? I don't want to play 30+ hours just for a single game - seems too much like a slog
Then its not a game for you.
I love the boomer aesthetics of this game, really brings back the old sf feel.
Does anybody know what the "hidden" requirement is to discover "Light Armor Grenadier Army"?
I have models developed for light armor, trucks, infantry, artillery, MG, and RPG. I have discovered every other formation type (basic infantry, motorized, mechanized, armor, etc) for which I have the prerequisites, including both Light Armor Assault Army and Light Infantry Army. I have met all the apparent prerequisites for Light Armor Grenadier Army, yet the Staff Council reports that no discovery is possible.
This happens every game and I don't understand it. Normally he'll just discover it seemingly at random somewhere in the late double-digit turns and I'll carry on. There must be some hidden trigger, does anybody know anything about it?
For reference, the formation trees: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10620&t=352634&sid=7923a3aadf237f30dd66ae1af3a817b5
i think there is limit how many new formations you can have found but not researched, so research some so you can make space for new
the for formation in this game is fricking moronic anyway, like complete shit
It's not "discovered but not researched" limit, if I research a new formation the council is happy to discover multiple new formations that the other one unlocked. There's some special trigger for armored grenadier army, presumably because it's the most populous formation and therefore the highest concentration of force.
>i think there is limit how many new formations you can have found but not researched
There's not, you're just moronic.
Turn 111: the staff council has discovered Light Armor Grenadier Army. There were no changes to models or discovered/operationalized formations in the preceding several turns. It's got to be a turn lock, to prevent people from rushing straight to the strongest formation and ignoring all the others. I'm playing on "slower" development so it's probably more like 50 or 60 on normal speed.
I'll reload some turns and see when it went from "a discovery is not possible" to "no discovery this round", I'm guessing turn 110 but it's possible that it became available for discovery on 110 which means 111 is the earliest it could be researched. The staff council had several thousand BP saved up for discovery so it wouldn't surprise me if he got it on the earliest possible turn.
Update: I reloaded recent saves until I figured it out. The chart at https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10620&t=352634&sid=7923a3aadf237f30dd66ae1af3a817b5 is wrong, Armored Grenadier Army depends on Armored Assault Army and Armored Infantry Army. LAGA unlocked for discovery one turn after he completed LAAA which was three turns after he completed LAIA.
Does Light Armor Heavy Grenadier Army exist?
No, Armor formations don't have the Heavy alternates like infantry formations do. Armor formations are either the basic Armor type only, or the Infantry/Assault/Grenadier which comes with Trucks, or Mechanized Infantry/etc which comes with Armored Transport.
Sad. Would've been really cool. I still just wish we could customize the formations from the ground up to get exactly what we wanted instead of being forced to adapt the existing templates.
I always try to roll my planets with Earth-like atmosphere or at the very least, modest, but real. Lower gravity helps with plane range but it also lowers the atmospheric pressure. I think the equillibrium for best flying units is around 0.5-0.7 g, and then rolling the geology to get a thick atmosphere.
Being real though, planes are kind of a meme. I think each airbase level should only take 1 turn to build upwards, just increase the cost of them every step.
Alternatively, don't bother with fixed wing aircraft. Use helicopters until you can get thopters.
I never research helicopter engines, thopters are so much better and only take slightly longer. Air forces in general don't add combat power like a ground formation would for the same resources, so I usually don't bother with them at all though.
What this anon said.
Jet Air power might be better on an Oceania map for force projection, but I haven't bought the DLX yet.
Helicopters are alright on slow or slowest tech where you've got time to build up insanely large forces but otherwise by the time you've got the heavy industry and rare metals to crank out machines to build them, there's almost certainly better options researched.
Maybe if you've got an insanely mountainous map you could get some value out of the helis. Use them as close support across the range or Airbridge supply some insurgent style troops to frick up your enemies logi.
Nah you haven't experienced what cheap lightweight planes can bring. Rough terrain with heavy forests? Recon mission with scout planes to locate your enemy. Artillery bombardment? Scout with planes to get 400 recon and double the effectiveness of artillery. And with good fighter-bombers you can reduce most enemy stacks to very low readiness. Group units merely mop up and destroy at that point.
Ultra budget recon planes are one of the few things from air forces that ARE worth it because they offer something you can't get as easily from ground forces.
Your point about fighter bombers is true, but ground formations can do the same thing for a lower cost and with higher overall flexibility. Air forces remain mostly, a meme.
Pity he nerfed artillery.
Light recon planes (aka drones) and artillery represents the war in Ukraine so well.
>Regular AI already has overseas "ports" at turn 5
>turn 15, still waiting for cargo card
>the AI that spawned on the 3 times bigger semicontinent already took it over and has combat armour and automatic rifles while I still have stock shit turn 20
>he already landed on my island with a stack because the fricking indie crabs keep perching eggs on my coast
>can't do anything about the crabs since they scurry back into the sea after fighting
>all the while fighting a war with another Major that started on my island and already has 8000 of advanced machinegun in his capital
It's so over. My only hope is that MTH will cut off the ports because of good relations, or will i be israeliteed?
Maybe fall back a bit on red? That 8000 is all one unit so you could try to bait it out of the capital? Just a thought.
Failing that I guess just barricade them into their corner with MGs of your own and pivot south.
Theres definently a problem with utilizing the MTH's right now for the player.
First you need to setup the liasons, which cost credits. Ok fine, i can deal with that.
Then you need your economic council and devote budget to the MTH liasons task
Then you need to roll the card you want to play
Then you need to have the PP on hand to play the card.
Then you have to have the credits for the contract you are trying to setup and all of this is just too fricking much.
I feel like the contract cards should be avalible always without RNG, and simply be dependent on your status with the MTH if you can play them or not.
I do like that credits are more valuable overall with the DLC, but i really wish there was a way to actaully buy and sell resoucres in meanginful quantities without the price of shit inflating so hard. It feels like the credit economy is stacked against you and it isn't fun to participate in.
This game has the most insane learning curve. I quit months ago because I didn't understand how to do anything, but as soon as I came back today I had an epiphany and began to understand the method behind the janky madness, feels good man
Not buying until Vic actually ADDS stuff
Is it possible to move your capital deliberately (as opposed to letting it get conquered)? My capital city is a tiny little village in the dirt and rocks on the very bottom edge of the map and I want to merge it into a larger city which is more centralized and also in the vegetation zone. But it turns out you can't merge a zone which has the "regular capital zone" type.
Save editing? Or maybe if I delete all the city assets and keep recruiting / making people angry / playing colonist & recruit cards I can eventually get the population down low enough that it will poof out of existence?
How do I cheat, I just finished a game and went to start a new one. Starting from the beginningand having to make all my logi networks and industry is tedious bullshit. Can I just cheat in resources somehow to get a jumpstart on construction
Tech 4
Two zones
One army per zone
Four councils
Skip the tedious first thirty RNG turns and immediately start playing the game.
You're welcome.
Hey Das
I don't know what that means, but hello to you to.
Lore-wise the player is the Shadow right?
Yup, we are the shadow empire
No, it's like Shadow of the Colossus but with assault rifles and lasers.
After reading your posts, I decided to play the campaign with "Allow AI more time" option turned off.
