I suspect it’s as good as it’s going to get. If you’re interested in trying it, there’s no reason to wait for more updates or improved documentation, if that’s what you mean.
If you do try it, keep us updated! I’ll be curious to hear what you think.
-Tom
This video series helped me, and he just randomizes most of that set up and gets right into the game. “It’s really not necessary to know any of this to get started playing the game,” he says.
Thanks that was really helpful.
I did get it played it some yesterday, and skimmed most of the manual I can already see going up the Chick parabola will be the fun portion of what’s sure to be a love-hate relationship with this game.
So first of what I’m sure will be many examples.
Dutifully following the advice of the video. I build a recycling center, with an eye on expand production ASAP. I get 500 metal, and I see I can build a light industry, and with no movement on my borders I do so. Next turn I see I still owe 1,000 metal. The rather cyptic message did say 3 turns. However, I’ve never played 4x game, where production cost were given on per turn bases as opposed to a total basis.Since generally the time required to build something is a function of your industrial output, and possibly accumulating resources.
So the next turn, my prospecting pays off, I find a metal depositing. Since it goes to take a dozen turns or so to get enough metal to build the light industry. I decide to build a mine first. I figure there is some way of either canceling my existing production and getting my resource, or at least putting the industry expansion on hold. Perhaps that exist put not of the standard conventions for queueing up builds are used in this game. Plus canceling makes you lose 1/2 the production. The next turn two minor regime invade me puting some my units out of supply. Now at this point, there is no question that butter can wait. But damned if I can find a way build guns without losing almost two turns of production.
The restart option beckon, not for the last time I’m sure. My other two restarts, in one I was almost totally isolated and it frankly it got kinda of boring and the other just the opposite surrounded and quickly invaded. Game #4 is looking better.
RPS has a new strategy column:
What is? The game? Maybe. But the documentation may be able to helped, if you know what I mean. What would you all say is the most frustrating non-documented stuff? I have some ideas but I’ve played the game a lot less than y’all.
Btw, one thing I found out from VR is that since the publisher did the manual layout, updates are on their timetable, not his. But that doesn’t include some extramural-you-know-supplement-things.
This game screams for a server, that facilitates async online play, it would foster a great community and good aswesome games where the stupid AI doesn’t get in the way of the fun…
Please gamedev, async MP server…I doubt it will be costly.
Interesting. Vic has said before opening up modding for SE would be too difficult. That’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to DC Ardennes because he has made that moddable from the start.
I’m playing a game with one other person, we just swap the save file in Discord. Not the most elegant solution but better than email at least.
That’s a dealbreaker for me (on multiplayer). That there isn’t a simple sync solution set up is ridiculous…
Do we get to look forward to another Geryk masterpiece?
/me looks over at the Dominions manual.
It would be more of a supplement. We’ll see.
Bruce, your Dominions manual launched myself and my friends on a 25,000 hour long journey. It’s the reason we got into the game.
I like Shadow Empires. I play it against a few friends. Anything you could do to help us understand the game better, and potentially export interest in it more widely, would be awesome.
Just in case you haven’t, DasTactic has a very useful series on youtube. Gosh but this is a good game! Utterly baffling to approach but once you’re learning and not horribly confused it’s fabulous. Took me forever and a day to realise I could scavenge. Had built tanks and helicopters before I realised it. Seriously absorbing game.
4X games to me are better described as Survive, Expand & Dominate as these terms generally chart what I observe to be the three distinct phases of play in a single game. Shadow Empire has, perhaps, the best Survive phase I’ve seen in this genre. It does a pretty good Expand, too, though the clear-as-crude logistics system gives it its first wobble.
Dominate is where every 4X game struggles and unfortunately what we have here is easily amongst the most catastrophic structural failures I’ve seen in the genre. Despite only really offering one Dominate path, the AI is too poor for victory to be anything but inevitable and the UI issues too systemic for that journey to be anything but exasperating. As always, we’re hounded with individually meaningless Survival-era decisions in a Dominate economy that can (and will) falter if you ignore too much of this tedious clickywork. This aspect is made all the worse by most of these actions needing some level of manual investigation on your part, instead of just being prompted or given clear indication.
Then you observe that AI is not actually hamstrung by a number of the core constraints that are strangling your empire and it’s a little difficult not to feel cheated. That apparently the only way the developer was able to get the logistics system to ‘work’ for the AI was basically just to remove it is testament to its failings.
