New Player Qs on mechanics and past-early game.

[DKush]

Hi All,

Just recently got this wonderful game, and am about to spike my third campaign to do the fourth better.

1st - No idea what I was doing, got wiped
2nd - Ran into logistics/resource trouble, got wiped
3rd - Did logistics right, messed up badly building new cities (too far, no production and starvation), but winning battles

So, I have been reading all the posts in the forum, and now have a much more refined logistics, resource, and military plan, but there are still (many!?) rough spots in my basic understanding of the game, particularly about expansion after early game.

1) At what point do you consider building new SHQs? In my 3rd game so far, I am still only using one. (5 zones, ~1000 hexes) Is this a mistake?
2) Is there any consensus about upgrading zones vs keeping them un-upgraded as it pertains to QOL and keeping it reasonable in the empire to avoid issues with low happiness in developing new zones? I presume there must be a solution here as I have much map to conquer, but also lots of difficulty getting new zones to take off.
3) Is it ok to let private interests develop e.g. oil resources (I always take metal/rare metal etc.)? Do these resources need roads to them for private industry to take them?
4) A lot of people mention administrative strain in zones with far flung resources. What exactly is administrative strain and why the six-hex 'rule'? Do these distant resources consume something other than logistic points?

Thanks for your answers, and thanks for a wonderful game!

[Soar_Slitherine]

2) Is there any consensus about upgrading zones vs keeping them un-upgraded as it pertains to QOL and keeping it reasonable in the empire to avoid issues with low happiness in developing new zones? I presume there must be a solution here as I have much map to conquer, but also lots of difficulty getting new zones to take off.

The issue with having high regime average QOL is that it pisses off the workers in undeveloped zones. This makes them harder to recruit and causes them to constantly attempt to go on strike. Some will also quit, but at least unless the happiness is completely bottomed out, it seems to be only a small proportion and not a very significant issue.

The recruitment issue can be addressed simply by recruiting colonists in one of your cities with high QOL and settling them as workers in cities that are in need of more labor. In my current ongoing game, I went for the Democracy and Commerce profiles, so with income from a strong private economy, I've had no issues bribing the workers to stop strikes. Just paying them well can mitigate the happiness hits too, reducing the magnitude of the issue. The Meritocracy option to talk them down may also work if you have a good governor and the population happiness and loyalty are high, I've seen favorable difficulty scores for it in my ongoing game but opted to go for Democracy instead. It may be less preferable to use the Autocracy option to deal with constant strikes as it'll actually tend to kill some of your population... Although maybe the Fear it causes will make them get the hint, I haven't gone for a proper Autocracy playthrough yet.

3) Is it ok to let private interests develop e.g. oil resources (I always take metal/rare metal etc.)?

If a resource is a significant bottleneck for you, and available deposits are limited, you probably don't want the private sector to dig it out from the ground and sell on the market. But if you have plenty of credits to buy resources from the market and one or both of the Free Market and Corporations regime feats from the Commerce profile, they can produce pretty competetively relative to the public sector given that they don't need any extra investment.

Do these resources need roads to them for private industry to take them?

The private economy will automatically construct the roads when it builds the building.

4) A lot of people mention administrative strain in zones with far flung resources. What exactly is administrative strain and why the six-hex 'rule'? Do these distant resources consume something other than logistic points?

If you click the top center button in the zone tab of the bottom bar, you can see the zone's administrative strain on the left. You want to keep it below 10%, as you start to get escalating production penalties above 9%. Buildings within 6 hexes of their city do not contribute to administrative strain. Read manual section 5.3.4. for the full details.

[Destragon]

ORIGINAL: DKush

1) At what point do you consider building new SHQs? In my 3rd game so far, I am still only using one. (5 zones, ~1000 hexes) Is this a mistake?

When you have territory that is cut off from the rest of your territory. Or when you are on a large map and the logistical strain of routing every single supply delivery to your capital starts becomes too large for high level logistics assets.

2) Is there any consensus about upgrading zones vs keeping them un-upgraded as it pertains to QOL and keeping it reasonable in the empire to avoid issues with low happiness in developing new zones? I presume there must be a solution here as I have much map to conquer, but also lots of difficulty getting new zones to take off.

Do you mean city level or city civ score? Upgrade the city level when you want to build bigger levels of assets. Upgrading the civ score comes with a ton of different effects. I think it's worth increasing it, but you can also play by mostly ignoring it.

3) Is it ok to let private interests develop e.g. oil resources (I always take metal/rare metal etc.)? Do these resources need roads to them for private industry to take them?

If you're okay with them taking some of the oil for themselves. I think the private industry gets the resources automatically, but to get your part of the resources they produce you need a road.

4) A lot of people mention administrative strain in zones with far flung resources. What exactly is administrative strain and why the six-hex 'rule'? Do these distant resources consume something other than logistic points?

A city working assets that are farther away than 6 tiles from the main city tile gets a rise in admin strain, which ends up being a productivity malus. You can ctrl+F about it in the manual for more detail.

[DKush]

Thanks both!

[springel]

ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine

If you click the top center button in the zone tab of the bottom bar, you can see the zone's administrative strain on the left. You want to keep it below 10%, as you start to get escalating production penalties above 9%. Buildings within 6 hexes of their city do not contribute to administrative strain. Read manual section 5.3.4. for the full details.

Ah, I was missing a lot of information, not knowing that these fields were buttons that opened new panel content. I wonder what the total number of different information panels in this game is. And not just exotic variations, but public elementary variables that are part of the general game model.

[zgrssd]

2nd - Ran into logistics/resource trouble, got wiped

"Nobody ever learned to play shadow empires without starving his troops at least once!" - Me

1) At what point do you consider building new SHQs? In my 3rd game so far, I am still only using one. (5 zones, ~1000 hexes) Is this a mistake?

Generally I build extra SHQ's precisely never.
As long as you got a solid enough connection between your SHQ and whatever the strategic base for your moving front is, there is no issue if it is on the other side of the planet.
Adding extra SHQ indeed will make managing things a lot harder.

2) Is there any consensus about upgrading zones vs keeping them un-upgraded as it pertains to QOL and keeping it reasonable in the empire to avoid issues with low happiness in developing new zones? I presume there must be a solution here as I have much map to conquer, but also lots of difficulty getting new zones to take off.

No consensus I heard of yet.

Personally I loathe high QOL cities. All it does is raise civilisation level, wich drops your Militia rating faster and make the workers from other cities miffed they do not have the same QOL.
I see a lot of people trying to "fix" happiness issues by increasing QOL, but that is not the right way.

3) Is it ok to let private interests develop e.g. oil resources (I always take metal/rare metal etc.)? Do these resources need roads to them for private industry to take them?

If I do not need Fuel, it is the one thing I alwasy leave the private economy.

Previously I never needed Fuel on planets with hard terrain (as the tanks would just get stuck in mountains anyway). However the introduction of Airforces might change that. I have to see how much fuel I really need. And I might have Biofuel to use instead.