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Shadow Empire - planetary conquest from Advanced Tactics/Decisive Campaigns dev

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On small map probably never. Just use rail. AFAIK SHQ collects surplus resources from connected zones and then they get sent out from SHQ to units/assets under them. Just because there is bio fuel refinery in the same zone doesn't mean your tanks will supplied directly from it, all that fuel first must be sent back to SHQ. At long distances that sort of back and forth could potentially use a lot of extra logistic capacity. I think that generally you'd only want to use it on bigger maps and only for built up, self-sufficient areas (and then you'd need to make sure your units are assigned to right SHQ). Honestly I haven't been in situation where I felt like I needed to do this yet. You could probably get away with using only 1 SHQ on even very large maps by simply throwing enough logistics at the problem.
 

Galdred

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Tech can also save you when you really need more ressources:
I once absorbed 2 small independents without finding any extra source of iron while my own sources were depleted. Investing in technology to get metal from the ground would have been better.

Regarding SHQs, the main problem when having 2 is that you need to manually transfer resources from one to the other, so they both need to be self sufficient if you don't want a logistical nightmare..
 
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oscar

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On small map probably never. Just use rail. AFAIK SHQ collects surplus resources from connected zones and then they get sent out from SHQ to units/assets under them. Just because there is bio fuel refinery in the same zone doesn't mean your tanks will supplied directly from it, all that fuel first must be sent back to SHQ. At long distances that sort of back and forth could potentially use a lot of extra logistic capacity. I think that generally you'd only want to use it on bigger maps and only for built up, self-sufficient areas (and then you'd need to make sure your units are assigned to right SHQ). Honestly I haven't been in situation where I felt like I needed to do this yet. You could probably get away with using only 1 SHQ on even very large maps by simply throwing enough logistics at the problem.

Ironically I just got in a situation where it would have been useful. My empire has (briefly) been cut in half by some sneaky armoured formations ... what has resulted in all my soldiers in the (luckily peaceful) western side now starving to death! This is despite the city they hold being a food producing area. Slightly silly that your men will starve because the food must be sent to the capital than re-distributed out but an example of where it might come in handy.

I've found how nasty not having certain techs can be trying to fight a major regime that has infantry armour when I don't.. but tbh I think a lot of it is that their generals are much better than mine
 

Mortmal

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So now we spent a bit of time on it what does seems the best strategy for this game? It's a lot easier in my opinion to go full autocracy , fist and enforcement , then rush light tank design and later mixed formation infantry+tanks+artillery. The tech isn't king in this game,going to full mind doesn't work for me . I noticed you get ton of militia but with 40% combat bonus fist gives they are just as good than regulars and ultra cheap, its a massive avantage that bonus compare to a 50%+ research . Better to have numerous inferior troops you can encircle with, very fast and early, even if its the shittiest infantry possible encircle= death. I have yet to really need to produce end units like monitor tanks, nukes or walker.The units i produced at the begining now have ton of xp and tearing apart anything.
I like Meritocracy, Government, Mind. Though I first aim to get 1 level of Commerce for private economy bonus and private investment stratagem. Helps you a lot to get light industry ASAP and if you are lucky enough to have eager industrialist card or two to upgrade it... with free market you can be getting over 200 IP for free PLUS tax money PLUS even more investment into private economy very early into the game. Later on with your own industry and various production buildings public economy bonuses become much more powerful. BP production bonus is also great.

Meritocracy offers nice all around bonuses to pretty much everything though again early on you may want to invest into something else since first level just gives you diplomacy rolls bonus and Recruit Talent which while fantastic you will need Interior Council before you can even use it so very early game it just isn't that great.

Mind while I agree doesn't actually feel in any significant way stronger than other options I still prefer it. Research bonus is self explanatory, cultural adjustment bonus is great too though. Let's you integrate conquered cities faster and recruit their population into your armies that much sooner. I also like artillery and mechanized forces and you get stratagems for them here.

I mean just look at that. Why would you ever want to use unarmed truck instead?

SIdS4gf.png

As for quantity vs. quality argument. Depends on situation/terrain IMO. I've had issues on some fronts where logistics were stretched as much as they could be and while in theory I could send more units there in practice it would do no good and just create even bigger issue with supply (there are also over-stacking penalties). Tech can help you not just to increase fighting power of your units but also decrease their logistic footprint.

