Thread 2041914

Shadow Empire

>card game lol
>combat resolution makes no sense
>different logistic rules for AI and player
i guess it's ok, considering the previous game in the genre was Fading Suns, 30 years ago. hope the next one in 2055 is somewhat better.

>>2041914 (OP)
>that card art
vic are you okay

>>2041914 (OP)
you can't have a shadow empire thread without dropping the 400 page manual

https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/ShadowEmpire/Shadow%20Empire%20manual%20EBOOK.pdf

>>2050725
not updated for zoo DLC features?

>>2050725
I went over it easily in around a hour and started playing the game. Half of those 400 pages are reference material that you don't need to read

>>2050767
true
just bring up an article if you confuse
eventually all game mechanics will be memorized

>>2050767
Yeah but most of it is completely out of date. You don't want your 400 page manual to be good at communicating the gist of things but worthless at specifics
This is why people stopped making game manuals

>>2050817
>>2050784
Game would definitely benefit from a proper wiki of sorts.

>>2050751
For me it’s the Columbo DLC in which every time you click the end turn button Columbo walks into the frame and says, “Just one more thing, sir.” And takes ten minutes to explain to you everything you forgot to do in the turn.

>>2041914 (OP)
How does this fucking game work anyway, I have a city of 250,000 effectively surrounded with a few tiles of useless resources yet the populace and army isn't starving to death despite all of the assets in the city even being damaged. I try to bombard them with over 200 guns and i'll manage maybe 1 or 2 unit kills and probably get 2 or 3 killed for my effort, is artillery just useless in ranged attacks and I shouldn't really bother?

>>2051949
Oh forgot pic btw

>>2051954
I think there was talk of buffing the artillery in the latest beta patch. What is the outcome of that attack?

>>2051954
AIs don't have to care about logistics. Artillery is useful for reducing entrenchment and enemy readiness even if it fails to kill units.

>>2051963
200 kills, no losses which is honestly one of the better rolls

>>2051965
Like at all? I understand if they need some sort of buff but seriously I want to be able to strategise cutting off the supply of an army by going around them.

>>2051981
Check the city assets. Maybe they have a farm inside the hex, and they get enough rainfall to operate it. I can't remember if it's all AI that don't care about logistics, or that only Majors need to.

>>2051954
>May as well try going in with everything, a slightly worse than 1:1 ratio of losses will mean I can grind them down, I mean it's about equal so what's the worse that can ha-
No.

>>2051985
A completely damaged private dome farm lvl 3 and a Food dome lvl 1 a few hexes away which produces 200 food. Somehow I don't think it's enough for the approx 340 units in the few hexes let alone the 255,000 people. Even if they did get some bonuses right?

>>2051993
Oh and because I'm an absolute retard and didn't mention, it was 400 kills... FOUR. UNITS.

>>2051954
>>2051949
do you have recon?
and arty was pretty much nerfed to the ground some time ago, now its really bad at killing stuff

>>2052122
Hundreds of recon points along with spy recon. Sucks that big guns got a big nerf

>>2052136
this whole game sucks to be honest, when you first try it you see big potential and promise but its all lies kept together by boomer code and duct tape

>>2052139
Just like your penis

>>2052196
no wonder game going worse
retarded cultists will suck everything up, slurp more next dlc will fix it

>>2052201
Hey not my fault you hate your micropenis

>>2052228
my penis is fine, don't be envious, not my fault that you cut your own

>>2052139
this, it's all potential with no delivery, just an overall disappointment and waste of time because you only realize this after you finally experience the depth and breadth of the game, after dozens of hours of looking forward to finally enjoying the game, and never getting to do so

>>2053583
>>2052139
Prove it

>>2043131
This is concept art from a mood board post

>>2051993
Can't see from the screens, but make sure you get your readiness up before assaulting the city. In my experience it is the major factor in deciding the outcome of most battles.

The main point of using artillery is to damage their readiness, not to kill units. You can bombard for a few turns to reduce their readiness while you build up your own and assault then. Also, planes are op in such situations but this depends on tech level.

>>2053601
My readiness was good. But it felt like whenever I was bombing them with artillery the readiness didn't go down? Does it only reduce the readiness of the units they hit or something? Guess I should have gone into planes instead of tanks then.

>>2051949
Rules aren't universally applied. Welcome to SE.

>>2051954
They will starve. Just takes time because they have a stockpile of food and it usually takes quite a few turns for them to Rhonda through all of it. That is, unless they have an agricultural building producing food in the city tile itself, in which case you would need to destroy that through artillery and aerial bombardment for them to really start depleting their food. All of this is to say that it’s usually easier to outright take the city, but there have been some instances where I’ve had to siege them out. Takes time.

>>2056152
Rhonda’s the name of my ex-wife btw

>>2043131
He read Oswald Spengler so no he isn't

>>2051949
Artillery isnt used for killing. its for reducing readiness and entrenchment. Also as another anon says, every unit has stocks of supplies, can they have to eat through their current supplies first.

