mmmm....I think your trying to attain 100% understanding when only 70 to 80% is actually required to effectively play the game.
Could the supply system be more transparent and better articulated - yes....
Does that make the game unplayable?? in my opinion no.
With say an 80% understanding of how the supply system works can you play the game well?? I think yes....
working 10yrs in an engineering consultancy Ive meet many professional engineers who simply cant function without 100% reliable data - however that really exists out side of a university setting.
Just try and let go of the need for 100% conceptual understanding and go with the flow....youd enjoy the experience much more.....
This...
This...
As an engineer [;)], I tried VERY hard early on to fully understand the logistical system and know in detail the requirements of each branch of the net. It was very frustrating. Then, I just let go and started playing by intuition and it became MUCH more enjoyable. Sometimes I get into a bit of logistic trouble, but for the vast majority of situations, after gaining a lot of experience, you can run the system by gut-feel. I've been playing since day-one of the original release, and I'm still hazy on some of the underlying systems of this game.
Hey! I am an engineer, too. There seems to be a trend...
Total understanding is not necessary, but when the supply system cripples you and you cannot figure out why, that bothers me. Often it is lack of people or a resource that creates a cascade of failures throughout the economy, but sometimes I have had a surplus of all assets only to see things fall apart. Sometimes you get too many troops dependent on one railhead or truck point for it to handle. But sometimes nothing makes sense.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.-Edmund Burke
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; if it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.-Judge Learned Hand
Hey! I am an engineer, too. There seems to be a trend...
Total understanding is not necessary, but when the supply system cripples you and you cannot figure out why, that bothers me. Often it is lack of people or a resource that creates a cascade of failures throughout the economy, but sometimes I have had a surplus of all assets only to see things fall apart. Sometimes you get too many troops dependent on one railhead or truck point for it to handle. But sometimes nothing makes sense.
Agreed - all of that does happen from time to time, and it is usually difficult to predict or diagnose. For me, however, catastrophic logistic events seem to happen less often than they use to. Maybe that because I'm getting better at intuiting logistic needs, or maybe I've just been lucky walking blindfolded along the cliff-edge. I hope it's the former; it's probably the latter [X(].
I think GazBot's post about only needing 80% knowledge of how the Logistics system works to get enjoyment from the game is spot-on. I think that is about where my knowledge is with the game and that is enough to do a basic analysis when things go wrong and if something doesn't make sense have a bit of a guess as to what to do.
Much of the early advice about how to min-max the logistics in the game is no longer relevant - things like building truck stations one-hex outside for example. That used to be viable but not for a long time now. I tend to play with the Current Points (L key) turned on for much of the time and that is usually enough to see when things are getting tight. I make sure I'm building way more logistics than I need as well. And if things go wrong that I can't analyse I just pull back the gas-guzzlers close to the logistic flow and expect to sit and wait for a few turns.
If it helps, I'm currently streaming Shadow Empire live on my twitch channel most days (probably for the next few days) at about the time this post is going up. Much of the time is answering questions and it is great having so many of the community in there as well to also help explain things. A very collegial atmosphere. twitch.tv/dastactic The game in there is currently getting to a stage where the logistics will start to become a potential issue.
I haven't been war-gaming for as long as most of you it seems. I started with Afrika Corps (and fell in love with its logistics system) about 40 years ago.
Hey Das! Am really looking forward to seeing some of the new content you will be churning out in the forthcoming months ... say around March or so .
I have had an interest in Shadow empire as well ... to be honest I think the logistics is very over complicated and buggy to be honest. There have been so many changes to address issues; it is a design nightmare lol. I did produce a problem with logistics not making sense in a very controlled early game situation with truck station's cargo hubs (can't remember the proper name) ... in particular this thread (though my pics seem to have been edited out ? Or maybe I have the wrong thread lol)
Sad. As I said, in my opinion this is one of those situations where the developer simply went too far and managed to take the fun out of the game.
I agree the logistics is a problem but, and it does border the frustration flipping point. But to say the game is no fun because of it just tells me you are fighting the urge to play the fun game because of that one frustration. But I do concure with the sentiment - I really wish that one thing would be more explainable .
I have to say, I just really love it when people talk about how one way to beat the problems with the logistics is to locate the railway station or the railhead in the hex immediately outside your second or third city.
I have honestly no clear idea why people keep saying that "one hex outside the city" part.
All it does is make truck logistics work hard, to get stuff too and from the railway. You are actively negating the very purpose of a rail connection. Which is to stop using Truck logistics for intercity transfers.
This might be about a later highspeed rail upgrade, but why worry about that if you have issues even getting Rail to work at all?
Hmm, without building outside of city, how can we upgrade rail to high speed then ? Disband and rebuild would take too much time and lost logistics I assume.
