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[nautilu]

Odds are unreliable. I have won on 1:1 odds when they are surrounded, I have arty and they dont, or some other hard hitting unit. I guess it makes sense that a city is heavily fortified. I should of taken their peace offer. I love the AI in this game. It makes logical decisions. I was afraid that the majors would just steamroll me when they found me. If Im bigger then they try to make peace.

I had a game yesterday where I made peace and inherited every minor except arachs and AI. So I got slavers, raiders and farmers. Its super annoying that minors dont need resources because my armies increased by 6 times but my food didnt. Desert worlds seam easiest. If you get the right neighbors you can win.
I played an earth world and was wrecked by farmers. I didnt know they would take half my territory and towns. Never happened before. Also, when the slavers got me down to a single hex, my economy was doing fine.

I wish the advanced tech start didnt give you bigger territory. Its hard to defend.

[Shooer]

Unless you have 400/400 Recon on the hex the odds are 100% a guess.

It's pretty fine at 200, good at 100.  It's representing that you don't know what's there and have to guess.  I'm wary of attacking below 100 recon, had 1 to many surprises.

Add to that with low recon you don't know their readiness or entrenchment.  Those two have a HUGE factor in battle.
Had 30 Recon on a tile, said 1.2 to 1 chance, got it to 46, said 1.3, got it to 130 when the recon buggies drove by and changed to 12 to 1 since I now had an idea of what was there.


I've destroyed armies that out numbered mine by just shoving them onto the back foot with artillery and never relenting with the attacks for several turns.  Eventually I could send in 50 light tanks and watch them run over hundreds of infantry and routing the remaining thousands.  Cutting them off from supply also helped.  Of course cutting supply doesn't help fight minors.

Also the odds aren't the rolls you are going to get, just a guess.  The battle is still a bunch of dice rolls, and even at a 99/100 chance, that 1 can still be rolled.

[nautilu]

All in all its a great game. The developer said he had to take some short cuts on some things but its still unique. He's still working on adding things. I would willingly pay for an expansion pack or a part 2. More options, an air force and a navy would be great. It already does army combat better than anything else Ive ever played in 20 years.

[Dostoevsky]

Agreed, generally speaking. Not perfect by any means, but it's the first completed attempt in a long while (I'm aware of, at least) to combine fully-fledged 4X and wargame genres in a randomized map to boot. It's nice to have the time limits for campaigns be organic from the 4x context instead of a semi-arbitrary turnclock; I get the point of them, but they've always turned me off from most of the classic wargames.

Taking a look at the recent set of beta patchnotes it looks like the dev might be making some significant changes to logistics. They're not final yet (and are currently in a fair amount of back-and-forth on the Matrix forums), but a combination of nerfing roads/trucks (a lot), trains (a fair bit), and causing degradation of points over the course of multiple branches from a 'root' line. The dev is also debating making road costs matter more (i.e. at all) for AI to reduce spaghetti roads in major AI territory.

Oh, and there's a tool to remove roads, which will definitely help in dealing with major AI territory once it's taken over.

A side/intended effect of these logistics changes are to cut down significantly on turn times as logistics calculations become less drawn out.

On the whole not sure how I feel about the proposed branch change, but otherwise I think it's a decent move.

[nautilu]

It def needs a lot of polish. Maybe the dev should make free towns produce their own logistics points that get added to a connected road line, just like in Supreme Ruler.

[E. Albright]

Update appears to allow significantly larger pre-Dissolution populations. E.g., I rolled a 3.1b (okay, not THAT huge) pop on a planet that had been settled for 2100y (!!!).

Sidenote: finally got another world with raider cavalry, but the weird thing was that these biped riders were on a Limos-class world with (obviously) no native life...

