Shadow Empire Suggestions and Feedback

[Ornithocephalus]

One of my greatest frustrations in the game, and one that I've heard DasTactic complain about during his playthroughs, is taking reputation hits for failing to achieve leader requests (e.g. raise government score to a specific level) without being given any opportunity do so. It would be nice if the game adjusted the reputation hit based on the opportunities you were give to fulfill (or partially fulfill) each request. Maybe this is coded into the game already. (I have not investigated this.) If so, then nevermind!

Also, it seems to me that if you deny a leader's request there should be a longer cool down (>10 turns, at least, or maybe >10 leader requests might be better) before they, or another leader, are allowed to make the same request. Taking a reputation hit for refusing to accept (or accepting and failing) the same request within a relatively short interval simply stinks. I can see how phenomena might have been designed into the game purposefully to model such political frustrations in the real world, but it certainly detracts from my overall enjoyment of the game, depending on the run.

Thanks.

[BlueTemplar]

Some of the profile changing decisions are more easy to manipulate to get than others.

IIRC DasTactic forgets to mention that he doesn't play with Cults nor Crime nor Corporation, especially the latter of which can give you +Gov basically on demand. He also tends to forget checking what promises he made.

Agree about the repeated demands, maybe more variety of demands is required so that they at least sometimes give you a different option ? (Of course you can always do it artificially by scrapping relevant public assets, but it feels a bit gamey ?)

[Khanti]

I've played 100+ turns in two different games. Version 1.09.
I like the game (as all Vic's games)
I hate logistics in this game. Not the fact of building roads (that's fine) but those stupid supply bases everywhere.
I fight most of the time with my own logistics, not enemy or randomness.
I prefer more battles, techs, building than figuring out HOW this logistics works. Yes, I know it works, but it's just plain waste of time.

Please add option of REALLY EASY LOGISTICS (roads and supply points NOT dependent on distance).
And that supply bases add adm strain on cities [&:][8|]

[Khanti]

Another suggestion: there should be politically possible to just bribe faction member to join other faction (the one with more closer values to empire's politics). It's a pity to loose them because of opposite points of view (dislikes+++ of empires' values).

[Teyren]

Good suggestion, it could take into account their Egoism and Authority score to determine how susceptible they are to it. Perhaps there would be different paths to approaching it as well, such as just bribes, but also by threat.

[Khanti]

It takes TOO long to close assets. Especially rebuilding rails from standard to high speed is stupid. Yon need to close station level X (many turns!) and start building high speed station (many turns). Completely unprofitable for 10+ turns. It can destroy whole supply system if it's done in capital.
---
Ammo usage is too high. It's not sensible that 75% of metal/industry production is needed for ammo for war against 1 major regime. All other fronts are silent.
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Military statistics of major regimes could contain changes from last turn. Something like "tank type Leopard" 400 [-40 from last turn] or 400/440 [this turn/last turn].
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When buying replacement troops /produce replacement troops/ the table does not automatically go up and you must scroll or move side button to the top ALWAYS. So it's cumbersome.
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There is not possible to scroll city list (left panel). When you have many - it's cumbersome to use that panel to go down the list. You need to lower main down panel first.

[PukeSkyhocker]

Things that I wish the game had:

1) A back button would be nice instead of having to start over completely if you pick a wrong option during planet generation and faction generation.

2) More control over the planet creation in general as the random rolls is kinda bleh. Rather just have the option to decide myself what game I want to play.

3) The ability to save the faction you create so you dont have to enter it every time you start a new game, Or better yet the ability to save all the planetary and factions settings so I can just start another random game under those same parameters instead of having to enter them again.

4) Want more control over formations models. I.e the ability to delete ones I dont use instead of stacking up pages and pages of useless formations to scroll through to try and find the one you want to create. (really a big problem later game)

5) Same thing above but in regards to unit models because sometime you screw up but the unit model cant be removed.