>>2055849
It also decreases the defenders' entrenchment

>>2056498
I never actually bothered reading Spengler, is there anything in the base game that's indebted to Spengler or is it all stuff he's putting in the politics DLC? I assume all the DLC political decay/evolution stuff?

Your OOB is one aircraft carrier, one battleship, two light cruisers, three destroyers, two regiments of infantry, with four attached independent light armor brigades, with corresponding transports. How do you deploy and invade? Shadow Empire needs replayable battle scenarios in single and multiplayer.

>>2057461
I will start. The bay is blocked off by the defenders navy btw, so no easy landing right outside his capitol. Main landing in Billiq of course to cut off the city of Auslitz and his southern armor from supply. Defender has one turn to respond before the entire southern half of his army is cut off completely. Aerial bombardment of Auslitz, his light armor, and the forces nearest the southern landings. Second infantry regiment is split into two landings, one east, one north. If the southern invasion is not a stunning success, the main blow will come from the east. Your response, team green?

>>2057461
Wait, this game has naval units?

>>2051993
I think the AI has essentially infinite money and it just buys food in these situations.

>>2058501
Infinite money, no. But in the case of a siege the AI will prioritize buying food and selling other resources. So eventually it will struggle to keep up with industry, ammo production, reinforcements, etc, etc. Not sure why some people think it’s an issue. Just keep the pressure on and eventually a surrounded city will totally collapse.

>>2057461
>>2057463
Gee, gonna need to sit down and think about this one a second. OOB, regiments, wow... Gotta say, I was never much for all the armchair general stuff.

You know, there's just one last thing that's bothering me about all this though. Maybe you could clear it up for me? You mentioned aircraft carriers, and the bay being blocked off by the defender's navy... But Shadow Empire doesn't have any player controlled navies.

>>2059052
COLUMBO DLC IS OUT???!!?!?! TAKE MY MONEY

>>2058773
And how is the city managing to buy food when it's completely encircled?

>>2059286
Traders slip in and out.

>>2059363
With tens of thousands of tons of food?

the worst game ever

>>2059366
Look up the siege of Leningrad. Yes. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Is there a reason why I stopped getting specific HQ reports from my lazy-ass stupid commanders?

>>2041914 (OP)
okay so... this just isn't in the game? is having a capital with 1m just not intended?

>cardshit
hard pass

>>2065181
VII is as high as it goes. There aren't any assets higher than VII so there is no point in having city levels higher than that.

>>2065181
>using the AI slop portraits
>unironically

>>2057461
>>2058405
This, are you using a mod?

>>2065695
I take more issue with 50% of all leaders being female than the portraits being slop.

>>2065695
They're beautiful

>>2065185
It's not a 'card game' dumbass - there are abilities you can generate via specific budget allocations that you're able to spend political points to activate. Just because the UI element is vaguely card-shaped doesn't make it a card game. There is no 'deck', 'hand', or 'draw'.

>>2057461
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?

I wish we had naval units instead of that shit the dev made up for Oceania.
Aircraft carriers are today the most kino military ship that exist.

>>2069487
It makes wars between continents cancer. Constantly playing whackamole with naval invasions because you can't intercept them in any way.

This sure is a dead game.

>400 recon on hex
>Artillery doesn't land a single hit
What am I missing here? Everyone tells me that arty is great for reducing entrenchment, but it just never fucking hits anything

>>2071459
youre missing the enemy apparently.

>>2071459
How much artillery do you have

>>2071491
A single motorized battalion, because any more than that will bankrupt me. The one GR thunderous I have has the exact same problem, it either scores 20 hits and kills 10 units or does nothing

>>2071459
What are you shooting at and what is your gun caliber?

the game have horrible UI scaling, stutter horribly moving around the screen just because the dev dont know how to do gpu calls or vector drawing, even when there are game engines that does it for you.

he insist on the sloppy boomer code where the cpu is bottlenecked because its trying to render gpu calls.

i really wish someone just stole this game concept and remade it in unity, despite unity being shit its still an upgrade

>>2071459
using ranged attack wont cause kills.
if u want kills using arty u need to have a normal attack with infantry as fodder.
ranged mainly reduces entrenchment and causes desorganisation readiness
arty is mainly for harassment or defense.
you should be attacking with tanks.

>the DLC uses low quality AIslop that replicates the same issues AIshills told me were erased months ago
It's over. I fucking knew it would happen after the idiot listened to normalfag secondaries complaining about "ugly art" and replaced potraits with AI faces.