It's like heaven and earth, now you need to wait not 10 minutes for one move, but a minute, maybe two. It's more fun, although perhaps AI has become more stupid
Probably all Major/minor regimes leaders, including you
>"Allow AI more time" option
Is the AI stupidity noticeable with this option off? Or is it some minor shit I will probably not notice.
It's hard for me to say. I am not yet involved in any large scale war.
At first glance, the behavior is slightly different. But I think its only worth it if you're playing on a large planet.
A little awkward question, but it's impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
Are you from South America? I can gift the game if it still on sale
>A little awkward question, but it's impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
The DRM doesn't go that far. Yes it is possible as long as your versions are compatible.
>Probably all Major/minor regimes leaders, including you
But why would you fight among yourselves? Aren't all major/minors part of the nano-swarm hivemind?
All of them have only a part of the shadow core and have more or less independence, but not as part of the shadow, but rather as puppets.
And as i can see only through wars can the entire planet be united under one leader.
Its not perfect but this game still makes you realize how shit paradox """"gsg""""""" games are, filled with pointless clicking, abstract bullshit mechanics like mana and bloat which makes no sense
Haha yeah no pointless clicking or mana in the shadow empire [clicks through every tab of every zone every turn to see what needs to be constructed] [clicks through every council in the organization tab every turn to make sure no organization is wasting bureaucracy mana on something pointless like helicopter engines or motorized light infantry] [clicks the recruit card a few times, clicks over to the personnel:reserve report to check who got hired, then clicks zero/bronze retirement a few times to fire all the new T1/2 leaders] [scrolls back and forth across the map dozens of times to strategic move some battalions from one border to another after ending the war by clicking the "propose peace" card only to wind up in another war because the AI suicidally declared war on a protectorate] [clicks to stop the trucks from driving down a dead-end road branch in the middle of nowhere instead of toward the army located along the other branch of the road].
Multiplayer match when?
Join here
what does the "simplified logistics" setting do when starting a new world? Cant find it in the manual
Yes, very good game.
You get a bonus to logistics. Truck stations, rail stations, and supply depots all do more. It's very helpful if you're constantly struggling with logistics.
Do my cities get a defensive bonus, the terrain is listed as agricultural, so if I am attacked will it simply play out with agricultural terrain modifiers to combat
?
nevermind, found the answer
>Asset levels provide 5-12 Bunker Points per level. This makes urban and industrial centers a bit easier to defend.
Is there any way to build fortifications, I'm not talking about the entrenchment value on tiles, I mean some Maginot line type of deal.
Cheers
Construct bunkers.
As a logistics game Shadow Empire falls deeply into the best defense is a good offense territory, so it's probably not worth the effort.
Check out the sprites for high level bunkers. They are pretty cool. Closest thing to the Maginot line I've seen in a game. Problem with bunkers in this game is the ai simply won't attack unless it has good odds. I suppose that's a good thing. But I've not seen ai attack my bunkers once.
There's literally a unit feat of recon drones that improves artillery. But I feel like artillery was nerfed recently. Does anyone know if this is true? In all my other games I remember artillery gaining recon for every barrage and decimating enemy infantry. In my latest game artillery has sucked on all fronts, attacking infantry in the open while they are not entrenched. It's not that my artillery stats are bad: have had good rolls with them. Maybe it's because I haven't researched advanced sensors or because I'm playing hard difficulty now? Recon doesn't increase at all during rounds of artillery bombardment and I start with 100 recon or more.
I only play against AI, and am fully aware the AI is dogshit and must cheat. I still use it for roleplay, build my armies for RP instead of max efficiency so the AI still gets some minor victories on some fronts.
Anyways chatgpt makes this kind of fun when I tell it to act as a new agency then give it some recent events that happened
Holy shit dude. Do you know how to write events for this game? Events with text like this would make an amazing mod pack for additional flavor in game.
I've been having a blast using chatgpt to narrate my exploits on this little match I'm having against my friends. Thanks for sharing
How do I stop logistics from sending 400 points down a shitty side road for a tiny mine? I can use traffic signs, but I have dozens of intersections I would have to do this for. Is there no mass stop sending shit to tiny mines option?
Delete all the unused roads: an effective logistics line has the smallest possible number of intersections. Build roads that snake around from one asset to another to maximize the effect you get from splitting off those LPs. Also just build rail through your cities and then you can stop worrying about where every little truck LP goes. If you're at the point where you can't afford to build a rail between your cities, then you're at the point where micromanaging your logistics is part of the game and you should get used to it.
Show us your logistics system (zoom out and use bottleneck view). Here's mine around turn 100, 4 total traffic signs including one temporary while I grab one final hex of unowned dirt in the middle of the map, 2 blocking roads that lead to another major (I just deleted the roads because they were pointless so those signs went away) and 1 that I can't find so it must not be important. I never build higher than truck station level II because any logistics problem larger than that needs rail.
Good advice but I am shocked the road split penalty is still in place, staggeringly garbage game design IMHO. I get the idea is to keep players from spamming relatively cheap roads everywhere and basically have perfect logistical coverage with redundant backup roads, but there are so many less intrusive options.
I'd prefer something like Civilization Levels but for road/logistics network where every 50 or so road tiles you place you advance to the next tax bracket basically and lose increasing amounts of industrial points, metal, and money just to maintain infrastructure. Maybe with an additional hefty penalty if your Road Level exceeds your capital's civilization level.
This could lead to people building intense spiderweb defenses, but it would be at the cost of going wider into new territory.
>impossible to play with you if im on a non licensed version?
I really don't know and don't have the time to figure it out. If you can test it do so and let me know (feel free to say hi in discord, maybe someone else is willing to help you), or better yet just buy the indie game and support Vic, also then 3+ people don't have to roll the dice on an update ruining a fun ongoing game.
civilian one don't need logistic, you can cut them off they still be working but on like 50% power
How is the artillery in this game? Lurking on /misc/ watching Urkanians and Russian fight with drones and Artillery barrages exclusively makes me want to play the same strat in some cool 4x game.
Is it true Democracy has worse leaders rolls and Meritocracy better? it makes sense but why is this hidden mechanic not explained anywhere
Common sense shouldn't need an explanation
frick off theres plenty of things which are not included or nonsensical in this game, it still should tell you how much better are the rolls.
Meritocracy gets cards to pull high experience or high capacity leaders. Democracy just gets the regular recruit junior etc. But democracy gets cabinet retreat which makes capacity and starting experience much less important.
the theory is that your starting leaders will have better stats if you pick meritocracy over democracy as your starting decision, im not sure if its true just saw some guy claim it in youtube vid, seems dubious but did few rolls myself to test it and meritocracy got better rolls most of the time.
I feel like you also get better leaders when you roll juniors while having high meritocracy, though that could've been just very good luck on my part. Cap 5 leaders just seem to be rolling out on meritocracy.
>build port on a peninsula
>aquatic creature steps onto the peninsula, cutting off the port
>kick it out
>the port is now its own zone since it was cut off
How do I remerge this back into Omicron zone?
I believe just click "zone" button on the right side panel (near bottom I think) while your cursor is in the zone you wish to expand, then click the upper border tiles you want to expand into.
It should fix itself on the next turn.
why do your paved roads look different than mine? is this a graphics mod?