[Knave]

Yes seems like they've released the beta updates into the 1.04 branch

You can download the update by either clicking the Check for Update button on the launcher or downloading it from your My Page (https://www.matrixgames.com/member/downloads/shadow-empire)

Changes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-Fixed the glitch where a Regime was getting like 10x the Rebel Unit per turn. Was caused by faulty duplicate regime records. Is fixed. And running games will be fixed as well (for future turns of course)
-Fixed a glitch with Red Hex Border Marker being shown in normal Map mode where you were attacked by non-aligned in the previous turn.
-Fixed glitch in Unit target selection in the Stratagem Tab where some people could not click the last item in the list.
-Fixed Upgrade/Downgrade bug concerning MG Infantry Brigade/Corps/Army *
-Multi Zone start has received plenty of extra checks to favorise the Zones being close. Having Zones without rail/road between them should be near impossible now. (and was already very rare)
-Fixed a glitch with BP above 100 in 1 task being capped in the wrong way. You can now effectively assign more than 100 BP to a single task.
-Fixed some glitches in the Org Task Progress Reports
-Tuned down the Resign exploit.. Now costs 3PP to resign and the maximum relation gain is +1.
-The Ancient Archive Stratagem now can also give you Techs from the Tech Groups you do not yet have access to, but that have a connection with a Tech Group you do. More powerful again now after previous downtune.
-Forced March Posture now only -10% readiness instead of -20%. *
-Fixed the graphic for forested mountain that did not colorize well with different vegetation colours (due to color of sunlight and type of flora).
-Fixed the faulty divisional nato counter with X symbol for one with XX symbol.
-Fixed processing turn crash due to Leader leaving a Cult
-Fixed some minor text glitches with -1 hex name for treasure and “” for job name.
-Fixed correct % display (or rounds feat still needs to be highest) for gain Regime Feat in Management Screen
-Fixed logging glitch on round 1 with Unit Food consumption
-Fixed a crash opening the OOB Tab
-Fixed nasty bug with cancellation of Model Design causing the next version to be based on a phantom Model (that was cancelled)
-Fixed a Model stat calculation bug that was not properly reading the actual Base Design value resulting in too low Armour,Weapon and Engine Design scores.
-Fixed the weird history bugs with Orange counters and some disappearing units (especially after just loading a game)
-Fixed Mountain % count in final Planetary Generation report (it was not counting grassy/forested and snowy mountain hexes)
-Fixed preview of Fuel use in Model Designer
-At Recon Level 5 on a Zone you now get to see its neighbouring Zones (1 hex recon point on Zone’s border Hexes added)
-Road Demolition now also clears Traffic signs
-Fixed again the New Model calculations. It was working almost as intended but Engine/Weapon/Armour Design was not using an earlier higher score if it had a low roll. Fixed this now. *
-Secretary can now be paid a salary too
-Did some QA on the mouse overs of the Diplomatic Stratagems *
-Fixed an issue with Regimes without Leaders and Units appearing. I think this appeared in v1.03-beta1. Good we catch this before the patch goes public Should be working as intended again with this version. *
-Fixed issue with recon glitch on enemy City
-Fixed a rule that never properly worked: Other Regime’s Cities are nos showing up with 1 Recon on Hex if they are within range 4 of your Hexes. This is because they block founding of new City/Zone within that distance.
-Fixed Archeology Stratagem *
-Fixed issue with Rebels getting victim to their own earlier rebels manpower still present in conquered Zone
-Fixed a minor glitch in the Colonization History.. Low rain was causing excessively little natural Pop growth.*
-Fixed a rare crash with “Strat” button on Regime bottom pane.
-Fixed glitch with Task priority sliders not doing exactly what they were supposed to do.
-Sped up some start of turn calculations (notably players with high stratagem count where being slowed down)
-Cult membership should go back to max 100%
-Fixed governor keeping to many reserves for construction of asset that is already partly finished.
-Fixed the Soldier salary setting decision that I broke in beta-2.
-Fixed faulty presence of 2 Bureaucratic Offices (constr finished of course) in same City… delete lowest on game load.
-Also fixed cause of those 2 bureaucratic offices. If you now conquer as Command Bunker/HQ/Palace it will only become a bureaucratic office if none yet present or level is higher and in that latter case it will replace the bureaucratic office.
-Fixed bug caused by clicking on Hide Units and then clicking on a Subunit of a previously already selected Unit
-Fixed a glitch i caused yesterday with 103-beta3 concerning the Stratagem speed-up.. It was to brutal and caused issues, seems especially in multiplayer games. Fixed now.. Including for running games. This might lead to some Stratagem loss in some cases though.
