Beginning game is poorly designed

[morganja]

I keep trying, and failing to get out of the first 20 turns. I understand that it gets much better, but the beginning game is full of poor design choices.
The invisible units that take over your territory, attack your units, get right up to your capital, yet remain completely, totally invisible is ridiculous.
If a 'neutral' army takes over your territory, attacks your units several times, and parks outside your capital, it is not neutral.
Invisible, neutral units ambushing your army is ridiculous.
I can understand that you cannot go into the hex, but if they open up fire and ambush you, they have declared war on you.
Non-sentient aggressive cows taking over your territory is ridiculous. I can understand them having temporary control of a hex. But taking over great swaths of territory, and remaining invisible on the map, is just stupid. What is it the player is supposed to imagine is happening there?
When non-sentient creatures leave a hex, they should no longer have control of the hex.
Overall, the invisible units is not working for the beginning of the game.
There needs to be a less gamey, less completely absurd, immersion-breaking solution.
Perhaps some sort of known intelligence, suspected location, or something, besides non-sentient cows on flying carpets would work.

[Xxzard]

The learning curve can be frustrating. We've all been there with this game. As far as I am aware, there is no easily accessible button to turn off the recon mechanic. I don't know exactly what your situation is, but I recommend the following to get you into a more fun part of the game:

-Start on Easy difficulty, on a world without alien animals. Maybe an arid world with the 'spread out' game start option selected. Normal difficulty and above can feel like an immediate assault and it is very possible to straight up die. The steps up in difficulty are pretty significant.

-Don't overextend your forces, the AI loves to get behind them and cut off supply. If you start at tech level 3, you won't really have enough logistics support to control a lot of territory yet anyway, so don't bother. You only need to control the hexes within a radius of 3 from your city. Everything else is nonessential at the start.

-Prioritize building at least one infantry brigade to defend the immediate area of your city/zone. Militia alone won't cut it on most starts. Infantry is better on defense than attack, so position the units of this brigade defensively. You can also build machine gun units of 500 troops that plug holes on the line quite well early on.

-When facing enemy forces (including non-aligned, non-sentient, etc.) you want to position your units so that the enemy force cannot get through your line. Obviously the best way to do this is to have a continuous line of units, but you can get away with some gaps.

-There's a very important thing to notice about territorial control. When you move a unit with more than 500 troops into an open area with no enemies nearby, you gain control of both the hex they moved into, and all the hexes around it. But if an enemy unit is close to one side, you will not gain control of the extra hex towards that side. You can use this to tell that an enemy unit is somewhere nearby, even if you're not sure which hex exactly. It's kind of like minesweeper. If you think an enemy unit is somewhere nearby using this method, you can avoid ambushes and set up the rest of your unit positions to defend against aggressive moves by this enemy.

So, using these steps, set up a defensive perimeter around your starting city. Move units around to form lines to block threats, and don't push forward if you're not gaining free territorial control - it means an enemy unit is very close, even if you can't see it. Following these steps should get you far enough along that you start to gain more tools to do recon, for example: recon buggies, motorbike troops, aircraft, spies, and some tech bonuses. Plus, later on your higher tech units will be powerful enough to smash non-aligned units without much effort as soon as you see them.

[eddieballgame]

Excellent response by Xxzard; btw, enemy units are not invisible...you just can't see them (particularly in forests) due to insufficient recon. Recon is, also, important when deciding to attack a hex/enemy...always check that recon number.
Sending in a sacrificial scout to increase the recon level can assist in that decision to do so, though adding more of your troops to the neighboring hex will enhance recon, as well. Recon buggies are ideal for doing this.

[morganja]

How does one turn off the non-sentient, impregnable creatures?
All of that advice absolutely failed to stop this herd of non-sentient herbivores from defeating every force between them and my city, and then they attacked my city and killed most of my leaders.
Obviously this is both ridiculous conceptually and terrible design.
Why is there a herd of non-sentient impregnable herbivores attacking my city?
Why are there impregnable herbivores?
Why are they attacking me? Not just once, but persistently and deliberately over dozens of turns?
Why would they sack my city?
I can see it as a challenge. But it is such a gamey, ridiculous, idiotic mechanism, that it completely ruins the experience.

[Xxzard]

If you don't want any herds of animals, generate a world without alien biology. Try generating a new world, and select a Seth class (for example). Those are often lifeless but not quite as extreme as a moon or planetoid. Alternatively a very young world under 1 billion years of age shouldn't have advanced life yet.

The strength of the alien animals on a given generated planet is basically random, influenced by how long life has had to evolve on the planet and if certain start options are selected. You can find very weak animals or you can find very strong animals. I've seen species with 10 hp and species with 1000 hp. Their behavior also varies - some are pacifist, some hate you (their unit card gives you information on this). If you roll a 1000 hp T-rex with a soul full of hate that requires an AT gun to take down, that's definitely a challenge, and even veteran players can die to that.