Not him but that does look like a mod. the tiles are too green and look different than vanilla.
pretty sure its visual improvement mod
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10623&t=389032
Will planes be rebalanced? I feel like I can't even use a token force early game because they're a useless expense due to their ultra short early and mid game hex range, you'll spend more time building airbases on the advancing frontline than using planes. Some completely redudant plane design choices too, such as wing sizes and cargo space. Big plane = big cargo space, Big plane = big wings, no mad man will put tiny wings on a x8.
Depends on your atmosphere. I've been able to get 11-14 hex range on some pretty good fighter-bombers. Then again I usually recon, bomb, artillery, and then crush the enemy over and over until they are shattered. Then I advance in pincers, cutting off the remnants and destroying them during a broad offensive. Hence there's less continual advancing. More like ten turns of pulverizing followed by a broad rush. Helps get the most out of airbases.
why sometimes when i change order in which my units attack i get different odds even if its exactly the same units, is this bugged?
If air-to-ground combat didn't continue for the full 10 rounds even after the enemy has fully retreated/hidden I would be much more willing to engage in it. When I hit end turn I can alt-tab and do something else, if I want to do air-to-ground attacks I have to wait for 7 turns of nothing after 3 turns of effective attacks for as many stacks of air units as I was willing to construct.
>tfw 1.20m was released after 1.20n
navy unloads the marine
now its two 1.20m patches, guy needs a break 😀
>90% of patchnotes are "fixes"
Dev should really hire some help at this point
Or actually use a modern game engine like Unity or Godot not whatever ancient tech SE is running on
It's a single boomer dev who's using his personal game engine that's folded 1000 times.for decades.
He probably can't use modern game dev flow even if he wanted.
I have a shitload of units in a tile, is there a way to select an entire brigade at once? Or do I have to move them all out one by one into a tile so I can group move them
>Or do I have to move them all out one by one into a tile so I can group move them
Yes.
any theories who is this woman?
would
she is shadow empire
predator hiding under mask
Director of the Foreign Affairs Council, Damien Fivehead.
miranda from mass effect
funny how she's supposed to be genetically perfect but has a man jaw 5head and could use bigger boobs and ass overall to be perfect
That woman is my shadow empress 🙂
im brainlet and still dont get wtf is item tab supposed to represent lol
Prod - How much was produced
In - How much came into the zone stockpille
Cons - Consumption, how much was used by the zone
Stock - How much is stockpilled in the zone
Everything "out" goes to SHQ, Zones have limited stockpille ability on their own, Water, oil, electricity and IP get transported at no logistical costs while everything else costs logi points.
This is how i once realized why my logi network is dead, farms produced 5k food per turn and it needed 5k logi points to get transported to nearest Zone and then to SHQ.
>don't get the optimal atmosphere for planet
>turbojet - 4 hexes, 200mph (can planes even fly that slow?)
>alright lets try rocket
>rocket - 3 hexes, 3000mph
Planes are super painful to use until you do some of the linear technologies to improve performance. Get Lightweight Alloys and the efficiency tech for the engine you are going to be using. They will substantially improve your potential range.
While the jets weren't touched at this point, my rocket engine efficiency was already at 60% or so.
I fricking wish that game would be about mad max style warfare and we get technicals and wooden biplanes
mad max tech level 0 starts were an option on one of the dev's surveys for what the 2nd DLC should be about, lost out to focusing on mid and late game
If only the game supported fricking modding, right?
Here's my idea for playing as Mad Max style raiders. There is a new map mode for viewing the logistics of OTHER empires down their roads. You park your raiders on those road and your income in cash, supplies, food and oil is a percentage of logistics you are intercepting. You get recruits from free towns you occupy and you have the option to draft cities you capture into slavery. Victory consists of defeating wvery major and plunging the world deeper into its dark age.
>rocket - 3 hexes, 3000mph
That would be your fuel capacity being too low.
Just occurred to me that Advanced Tactics: Gold is made by the same dev, is there any point in owning both games?
Advanced Tactics has navies, and WW2 technology
If Advanced Tactics has navies, then wtf doesn't Shadow Empire? I just want to launch waves upon waves of bomber strikes from aircraft carriers.
Also posting an old pvp webm
Here is mine 😀
What map type to get the verdant river valley surrounded by desert?
Does the AI just cheat its field testing, seems kind of bullshit how other majors are always at 90% field testing and shitting out improved models constantly when the only thing I have been able to find and fight are some xenos
I'm inclined to believe that the AI is just so incompetent at fighting that it can't help but blast its field testing up due to fighting massive, constant, inconclusive battles with every neighbor.
This is most likely it. The ai likes to empty it's cities into generic infantry and thus will undoubtably have alot of field testing. Just outtech them and their testing advantage won't really matter.
Losses advance field testing at something like triple the rate as kills. To simulate failings of the equipment being discovered so that the next model can fix it.
Combine that with an AI that tends to favor short term aggressive objectives vs long term strategy, and you get a lot of deaths and thus a lot of field testing.
As for the speed at which they develop models, they have fewer BP sinks so it's spread around less. I don't know exactly how much their BP formula is simplified or what counterweights exist, but I know they don't use cards, so presumably no PP generation or card council budgets.
>Research, discover and develop mechanized quad MGs.
>The base stat roll isn't great: 93. But it's good against infantry and I'm up against DIVISIONS of infantry.
>Build 5 independent battalions of Mech Quad MGs because they're as cheap as light tanks.
>That's 250 of these things for almost nothing.
>Next turn.
>Kill 3800 infantry in a SINGLE attack.
>Have 5 battalions of these and they make multiple attacks each.
>Field testing is 68% finished after one turn.
>Did I mention these are as cheap as light tanks?
Seems kind of overpowered but it was fun obliterating an entire front.
Do they get the same move mod as light tanks? I wonder if they can go into the light armor formations to replace normal MG+APCs.
Havent played since Air Forces were added. Is Metal Soil Filtration still the best non-military tech in the game?
You can't really call any tech the "best" as MSF, Heavy Industry, and Hi-Tech Industry are all critical to success. To your question, economic technology balance hasn't ever changed.
The question is less how strong the techs are, which they all are incredibly strong.
The real question is, when do I need it and can I actually unlock and research it?
If you are playing on a map with lots of ruins, or you find a lot of metal deposits, then the need for those techs is lessened, with the opposite being true.
However the biggest challenge is actually ensuring you can unlock these core techs when you need it. When you research three techs in a tech category, you will unlock the ability to discover any tech in its adjacent tech categories. This means if you are not conservative you can end up unlock half the game's techs but never discover Metal Soil Filtration.
>which they all are incredibly strong
This is objectively false, numerous techs like serpentinization, two out of three of methane synthesis/deep core mining/synthetic fuel, atmospheric membranes, or water purification are essentially useless. I don't even research them unless I need to unlock the next tier.
AI BP generation appears to be fricked because on "slower" progression I'm mopping up the tech tree at turn 100 while the AI is still using combat armor and automatic rifles. I assume they're putting all their metal and population into constructing poorly armed infantry rather than putting it toward high-level bureaucratic offices like me. It doesn't help that they love to spam new zones while expanding into wildlife areas which just breaks up their populations rather than concentrating them into a few massive zones (V+) which is the meta play.
>barely holding onto a defensive line
>running out of recruits
>it is a good day when I can send 50 tanks to the frontline
>enemy forces are still massing up, in army sized formations
THAT ENEMY CAPITAL BE SEIZED
>refusal has penalties
this is bullshit. Refusing, but still bullshit
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the tooltip is out of date on faction demands.