Here is my medium tank from my current game. Pay attention to fuel consumption.

eqTq2aq.png

Here is brand new version of it.

FXTfOAX.png

See the difference? Now I can operate twice as many of them out of same number of logistics points. That is HUGE. All it took is few turns of BP investment into Fuel Efficiency tech by Applied Science council (BTW get it fairly early, there are some really strong bonuses you can get there at relatively small investment, I initially made mistake of getting it late because I sort of assumed it's more of a late game repeatable tech stuff like in other games, you know just a research point sink after you finish tech tree for some small bonuses here and there, nope bonuses are actually significant and getting them to 25-50 points is very cheap actually, it does slow down a lot if you try to max them out though).

I never paid attention to the fuel consumption with polymer it's half of it and the engine is even considered as overpowered , it's a lot better yes .Also why howitzer on a medium ? howitzer is for killing infantry, a light tank is enough and cheaper for those, i'd rather use high velocity on the medium to kill light tanks.
Indeed it's really the quantity vs quality debate, my quantity play through expand fast and has no fuel problem, nor industry problem, grabbing the ruins fast allow you to get artefacts , free GR buildings, industry cloning vat etc. In any case i would never use a truck either, APC are ton more efficient and giving an extra punch to infantry.Cultural bonus ? I did not even bother to integrate, just place infantry and repress.
It's good the game is soo deep and allow different approach.
 
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Beowulf

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It's good the game is soo deep and allow different approach.

Most of that comes from different starting conditions and those can vary wildly. You can be starved for metal for a large portion of the game, or you can start using mechanised forces almost from the start. And yeah, at the beginning, if I have a easily conquerable neighbour, I usually rush with my Militias supported by Buggies or Motorized Inf for those easy encirclements. But mid game, unless it's a planet with heavy forests I use Mechanized Inf, or mix it up with Light Tanks. I usually use those with howitzers for their soft attack, I've been using dedicated tank killers for fighting heavy targets, but usually encircling them gives them enough maluses that your infantry can deal even with Heavy Tanks. Patch 1.04 (unless you are on beta patch) should reduce fuel consumption for heavy vehicles, so perhaps we will be seeing the AI using more of them, and at the same time we will be able to field more of them as well.

So far my fastest win on regular happened on an unclassified planet with the help of mech infantry. I fulfilled the victory conditions on turn 69. With right stratagems and artillery (preferably rockets or missiles) it's just trivial to ride to their cities and storm them successfully.
In contrast - on a large and mostly devoid of life Medusa planet I had 4 cities around turn 100. It was my starting city and 3 that I created to reduce administrative strain in the capital. I had maybe 10% of victory conditions :negative:
 

Alpharius

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My game on large planet with slow developement speed started crashing during end turn on turn 118. :negative: Had like 8 cities and 25% of palent's territory at the end. Oh well, it was time to try out the patches anyway. Also the game becomes less fun once you border enemy major regimes on all sides.

Not sure the large map is worth it (at least on 1.01 version), i picked it for increased number of AI's, but it doesn't matter much if everybody is at war with everybody. Spent like 20000 credits on gifts to one of the AI to finally make peace with it, but it declared war again 20 turns later.

Slow developement speed is ok for large map i guess, felt about right.
 
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Beowulf

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My game on large planet with slow developement speed started crashing during end turn on turn 118. :negative: Oh well, it was time to try out the patches anyway. Also the game becomes less fun once you border enemy major regimes on all sides.

Not sure the large map is worth it (at least on 1.01 version), i picked it for increased number of AI's, but it doesn't matter much if everybody is at war with everybody. Spent like 20000 credits on gifts to one of the AI to finally make peace with it, but it declared war again 20 turns later.

Slow developement speed also is ok for large map i guess, felt about right.


I managed to get a good relationship leading to free trade, migration and tech exchange with one of my neighbours. Diplomatic stance depends a lot on the type of the regime.
But eventually it will end in a total war or almost total war with you having one or two non-aggression pacts or minor regimes as clients. Good thing is that not everyone is focusing on you, like in the TW titles, but literally everybody is fighting everybody.
Which is reasonable. You, as a player, would attack your peaceful or even allied neighbour, if you saw him getting close to victory.
 

Edija

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My game on large planet with slow developement speed started crashing during end turn on turn 118. :negative: Had like 8 cities and 25% of palent's territory at the end. Oh well, it was time to try out the patches anyway. Also the game becomes less fun once you border enemy major regimes on all sides.

