I am attracted to and repelled by this game in equal measure. I’ll probably pick it up once my anniversary coupon from this year rolls around and I stick it in my cart to marinate until the inevitable summer sale.
Hmm, how good is Old World at this? People are saying some very unkind things about the AI in this game, so a “tad” more competent is not saying a lot, it seems.
Well it’s been a while since I’ve played since I’ve played Old World I fully intend to play a lot more once Old World hits releases. Also to be clear I’m saying the tactical AI, not the strategic is competent in both games. In particular the AI in Shadow Empire will cut supply lines, make attacks at good odds, withdraw from bad position, seek out defense terrain and form a line with units. The tactical AI in Old World will do all of that and more it is able to conquer cities given ~3-1 odds . Something that that Civ V and Civ VI failed to be able to do.
I’m about ready to give up on this fucking game. I’m sick of food not getting to my SHQ with no explanation. The logistics system is over-engineered to the point of insanity and it’s really spoiling an otherwise brilliant game.
Thanks, I truly appreciate the offer but the point I would make is that even if I did understand what’s going wrong, the logistics system is still far too much and not something I want to deal with. I think I should take a break from the game, maybe try again in a month or so and see how I get on then.
This game is sitting on my steam wishlist. Currently I’m holding off, since I have a few other games that I bought on sale and need to explore (and also I’m not quite sure about complex TBS, since I generally prefer RTS). Meanwhile, I see quite some talk over logistics and AI. As i’m currently playing Hegemony 3, another game with some logistics/supply focus, is anyone here on the forum able to compare this aspect of the game to Shadow Empire? That might just turn my opinion around in one or the other direction… :-)
If you’re hesitant on the complexity, you should probably stay away. Shadow Empire is really the deep-end as far as turn-based strategy games go. I love it to pieces, but I don’t want anyone being misled about what it’s all about. Logistics from Hegemony is kind of a jumble in my brain across the series, but I assume it wasn’t all that different in 3 than in the other two. I recall logistics being important but pretty straightforward to deal with, which Shadow Empire very much is not straightforward. It has about a dozen resources moving across a transport network with capacity and bottleneck concerns at the hex-level.
I think the game is approachable if you play on a small planet with a few number of majors and minors. It also helps to keep your asset building in check because having too many of them will clog your logistics network as they attempt to send resources back to SHQ. Build primarily in your capital and build assets in other cities as needed - at least that’s what I gleaned from from the matrix forums.
Hey, thanks for the assessment. So yeah, logistics in Hegemony are important but also somewhat streamlined, i.e. you don’t have to deal with individual resources all the time. You can send them from one place to another if you want to, and it certainly hepls in some situations, but otherwise the game will try to automatically distribute them (I think things were changed quite a bit for Hegemony 3 vs. its prequels). It also seems to have fewer resources than Shadow Empire. If you say I have to manage dozens of resources individually and per hex - ugh, that sounds more work than play :-) But I might still try this game one day, I guess on a small planet it should be manageable (as JMR pointed out). Thanks again.
So you don’t have to do a ton of manual management of those resources. You’re more focused on getting the network set up for the logistics to flow and then letting the system automatically distribute it from there. You can get a little more involved if there are shortages and basically prioritize distribution to certain armies or areas, but that’s not something you are generally worrying about turn to turn.
The big struggle people have with the logistics system is diagnosing an issue when something breaks down and then figuring out how to actually fix it from there.
OK I think I’ve finally got a handle on my supply issue. I’m not quite getting all the surplus food from the zone to my SHQ but whatever, it’s close enough. I think the problem began when some event gifted me 7,200 militia out of nowhere, so they were presumably sucking up most of my supply wherever I moved them. I’ve solved the problem by basically building railroads everywhere, which I assumed I wouldn’t have to do for a while.
I think the only problem left is that I’m just not producing enough food, but on the next turn I’ll have upgraded an agri farm to level 2, which should boost food output by 300 which will address the shortfall at SHQ.
Yup, that’s definitely a big problem. The other problem is that even if you know the problem, fixing it still take a long time. I had similar problem to Paradroid in a couple of games. I built or conquered a new city. The new city wasn’t making enough food to supply workers and soldier at the city. So the fix is to upgrade the farm at the city and built a supply base and/or truck stop at the new city. Unfortunately, the city is at the edge of your logistically range so you don’t really have enough logistical points to build the structures that will fixed your problem in a turn or two.
That’s a fair point, fixing the problem after a significant issue arises is almost too late. You’ll be waiting a long time to resolve it at that point. I’ve had that happen when I greatly underestimated the supply costs of a mechanized war and had to basically pause things at the front for a year+ in order to fix it.
Regardless of the cause (which can sometimes be very hard to figure out) the answer to 99.999% of logistic issues in Shadow Empire boils down to…build/upgrade more truck stations.
Curiously, it’s this sort of old school, reality reflecting curve balls that make Shadow Empire stand out.
Most games would apply UX principles and smooth things over for the player, but delayed gratification is very much the SE way and I respect it for that.
(E.g. You don’t get output from a new building asset on the turn you finish building it as it’s only just been built and no-one has had a chance to work it yet. Makes total sense, but it’s just not how we’ve been trained that how games work)