Pretty sure that now refusing just causes happiness drop, you only lose word score if you agree and then fail.
The "seize enemy city of someone you've neutral towards who you just met in a completely unreasonable number of turns" requests are silly though and should probably get another balance pass.
Any anons playing Oceania? Whats the most fun new map type in your opinion?
Is there a page in the manual that lists what a units combat mode is?
>Example
Infantry get infantry combat modifiers on some terrain.
Tanks get tank combat modifiers on terrain.
What do buggies use, what do motorcycle infantry use, etc?
do you mean this?
you get this menu by hovering your cursor over the little picture of the terrain.
Yes, those modifiers. But I want to know the trooptype of certain units. What troop type modifier do buggies use, which one does motorcycles use
well I think i found what you are asking, I dont think its shown anywhere other than in the pre-battle screen and even then, its a bit hidden.
there may be another way to find this info, but the ui isnt very intuitive to begin with so idk.
Cheers
thank you
Buggies are regarded as tanks in the stat tabs, so my guess is that they get those modifiers, while motorcycle is treat as motorized, I think.
Is artillery useful when participating directly in offensives, or is it only useful for ranged attack and defense?
I think during attacking, artillery can attack on first turn while other attacking unit is still advancing. I don't know where i read about it. Not sure how effective it is without sufficient recon at early phase.
In that case i''m gonna go with no, this won't serve my purposes. I'll keep them around for ranged attacks though.
I believe Missile Artillery can be situationally useful to participate in direct assaults, because their niche is they fire all their artillery attacks in the first two turns unlike regular artillery. Meaning they can fire off their attacks before the regular combat starts and then withdraw.
What's the ideal Infantry OOB setup? Are machineguns worth it if you prefer your infantry to be flexible for both attack and defense? Any cool custom setups anons running?
Never build your roads within two tiles of the coast
Worst mistake of my life
I also made that mistake. I thought it would be cool having a coastal highway. Next thing I know an entire army is cut off because some eels flopped onto the sand
I didn't even think i made a mistake. Running along the coast was the best way to save IP because my terrain is mountainous and forested. The coast has no mountains and regular patches of forestlessness.
I think this is just a problem that needs to be fixed. I can't seriosuly be expected to garrison every single tile of coast. Vic please fix.
Fix would be having a navy with sonar to spot water baddies and depth-charging the frick out of eels.
For the people playing their 1st game use cheat engine to give yourself infinite credits, bp, fp so you can get comfortable with the UI and mechanics first.
For the people playing their 1st game use "robinson crusoe" planetary history class so you can get comfortable with the UI and mechanics first without being a cheating moron.
Can a railway work with just the stations, or does it also require a railhead at each end regardless? What if the rail splits?
Rail station can send and receive supplies. Rail heads can only receive supplies. Hence build rail stations in every city, and rail heads close to fronts that need to receive supplies.
Got it, thanks.
>mountains
Speaking of infantry and mountains, holy hell are they difficult to dislodge once they entrench. What the frick.
A station or a railhead will allow the full LP to propagate to them.
>what if the rail splits
You need a railhead or station at both ends of a given section where you intend for the full rail station LP to propagate.
Governmentbros on suicide watch after Oceania. Literally the water israelites won't stop calling me to buy my IP and my only answers are +Enforcement or +Commerce with almost no additional +Government options from events in the DLC. I can't fricking play what i want anymore. Governemnt was already the hardest profile to keep high and at this point you can just fricking forget it. Haven't been able to get up to even Worker's Rights since it dropped.
I hate profiles so much its unreal
We should be able to invest BP into profile advancements or something, this RNG is some high order bullshit
This DLC is pretty shit, not only can't you do anything with the water you now also have ocean animals bee lining your roads from the water all over the place, as if it wasn't bad already.
I want to like it so much but so much of the DLC is shittily implemented. Why can't i sign a PERMANENT contract for transportation? I need to renew that shit and if i forget bye bye that entire supply line. Why can't i just setup a per turn agreement?
And the aforementioned water creatures fricking your supply lines and being unable to chase them down.
Player controlled navies can't come fast enough. i'll fricking shit on those water israelites for making what should be a fun part of the game into a slog.
Write on the forums
Vic ain't here
I'm here complaining because i presume that the request for wanting navies in the game has been very thoroughly communicated to Vic and my complaint about the Transport Contracts is likely either a design choice or an engine/game limitation. So b***hing and moaning here is the best i can do but maybe i'll put it in the suggestions forum. Couldn't hurt i guess.
Why would they bring out an ocean themed DLC with no player controlled navies?
Probably because navies tacked onto larger games are almost always ass. I pray Vic never adds ships I have to manually build, upgrade, and push around.
It's competently done wargame (for those who an't swallow umptienth WW2 themed one) and rather poorly done 4X, with nice random planet gen. Horrendously random too, besides combat. YMMV, wait for sale.
Check our Emperor of Fading Suns if you're looking for something in similar vein,and ambitious albeit old and clunky.
>competently done
i like it but get real man
The part of the game consisting of moving chips around the hexagonal board and keeping them supplied is done reasonably ok. Even AI is not that bad at it.
Where it starts falling apart is when all the other elements come in. Unless you mean aircrafts, but frankly I haven't gotten around to playing mp with them a lot when I had interest in this gme, and in SP AI can't handle it.
>Check our Emperor of Fading Suns if you're looking for something
ebin larp
New to Shadow Empire, it's a constant learning process, I keep making stupid mistakes and paying for it. Also turned out my neighbours to the west were arachnids and I had no idea, they've declared war but haven't done anything. I found a troop of 10 cataphract laser tanks early on that completely destroy anything fortunately.
whats the reconnaissance influence on battle outcome? also how much does it influence artillery effectiveness
>Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?
>These are great days we’re living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we’re gonna miss not having anyone around that’s worth shooting.
>I don't like the name, Lawrence, only homosexuals and sailors are called Lawrence. From now on you're GOMER PYLE.
Guys I gotta say I like this game but rolling a die to file paperwork is really fricking stupid
never had to deal with govt bureaucracy IRL I see
It's pure gameplay, there's almost no downside to raising taxes so there needs to be some block against the player just selecting the highest tax rate.
afaik you lose happiness above 40% (30% if highest difficulty level)
there doesn't need to be gameplay everytime you want to adjust a tax
that's like asking for every slider in the game to have a 'roll to fail' chance or every move by your soldiers has a chance of 'uh oh we lost all of our supplies, can't move anymore for a turn!'
this makes even less sense since you can call the gov and tell the guy what you want the public budget to be and without fault he'll do it 100 percent
it's stupid and i'm modding it out
This is why characters have skill values and why you can play cards to make rolls better. Just have a bonus that's naturally higher than the roll you have to make and you don't have to worry about chance.
>there doesn't need to be gameplay everytime you want to adjust a tax
I don't mean that clicking a button is gameplay, I mean that resistance to tax changes is purely for gameplay purposes rather than realism/roleplay as otherwise there would be no barrier to raising taxes immediately to a high value and never worrying about money.
I would be happier to see the interior council control taxes by turning BP allocated to "taxes" into the actual tax rate every turn, as the barrier to raising taxes super high would then be the fact that your interior council wouldn't be prospecting and generating personnel cards instead.