That is the problem. I have thought that the solution for existing stations would be to make high speed a regular station upgrade that takes effect only on rail sections that have had new, high speed rail laid over the old rail.For new stations, just start with high speed and lay high speed track. Yeah, my idea requires a new level of track, kind of like dirt road to sealed road.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.-Edmund Burke
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; if it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.-Judge Learned Hand
JohnSiv wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:18 pm
I have just pushed the delete button on my Shadow Empire "saved games" at the 12th unsuccessful try at playing the game to conclusion...after probably 150 total hours or more of play.
I had no trouble playing my first game to conclusion in what was probably 20ish hours. I didn't win, but I had no issue reaching the end. Get good? That's the best advice I have.
Just try and let go of the need for 100% conceptual understanding and go with the flow....youd enjoy the experience much more.....
I agree with this. I am on my 6th try at playing the game and "already" have the feeling of having understood enough to play the game and have the enjoyment I expected with it.
I might add, that in the real world nodody understands 100% of the mechanics of anything. Everyone is thrown into situations with unknown variables all the time.
Also. Part of the feeling of Shadow Empire I guess, is the oldschool feeling of early video games. Back in the days it was normal that at first you had to find out how to play the game. Some games, I NEVER found out how to play at all. But that is an extreme case. One reason for this aspect was, that each single game was sufficiently innovative, that you could not fit it into a genre-x. Todays games are obviously so dumbed down, that a monkey could play them.
Anyways, I think the game is not ruined.
Imagin you are a real administrator of a real Empire. OBVUOUSLY you will encounter situations where everything goes to shit for no apparent reason. This should not kill your immersion. To the contrary!
I've never lost a game since the game's release. In fact, I'm not sure it's possible to lose. Somewhere in the deep old posts here is an AAR where I was pushed (due to revolts) into a single city hex. I then fought back to clear the map. Players quit, they don't lose.
Others have said it repeatedly here, with respect to logistics, don't miss the forest for the trees.
Anyone who thinks SE logistics is more complicated than old hex-counter wargames is welcome to join some of my friends in an OCS series title sometime (from MMP). Case Blue and DAK2 are waiting for you.
Nicht kleckern, sondern klotzen!
*Please remember all posts are made by a malevolent, autocratic despot whose rule is marked by unjust severity and arbitrary behavior. Your experiences may vary.
Malevolence wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 6:43 am
I've never lost a game since the game's release. In fact, I'm not sure it's possible to lose. Somewhere in the deep old posts here is an AAR where I was pushed (due to revolts) into a single city hex. I then fought back to clear the map. Players quit, they don't lose.
Others have said it repeatedly here, with respect to logistics, don't miss the forest for the trees.
Anyone who thinks SE logistics is more complicated than old hex-counter wargames is welcome to join some of my friends in an OCS series title sometime (from MMP). Case Blue and DAK2 are waiting for you.
There is no question that SE logistics have unessesary difficulty.
No idea what those games are, but they are propably from the last century
We realy can do better in 2022.
I'm probably pushing 600 hours in Shadow Empire now and I still haven't a clue how the Pull system works, despite some genuine efforts to try to understand exactly what it's doing. It has a mind of it's own, and I've put it into the same category of technology as I do printers and networking stuff: powered by a broken mix of 1960s technology and voodoo magic.
But as others have said, you don't need to know the exact algorithms to be able to play it to a high level. I actually like that it's obscure: I get bored of games fast once I know exactly how they work so I actively avoid sitting down and doing maths and play instead. I also take some sadistic pleasure in knowing it pisses off the min-maxers that they can't figure it out either
KingHalford wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:32 pm
I'm probably pushing 600 hours in Shadow Empire now and I still haven't a clue how the Pull system works, despite some genuine efforts to try to understand exactly what it's doing. It has a mind of it's own, and I've put it into the same category of technology as I do printers and networking stuff: powered by a broken mix of 1960s technology and voodoo magic.
But as others have said, you don't need to know the exact algorithms to be able to play it to a high level. I actually like that it's obscure: I get bored of games fast once I know exactly how they work so I actively avoid sitting down and doing maths and play instead. I also take some sadistic pleasure in knowing it pisses off the min-maxers that they can't figure it out either
What is there not to "get" about the pull system?
Consumers of Logistics put pull points into the system. Those points travel to the SHQ the consumer is assigned to uisng the road network.
When deciding how to split Logistics points at any crossing, Pull Points are fullfilled first. Then the normal equal split happens.
Your description is like me asking for a formula for integral calculus and you replying with a summary of what integral calculus does instead of how it does it.
I know what it does and how it's supposed to work, that much is in the manual, but the results you get from making changes to it do not reflect that. For example, I've seen it where you can set custom pull points to a specific hex and it'll actually increase the the amount of available logistics points available in prior hexes where that is both completely counter intuitive and contrary to what I'm trying to do. That's just one example of a dozen or more issues I've found with Pull.