-Fixed glitch with Skill Log report with Admin Roll for Supreme Command Council *
-Fixed glitch with execution of Archeology Stratagem
-Fixed max-stack preview in battle window to always being minimal 100
-Fixed a logging issue where Leader suffered two relation effects but only one was logged
-Fixed glitch with text in CEO asks for tax reduction
-Fixed issue with Stratagem Categories not being selectable if player had more than 1000 stratagems.
-Fixed a number of minor issues in layout, list sorting, spelling
-Fixed some extreme case layout issues in the combat select window (not perfect yet, but at least not overflowing)
-Fixed glitch where you could use Group Move to enter territory of other Regime without declaring war
-Fixed a miss calculation with AdminStrain with delegated Assets
-Profiled a bit the Logistics Calculations (but still more needs to be done here)
-Profiled a bit the Scripting Interpreting Calcs
-Did some other profiling to improve turn speed as well
-Fixed issue with Windows Form not using correct mouse location (if you play in Windowed mode please check i didn’t actually break anything)
-Avoided crash in Windowed Mode if size of window and DPI would result in game below minimum screen size
-Fixed glitch with too high militia numbers (glitch occurred on higher difficulty settings mostly)
-Fixed broken “Supreme Leader Day” Stratagem. *
-Concerning Rail Logistics. The quickest route between two Rail capable Cities now takes into account All/100% Block Traffic Signs.
-Added “Unification” and “Annexation” Minor Dip Stratagems
-Fixed CAS for a Minor that joins you. It should start at 0.
-Fixed the mess caused in Stratagems (causing crashes) in v1.03-beta3. You might lose some Stratagems or have some weird swaps due to this however, but it should allow you to continue game.
-Think i might have fixed for good (ehem..) the varying and semi-random history map glitches in the AI moves screen (orange units glitch)
-Think i fixed the weird results with the 8-9 keys and Units going to Guard mode without being told so. It was probably an integer overflow issue that is fixed now.
-Tuned down the Fuel Cost quit a bit for the heavier engines in big size models *
-Added in an AI loyalty to a high relation with another Regime. It is partly depended on victory score difference and a little randomness,, but mostly on the Faction in power in the AI Regime. Expansionist,Corporate and Crusaders have low loyalty. Federalist, Realpolitik and Humanist have high loyalty. This should allow for some more enduring relations with major AIs. But never be sure of it of course! *
-Fixed scripting glitch (not sure if introduced with v1.03-beta5 scripting profiling, but probably) with faulty calculations of Credits (and some other formulas)
-Fixed weighting errors in events with Major Regimes causing some that should have appeared less to appear more. *
-Tech Fields that are missing a prerequisite condition for discovery are no longer shown as discoverable in the Tech Management Window
-Fixed glitch with lowering / hiring Worker salaries. You are not advised to exploit here again.
-Fixed Model Type Tree in Management window correctly showing Walkers need Heavy Tank, and not Medium Tank
-You can now play non-agression/friendship/victory pact on Human players as well *
-Major AI at war even if it doesnt want to be at odds with you will now start cancelling science and trade deals anyway ( if those are still in place) *
-Effect of multiple Leader Feats on same Stat or Skill is now actually shown in the Char Popup.
-Fixed small textual glitch in Senator Extradite Decision *
-Fixed a faulty concentric attack bonus calculation when HQ itself was involved.
-Added a special soundtrack for the Planet Generation phase
-Replaced the 4th women voices who where to shrill sometimes. It hurt the ears so to speak.
-Number of fine-tunings to decisions. Minor stuff. But needed a small fix here and there anyway. *
-Fixed glitch with 0 BP assigned to Task in Org
-Fixed nomenclatura with a bonus, now called “Public Industrial Bonus” and applies only to Industry, Heavy Industry and Hi-Tech Industry. *
-Public Prod Penalty now has a round of delay so it is always used.
-Fixed Public Prod Penalty not writing with Cult effects
-Fixed a glitched Report due to temporary no secretary
-Now no longer Asset Construction on a Hex that got conquered the same turn (just like those are illegal for road construction)
-Fixed a lot of non fully written out (user friendly) variables in mouse-overs
-You can no longer build HS Rail Station and Rail Station in the same Hex *
-Fixed wrong graphic for HS Rail higher than level I *
-Secretary Skill Roll -25 now shown when playing Stratagems
-Fixed a glitch with some Diplomatic Decisions where 1 Profile change was not applied
-Made some modifications to the Planet Generation system to allow Planets with larger pre-Dissolution War populations.
-Removed the faulty mouse overs caused with v1.03-beta7
-Fixed an AI loop (caused by glitch in raise formation code)