Organizing or reforming taxation would be a major undertaking for a post-apocalyptic or primitive polity. Modern states with big bureaucracies make it look easy, but in a disorganized society you would have a lot of trouble deciding what exactly is taxed by who exactly based on what exactly.
>major undertaking
Which is why the idea of the guy saying "darn it I just couldn't figure out how to raise taxes today" typically followed by the player demanding that he try again and again, possibly all in the same turn until he says "yep I did it, we're charging more income tax now" is so stupid. I can only accept the system as-is because I understand the meta, not because I'm willing to accept that me telling the councilman to raise taxes three times in a row with a 50% chance of success each time is a reasonable representation of the complexities of creating a global bureaucracy from scratch.
The card system is shit, it should be just an option to tell your councilman to raise taxes and he keeps trying automatically until he does it, if you want to lower relations you tell your diplomat to keep trying automatically until he does it. Gating basic interactions with your state and other states behind fricking yugioh pack openings is nightmarish.
it's a fake argument because people just go 'it's realistic!' when in the same game you can give the budgets for every department of government and they will function no problem but raising taxes for whatever reason has to be a die chance
there's no reason for it to be implemented like this. tie it to buildings or unrest but it should be changed
The die chance for raising taxes is only a problem if you let your secretary do it, though? Even a completely unskilled Interior Councillor will do it correctly every time.
then add other obstacles
have raised taxes add to unrest or cause strain on the state and require gov buildings. literally anything other than 'paperwork roll' because that shatters the suspension of disbelief
I assumed higher taxes removed money from the private economy, so I always kept my empire a libertarian tax haven. My cities are always full of private buildings, so I assume it works. If I'm correct than the real meta play is to not tax at all and basically run your empire as a lean corporation on a deficit and only selling resources to stay positive.
Idiot, the gameplay and UI is a masterpiece. Any game studio more contemporary than 2001 but have shit this up with 3D homosexualry (which you prefer).
This guy gets it.
The dice are a function of chance. That event in particular isn't written very well, but think of the years of political BS and back and forth that has gone on with Biden proposing to raise taxes and hire 87,000 additional IRS agents. Tons of shit can and will happen with tax raises, and it's reasonable for initiatives to fail. Kind of difficult to encapsulate all of that into a text event and make the event seem unique each time, especially when you can, you know, use your imagination.
>I assumed higher taxes removed money from the private economy
They do but private constructions are terribly inefficient compared to the ones you can construct, so there's not much point in having the government gimp itself so that the private economy can flourish.
Is this a COMMUNIST game?
No. State economy has its purpose but so does private. Private economy is just a 'wet and forget' system which works just as well if you're not going to be autistic about micromanaging. More over people typically get the shits working in a sterile and static economy where they have no control over anything - which is a reasonable response.
Seeing how Democracy-Government-Mind combo is the strongest in the game, yes.
Commence profile is fricking shit, why try to rely on private light industry that produces maybe up to 1k IP per turn when you can build gov owned one that shits out 5k each turn?
Not to mention that private industry doesnt generate BP (most important resource in the game) nor can build metal extractors (most important economic building besides IP factories)
No.
Yes, public are more 'efficient'. FOR YOU. The STATE. The whole point of private enterprises is that you DON'T control them. So isn't it actually capitalist that they are less 'efficient' for you, since you don't own them?
Infact the game has many weird economic concepts regardless of your profile, like citizens giving IP points with a 'service tax' and private resource producing enterprises providing a medieval-style 'due' tax of their resoucre output, not just their monetary profits.
Ultimately however, the game is a state of constant war economy. Therefore
has the right idea. Public assets just are better because you can control them directly.
I should also add that while Commerce is kind of poopy for getting IP and stuff, utilizing Commerce to get the private economy to provide your citizens with Education, Health, Security and Entertainment services so you can focus on building your mines and factories can save you quite alot of IP and Metals. Commerce is probably the one that arrives the most comfortably in the mid-game. Sure, Government can be stronger if played right but it's very easy to stumble if you can't find all the resources you need to make it a reality. Enforcement is also pretty sweet if you like to blitz your neighbors, the tax bonus can give you some great benefits if you can rapidly expand your taxable population early.
the commerce profile is incredibly good at doing 2 things. Increasing population happiness and making you money. Spamming the prof 1 private investment card to have a strong private economy develop practically overnight means you can tax your behemoth of economy much more and not have your population flip out thanks to the infinite QOL.
Like other posters said, commerce is suited for a peace time economy when you dont need a gigantic military industrial complex, and since this is a war game its total war all day. Government wins out with the extra bureaucracy and enhanced industrial output for said wars. I would say losing the slight perks from government buildings is a downside but the megacorporation building labs offsets one, and barracks should be built anyway for the training and importance of security QOL for events and stuff
>Yes, public are more 'efficient'. FOR YOU
if I nationalize that factory, will your profits die?
Your profits will probably go up because worker income is taxed by you and also feeds into the private economy. The economy in-game isn't a closed system, credits get semi-magically created and spent and the more money workers have to spend (because you're paying them) the more money everybody has to spend, including you.
Efficient isn't necessarily better because private assets are "free." You gain income through service tax and get increased QoL without having to pay and feed any workers yourself. Just because public assets produce more doesnt make them better because you actually have costs for them. Anyway this is the only game where you even have an option to the promote private sector so im glad it's there.
This. Not having any QoL public assets is a hugh boon. Private economy is efficient in the sense that it frees public jobs to focus on more important industries.
What events are you getting that let you stay that high for meritocracy and commerce?
>What events are you getting that let you stay that high for meritocracy and commerce?
Oceania is literally filled to the brim with Commerce events. If you also enable Corporations you are basically guaranteed to have it maxxed out permanently.
Several of the cults are a good match for Meritocracy and Commerce and Mind.
As for having meritocracy high, all it requires is that you don't pick democracy option or autocracy option during strikes and riots even if it is painful. If you strictly adhere to the rules of picking +Meritocracy when its avalible and picking -Democracy and -Autocracy whenever possible, and never picking any + to those 2 if it can be avoided it is possible to keep it high. It is pretty painful though and you will have some problems with cascading unrest, but security points and good happiness can help offset things.
Ah. The strike events suck because not only do you get unrest for ignoring them, but theres a huge production malus afterwards.
Yeah it definently sucks ass, but keeping Meritocracy high IS possible.
Government, on the other hand...
While that may be true, I like running with little overhead. I don't have as many workers to pay and keep happy. I merely build offices, factories and mines and the private sector takes care of itself. Love that and the labor allocation in this game. Since most things are labor intensive, it forces you to choose what buildings you want.
>I merely build offices, factories and mines and the private sector takes care of itself
You could build more offices if you built hospitals, barracks, universities, and vidcom, due to raising your civilization level more quickly instead of waiting for the private economy to build oil wells on every oil tile first.
How is that the case when unemployment in my cities is already low? No point in constructing more buildings if there will be labor shortages. Does civilization level boost population growth? Just checked my capitol and civilization seems pretty high with level III private assets in most sectors. Nothing Public that isn't an office, factory, mine, or truck or rail station.
What turn are you on? Of course if you give them 200 turns to build everything they'll achieve a high civ score. But with only 70k workers it seems like you probably don't have high level constructions of MSF, nuclear plant, high-tech industry, and heavy industry, things that you could have achieved much earlier if you'd pumped your civ score so you could build high level offices much earlier to blast through the tech tree.
