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

[Chaosdwarft]

 

[Citizen]

I want it but 50 bux... Kinda pricey. I guess I'll wait for a steam release with cheaper regional pricing

 

[Edija]

I want it but 50 bux... Kinda pricey. I guess I'll wait for a steam release with cheaper regional pricing

As far as I know you can safely wait for the steam release next month since the air force is kinda buggy and op and he should have fixed it substantially until then.

 

[dehimos]

I have tried to change the portraits (like Anime Graphic Pack Mod) and the developer created an extremely complex system

Each portrait consists of:
- Face
- Eyes
- Nose
- Mouth
- Hair
- Hair and beard (for men)

And each image has two faces, eyes, nose, etc: young and old. They are mixed according to age.

Spoiler

 

[minakami]

It's on steam now.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Great, I thought this will be a peaceful evening. Guess I will have to start a campaign of planetary conquest now instead.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Would be great if the game's feature set could stabilize for a while before Vic adds even more mechanics or reworks some core mechanic. Feels too alpha-like too often. Downsides of one-man teams I guess.

 

[Beowulf]

Would be great if the game's feature set could stabilize for a while before Vic adds even more mechanics or reworks some core mechanic. Feels too alpha-like too often. Downsides of one-man teams I guess.

I guess that after the initial patches for the steam release there might be a lull in game updates, except maybe for balancing and remaining bugfixes. Vic is supposedly working on a new DC title, and Navy is scheduled for 2021 anyways.

 

[Citizen]

Card-based popamole

/removed from inventory

 

[Harthwain]

Card-based popamole

It's not really a card-based game as much as it's a wargame. Try to think about cards like they are actions in other games.

I am considering buying it, but I wonder if it won't be better to wait for Steam Christmas Sale, because there might be a slightly bigger price drop.

 

[Riso]

Matrix has it on a 20% sale or so.

 

[dehimos]

Alien fauna improvements were added in the latest update: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4918751

New features:
* Over 40 new Alien Fauna Feats
* Over a 120 new Alien Fauna graphics
* Subspecies introduced

For my part, I have finished my little modification.

Spoiler

 

[Edija]

Alien fauna improvements were added in the latest update: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4918751

New features:
* Over 40 new Alien Fauna Feats
* Over a 120 new Alien Fauna graphics
* Subspecies introduced

For my part, I have finished my little modification.

Spoiler

You plan on posting this on the Matrix forums? Anything is better than the vanilla potraits.

 

[dehimos]

You plan on posting this on the Matrix forums? Anything is better than the vanilla potraits.

Yes, but Matrix forums have a curious rule: "You are not allowed to post links, emails or phone numbers for 7 days from the date of your tenth post".

Although I like the result, I have had problems getting women's faces and placing necks and heads with a unisex clothing system. All women seem like lesbian stereotypes.

Link: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4921406

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

so many numbers *_* just so many numbers *_* but damn, turns take an eternity, even on a normal planet, normal difficulty, no "ai has longer to think", maybe it's long enough to make me hate the game instead. not even caveman2cosmos did this to me.

well, it calculates just fine alt-tabbed. as long as i have something else to do...


i have issues with the planet generator. on one hand it is just too random, with same settings giving a planet full of minors one time and without the next one, on the other there's no way to have a satisfying amount of seas, because there's no navy and the only victory condition is total conquest so having more than a continent would make victory impossible. i'm skeptical about this constant "hearts of iron fronts always everywhere", in hoi it works because it's played with huge numbers while this game is definitely built for small scale and its interface shits bricks once just a few higher numbers of anything starts to add one another.


yep, popamoling randoms coming out the fucking walls on the border gets old extremely fast.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

any decent noob guide? because even at normal the computer outproduces me by a tenfold, any random is unkillable (especially animals), fully scouted and preemptively bombarded 10:1 enemies slaughter me and it seems there's no reliable way to earn some cash other than being lucky with random events, and without income i can't gather recruits. same way for building an army, only way to not be instantly crushed seems to be lucky by going full fisting and hoping for free troops. and anyway, soon i'm crushed from all sides by friendlies who declare war anyway and minors with 10 times my army.

 

[dehimos]

DasTactic has Tips and Tricks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BivVweJ5-iA

Steam guides: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1154840/guides/

 

[Beowulf]

any decent noob guide? because even at normal the computer outproduces me by a tenfold, any random is unkillable (especially animals), fully scouted and preemptively bombarded 10:1 enemies slaughter me and it seems there's no reliable way to earn some cash other than being lucky with random events, and without income i can't gather recruits. same way for building an army, only way to not be instantly crushed seems to be lucky by going full fisting and hoping for free troops. and anyway, soon i'm crushed from all sides by friendlies who declare war anyway and minors with 10 times my army.

Apart from what the poster above link you can just read ch. 4 of the manual titled "How to play", that gives a basic overview of the game as well.
Das's series is good, but quite long and that might discourage new players. Besides, he is starting a new series as the one linked is a little outdated (change from push to pull logistic system and airforce are present in the game now, but basic things like combat and unit design stuff remains the same)
There are also some other noob guides like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6UynQsoL8E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gDXsQsmkLg&feature=youtu.be

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

no videos, thank you.

 

[Sranchammer]

Like everything, get the most men to the objective the fastest.

After that, it's all gravy baby.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

For cash do not underestimate trade. You should be able to produce some commodities in large enough numbers to sell en mass (especially rare metals can get you huge sums of credits, but even metal can make you rich if you have enough of it). Research is the key for dealing with minors, since they dont seem to be able to upgrade their shit above the most basic levels. Getting infantry with automatic rifles, or even better a few light tanks should be enough to deal with them. Also Sentinels (Docile AI cards) are great early game boost if you can get them.

BTW minor regimes can get pretty brutal - in my current game launched an invasion of a major next door that was busy waging an inconclusive war with relatively small minor. Once I crossed the border, the major started to redeploy its troops to face me, minor immediately threw its hordes of shit-tier raider infantry and bikers into the mostly undefended areas, took one whole zone and now I actually have to race with them to get to the major´s capital. This minor is now technically the third largest faction in the game after me and the second major that I am friendly with. All of that only because I invaded when I did. This is what I call emergent gameplay.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i get it, but my empire spirals out of control well before i can build some water, some food and then and only then i have to chose between fuel for logistics or metal for troops. randoms are just too powerful, it's rare i can encircle some and starve them to death. and i can do that only if i lack out and get one or two free 20s troops from going fisting.

 

[Van-d-all]

Build scavenging operations ASAP, it's cheap and provides a bit of metal, rare metals and fuel which will eventually stack up, and manually selling rare metals is by far the best source of money early on. The fairly reasonable build order goes something like Scavangning > Industry > MG Infantry Brigade > Farm > Water > Metal mine > Bureaucratic office. Oh and buy 6+ Machines on turn 1, before the price bloats.

BTW the surprisingly good OST is also available here https://tempestforanangel.bandcamp.com/album/shadow-empire-official-soundtrack

 

[AgentFransis]

Just picked this up from the Matrix store. It's actually on 20% discount there right now while being full price on Steam, which is uh, interesting.

Time to dive into the manual (bozhe moy I've read shorter engineering textbooks).

 

[Beowulf]

Weak Brave Codexian militiamen die prevail against Toxic Tigers. Thank god they are a social creature after all.

I was rather lukewarm about the pokemon graphics introduced with the fauna overhaul, but all in all its a nice addition that can wreck both human and AI ruled regimes in the early game. AI seems to be helpless against them, but if not for the recovered GR tech I would also have big troubles dealing with this species.