>>2072089
Both of these get proudly displayed on the page for the DLC btw
Seriously I was told AIslop "perfected" hands

>>2072089
>>2072092
embarrassing, they aren't even the same art style. that being said it is kind of funny that vic's AI art mirrors his actual art in being jank as fuck. only thing is that at least his actual art had soul. that syndic one hurts to look at

>>2072388
I liked the rebuild 2 portraits

>>2072392
wtf I never noticed that, why did they look so much like Rebuild 2

>>2072031
Can't wait to play OpenSE in 25 years

>>2072388
>>2072089
>>2072092
You will be swept away Luddities. I'd rather Vic not spend thousands of dollars on art. Let him focus on the gameplay.

i dont see a big problem with the AIshit portraits. they arent the prettiest duh, but it's not like it's making me want to vomit. could always just mod in your own custom mspaint drawings

>>2072031
>>2072581
I'm working on it, though not in unity and at a pace set to hit that 25 year target, unfortunately. I'd appreciate any suggestions or ideas for how to make a less shitty game. I have my own thoughts, but I'd like to hear from other players. Pic related is all placeholder wip of course.

>>2072892
You know how long it took for Vic to make the game? I hope you got a decade to spare or something. He also made like couple of WW2 games before.

>>2072892
Off the top of my head:
>N A V Y
>Let me make my own formations whenever I want, Staff Council should either not exist or generate points for formation creation
>Let me save presets during planet generation that I can fall back on if it rerolls something I don't like
>SEAD/wild weasel option for planes, SAM radars can be turned on and off to defend against it
>Option to keep alien wildlife within reasonable parameters
>AI actually plays by the same logistics rules as you do
>If you have a victory pact with another major, you can move through their territory and help them construct buildings
>Launch satellites to do recon, get science, etc
>Midair refueling, large aircraft get a range bonus
>N A V Y

>>2072950
For navy: sea zone style (Rule the Waves-like), hex based, or something else?
What is the purpose of being able to keep alien life? Just flavor?
The other stuff is mostly agreeable.

I have a lot of complaints with the game, particularly: strategems (hate cards), the way decisions feel like actual paperwork and I dread a stack of them arriving on a given turn. The political and leader systems. Turn processing times, and general bad performance. The UX is poor.
Some of those mechanics I might not like due to not having given them enough of a chance and failing to properly learn them.

I like the logistics, infrastructure/city system, combat, formations, world gen, and resource economy. I don't think there are any other games like this.

One example of UX I would love is the ability to see ranges of outcomes during planet generation stages. So I can see if there's actually a chance that a world could be non-horrible death hazard rating. And being able to avoid restarting.

>>2072969
>For navy: sea zone style (Rule the Waves-like), hex based, or something else?
Honestly, not sure. Sea zones and hexes are cool in different ways
>What is the purpose of being able to keep alien life? Just flavor?
If your game isn't set on another planet, then it probably wouldn't be applicable. I was talking about a worldgen option that stops overpowered aliens from evolving, which is one of my big SE pet peeves.

I like SE's leaders and government for the most part. Having to actually interact with the people beneath you gives the game a nice touch, and it's interesting when you have to choose between the "right" choice, or a choice that will keep your cabinet happy.

>>2073065
I misread your alien life point as being "to keep alien life" like a nature preserve, not to limit their evolution. Yeah, being able to have more options to control worldgen would be good.

>>2065181
Hitting a million population is feasible, with alot of zone merging and cloning facilities. But realistically a truly major city will hit somewhere between 200-500k depending on your luck and how you manage growth.

Also, what the fuck are all these assets in the pic lol

What's the best way to supply an army on the move? I'm trashing another major right now with tanks and motorized infantry, but can't build logistical buildings fast enough to keep up the momentum

>>2073723
Air bridge.
>>2073453
Unfortunately populations above about 250k aren't efficient because you won't have enough jobs to keep everybody occupied. Even though the [high level] assets they work at are more efficient per worker.

private economy too simplified. Me want victoria 2 level simulation.

>>2073766
>populations above about 250k aren't efficient
Sure, for employment. But more growth to hire colonists and recruits is always good.
The real problem with major population centers is the late game nuclear hyperwar, given that bunkerization only protects assets.

>>2074172
>But more growth to hire colonists and recruits is always good.
You should be recruiting and sending colonists to other zones once the zone reaches that ~250k citizen zone level (IV or V, I can't remember). They still grow whether they're in a 50k person village or a 750k person megacity.

>>2072089
>>2072092
holy fuck that looks awful lmao. The old art was amateur but had a charm that made it appealing to look at, this is just repulsive.

>Raising a regiment gives you five brigade-strength counters, and not 25 counters under five brigades, plus an additional HQ element
Are you fucking kidding me?

>>2075444
he didn't know

I have laser guns, battledresses and nukes, not to mention soil demetalizators and hi-tech parts factories. AI has gauss guns and combat armor. No BP producing building or even any government assets at all in AI towns. Is this normal?

>>2075989
the ai is retarded and doesn't know how to play the game, so yes i would say it is normal.

>>2075989
Yeah. Tech up and win, the AI can't.