Turn 100. City had three refugee camps in the zone for the longest time before I split off two to surrounding cities that were struggling.
Also I assume the 100 scores on the left are relative to my other cities? There are all 100 because my capitol is on top in my empire?
>Also I assume the 100 scores on the left are relative to my other cities?
No. QOL is equal to the points divided by the city level, or something. 100 is the max.
High health points increase population growth iirc
>How is that the case when unemployment in my cities is already low?
Doesnt matter, private economy only siphons workers in this game. I can see that you with that private economy was viable in this game, and im sorry to break it to you but its not. It underperforms compared to everything else and id generally more of a nuisance than help. Im not against private economies irl but this is just how the game works
>sir that is NOT my job
Can I trade with MTHs? Land traders barely have a few hundred credits and I need more money. Do I just have to wait and pray that they offer to buy IP
i think about it as you having to convince people to tax increase, lower values are easy but the higher you go the more resistance you get and sometimes takes you multiple months (1 turn = 2months) to push change
he knows people arent happy theres no navy units, i saw his post on steam forums implying hes planing to add them
He was planning to add them months before release but said it would be a free update after the DLC came out because it is difficult.
Honestly I don't care all that much, what I do care about is a new model design screen. Holy frick the current model design is DOGSHIT.
>Holy frick the current model design is DOGSHIT.
and the formation design is shit too
and many other designs are shit too
The right question is not whether it's good, the right question is could have it been much better if it wasn't made by a code monkey. The loss of potential hurts me.
I can imagine if an actual studio made Shadow Empire 2. Steel division/ WARNO style battles with auto resolve for the battles that don't matter that much, detailed order of battle. Scavanging laser and plasma rifles and handing them out to glorified bandit warbands as, slowly over the turns you go from Mad Max to a modern armed forces. Alien unit models, genetic modification of populations that change the characteristics of different groups. Expand the private sector to randomly generate companies that can produce cars, guns and aircraft that you can order or centralise your state establishing state industry and research. There is so much that can be done with this concept. There is the potential for a masterpiece here.
For a one-man dev'ed game Shadow Empire is a masterpiece.
>he wants AAA company to make SE2
therers no way any corpo team would make such thought out system and put so so much soul into it (I read manual recently and was amazed how much work he put into everything)
At best you would get usual paradox trash, maybe good music/art but incoherent game design and shitty gameplay with mandatory focus trees cause it sells to normies.
>auto resolve for the battles
half of the reason i like SE is the fact combat is good and not fully abstracted like in civ or pdx games.
>noooo a real programmer can't make a good video game
I didn't say anything about AAA you dumb Black person
>half of the reason i like SE is the fact combat is good and not fully abstracted like in civ or pdx games.
Anon... Shadow Empire has auto resolve battles. You know what Auto Resolve means right?
Do lasers break the 'high velocity' 'howitzer' trend, or is there some other weapon that fills the roll of howitzer later on? I got lasers pretty early, and I'm just slaughtering every
I hate the card system too but everything else is great.
What the frick am i meant to do about this? It only gets MORE difficult when i fail and the penalties are causing me problems i'm struggling to resolve.
>He enabled corporations.
all addons(sects, corpos, crime) all bs and waste of time
Do they even affect the AI or are they an anti-snowballing mechanic to "entertain" the player?
no idea tbh, it was some time when i was played with them
Who fricking cares? The game is just as much designed for dry civ building RP as it is wargaming. I always enable religion.
Holy shit I love alien mercs so much, They go through those shitty militia rifle units like it's nothing
Does the private market build privately-owned buildings on their own? Can I encourage that? Is that even a good thing to do?
Yes. Public budget is invested into private economy, so it's basically an investment to get more credits over time. Or, at least, that's what I think it does, I don't know how many credits you get from private buildings to be tbh
I see, thanks. Do the buildings only give credits then, and no trickle of the resources themselves?
>Yes, by going down the Commerce profile.
Does the public budget affect this as well or is that something entirely different?
>they will drive up the salary you have to pay your workers
Now while that seems obvious in hindsight, I still didn't really expect that to exist though. The game is suprisingly nuanced.
>Does the public budget affect this as well or is that something entirely different?
Commerce profile just boosts the output of your private economy. It also gives you access to cards that allow you to inject credits into the private economy.
Public Budget is something you set under the Zone Orders tab. It's a flat credit value that you can put into the private economy to help them build stuff. Generally, i'd say investing in Public Budget isn't really worth it other than a single token 1 Credit, as this will give you +1 population happiness per round in your cities.
If you are serious about the private economy, try to follow the Commerce profile.
>Generally, i'd say investing in Public Budget isn't really worth it other than a single token 1 Credit, as this will give you +1 population happiness per round in your cities.
huh, thanks for the tip
>Does the private market build privately-owned buildings on their own?
Yes.
>Can I encourage that?
Yes, by going down the Commerce profile.
>Is that even a good thing to do?
In some ways, yes. It helps simplify your early econ because the private sector will help develop your nations services for you. That being said, private enterprises are not as efficient as state owned ones (for YOUR needs, atleast!) and they will drive up the salary you have to pay your workers in order to have them not leave. It's a double edged sword but it's an ok strategy to go for i would say. Just don't be afraid to nationalize critical resource mines because the private economy got ahead of you in building on the deposit.
>Can I encourage that?
yes, you can even subsidy it in town management options
not finding ruins and any metal at your starting location fricks you over so much
My secretary started a rebellion and her units spawned two tiles away from an MG brigade I was moving to the front, get fricked roastie
what exactly does... garrisoning... the SHQ do? i feel like it would gimp it and idk why it even allows you to
Raise up enough troops to reinforce your losses. Build extra so recruits can drill in the capital (they gain about 4 experience per turn, more if you station veterans there too). If you have an uprising event in any city, make sure you have enough troops there before you try to put them down using the autocracy option.
I thought I had things figured out but I hit a logistical cluster frick at about turn 50 and couldn't figure out why my troops weren't getting food and oil.
Click the barrel icon next to a unit that doesn't have supply. Depending upon what's in the brackets diagnosing your issue should be fairly easy.
The problem is that you didn't build rail between your zones. By turn 50 resource production is ramping up and you might be recruiting hundreds or thousands of soldiers and colonists, all of which take a lot of LP to move around.
I don't have rail researched yet and I shut down recruitment entirely like 30 turns ago because I don't need more soldiers.
>I don't have rail researched
How do you not have rail researched? You start with it by default, it doesn't even have an entry in the tech tree to research.
Uh... I'm moronic. Well, I upgraded some truck stops and that was enough to stave off complete collapse until I could get railroads up between my main cities. Now I'm at war with a major but I can't raise troops at the nearest city because of logistic issues even though I have the resources, which is bad because I have plenty of trucks and armor there but I need a meat wall of soldiers to form a line so I can get behind the enemy front and cut them off proper. I'm in an awkward spot because I have a massive chunk of of free territory full of giant alien monsters below me and a minor I'm at war with right below the south east city. Should I just start upgrading rail stations?
This is what I would do if I had unlimited metal and IP. Obviously you don't but you should try to work toward something like this.