Not sure the large map is worth it (at least on 1.01 version), i picked it for increased number of AI's, but it doesn't matter much if everybody is at war with everybody. Spent like 20000 credits on gifts to one of the AI to finally make peace with it, but it declared war again 20 turns later.

Slow developement speed is ok for large map i guess, felt about right.

I like the game very much but the game is more fun for me once I have clear borders with majors, the initial rush can be really tiresome especially if you border 4 aggressive minors who are all driving into your territory and cutting shit off like its 1941.
 

Van-d-all

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I like the game very much but the game is more fun for me once I have clear borders with majors, the initial rush can be really tiresome especially if you border 4 aggressive minors who are all driving into your territory and cutting shit off like its 1941.
Yeah, the first few rounds are by far the most difficult. On difficulties from regular and above, neighboring more than single slaver faction is pretty much an instant zerg rush.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamer.com/shadow-empire-review/

SHADOW EMPIRE REVIEW
Sci-fi wargame Shadow Empire has lavish detail, but too much is obscured.

I'd just about given up on Shadow Empire when the mutants attacked. My nation's borders were stagnant, and I'd started to feel nothing much more interesting would happen. Then, an expeditionary brigade on the depopulated frontier made contact with a large unknown force. Then two more. Suddenly, my nation was desperately reinforcing the line as tens of thousands of screaming, cannibal mutants charged out of the northern wastes.

These are the kinds of surprising moments that make sprawling sci-fi wargame Shadow Empire interesting. A game of extreme ambition, Shadow Empire takes place on a far-future planet long after the fall of a star-spanning republic. Reduced to post-apocalyptic settlements for hundreds of years, the people are just now starting to reach beyond their immediate surroundings.

As the absolute ruler of a nation, the player's end goal is to recover old technology, reinvent industrial-scale warfare, and become the most powerful ruler on the planet. Technology in the game starts with improvised rifles, makeshift tanks, and post-apocalyptic raiders. It ends with mass-produced mechs, powered armor, plasma guns, and tanks sporting miniaturized fusion power plants. It has a complex, detail-oriented simulation of politics, governance, and economics that complement the main focuses: technology and warfare. The planets you fight over are diverse and complex, with their own generated histories both human and geological. They range from airless moons to lush jungles full of deadly alien megafauna.

These complex systems are impressive on the surface, but one of Shadow Empire's problems is that you can generally only see the surface. The interface struggles to show how the systems interact, or even what they're doing. These mysterious systems cause the frustration, but also the fun and fascination, of playing Shadow Empire.

If you couldn't tell from the hexes and clunky UI, this is a wargamer's wargame. The 3D character models look like square-jawed 1990s action figures. Some might find it charmingly dated, or retro, but I did not. As with so many games in the genre, the user interface and controls are frustratingly inconsistent and dense. If you're not a veteran of strategy games it may well take tens of hours, and a thorough reading of the manual, before you feel comfortable.

Shadow Empire is firmly fixed on wars. The way to win is to conquer enough of the world's land mass and population to be the clear hegemon. There are a few other major nations willing to engage in peaceful alliances or long-term agreements, but the majority of major nations will have to be overcome through total war. The diplomatic tools available feel lacking for the inter-war periods and cold wars that inevitably crop up.

Going to war
At least the warfare is good. It's a joy to discover new types of units, customize them using technology you've researched, and field them in independent or complex combined-arms formations. I grew extremely fond of siege divisions, artillery and infantry combined. I'd use them to secure ground and establish front lines. Meanwhile, I'd use my often-scarce fuel reserves to mobilize smaller brigades of mechanized infantry with attached tank units. While the infantry held the line, the armored column would smash through to take the enemy's supply depots.

What's most fun is that you have to improvise, because research and resources are partially randomized. In one game I quickly figured out how to build my own heavy tanks, while in another I focused on large formations of truck-mounted infantry and support weapons. There's always a way to win with what you have—it's just up to you to figure it out. Of course, you or your enemies discovering a cache of untouched fusion-powered heavy tanks or powered armor will throw more chaos into the mix.