I was playing Shadow Empire quite a few years back and stopped when I found the manual was out-of-date. This was because the game would give me a goal but I couldn't logically work out how I might meet that goal or how quickly it would take. I would consult the manual and after doing calculations and posting on the forum I'd discover the manual was simply wrong. As I hadn't played Vic style games before, I had no clue what the conventions or unwritten guides to design were. Simply 'going with the flow' meant I was just clicking to music and to be blunt, I can just put the soundtrack on and skip the clicking bit for the same effect.
I believe that Vic likes to make games where the numbers are more an aid to creating a pattern, a feeling or an instinct, than they are meant to be an input to your turn-to-turn calculations. It seems plausible he thinks its a worthwhile way to spend your time and as people have said, there are a lot of times in life where being able to make decisions based on how 'it feels' is helpful and even necessary. I don't begrudge a game designer having his own creative desires manifest in his game. After all, he did make it.
What I would like to say is this: Vic, I think I could enjoy this kind of thing, but it just is too much work to catch up from a zero start.
I don't have time to work it out by wrote. There are far too many commitments that stop me from treating a game like work. I need the ability to read and see what the numbers are doing, at least in some sort of training mode, so I can get an idea of how the system works. When I have some idea, especially of what is and isn't possible, then I can enjoy a system that is more opaque.
In Ardennes Offensive I couldn't get into it at all until I turned the fog of war off and observed what my actions were doing or not doing. Then I could play with fog of war on and have some notion of how to achieve each mission's goals. It became fun and I could take time to enjoy the emotions and patterns of the game.
This is just a practical kind of feedback. I'm not angry or having a go at you. I just can't afford the time to reverse-engineer such a specific and particular design approach. I enjoy that this game isn't 'just like all the others' and enjoy the complexity. However, after reading through and playing DC3, DC4 and even touching Advanced Tactics to try and get up to speed, I just ran out of puff and had to stop.
I am the guy who started this post nearly three months ago and I initially wondered whether it would get any response at all. It is fascinating to see the variety of the responses.
As I indicated in my initial post, I have been involved in war gaming since around 1961. Throughout that period, I have always enjoyed seeing the various reactions which veteran wargamers have had towards games and how those reactions seem to reflect upon the apparent success or failure of the game designer.
Here there has been a range of responses which reflect the diversity of the gaming community. You have the guys who say “I have never lost a game”, the ones who say “I don’t fully understand it but I enjoy it anyway”, the ones who play and yet very much desire more transparency and logic in the system and the few who say “we understand it well enough, why do other people have a problem”. (I deeply paraphrase here, don’t get defensive).
Clearly this design is successful for it has created many advocates. It certainly can be differentiated from those games that I have seen in the past as to which pretty much everyone concludes that it was a total design failure. Note, as an aside, that the success or failure of a design has nothing to do with whether you win every time you play it. Instead it has everything to do with the challenges that you perceive and the enjoyment that you obtain irrespective of whether you go down to humiliating defeat each time (as I seem to do in this designer’s truly excellent Barbarossa).
At the same time, I guess I represent another side of that diversity. In most games, when I screw up, I can pretty much figure out what I did wrong and learn from it and that is a big part of the enjoyment for me. For me, that is not the case with this game. I can pretty much try to study what I did but I find that there is, in my opinion, little to be learned from that study. At various points, the logistics part of the game just seems to suddenly break down for no obvious reason and that is not a satisfactory circumstance.
I respect those of you who believe that you do understand the logistical system as well as those who say that you enjoy just plugging on even though the underlying system disturbs you as well as those of you who say “life is filled with uncertainties and breakdowns” and assert that this is part of the challenge. More power to you….but I expect more from a game designer and I grow disinterested when I come to believe that I am dealing with “flaws” rather than “features”.
It is an interesting game design but, ultimately, it does not work for me. The good news is that, unlike the days when Avalon Hill brought out Waterloo (1965?) and Guadalcanal (1966?) - each a total failure when there were only 3 or 4 other games - there are now literally dozens of great alternatives out there. All the best to each of you and it was wonderful reading your responses.
KingHalford wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:48 pm
Your description is like me asking for a formula for integral calculus and you replying with a summary of what integral calculus does instead of how it does it.
I know what it does and how it's supposed to work, that much is in the manual, but the results you get from making changes to it do not reflect that. For example, I've seen it where you can set custom pull points to a specific hex and it'll actually increase the the amount of available logistics points available in prior hexes where that is both completely counter intuitive and contrary to what I'm trying to do. That's just one example of a dozen or more issues I've found with Pull.
Stop talking about theoretical stuff.
Show me a savegame. Or there is nothing to talk about, as I can not read your mind about what your issue is.
twitch.tv/dastactic The game in there is currently getting to a stage where the logistics will start to become a potential issue.
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