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[EuchreJack]

SIR YES SIR!

20.

Is there anything else you would like to share about Shadow Empire (positive, negative, as you wish!)

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=176612.msg8287946#msg8287946

Planet atmosphere/biosphere/climate doesn't have enough distinct impact on how combat, model design, etc. function from one planet to the wildly-different next one.

[E. Albright]

Of curiosity, has anyone found custom formations that they're significantly fond of? Probably the most satisfying one I've found is Quads + LArmor + Bikes as an independent Cavalry sort of rapid strike formation. Adding Anti-Tank Guns to mechanized RPG units also feels strong, as does tacking Mech-Quad Machineguns to light or medium armored formations...

[EuchreJack]

I'm completely unfamiliar with "custom formations".  Are you referring to the BattleGroups, stacks of units going together into battle, or something else/new?

Recall that NO standard formations use Recon, my personal favorite early game unit, so color me interested!

[E. Albright]

Version 1.08.04 added a decision to customize formations (both independent and OOB) via the Staff council. Basically, it lets you add an extra model type to a formation based on what you know how to build and how big the formation already is. E.g., if you're customizing Independent Recon BN, you could add 1-3 units of another type to it (max of 50% of the current unit size, rounded up). If you added 3 Light Armor, forex, and then further customized THAT formation, you could add 1-4 units of a type other than Quad or Light Armor. A given unit can have up to 5 types in it, including transports, and if you add something that can use transports to a Motorized or Mechanized unit, you automatically get enough transports to cover the new stuff. E.g., if you were customizing a Mechanized AT Gun unit (base of 8 AT Guns and 8 Armored Transports) with RPG troops, you could add 1-8 units of them, and would automatically add 1-8 more Armored Transports as well. The customized units will scale up to RGT/DIV sizes. You can also upgrade base units already in existence to custom formation types that were based on that particular formation.

[Karlito]

I've mostly only done boring stuff, like turning my MG infantry into a knockoff siege grenadier formation, or mix light tanks into a mechanized formation.

[EuchreJack]

You could create authentic Panzergruppe.  You know, Self-Propelled AT guns and semi-motorized infantry!
With one or two Tank & Mechanized infantry being the base formation...

[E. Albright]

Someone said a while back they liked rough starts. Here's one: https://file.io/V88bpY3v3TJD

Started under the latest beta, so bunkers, etc. are in it. Too toxic for farming, but plenty of water. Lots of inedible alien plants and critters (none smart). Middle-of-the-road atmosphere/gravity combo so air power isn't OP. 28% mountains and 8% oceans - logistics will be one of your main enemies. You're surrounded by raiders, marauders, and critters - while there are mutants, sentinels, spiders, and slavers, all those are a bit further out. Only one major so you should be able to do more AI calculation w/o bogging down too much - in retrospect, I'll actually say "spread out start" may have done TOO good of a job here, but I've had too many games where I started right by majors despite it so I took it in stride. 1.4b pre-collapse pop so there are ruins to find, but you're not drowning in them. Oh, and very important - it's redscale plants and oceans. ;p

I'll also add that I've fallen further in love with adding 4xMechMachineguns to Light Armor/Assault Infantry formations. The synergy is outstanding.

And while it's not cost-effective in any way, I have to say I've found it to be immensely satisfying to use SRBMs to nuke a few thousand slavers/mutants/critters when they make the mistake of congregating somewhere that I don't mind irradiating. That's an issue on this planet b/c all of the above are good at slinking back into the copious mountains and being rather tedious to root out, even with aircraft.

[EuchreJack]

Someone said a while back they liked rough starts. Here's one: https://file.io/V88bpY3v3TJD

I almost think that was me...

So, beta.  It's been a while, does that mean that I need to manually install?

[E. Albright]

You might be able to do it via Steam - there's an opt-in "Open Beta" but I don't know if it's up-to-date compared to the purely Matrix one.

On the subject of old conversations, this one being about whether minors get better troops over time, here's the best 3 units from a minor (raider) regime on turn 116 on the above map. Their next-door neighbor has nothing but raider militia, militia bikes/buggies, and irregular tanks/arti/trucks. I really don't get why some minors get so much more advanced units than others over time. For comparison, I also included 2 militia regiments that formed in raider-culture zones I control during the last 20 turns.