Internal politics and governance are also pleasantly complex. Your nation has political factions that work differently depending on whether you're a democracy, republic, or autocracy. It also has labor unions, corporations, and religious cults. The individual characters from these factions are given places in your developing government as you establish new bureaus and departments—jobs like internal affairs, military general staff, or economic development. They have goals, likes, and dislikes, and you carefully weigh decisions when your best people disagree. Anger your top-ranking generals enough and they might just take half the army rogue. Unlike games where civil strife exists but in reality rarely occurs, or is boringly abstracted, I consistently had internal schisms paralyze my nation and experienced a civil war in two of my three campaigns.

Out of sight
Shadow Empire does a lot with its deep details, and for that it's going to be remembered alongside other great, complex wargames. But unlike some of those classics, such as War in the West or World in Flames, many details just aren't well documented or surfaced to the player. There are layers so far obscured from the player experience that they're either frustrating or nearly invisible.

Take the civilian economy, for example. Your nation's districts have private enterprises and civilians who build up money and use it to do things like establish new businesses. You can provide business subsidies from tax money to support this, and your own vital taxes come largely from this internal revenue. Information on what that money does, or precisely how the civilian economy works, simply isn't available.

Planet generation is another good example. You set broad parameters when creating a new world, but ultimately features will come from a random number generator. If you want an arid semi-desert world with complex multicellular life you're going to have to re-randomize the world's life generation a lot.

Shadow Empire allows extensive customization when designing new tanks or infantry formations, so why is the player denied access to these other systems? They exist in a black box. I have no idea if the civilian economy or the alien life generator are interesting and complex or simply smoke and mirrors designed to give the illusion of complexity.

Shadow Empire simply doesn't let you tell it what you want to know or what you want done. A detailed plate tectonics system sounds exciting, but doesn't mean much if you never see it and can't interact with it. Time spent micromanaging your supply routes feels wasted because you're often just tweaking a path to the only available destination. How are civilian metrics like danger, fear, and unrest measured? How precisely do they increase? You cannot know.

While enjoying the end results of Shadow Empire's simulation I was consistently reminded of an anecdote about the famously-detailed game Dwarf Fortress. It's one that perfectly illustrates the bemused frustration with which I regard Shadow Empire's fine details. There exists, within Dwarf Fortress, elaborate algorithms and systems for determining weather. They form and move and cast shadows on the world in all their diverse types: cumulus, stratus, cirrus, nimbus. They influence the weather and can be monitored to see coming patterns. The creator spent tens of hours programming this system.

Of course, the player won't ever care or know: Their viewpoint is firmly downward. They can never look up.

THE VERDICT
75

SHADOW EMPIRE
Ambitious in the extreme, Shadow Empire is a unique sci-fi wargame that's a little lost in its own details.
 

Galdred

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Meritocracy makes it much easier to run things as capable leaders make a huge difference.
I prefer first over mind as the combat bonus helps a lot. Research is great too, but then you need to develop a good unit model, train and deploy it, which takes a lot if time compared to just getting a free combat modifier on all your existing frontline units.

It really depends on the situation, though.
If some resources are in support supply, it is obviously better to focus on research.
Heart is not needed as much with meritocracy, as you will have an easier time replacing leaders with low loyalty, but if you have very good leaders that don't sign well with your regime, it might well be worth it.

Commerce/government/enforcement, I don't have a strong opinion on.
I think government is somewhat redundant with meritocracy, and enforcement with fist, so I would go commerce if going fist or heart and enforcement with mind.
 

Galdred

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Meritocracy is hard to keep up without an advisor that is good at oratory and investigation, as the usual riot meritocracy option will usually require a very hard roll in one of these (while autocracy rolls are usually much easier as you benefitb from security level and garrisoned forces, and democracy usually mostly requires you to spend money).
I ended up with a lot of autocratic blood on my hands to avoid unrest spiralling out of control (which is also a good reason for appointing a cap 4/5 leader with high intelligence and charisma as advisor).
 

Galdred

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Hey Infinitron where is the Tom Chick review from Quarter to three?

https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2020/07/03/seven-reasons-i-keep-trying-to-play-shadow-empire/https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2020/07/03/seven-reasons-i-keep-trying-to-play-shadow-empire/

Seven Reasons I Keep Trying to Play Shadow Empire
Tom Chick, July 3, 2020 | Game reviews
Shadow-Empire-review-701x325.jpg



There are a lot of reasons to stop playing Shadow Empire. I’ve hit many of them several times over. The most common is that I don’t understand how something works, but I didn’t realize I didn’t understand until it was too late. Maybe I built some expensive structure that took several turns of saving up resources, and then several turns of actual building, and now it doesn’t work like I thought it would. Maybe I move my armies into position for an attack, and now they’re decimated because the supply rules are impenetrable. Maybe I get into a sudden economic death spiral when I didn’t even realize why I suddenly ran out of food. Who’s eating all my food? Maybe I simply can’t figure out how all these numbers are supposed to line up. Why are these numbers here if I’m supposed to simply take them on faith without even understanding what they mean?