-Fixed a glitch where having a minor as Protectorate or Client state didn’t actually switch the Clear Relation switch *
-Fixed a glitch where failing annexation would NOT lead to war*
-Fixed graphics glitch with Hex Selected with Zone border drawing.
-Fixed losing SHQ if you used it for attack
-Less often sending metrics on Decisions (getting to much records)
-Light Walker now uses Twin MG instead of Howitzer as a weapon type *
-SHQ Troops now properly taken into account for determining % of troops you can raise with Raise Formation order.
-You can now always get to the second window of Raise Formation, even if you dont seem to have 50%. (maybe a different Model will have lower costs for example)
-Weird highlighted hexes fixed in Strategic/Stratagem mini map when playing with Partial FOW mode
-Some other glitches with Partial FOW mode fixed as well
-Fixed for good the Unit cycling issues
-Fixed glitch with disappearing Artifacts after turn of 0 production
-Fixed log glitches with Cults
-Reduced publicProdPenalty from Eternity Movement
-Fixed missing robotic infantry sprites (with armour)
-Some minor tunings
-After the 4th branching (not counting the source) logistics “runners” will suffer AP penalties (5th branch=10 ap, 6h = 40, 7th=90, 8th=160,etc..).
-Improved the speed of the Logistics calculations a lot.
-Rail Logistics => 5pts per Hex * (instead of 2)
-Truck Logistics on Sealed => 7pts per Hex * (instead of 5)
-Increased speed of Logistics calculations a lot
-Increased speed of opening Asset Tab in Management Screen quite a bit
-Annexation/Unification card can be only played once on a regime per turn now *
-Fixed wrong mouse over on Word with Policy speech
-Fixed Field Training Stratagem giving wrong penalty to infantry in attack *
-Medal of Merit can be played by Director on him/her self.
-Move Type of Unit (as shown, there was now actual rule problem) now based on “Rocky” landscape and not on sand-dunes. (go to next turn for fix to be effected)
-Fixed the sprite displayed on counters in some cases
-Fixed crash on clicking on non-existing arti target hex and then clicking in the bottom interface
-Fixed a similar crash as with artillery with Strategic Transfer
-Fixed order of Zone Recon Points => Recon Points on Hex to an earlier point so that it is taken along in Demand resolution
-Light Mechanized Armor Assault Corps is back * (Army and Brigade were there, but not the Corps)
-Missing soldier graphic with Personal Shield is fixed *
-Multiple artifacts no longer the same ones
-Fixed a glitch where Infantry with Personal Shield would retreat if no non-shielded compatriots left (a rule that should only applies to Shield Generator)
-Administrative Strain will decline a bit faster
-Tuned down the effect of Thieves a bit. Also made all 3 decisions lead to Credits loss here (the non intervention led to food loss). Also taking number of Zones in Regime into account in calculation now.
-Added protection for Draft Stratagems, now only usable at minimum 10 point loyalty Zones.
-Hid some exposed variable changes when making decision concerning internal ai variables.
-Finetuned the old Militia General event
-Fixed branching count being off by 1
-Added branching count to logs
-Logistics Rail Points increased a little bit
-Logistics Trucks Points decreased quite a lot
-Level III Private Transport Hub increased Truck Points
-Rail Points cost to 4 AP (was 5AP in beta-10)
-No longer Demands for QOL levels above 100
-Fixed not completely fixed Hex Count for Demands
-Fixed glitch with not having PP to raise Formation
-Fixed minor textual glitch with nomenclatura Public Industrial Bonus Points
-Fixed a minor -1 Lis Points textual glitch in Raise Formation
-Fixed a glitch if OHQ got destroyed/removed that needed Commander
-Improved AI Logistics speed
-Tuned the branching rule for Logistics to have less effect if Traffic Signs in place.
-Fixed harassed by Anima cult relation drops
-Fixed Hex Perk not giving 1PP
-Fixed limit to 80 of Pop Hap. Bonus not being enforced
-Minor glitch in minor strike return text fixed (inv)20% unrest instead of10%.*
-Support Faction and Ask for Help now can only be played once as well on any Major (per round)
-Delay for Militia to use your equipment was not properly taking the 30 round delay into account. Is fixed.
-Militia units will no longer consider your Model motorbikes as infantry.
-Counter attacks limited in combat calculations
-Scavenge Points will now more easily go to zero in final exploitation phase
-Governors now only execute Zone Stratagems that were not generated by an Organisation (Fate, Faction)
-Fixed some regime coloring issues/glitches in history view
-Weird centering of history view should be gone now
-Added security code to avoid the rare “Atlantis” issue (city in sea)
-Fixed Minors (that normally have a City) being removed after single City loss still survive in non-City Zone. Now they only survive if they have a second Zone with a City, a Zone-less City does not count.
-Fixed wrong mining penalty textual issue for Mines on snow/ice hexes.