1. Nearby zones should always be merged together as high level assets are hugely more efficient than low level assets.
2. Minimize extraneous road links, you want a line not a net. Same with rail, by merging the SW city into the central city you can cut that part of the rail system out which will allow a single rail station in the NW city to reach all the way down to the SE city (it won't have full LP by the time it gets there but it will still be plenty).
Alright, thanks anon.
Don't think I'm gonna win this one boys
Update: They spammed light tanks and I got absolutely ass-fricked because I designed my army to fight infantry.
I've found that Shadow Empire has a similar gameplay loop to FTL, you start a new game, do better than you did before, get ass raped, start again
The art and UI are fine I have no idea why people ITT are moaning. The only thing I don't like is the blank square for unknown units, that looks ugly imo but who cares.
It bothers me that I always wind up in a battle for global supremacy before turn 50 because the AI will declare war at random and never accept peace. Either I lose and that's the end or I win and there's no challenge anymore because defeating a major almost always results in enough territory and population gain that nobody can stand against me. Why does the AI relation constantly tick down such that I never get to use any cards besides open contact?
>Choose Boreas class planet, thinking it'd be relatively easy with the unlimited supply of water
>I spawn onto a hell planet with no breathable atmosphere, with marauders, radiation, and aggressive wildlife EVERYWHERE
>There's at least two engagements every single turn
>I can't amass enough resources to get anything done, it all needs to go to reinforcements
At what point do you just give up and start a new game?
When the loyalty of your starting zone drops due to the Unrest and Danger death spirals to the point you cannot recruit soldiers anymore.
What the private economy does in the long term is irrelevant because stacking +QOL in the short term in order to build higher level Bureaucrat Offices is the #1 priority. The private industry is eventually going to build high level +QOL buildings no matter how you tax them, which means that taxing them as high as possible is the optimal strategy because you'll still achieve a high +QOL (due to building public +QOL constructions) with no downsides.
Yes. Just tax your pop at 40%, or 30% on high diff, and build up BP
The beuacracy must expand to meet the needs of the beuacracy.
Which tank models are worth using? Light, Medium, Heavy, Monitor, TD and Assault Gun? What's the anon's analysis?
Light tanks are must have for bulling early game infantry and raider/weak aliens. They are cheap and economically viable but fall off by mid game.
Medium tanks are kind of meh, all rounders that can bully light tanks and stand on their own sometimes,mostly good for offensive actions
TD and AG - specialized units, they get bonuses to fighting tanks and infantry respectively. They are more specialized medium tanks
Heavy tanks - Absolute must have for any kind of serious war, especially in PVP if your economy allows you to build them get as many of them with laser cannons, they wipe the floor with all other tank types. Just be sure to have logistics in mind as they hog fuel like crazy
Quite intimidating specimen we have here gentlemen.
Anon that thing could kill a woman or child with ease!!!
>manlets
when will they learn bros?
I'm beginning to think from my own anecdotes that giving the AI more time to think does actually make it play better. I've had it on normal processing for a few games now and the AI consistently underperforms, even on not that dangerous worlds on hard difficulty.
My next game onwards i'll probably try the slowest AI processing settings to see if it becomes better.
The AI is literally the same
Apparently if you give the AI more time to think, it just allows the AI to use algorithms that take longer for it to complete in-game.
So you're not necessarily making the AI smarter, you're just giving the AI more options when deciding what to do.
Why is the Private Economy not constructing anything? It has tons of cash and there is enough unemployed population to work new jobs? I'm experimenting with Commerce right now and trying to get them to develop newly placed cities for me and i don't know why they won't build
There aren't enough people to run a farming dome so they won't build it, even though they want to. You need a few thousand more.
The alternative explanation, based on having no idea what the situation around that city is because you didn't provide any information, is that they dropped a farming dome community but you blocked the road with a traffic sign so it's not getting any LP and can't finish construction.
It must be not having enough population because i haven't touched anything else in the area. I try send some more colonists.
You know, Meritocracy isn't too bad after all. I miss the PP bonus from Democracy and Grand Convention is in no way a replacement for Cabinet Retreat, but it's not too bad.
Also, Commerce is kind of good, actually. I can completely ignore building QOL stuff unless i specifically need the Research bonus from Universities or the training bonus from Barracks.
Meritocracy is annoying though with the riot events. Democrats can pay people off and Autocrats can just suppress them by force. But Meritocracy has to either ignore them half the time or attempt a negotiation roll that almost always goes badly. Annoying, but it's still a fairly decent profile.
These are some of my new favorites cards from this playstyle. Given that i'm drowning in cash, i can utilize a half decent bribery economic councillor to just shovel cash into rebellious cities to make them very happy again. Private Investment and Investor Backing allows me to develop city QOL without ANY resoucre cost what so ever and Plea of Friendship + Accomplished Envoys diplomacy rolls bonus allowed me to put nearby farmers under my protection early, allowing me to focus on fighting early wars with majors and expand my economy in my capital. Overall quite a fun time. I like this combo quite a lot now. It's also pretty easy to keep Meritocracy and Commerce high. Sitting comfortably at 91 Meritocracy and 90 Commerce.
I really fricking hate state of Militia in this game
>can't hand them equipment(even if you could in early patches)
>they suffer malus to experience levels(why?)
>can't attach them to any formation(like indie units)
>can't form their own command or formation
>their units are totally rigid(they should be like Battle/Combat, groups more fluid)
>can't integrate them into main military
Current.recent conflicts really showed importance of well organised and supplied militia units both in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.
What Militia should be
>able to rearm them from state weaponry
>able to upgrade them into regular soldiers
>get rid of exp penalty
>they come in Battlegroups and can be attached to regular formations
>you can form militia formation(only HQ) to which you can attach militia units
Otherwise they suck donkey balls and are only good as garrisons
You can upgrade them into regular soldiers, disband them and recruit the citizens they become. This is where militia shine, they're mobile colonists that you get for free.
Ultimately the reason they're not as good as real military units is so you have to build real military units.
>get meritocracy high
>start getting events about a major on a flank I havent paid any attention to
>options are +200000000000000 democracy to stay nice, or choose to piss them off
>dont want them to declare war on me
>have to accept democracy
This is bullshit. Democracies are not the only form of government that plays nice with other nations.
The game is moronicly pro democracy, it's annoying. I'm doing autocracy for roleplaying fun and it's strictly inferior even after the "buff" of having Fear impact Autocratic regime cities like 40% less, that's all Vic added.
That huge level 1 democracy bonus to political points is just OP.
how modable it is?
Mods are easy to install but I don't know about making them. I looked at the toolkit Vic put out and it went over my head but I'm really not into that sort of thing so can't say.
im convinced democracy has hidden leader debuff, i recruited like 30 leaders in my current democracy run game and only one was cap 4 rest are 80% cap 1 and 20% cap 2
Works fine over here boss. I fire all Is, IIs are brigade commanders, IIIs are governors, and IV/Vs are council members.
Yeah it's just RNG. The good part about Democracy is that you can use your PP bonus to spam recruitments and just sort out the trash using Zero and Bronze retirements. It's also easy to swap in new leaders and just gold/silver retire older members who are no longer good enough.
>retire older members who are no longer good enough
The real power of democracy is when you realize that thanks to Cabinet Retreat, you don't have to.
True enough but Cabinet Retreat spamming a Cap I will still never ever be as good as Cabinet Retreat spamming a Cap V. It's always good practice to clean up your useless buggers unless they've been around for a really long ass time.