Among other reasons to stop playing Shadow Empire are the torturous interface, the primitive graphics, the slow turn processing, and the uneven documentation.

But there are also lots of reasons to start playing Shadow Empire again. Most games that are easy to quit playing are also easy to not play again. That’s not true of Shadow Empire, an (overly?) complex combination of hardcore operational level wargame, intertwined with a King of Dragon Pass style leader management game, played atop a sci-fi 4X. Every time I’ve quit playing, I’ve picked it back up. Here are some of the reasons:

1) Shadow Empire is a card game


SE-strategems.jpg


The cards in Shadow Empire aren’t just powers displayed on card shapes with patches of card art. They’re actual decks that you assemble and draw from each turn, and they determine what kind of game you’re playing. The cards are called stratagems, and they drive every element of Shadow Empire.

One of your primary resources is called political power. Every turn you earn political power points based on how many resources you’ve diverted into your main organization, the ominously named Supreme Command Council. You’ll have other organizations for science, covert actions, diplomacy, economic development, and so forth. They’ll want resources, too. Slide those sliders wisely!

Political power points are spent playing stratagem cards. Every card has a cost and the more powerful cards cost more. Just like Hearthstone. And the stratagems affect every element of Shadow Empire, which is why it’s a card game. Star Ruler 2, a fantastic and sadly overlooked sci-fi 4X, has a similarly clever card system. But it’s limited to diplomacy, so Star Ruler 2 is not a card game. It’s just a game with a cool card game inside it. But the cards in Shadow Empire affect everything.

Do you want a new leader? Play the Recruit Talent card. Do you need to see your opponent’s territory? Play the Place Spy card. Or better yet, the Spy Ring card. Are you worried that your covert ops leader doesn’t have the skill to make the roll that determines whether Spy Ring succeeds? Then first play the Shadow Spy card to give him a +40 to his next roll. Now play the Spy Ring card. Do you want to raise the tax rate? Play the Increase Tax card. Do you want to apply tariffs to the jerkwad faction that keeps blackmailing you? Play the Raise Tariffs card. Do you want to build a zoo, or casino, or gladiatorial arena in your territory? Play the appropriate stratagem, because you won’t find those under the construction menu. Do you want to adjust your army with a bonus to attack and a penalty to defend? Or how about a boost to experience points while you put it in training mode? Some stratagems are called postures, and they tweak an army’s basic function. Do you want to reward one of your leaders and improve his loyalty? Do you want to prospect for a new source of resources in your territory? Do you want to curry favor with one of the internal factions in your regime? Do you want to meet with the CEO of your planet’s unique corporation, or the leader of its cult, or the head of its crime syndicate? Do you want to raze an occupied territory? Do you want a bunch more political points, or a huge cash windfall, or maybe even some precious alien artifacts?

All these are done with stratagem cards.

Of course, you can’t play a card unless you draw it. So what determines which stratagem cards you draw each turn? This, too, is a factor of your organizations, and it almost makes Shadow Empire a deck-builder. Each organization has a list of cards it can produce, and the resources diverted to that organization will determine a percentage chance of drawing a card based on its rarity. If you want to see the math behind the draw, it’s all available. You can see the card distribution, the percentage chance of drawing a specific card, and even the roll you rolled that determined whether you drew the card. Or you can just enjoy the display at the beginning of each turn that shows which new cards have been added to your hand. Like Hearthstone, but with less screenshake and particle effects. But the bottom line is that the distribution of resources among your organizations — how many to covert ops, how many to your diplomatic wing, how many to your interior council — is the equivalent of managing the distribution of cards in a deck-builder.

2) Shadow Empires expects me to hoist myself with my own petard


SE-fate-strategems.jpg


Some of the stratagem cards are too powerful to be played with mere political points. So they cost fate points. And I probably don’t have any fate points. I can earn them at extraordinary points in the game, such as by conquering large areas or hitting certain advancement thresholds. But even then, I won’t get many. Fate points will always taunt me for how few I have. Those powerful stratagem cards will always taunt me for what boon could be mine if only I had a few more fate points.