*=needs player to start new game to go into effect

Those Raider calvary must be non-nnative! Brought to the planet like the arachnids

[Karlito]

Alright, eager to see how the logistics changes destroy my empire when I load the save.

EDIT: actually only seeing a minor decrease in throughput in the more distant cities.

[E. Albright]

Playing on a new world whose logistics network has yet to be developed, I really feel the logistics changes.

[EuchreJack]

Can somebody explain the logistics changes?  While everyone complained about the old logistics system, at least I could reasonably understand it.  I'm afraid these "changes" have broken that.

Also, I've been watching a lot of Star Trek and Stargate SG-1 lately.  Wow, they really lucked out, compared to the worlds usually generated on Shadow Empire.  Basically take the number of worlds where the intrepid landing party had to wear environmental suits compared to the total and invert the percentage to get your Shadow Empire world percentage...

[Il Palazzo]

I think it's mostly just shorter ranges for trucks (and trains?), and that thing with intersections causing extra drop in logistic points. So I guess just build your logistic network more densely and clean up any unnecessary road gore.

[lemon10]

Can somebody explain the logistics changes?  While everyone complained about the old logistics system, at least I could reasonably understand it.  I'm afraid these "changes" have broken that.

Also, I've been watching a lot of Star Trek and Stargate SG-1 lately.  Wow, they really lucked out, compared to the worlds usually generated on Shadow Empire.  Basically take the number of worlds where the intrepid landing party had to wear environmental suits compared to the total and invert the percentage to get your Shadow Empire world percentage...

To some extent it seems like the Shadow Empire people just care less about their new homes not being horrible.
Like if they find a world with no significant useful natural resources, no native life AND a toxic atmosphere they just plop down cities and go "Whelp, guess we can turn this entire planet into a giant paperwork factory".

Whereas in star trek or star wars or (presumably) SG-1 they just uh... leave that barren hellscape alone and go colonize other places that have actual value?

[Hanzoku]

Yeah, that's sort of my problem with this game - outside pressing emergencies, I can't see humans bothering to colonize 90%+ of the uninhabitable hellholes that the game generates. The worlds with significant natural resources I could see them plopping down remote mining centers, but there would be no significant human presence because the planet is so inimical to life.

Basically I was expecting more Mars/Titan barren worlds where technologically advanced survival is possible, and less Venus/Mercury with bonus murderous alien swarms.

[Majestic7]

There might be military or political reasons to colonize worlds that would be useless otherwise. Alternatively, maybe they were in the process of being terraformed or something. Still, it would be nice to get a reason for the colonization in the planet generator.

[E. Albright]

We're introducing some bias here - we get to pick what hellholes get generated, and TBH barren planets with little or no atmosphere aren't terribly interesting. In principle, I'd assume most of the Galactic Republic was Limos, etc. and the reason we see 3b people crammed into domes under sulfuric acid rain while 23m tetrapods rampage through the surrounding toxic jungle... is because we kept rolling new worlds until we got that abomination.

I'd add, though, that Liquid Energy seemed a bit nebulous in the fluff (though perhaps I've just forgotten what sort of phlebotinum it is), so perhaps all these vicious hellscapes formerly produced the junk before everyone forgot how to make it.