I personally love the randomness and extra challenge the alien fauna can add. Surviving until you can nuke the T-rex makes for a great story, and exactly the kind of experience your standard wargame doesn't provide. They can be annoying sometimes though - wait until giant amphibious krakens show up and disrupt your coastal supply routes....

I'm kind of curious now, what are the stats of animal were you fighting? Sounds tough. Could you post a pic of it's unit card?

[morganja]

I'm not sure how to insert a picture:

Hornbeast
Scientific name is 'Superoctopus Heteroliodon',
A land dwelling large (4m) herbivore. It resembles a squid analog. Its chemistry is water-carbon based and it is oxygen breathing.
Is a omnivore herbivore. Has the following Feats: Social, Chitinous II and Jumper II.

134
10/7
weight 4 (c4)
Group Walkers

25/30
1
Recon 1
Move Foot

Whenever I can see them, there are reported to be 5100 of them.

If it was possible to just screen them, then I could deal with it. But they persistently attack and make their way to my capital.

I will add the most annoying part of it all, was that after they sacked my capital and killed all those people, I had zero reports on it. That's right, no recon in my capital. I had to assume it was these beasts because they were the only enemies that close to my capital.
They apparently attacked my capital, with 70,000 people, ran rampaging through, and I still had zero information on what attacked me.

"What was it that attacked you?"
"I don't know. It killed my entire family in front of me though."
"Did it have two arms and two legs, like people do?"
"I don't know. Maybe?"
"Was it an armoured cow?"
"Maybe?"
"Can you tell the difference between a person and an armoured cow?"
"No."

[morganja]

I'm going to go ahead and add another reason the early game is broken. Getting demands which are impossible to resolve.

I see all the posts enjoying the randomness and stating that it adds to the challenge of experienced players, and that they know not to accept them. But for people trying to figure out the game, impossible missions are a broken mechanic.

Again with the recon. I got a demand on turn 10 to recon 9855 hexes. It seems a bit high for turn 10, but one would assume that the game wouldn't deliberately sabotage the player.

Come to find out, there aren't that many hexes on the continent. I put at least one spy in every region on the continent, but came up about 100 short, causing my word score to drop by 13.

Obviously I can't get to another continent. It was simply impossible to meet the demand.
Which of course makes one wonder why anyone would demand such a stupid thing to begin with. It is a gamey absurd demand.

These are broken mechanics.

[Xxzard]

Ah, so they're not strong individually but Chitinous gives it armor, and social means they will group together in bigger numbers. 5100 is a pretty big group. Higher tech machine guns would slaughter them eventually.

Well, bad luck on that run. Hope another game goes better.

[JeanleChauve]

Again with the recon. I got a demand on turn 10 to recon 9855 hexes. It seems a bit high for turn 10, but one would assume that the game wouldn't deliberately sabotage the player.

Come to find out, there aren't that many hexes on the continent. I put at least one spy in every region on the continent, but came up about 100 short, causing my word score to drop by 13.

Obviously I can't get to another continent. It was simply impossible to meet the demand.
Which of course makes one wonder why anyone would demand such a stupid thing to begin with. It is a gamey absurd demand.

These are broken mechanics.

With this answer, I'm thinking that you are playing Oceania dlc. You can ask the MTH to discover hexes outside your reach, and discovering the ocean counts towards your request...

This game isn't one you win the first time you play; it's a bit like chess—you won't win on your first try either.

In fact, if you persevere with this game, you'll discover that all the flaws you're currently criticizing stem from your imperfect understanding of the game's mechanics and a habit of playing games that always let you win, even when you play poorly. The AI ​​is far more sophisticated than in other 4X games and makes life difficult for you.

It's so rich in intricacies that even after thousands of hours, you're still learning. And since the developer continues to add new mechanics and refine others, I think you can count the number of players who have mastered this game perfectly on one hand.

Before continuing your current game, I suggest you watch the tutorial videos from StrategosAcademy: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFaf ... g3gX5qSzVe
His videos are the most comprehensive ones available so far on the base game without the DLC. After watching them, you'll see that your opinion will change completely.

[morganja]

They will explain why there is always an impregnable non-sentient herbivore that makes a beeline for my capital as soon as the game begins?
Why every non-aligned unit from 50 hexes away converges on my territory?
Why a minor I am not at war with, but is being attacked by another Major, will send every spare unit it can towards my capital instead of defending itself?
I'll check them out, but so far Shadow Empire seems to utilize every cheap, gamey gimmick to create challenges rather than create a believable simulation with a functional AI.

[JeanleChauve]

They will explain why there is always an impregnable non-sentient herbivore that makes a beeline for my capital as soon as the game begins?

Because you colonized his territory. There are plenty of sci-fi movies that show aliens aren't happy if you colonize their planet (Starship Troopers).