Oh, wait, look here. These red cards are called fate stratagems. If I play them, they give me fate points! But what’s this? What are these cards called? Paranoia? Radiation Leak? Chemical High? Bad Rations? Hey, these all do terrible things! Death, madness, destruction. If I want fate points — and I do! — I decide which calamity to visit upon my own head. Is a radiation leak worth discovering a treasure trove of abundant resources? Is a boost in fear among the population worth being able to deploy killer robot sentries with my army? Is it worth introducing illicit drug peddling into the population or poisoning a few families if I can pry a new technology out of the hidden computer archives?

(The answers are yes, yes, and yes.)

In any other game, these disasters would be random negative events that pop up from time to time, to keep me on my toes. But I control my fate in Shadow Empire. I make the disasters happen, I live with the results, and I reap the benefits.

3) Shadow Empire makes totally unfair worlds


SE-planet-generation.jpg


Before any game of Shadow Empire, the particulars of a planet are randomly rolled up in a series of categories: atmosphere, geography, local fauna, that sort of thing. These factors determine the setting, whether it’s on a moon with no atmosphere, a mineral rich desert planet, or a rain-soaked jungle world infested with murderous spiders. Which in turn determines how easy it will be to cultivate food, mine resources, and defend my borders. There will also be random perks scattered around the map I can assimilate into my empire, and sometimes helpful or hostile factions at my doorstep.

There doesn’t seem to be any attempt to balance the varied starting conditions. One game might start me at a huge disadvantage, hemmed in by militaristic neighbors, with no source of metal at hand, and nothing but rugged mountains for miles. I’ll be lucky to survive fifty turns. Using the exact same settings, another game might start me at a huge advantage. A friendly militia joins me, there are great bonuses right near my starting city, the neighboring factions are weak and acquiescent.

There’s a certain satisfaction in rolling up new games of Shadow Empire, where it’s “there but for the grace of God go I…” or “oooh, that looks like a fun starting situation!” My games of Shadow Empire are almost like my characters in an MMO. I have my mains, which tend to be games with lucky starts that let me make some progress along the road to prosperity and expansion. But then I have my alts which I play out just to see how much I can make happen given the awful starting conditions. Rolling up a game to see what I get this time is uniquely appealing for the variety of situations I’ll have available. Who needs difficulty settings (although those are in there, too) when you can just let the random number gods rampage freely?

4) Shadow Empire has the beating heart of Distant Worlds and Victoria in its chest

SE-private-assets.jpg

In Shadow Empire, a self-sustaining private economy ticks away under the surface, out of my control. The little people in the game are in charge of the fundamental commercial transactions in their society. They determine which goods they produce, buy, and trade. They determine how their quality of life is developed. They determine which structures get built. They’re a bunch of little bootstrappers making the best of it on this hostile planet. There’s usually some corporation looming over them, some cult trying to seduce them, and some crime syndicate taking a cut because it would be a shame if something happened to the brothel. Like many elements of Shadow Empire, I can ignore this and just let it run its course. But why would I? I can cozy up with the CEO. I can crack down on the cult. I can divert money into a commercial sector. I can give the people a hospital. I can buy them food if times are lean. I can raise their taxes if they’re fat, happy, and prosperous. Hey, they just built a mine on the last rare minerals deposit on the map. I needed those rare minerals for a bitchin’ new tank with a plasma gun, but now they’re sealed under a privately owned mine that just shunts its treasure into the economy at large. I think I’ll nationalize it.

Most strategy games assume you want complete control over the economy. Most strategy games are right. But some strategy games recognize that economies are inscrutable clockwork intricacies beyond the ken, much less control, of any one man. That was one of the contributions of Paradox’s Victoria games. They suggested a private economy that government could influence, but not directly control. Distant Worlds was a science fiction game that expressed the same idea. And it’s refreshing to see it so thoroughly embraced in Shadow Empire.

5) Shadow Empire is an RPG about playing a government on a tightrope


SE-profiles-suppression.jpg


I play a “regime” in Shadow Empire. It’s one of several competing factions on a ruined alien planet. A regime is characterized by a rating from 1 to 100 in nine different “profiles”. This rating constantly shifts based on my actions. The profiles are qualities like democracy, commerce, mind, and so on. They’re arranged into three sets of interlocking values with a paper-rock-scissors structure in which each profile can suppress one and can be suppressed by another.