So for myself; probably less of a parabola and more of a caret.
Hmm… oO
the reviewer Was very positive, but they lost me when they mentioned alt tabbing out during the long AI turns
Can anyone help me understand something? I’m quite early in a game because it’s a PBEM so I only play a turn or two a day. Until very recently I had a food deficit according to the panel on the left of the screen (SHQ items?). However the zone was producing an abundance of food. Very little of it was flowing back to the SHQ. Why? And how can I increase that flow? I eventually just built a ton of farms, but I have the feeling that isn’t very efficient.
I share many of the concerns that you all expressed in the podcast, and I also agree with most of the points that @fox.ferro said.
I’m probably 10-20 hours away from hitting the top of parabola. I’d like to get to the point where I have laser weapons and such, but I’ll never play a game long enough to probably fully win it.
I think SE is an excellent wargame. The UX is a big step up from the typical Gary Grisby game of old.
I especially like the preview of the attack hex where you can easily select the units you want to attack see the bonus associated with them. My only issue with the UI is couldn’t find a next key to make sure I’ve moved all my units. I think SE simulates the various factors of ammunition, fuel, readiness, morale, experience, flanking, armor etc. as well as any wargame I’ve played. They are all nicely summarized in tooltips and explain in-depth, in the good albeit out of date manual.
The tactical AI is competent, on par with Planetfall, but maybe a tad behind Old World.
A particular shout out for SE handling of supply. Simulating supply is tough and I like how you can easily see the impact of supply on your units, without some artificial penalties if you are cut out of supply for a turn. On the other hand, if you remain out of supply for extended period of time, you literally starve.
As a 4x game, I find SE to be merely mediocre. I don’t like the Explore (or survive) stage because the starts are so completely unbalanced. I restart all my 4x game until I get a start that I think will challenging but not impossible to play. I find I need to re-roll and restart my SE games more than damn near any other 4x. Some starts you are surrounded by alien races, with super tough soldiers. Other you have lots of nearby goodies, and your soldiers magically find a heavy tank equipped with a plasma gun, liquid armor. That does 4,000 soft attack and can take out a major regime by its self…
The luck factor dominates the skill factor in the early stages of SE, and that’s really discouraging IMO.
I found the Expand stage to be really confusing. It sure would have been nice if someone explained when you conquer or start a new city, you need to set emergency food on. The trades off for horizontal vs vertical growth are also not easy to understand.
The game really shines in the Exploit stage. The economy is nicely balanced, between all the resources, food, fuel, water, metals, money and people. You get decent economies of scale for increasing an assets level, higher output for lower inputs of say workers, although generally requiring more energy. You can use trade to help with shortfalls, but not finding a good metal mine early really sucks though.
That said Hearts of Iron IV has really spoiled me for a what realistic production looks like. You should not be able to save up all of your IP for several turns while you wait for the latest tank to be developed and the viola magically produce an army of medium tanks. I honestly don’t see the point of the separate discovery, research and development phase, It adds unnecessary complexity that I don’t think makes the game more fun at all. I actually dislike a variable research tree in a post-apocalyptic setting. Two hundred years ago nobody knew that laser tanks were possible, so making laser one of numerous possible techs you could discover in a 4x game make sense. However, if we all get nuked in 2200, society may no longer be able to produce the M-200 Powell tank, with its Gatling laser, but the knowledge of such thing existing will still be around for centuries. I particularly hate how the R&D of new formations are handled, I really don’t want to research a MG army formation when I haven’t developed a new machine gun and have no intention of doing so.
As for the Exterminate phase, I doubt I’ll ever get there, for a variety of reasons. But from my observation, major regimes share the same problem as Civ VI. The system is so complicated the AI has no idea to how to expand. Minor regimes can put up a good fight, but as long as I’m nice to a Major Regime, they are very passive and hardly ever expand. Sometimes, I just take one out cause hey I found a heavy plasma tank why not.
As for the Crusader King RPG elements, the cabinet, the cards etc. They add some flavor which I think is really nice, but I found myself really not caring about most of them pretty quickly.
Part of the problem, is it is one man show, and with the number of restarts I do I quickly found the optimum answers. e.g Don’t shutdown the lab, cause a few turns latter you can get a research bonus.
I think if you want to do something like this you need a ton of events like Leyla is doing for Old World. Soren say they were at 2,000+ events
Likely lack of logistical resources to transport the food to the SHQ. If you’ve got road connections then you may just need an upgraded transport hub.