Spoiler: High-tech Militia (click to show/hide)

Them:


Us:

[EuchreJack]

Oh, you like interesting starts? Watch what happens when I pick Life Finds a Way and Isolated Outpost:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think the lizards have a pretty good chance of winning that one...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not pictured: The sentient aliens are Reptilians, ergo the lizard joke.

[Mkok]

So I gave this another try after all the updates. Pleasant surprise that long turn times did not seem to be such a problem anymore, and the alien minors are nice as well.  Unfortunately the major AI still seems to be too stupid to pose any challenge as they still give free ground all the time, making it trivial to take their cities. Just form a defensive line, and whenever you can advance for free just do it. In just a few turns doing just that you will be in a position to attack a city from 3+ sides.  I wish the AI was at least smart enough to form a defensive line or something, as it is now there is not even a hint of challenge...

Plus from what I saw majors seem to be struggling a bit with minors as well now...

[E. Albright]

There's a tradeoff b/tw runtimes and stupidity. What setting did you have it on under Prefs->AI Speed?

[Karlito]

It's tactically good in the short term- e.g. withdrawing to prevent flanking attacks is generally a good idea, but it mostly lacks the ability to think long-term. I'd recommend Mkok turn up the overall difficulty, since without materiel superiority that trick will work a lot less well.

[Mkok]

I play only on extreme. This time I had fast AI, but the same issue was there few versions back even on the slowest AI.

Maybe, but withdrawing when there is nowhere to be flanked unless enemy punches through your lines? I dont ask why it does it, all I know is it lets you surround cities basically for free making it real easy to defeat. Though I guess now that unification is no longer broken it might no longer be so easy to defeat nemesis by turn 30...

AI material superiority does not matter, does not matter if AI is retreating with double your army size or triple, zero times anything is still zero. All that matters is you can establish a defensive line + few units extra to grab that free land, which is very easy to do even early on. And then you just want few tanks to take that city. In my last game AI had more troops than me, and better tech, yet it was still retreating allowing me to make it half way to their city with no fights in less then 5 turns. Also note that I was not the one who started that war, though I did have 6 units in the area in case they invaded.


edit:
So I gave it another try, extreme difficulty, medium lava world with harsh resolution war setting, gave the AI more time to think. Currently have been in a war with a major who has 1 tech lvl more than me for some time now. Still have to see any resemblance of a battle line from them, they keep doing nothing but retreating, giving me free land, and their army composition is just criminally terrible. We have both had laser rifles and heavy battlesuit researched for quite a while, but 90 percent of enemy army is still heavy armor charged gauss infantry (with the odd one with laser rifle and heavy battlesuit mixed in), only a few artillery and less then 100 tanks mixed in. And those tanks are still using steel armor, so there is absolutely nothing to even challenge my small group of terribly designed light tanks with 50mm armor and 60mm gun that are steamrolling the enemy. And once again, I was not the one who started the war, the entire army I am fighting with did not even exist when I was DOWed upon, and it cost me no more then a single turn of resource production (not counting the useless thousands of robotic infantry that for some reason are mandatory in every single infantry oob, those cost 10 turns of high-tech production). But once again I must say the dev did a very good job with turn times, I was afraid with slower AI it would be unplayable once again, but it was not so. Now just to make the AI at least somewhat capable to provide at least some kind of challenge and we will have a real gem of a game here

[E. Albright]

IDK if anyone would be interested, but I generated a reasonably interesting setup on the latest beta version. Hard, lvl 4 normal tech speed. 2.5b pop, fragmented dissolution, good xenoag on a large Seth-class w/water-peroxide-based forests, escarpments, and canyons in a cherry-blossom color palate. Slightly thin atmosphere plus slightly high grav means air power will be slow to develop. Surrounded by mostly raiders but also some sentinels, slavers, and wildlife (though the latter isn't particularly bad compared to the nonsense I normally end up with). Main attraction IMO is the geography - there's some neat stuff going on with that. I mean, yes, okay, I also am a big fan of this color of planet - I think it's the least common one - but there's more than just a pretty landscape!

Spoiler: But still, it IS pretty... (click to show/hide)

Anyway, if anyone is interested, here's the starting save: https://file.io/jmdU3mA22Rr5