In the image above, you can see in the politics category that meritocracy can suppress democracy, which can suppress autocracy, which can suppress meritocracy. But you can see by the color coding that no one is suppressing anyone in the political sphere. Why is that?

Because suppression only comes into effect when the total of two adjacent profiles exceeds 100. In the psychology category, you can see that mind is suppressing heart because their total is 105. Mind’s 61 plus heart’s 44 means that heart will degrade over time, until the total between the two profiles is 100. Heart is on its way to 39.

So why does this system of interlocking politics, social values, and psychology matter? It matters because profiles with high values unlock feats. Feats are a sort of skill tree that encourages me to pick my favorite profiles and push them as high as I can. Here’s the feats display:

SE-feats-800.jpg

Each row is one of the different profiles, and each box on each row is a feat I can unlock by holding that profile at a certain value. These feats give me global bonuses, they unlock the option to draw special stratagem cards, and they give me special units to attach to my armies. For instance a medical team, a techno mage, or a musical band. Yes, I’m imagining the drum truck from Fury Road with the Doof Warrior’s flamethrower guitar. You know you are, too.

So the actions I take in the game, which always tell me exactly how many points are added to or subtracted from each profile, are a kind of RPG for what kind of regime I want to play. If I push certain profiles high enough, you can win special prizes. A new game of Shadow Empire is a new opportunity to try different sets of feats.

6) Shadow Empire is King of Dragon Pass, but science fiction instead of goofy druids


SE-leaders-roster.jpg


A fundamental part of Shadow Empire is managing a cast of characters who serve as leaders for my organizations, my armies, and my territories. Each of them has a detailed character sheet, brimming with skills, attributes, statistics, and even a history of how he or she has developed over the course of the game. Each of them has a loyalty rating, which serves as the basic number for his or her relationship to me. Each of them will perform at a level of efficiency determined by that relationship.

So a fundamental part of Shadow Empire is which of my leaders likes me and how much they like me. I can demote the inept or disloyal ones, but how will that look to the others? I have to be careful who I alienate. Every decision I make includes a breakdown of how it will affect the leaders who care about the decision. My challenge is to balance what I want with what they want.

All the numbers remind me of managing generals in a Nobunaga’s Ambition game. The decisions remind me of Crusader Kings with bureaucracy instead of inbreeding, madness, and murder. And since the characters change over time — as my decisions affect their stats, as they spend their experience points improving their skills, and as I use stratagems to help or hinder them — it’s especially gratifying watching characters grow into their jobs. Well, more often, struggle to grow into their jobs. I’ve got my best and brightest, and then a whole lotta dross who slowly learn by doing. It’s impossible to play Shadow Empire without having your favorites.

(Please don’t ask me about that game I lost because I wanted to see what would happen if the leader of my main infantry group got his loyalty rating into the 30s.)

7) Everything is connected in Shadow Empire


SE-neighbors.jpg


Decisions are random events that pop up each turn. You have multiple options, with explicit information available for what each option means. For instance, one of my neighbors with whom I have strained relations just asked that I help fight terrorist cells supposedly hiding in my cities.

SE-Request-to-fight-cells.jpg

If I help, I’ll increase the relation value with my neighbor, which is currently at 31, and adjust my autocracy profile by +6.

SE-fight-cells.jpg

I’ll also upset three of my leaders. The unifying factor among them is that they all favor a strong government profile, so I’m assuming they’re reacting to the -7 hit to my government profile.

If I don’t help, I’ll decrease the relation value with my neighbor, but please the three stooges with a government boost.

SE-dont-fight-cells.jpg

But I’m trying to cultivate a profile called meritocracy, which has three feats queuing up.

