To add my two pennyworth to this manual debate, there was major excitement to be had when reading the manual of whatever game had been purchased whilst on the bus home from town - this is I guess in the 1980’s for me. You’d practically played the game five times before you got home because the manual set it all out before you and your imagination did the rest of the work. The manual for Shadow Empires is a lot like this. Feels old school. Somehow or other it’s definitely part of the pleasure.
In the current debate about the excellent Old World (thank you Mohawk) I think this is also blurring into the joy that some of us experience in figuring out how to maximise bonuses and play as effectively as possible. It’s not at all the same pleasure but the latter stems from the former. “Oh I see, if I’m Egyptian I get a cost reduction by building similar things next to each other and if they’re quarries next to mountains, or farms next to rivers that’s pretty serious.” (I’m not 100% sure I’m right about this, by the way) “So I’m going to play as the Egyptians and look out for mountains and rivers” etc. Your imagination gives you a strategic grip on the game before you start and so, you feel secure in your approach. Feeling secure in your approach is not what happens when you start Old World for the first ten times or so. Instead you feel incompetent (because the game messes so wonderfully with Civ expectations). Some of us roll with that, some, if would appear, haven’t liked it at all.
Next up: Do the resources benefits of assigning an agent have anything at all to do with what city they are assigned to, or will the same agent give the same stuff no matter where they are assigned?
If you mean the net yield of a resource for the city (displayed at the top of the screen), no because those are the combination of the city’s production and consumption of that resource. The governor affects production only (except for certain traits like corrupt).
Governors can certainly have negative as well as positive effects on a city’s yields though.
I doubt Cities often have negative yields, but negative Wisdom will lost you more Science in a Science city. (Not sure this makes a lot of sense, but it’s at least consistent!)
I originally installed the main version, but after completing my first game I want to try the test branch. However I can’t for the life of me find the option to change. Anyone know what I’m missing?
I get that scouts are hidden in friendly or neutral woods, and all the time with a schemer leader. But the 'pedia entry states that hidden units get a 10% attack modifier, and scouts don’t attack. So who gets this? And how do hidden units get discovered? (AFAICT, they can’t be?)
I swear I’ve seen enemy units be hidden as they do a weird appear-and-disappear dance until they attack me. But I can’t remember for sure what was going on.
I would have liked more information on this as well, since it’s an important gameplay mechanic for scouting in general and schemers in particular.
As near as I can tell, a hidden unit is 100% immune to attacks. However, if someone tries to move onto your hidden unit, it will politely step out of the way. It’s possible this only happens if the displacing unit is in friendly territory. And I’m not sure what determines which direction your hidden unit steps. It seems to me you could be hidden in a forest, a wandering unit could displace you into a non-forest hex, and now your scout is busted. Now he can be attacked.
I do know that a scout can’t take advantage of his innate ability to hide in trees to explore neutral territory. For example, if I’m in a patch of forest that straddles a peaceful nation’s border, I can’t step from a neutral forest hex into that nation’s forest hex without getting the “do you want to declare war?” pop-up.
However – I should test this further to confirm, but I’ll just throw it out there and hope someone can correct me if I’m wrong – it seems like the Schemer ability that always hides Scouts will also let the Scouts freely explore other nations’ territory. I’m not sure how this squares with being unable to step into another nation’s forest without alerting them, but it’s all trial and error at this point. And, again, I could be mistaken.
Like the concept of vision, it would be really nice if this stuff had been documented.
If you get displaced from a tile it will try to move you to another safe tile (meaning Trees) that is nearby.
Schemer scouts can go wherever they want because they are truly invisible. I guess I could see the logic of moving scouts into enemy territory in trees but there would have to be a continuous path of trees - seems a little fiddle.
Glad to hear that. I was hoping that was the case!
Hidden ranged units sound pretty badass. Does attacking affect Hidden in any way, or can a Tactician leader just hang out in the trees and snipe fools with impunity? Also, the civilopedia says tacticians make their ranged units “Invisible”, which I presume is just a synonym for Hidden? Is there any reason it doesn’t say “Hidden”?
But why wouldn’t it work that way? Even if just for consistency’s sake. You’re either breaking the rules for Schemers – they let you explore neutral territory but Hidden doesn’t – or you’re breaking the rules for Hidden – it won’t let you explore neutral territory, but Schemer will. Unless there’s some game balance issue, isn’t consistency preferable? Alternatively, you might consider using different terms if there are different gameplay rules in effect?
Yeah, the Tactician help should use the term Hidden instead and maybe I’ll make Invisible a concept, which work like Hidden but you can also enter enemy territory without triggering war to make the distinction clear.
If my religion has a spread chance of 10 percent, is that a 10 percent chance to spread globally, or does each city with the religion get a 10 percent shot? Also, if a spread happens, what is considered an eligible city? Is there preference given to spreading to cities in the same empire or part of the connected cities network?
