I remember thinking Shadow Empire was the closet a terrestrial 4X has come to that feeling of a meaningful difference between the state and private sector as DWU. In quite a few ways it did it even better - especially the private sector development of industry and other buildings in each zone, with their own budget and labor constraint. I’d like to see something similar in DW2 eventually, although probably via a mod is the most realistic…
That reminds me to go look and see what the status is of the navy work being released.
The DLC for Oceans is out later this month. But it will only feature a civilian merchant marine for transport/logistics, not a militarized navy that the player controls. I think this is for the best, within the narrative of the game and to avoid biting off too much in terms of mechanics - but haven’t played it yet, so just a guess on my part.
I’m absolutely addicted to this game right now, but I’m running into a few issues. One of the biggest is a lack of explanation regarding research. I have no idea what a lot of these do. When I hover over them it explains the cost and other info. But what is the difference between a Penetrating Scanner, and a Imporved Sensors?
Also, I was really getting into a game as the water race. I concentrated on fully building up my system before researching the next level of warp drives. My last game got away from me as I’m still learning. I figured a slower approach would help. BUT I ran out of an essential element (Carbonite) and no source in my system. I was so crippled I couldn’t even research things to help do deeper scans on planets. Is there a way out, or is it game over?
These issues aside, this game is so mesmerizing. I picked up the DLC and now I’m trying the monkey/monk race. These guys are pretty awesome and chill.
Yeah I’m finding a lot of info is just kind of orphaned all over the game. My big problem is corruption on my home world, but the tooltip on how to deal with corruption is buried in an individual colony screen, not the large colony popup that has like, all the other information. One would think that screen would ALSO have the tooltip. Nope.
I think with research, if it’s a similar component, like two hyperdrives, you have to remember the numbers in the old hyperdrive and compare them to the new one in your head.
The game will benefit a ton from a searchable and linkable Galactopedia. The official Steam forum and Discord are very informative in the meantime.
For sensors, the main differences between the different lines are how much they reveal of enemy’s ships with evasion, cloaking etc. There is a value of cloaking/evasion which if it exceeds your scanning level means you don’t know much about the ship - maybe just see it as a vague dot at distance, or can’t see it’s components and mission, etc. Definitely cool, and definitely could use better mouseovers.
This game also needs cloud saves. I’m surprised they have yet to implemented this on Steam. I’m playing different games/races on my PC and laptop for now.
They mentioned cloud saves a few days ago - sounded far off.
How do I hunt down pirates? I have a bunch of them going after my mining sites. I have a bunch of frigates heading to those systems to keep the peace. I’d rather just eraidicate them. Is it a case of having to just keep exploring to locate a base?
Yes45
Once you find the pirates, their base will have a badge like any other faction. If you don’t see the badge, you haven’t found the base yet. Keep looking, it’s out there!
You can also try espionage to steal the pirates territory map.
Thanks @tomchick and @AK_Icebear. This game could use a real tutorial, or better galactopedia, but it’s an absolute blast to learn as I go.
Can you describe how you’re learning as you go? How much do you automate? (If you’ve already explained, please point me to your post!). Thanks.
@tylertoo, if you haven’t seen it, @AK_Icebear had a great post with his suggested settings a couple months back. I found it helpful and better than the default settings.
I watched a few Dastactic and @BrianRubin vids on youtube. Honestly, the best way I learned is to just play. After about 20 hours, I feel like I’m getting a handle on this beast of a game.
Thank you for watching my vids, @Crusis!
And yeah, it’s so much better than it was at launch. A few more races and playable pirates and it’ll surpass even Universe in options.
What worked for me, with Universe, was to automate everything and then just control one ship manually, and watch the AI as it went. I’d then “promote” myself to more ships as I got more comfortable, finally taking over many things that the AI would advise me on.
Thanks, all.
Found it:
And I realize I’d even replied to it when he first posted.
Onward!
Here it is as a Steam guide:
And here is a mod I consider essential - makes the map much easier to read IMO. I have another mod I’m working on for luxury resource scarcity (too abundant as is), but I haven’t got that balanced yet to a degree I’m happy with.
So I’m kinda picking this up and I’m having a real hard time with the wars once your empire gets big. Your fleets mostly just sit around idle or retrofitting ad-infinitum or “loading troops” which apparently takes years even if the planet is completely swarming with troops.
Weirdly the AI doesnt seem to have this issue with me, as they’ll happily invade one of my worlds while my fleets which are way stronger just sit and do… nothing.
This all felt fine until my empire got big and now the AI just seems kind of gridlocked and unable to do anything. Am I missing something? I don’t really want to manually control and refuel 18 fleets.
Edit: I’m playing on easy for a first game and just to be clear I am 100% sure my fleets are set to automated, and they so grossly overpower the enemy that I should be rolling them if my fleets ever left port. In my current war I’ve lost a colony to an enemy with 20k fleet power and I have over 20x that much, their biggest fleet should maybe be somewhat threatening to a defense fleet. And the AI advisor is repeatedly begging me to make peace because I’ve lost a colony and my fleets refuse to invade them or even try to retake the colony I’ve lost.
Anything I’m missing here or is it a Stellaris type issue where the AI just kinda fails once empires hit a certain size?