SE-meritocracy.jpg

Every turn I’ve got a 24% chance to unlock Accomplished Envoys, which gives me a +30 to diplomacy rolls on a d100. It also puts a stratagem card in my deck called Recruit Talent that I can play to recruit an advanced leader. If I hold meritocracy as the highest profile in its group for three more rounds, I’ll start getting a chance to unlock Capable Supervisors every turn. These guys give me a food bonus based on my population. Capable Supervisors also put a stategem card in my deck called Grand Convention that I can play to improve my leaders loyalty with the equivalent of a corporate getaway. Finally, if I hold meritocracy as the highest profile in my group, and keep it above 60, I’ll start getting a chance to unlock Martial Tournaments every turn. This adds 25 to the combat rolls my army leaders make in battle-related situations. It also puts a stratagem card in my deck called Patriotic Collection, which lets me pass the collection plate for a little donation from the people who love their regime. Martial Tournaments is also known as a unit feat, because it gives me the option to attach a new unit to my armies. In this case, the unit is a Champion, which has a percentage chance to turn a damage result in combat to an outright kill.

SE-profiles-Syndic-intervention.jpg

Meritocracy is one of the three groupings of three profiles. It suppresses democracy, which suppresses autocracy, which suppresses meritocracy. Since each suppresses/suppressed pair wants to normalize at 100 total, you can see my meritocracy of 63 and autocracy of 40 are at the stress point (they just got there with a recent decision that gave me +7 meritocracy, as indicated in the green circle). Autocracy is going to start pushing down on meritocracy. If I help Tiefmark expose and exterminate the terrorist cells, it’s going to add six points to autocracy, putting its value at 46. I don’t want that, because it will push hard and degrade my meritocracy to 54. So I’m not going to help them with the terrorist cells, which will degrade our relationship, but will help me progress the meritocracy feats.

In this situation, my diplomatic standing with a neighboring regime, the loyalty of some of my leaders, my regime’s profile, the units I can use in my army, the stratagem cards I’ll be able to draw, and global bonuses for diplomacy, food income, and combat are all connected. I hope it’s not a spoiler to tell you that a war with Tiefmark — an avoidable war — broke out a few turns later.

NOTE: Right now, I’m in post-rage-quit mode with Shadow Empire because I cannot figure out how rail transport and logistics works, despite poring over the manual, reading the ingame help, and running several tests with saved games. But writing this list of seven things has nearly turned me around. I expect I’ll be playing again within a few days.




  • Shadow Empire
  • Rating: 3/5
  • PC
  • Slightly more fascinating than confounding, which keeps me coming back
 

Nutria

Arcane
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Strap Yourselves In
Tom Chick is the only person who reviews games who I actually take seriously. I know he's being honest. But I also have totally different tastes from him and I've found that any game he likes too much is one that I'll hate. So 3/5 from him is probably a good sign.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Basically, the game is easily 5/5 for its combat, complexity, replayability (games can be very different depending on the planet you start on) and logistics, -1 if you strongly value UI,-1 if you value game mechanics that are easy to learn (let's say it takes quite some time to see how each of the parameters interact together), and -1 if you cannot stand prosper grade character faces.
It is the literal definition of a flawed gem.
So for me, it is easily 5/5, but I can easily understand that many would rate it lower (while people who don't rate Master of Orion and Alpha Centauri 5/5 are heretics).

Some games also have the victory threshold happen not long after the "I know I am going to win" threshold, which is cool.
 

Chaosdwarft

Learned
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After playing 10 games, I would say this is a fantastic game. The manual is actually very good, I keep it open to check certain mechanics, as there are many and how they interact with each other. The learning curve is steep indeed. Normally I would have watched some YouTubers to digest all this for me, not this time.

I agree with Galdred , on the most part.

I would rate it 4.5/5 because we have no air units ( I checked the physics, it is doable even in non-oxygen atmospheres) or naval units (sure most of the planets don't have as much water as Earth).
 

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
1,963
[...]

I would rate it 4.5/5 because we have no air units ( I checked the physics, it is doable even in non-oxygen atmospheres) or naval units (sure most of the planets don't have as much water as Earth).

You also have to take different gravity and atmospheric pressure into account, not only gases that build it.
Besides, the developer said that if the game sells well, there will be DLC's (as usual) and air units are on the short list.
 

Chaosdwarft

Learned
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Old outpost in the middle of Iberia
[...]

I would rate it 4.5/5 because we have no air units ( I checked the physics, it is doable even in non-oxygen atmospheres) or naval units (sure most of the planets don't have as much water as Earth).

You also have to take different gravity and atmospheric pressure into account, not only gases that build it.
Besides, the developer said that if the game sells well, there will be DLC's (as usual) and air units are on the short list.
:takemyjewgold:
 

AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Was going to wait for a Steam release but fuck it. This looks like my dream game.
 

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