Why every non-aligned unit from 50 hexes away converges on my territory?

Because it's in their nature; they're raiders, nomads, slavers, lawless people like in Mad Max.
Actually, they don't specifically come to your capital; it's just a feeling the game gives you because you're frustrated at being beaten. They live their lives in their lawless zone, and if they get the chance, they'll come and bother you. But they're an uncivilized people, and their weaponry is rudimentary; you'll crush them when you have decent equipment.

Why a minor I am not at war with, but is being attacked by another Major, will send every spare unit it can towards my capital instead of defending itself?

It depends on his relationship with you and the difficulty level you're playing on. I think if your relationship is at 28 on regular difficulty, the miner won't invade your territory. On hard, it's 35. Of course, if you take some of his territory, it automatically lowers his relationship with you. You can play the "propose peace" card, and if your foreign affairs director succeeds on his dice roll, the borders will become effective and will require a declaration of war to cross. It's explained in one of the videos.

There's a "why" you've overlooked:
Why do you think so many people consider this game the ultimate 4X game? That might even be what prompted you to buy it.

[morganja]

They will explain why there is always an impregnable non-sentient herbivore that makes a beeline for my capital as soon as the game begins?

Because you colonized his territory. There are plenty of sci-fi movies that show aliens aren't happy if you colonize their planet (Starship Troopers).

The planet was colonized thousands of years ago, according to the planet generation. The issue, of course, is that there is always an impregnable non-sentient herbivore attacking the player, but not anyone else on the planet. In fact, the non-sentient creatures are allied with the non-aligned forces.
It is a gamey, annoying mechanic to make the game 'more challenging'.

]Why every non-aligned unit from 50 hexes away converges on my territory?

Because it's in their nature; they're raiders, nomads, slavers, lawless people like in Mad Max.
Actually, they don't specifically come to your capital; it's just a feeling the game gives you because you're frustrated at being beaten. They live their lives in their lawless zone, and if they get the chance, they'll come and bother you. But they're an uncivilized people, and their weaponry is rudimentary; you'll crush them when you have decent equipment.

No. They make a beeline for the player's capital, ignoring every other minor and major power. They aren't 'living their lives in the lawless zone'. If they were, the game would at least attempt to give the impression that they do something other than simply exclusively seek out and attack the player.

Why a minor I am not at war with, but is being attacked by another Major, will send every spare unit it can towards my capital instead of defending itself?

It depends on his relationship with you and the difficulty level you're playing on. I think if your relationship is at 28 on regular difficulty, the miner won't invade your territory. On hard, it's 35. Of course, if you take some of his territory, it automatically lowers his relationship with you. You can play the "propose peace" card, and if your foreign affairs director succeeds on his dice roll, the borders will become effective and will require a declaration of war to cross. It's explained in one of the videos.

It's not a question of the minor invading my territory. It is a matter of the minor not defending itself against an AI Major it is at war with, and is in fact occupying hexes next to his capital, to send his armies to attack the player whom he is not at war with.
That is a broken AI.

There's a "why" you've overlooked:
Why do you think so many people consider this game the ultimate 4X game? That might even be what prompted you to buy it.

No one seriously considers this 'The ultimate 4X game'. That is ridiculous. People can appreciate the ambition and the intention. I do. But the fact is that the game is a collection of intricate systems that do not work together to create a rewarding 4X experience. I wish it did.

I appreciate your attempt to defend the game, but it is misplaced. I greatly respect Vic for what he has accomplished. But the game is deeply flawed.
Perhaps if every major is played by a human, than it is fun. As a single player game, it is simply an annoying sequence of broken mechanics.
The many, many, many issues have been listed over and over again. The fact is that years have passed, and the only thing done to address any of these issues is to make them worse.

[eddieballgame]

No one seriously considers this 'The ultimate 4X game'. That is ridiculous. People can appreciate the ambition and the intention. I do. But the fact is that the game is a collection of intricate systems that do not work together to create a rewarding 4X experience. I wish it did.

As a good friend of mine likes to respond to me on occasion...I will quibble with you just a bit. I have been playing pc 4x games for decades & I consider this the ultimate 4x game per, not only, this genre; but all genres combined.
Your opinion that no one seriously thinks that is noted. The main reason for my opinion is based on experience, recognizing that a high level of understanding per this, particular game is required to do, even, ok...particularly in multiplayer, where this game, truly shines...imho.
There is a reason why the manual is so large & still could contain more, imho. Enter this wonderful forum & the great community that will engage & will always assist per any questions asked.
Add to all this, one of the best 4x game designers that I am aware of, well...you get the picture.
Btw, other YouTubers of note per this title are BATTLEMODE & DasTactic...both are highly recommended; & Das was the main reason this title caught my eye in 2020. Making it an instant purchase, & 30+ multiplayer games later...I am so glad I did.

[JeanleChauve]

This discussion reminds me of the comments in the climate change debates