This has nothing to do with being nice with other nations. The profiles you gain from events related to other Majors is based upon what that other major's own regime profile is. If your options were pro democracy, it would be because the major in question was democratic themselves. Typically you get + to whatever their profile is when you accept their demand/try to interfere in their politics and you usually just get heart or fist if you choose to do nothing.
That being said, being peaceful with other majors is basically impossible. It's a wargame after all and the AI will find a reason to attack you at some point.
>new
>frick around with a bunch of different random worlds before just doing a Beginner difficulty Siwa-class like Dastactic recommended (except at lowest tech setting)
>learn the bulk of mechanics but realize where I've made some mistakes (not building BOffices asap)
>ok great
>new planet, regular difficulty
>start next to a major faction
>encircled and captured by turn 5
>now steamrolling the minor next to them
whats the trick for firing Cap I leaders? Staff council gives retirement strategems? What is the difference between a TD and Assault Gun?
Maybe they could prove their abilities by serving at the hottest front lines?
>whats the trick for firing Cap I leaders? Staff council gives retirement strategems?
Interior Council. Retirement cards come in 4 tiers going from 0 credits to 1000 credits offering. Seniority level affects how hard it is to retire someone, but if you spam enough silver or gold cards they will eventually lose enough seniority to retire willingly.
If the person you want to retire is already employed, i recommend reliveing them and promising them a 'better job' (to avoid penalties) and then just retiring them, side stepping any problems from not keeping the promise.
>What is the difference between a TD and Assault Gun?
Assault Gun is a medium chassis and suffers hard attack penalties when attacking, but is otherwise identical to Medium Tank except costing way less IP.
Tank Destroyer is a heavy chassis with a (smaller than AG) hard attack penalty when attacking, but substantially higher hard defense than Heavy Tanks, but otherwise identical in performance.
Basically:
Assault Guns are Medium Tanks that have an offensive penalty, but function identically on defense and cost less.
Tank Destroyers are Heavy Tanks that have an offensive penalty and a defense buff (against hard targets) but otherwise functions identically.
If you mount the exact same armor, weapons and engine of course.
Thank you, was this in the manual as I only got part way through?
>sorry if it was
I only think the manual states vaguely that turretless tank types have reduced offense, but that's it. My source was a post on the Matrix Forums. Here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=364984
And both AGs and TDs are useless because the ai isnt going to attack into you with poor odds anyway. They'll just flank your armor and attack into infantry.
I just put the cap 1 leaders in all of the machine gun brigades I spam.
>machine gun brigades
i slowly start to think independed MG are shit, they are good as defensive unit but half the size of normal infantry batalion which is cheaper and a lot more useful at attacking
>whats the trick for firing Cap I leaders?
Firing an experienced leader is generally expensive in PP and credits, so you might not be able to do it until you're a bit into the game (where you might find that it's not worth the bother, e.g. firing the capacity I secret service council guy is probably pointless because he still generates spy cards and succeeds at using them). Firing freshly-hired guys is easy, just play Zero Retirement on them from lowest seniority up.
If you're early in the game and really want somebody gone you might have to devote an entire turn to getting rid of them, as you will have to fire them (5-15 PP depending on how mad you want your other leaders to get), then potentially fail multiple silver/gold retirement cards to get them to a low enough seniority for a cheaper bronze card to get rid of them. You only pay the credit fee if the retirement succeeds so failing at silver retirement is an easy way to make it cheaper in terms of credits. Zero retirement is free in credits but much more expensive than the others in PP. You don't have to retire them but they'll get really mad if you promised them a new job and will potentially rebel.
Remember that seniority ranks are always spread out from 1-100 so firing your lowest ranking leaders (clearing the trash out of the reserve pool) will make all your other leaders have lower seniority ranks (except the highest seniority guy in the empire) which makes it easier to get rid of them.
Yeah I'm new and already learned Cabinet Retreat dunks on everything
Okay anons, time to pop the big question. What the frick does this even mean on the Factions tab?
Dev made a dev post of sorts, gives some brief hints as to where the game's going and asking for feedback, there's also a poll for what people would like to see in the game.
https://www.vrdesigns.net/?p=2207
QRD
>intends to share a development outline of the game in 1 to 2 weeks from now
>plan is to fix or address major community issues
>>new blueprint UI, hopefully next week
economic snowballing
>>more planet-gen options
>>AI development to use aircraft and optional rules that force the AI to interact with the logistics system more
>new DLC soon???
>a new “midcore” Logistics rules option that will be usable by the AI
that's definitely huge, I would be willing to play with more simplified logistics if it means the AI plays by the same rules
economic snowballing
I'm interested to see what this means. Snowballing is the point of this kind of game, otherwise there's no benefit to becoming bigger/stronger.
I don't disagree, but the game loses alot of its fun factor when the weight of your economy becomes so crushing that victory is legitimately only a question of time.
>see report, close it and they find appropriate menu to do stuff with it, i feel like he could just add button GOTO in every menu to just to save my headache of doing ti
>constant swapping between assets and zone menu to see important information what to build next
>when i finally figure out what to build next i still need to click through 2 other menus to build them
>still cant mouse scroll in multiple important menus have to click tabs with numbers
>0 customization with hotkeys/mouse sensitivity, no hotkey to jump between towns/zones
>to upgrade units is relative easy you have to click upgrade but vehicles for some reason require you have to use replace button, which is not even usable unless you have units build in SHQ first.
>model design menu is atrocity
90% the things you do during turns could easily be gathered logically on one side of the screen instead it gets scattered randomly around behind layers of shitty menus which require you to do 20 clicks everytime you want to do most basic stuff.
i hope one day it all will be fixed but i doubt it
How much Str. Design is 'good enough' in the anons opinion?
100+
I never both researching a new model even if the current one has terrible structural design. Technology will far outweigh any design rolls.
When you say technology, do you mean regular techs or the bonuses from repeatables?
Both.
If its under 90, I will re reroll it. 100+ is preferred, but I wont care if it is 90+.
When I want to RP some elite specops infantry then I care about getting 100+ rolls
And with absolutly no fanfare the dev just dropped a blueprint management system into the game on the latest beta. Picrel
You can create a blueprint of any unit you have and it'll tell you exactly what impact each choice will have on the units stats, you can then import the blueprint into your model creation to automatically start researching it.
As much as I give Vic shit he is pretty based. Seems like he's really buckling in to focus on Shadow Empire again for awhile.
This is pretty cool. Do you develop your new model now or wait another turn for your armor piercing or other applied technology to go up? I absolutely love that about this game and the blueprint system will help visualize how much better your new models will be. Although i though their were several dice rolls with each new model (engine, armor, weapon) so hopefully the blueprints are just estimates and not exact.
One can fricking hope. The game's not done until i can build a fricking Aircraft Carrier and nobody can tell me otherwise.
>Building an aircraft carrier on a planet with sub six million people.
FOR WHAT PURPOSE?!
Now let me pick the sprite the unit uses.
I WANT MY TRENCHCOAT INFANTRY UNTIL THE END OF THE GAME
This blueprint system is fricking amazing holy shit, fixed the game for me.
wish it replaced old system and not make it into 2 step process for no reason
considering that's a common feedback we can only hope it gets properly integrated into the model design screen once its out of beta
Vic needs to make Shadow Empire 2 with Steel Division style battles.