6) Need back buttons and or better control on all the create and design screens as if you screw up you have no choice but to create the formation, unit design is a little better but you have to constantly pick equipment and go back to be sure it isnt too heavy for the engine, fuel, etc. This is true for land and air.

7) Some menus have scroll bars but no mouse scroll and that would be nice to have but a small thing.

8) The ability to call governors from a central screen instead of having to find city on map. Not a problem under 4 or 5 cities but once you get a bunch you have to hunt down problems with city settings and its annoying to keep track of.

Those are my main wishes and gripes but you should know you made a fantastic game. For me this game is WAY better than ALL the HOI ive played. Those game felt like they were on rails in too many ways. Everyone of my shadow empire games was different than the last. Amazing work Vic!

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

PukeSkyhocker,

I like your ideas. I have a few comments.

2) Yes, this would be very nice.

3) YES! This would make me very happy and allow me to have the same symbol on my heraldry each time.

5) I am not against this idea but have you tried obsoleting the models you don't want to use again? This seems to keep them from getting in the way when creating new formations.

6) I like this as well but would refine it a little. I would like for normal units to have the same 'ending' as aircraft where you have the ability to reject this design and start over but the last set of choices you made have asterisks by them.

7) SPOT ON! Especially the reports tab where I have to click on the tiny scroll bar to see my construction report.

8) Have you tried accessing the governors from the Management tab (top, leftish), leaders? IIRC you can filter this for governors and click on the portrait to get to a 'call' button.


I would add as a suggestion for the 'confirm' button to be on two places on every screen. At the top as well as at the bottom. The first knuckle on my index finger sometimes gets sore from all of the scrolling.

I would like to see two more 'zoom' levels. One inserted between the closest and the middle. One inserted between the middle and the furthest.

I would like to be able to set hotkeys to center the map on a particular hex. This will make life a little easier when fighting in several areas. It will also help when jumping to cities.

I would like to see a new overlay (on the vertical bar on the right) that shows regime ownership on the map in more saturated colors.

I would like for the zone borders to be more obvious when using the hex grid. I sometimes have to turn the hex grid off in order to see the borders easily.


Now for a couple of FAR OUT possibilities...

1) The ability to rearrange the order reports are shown on the vertical selection bar on the reports tab. There are times when I am checking certain reports every turn and ignoring others. Moving them nearer to the top would reduce scrolling

2) A way to remind myself that I need to pay special attention to something. This would be useful to remind yourself that you need to redesign your infantry model when the current model design is completed, etc.
--- I see it working like this:
--- On certain screens (reports, leaders, and model details comes to mind at present) there would be a button labeled 'remind me' or 'attend to'.
--- When this button is pressed, the next turn a reminder ('Check such and such ') would display as an 'advice'.
--- The advice screen would have an additional button saying 'next turn' that would 'dismiss' the advice without dismissing it (i.e. it would show up again next turn).

In fact the 'next turn' button might be useful for the current advice messages. I find myself so invested in one part of the game that I forget to manage other things for a few turns.

This is a very enjoyable and addictive game. I am enjoying the depth of the interrelations between leaders, worker happiness, etc. Since I picked this up a month or so ago, I haven't spent much (if any) time with any other games. Thank you Vic! This is a gem!

From one programmer to another - GREAT JOB!

[Magura]

Terraforming would be really cool.

1. Drill to aquifer would be nice.
2. Make mountains to alter rainfall patterns.
3. Hydro-Electric dams would be cool.
4. I think these Major Regimes would eventually unlock the secrets of the GR's terraforming process and it wouldn't be beyond their ability to create a more earth-like atmosphere. I don't think an atmosphere-less planetoid would be terraformed in the games time scope TBH (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no scientist) but, the planet I'm playing on right now has an oxygen and nitrogen mix, the composition is slightly different from earth-like, so we have to wear breather masks, but surely a small change to the atmosphere composition would be do-able. However this would equate to genocide of native animals, humanoids and plant life so.... I don't know. Just throwing a fun concept out there. If that were to be implemented I could see a coalition faction rising up from forces literally facing extinction, it's possible these natives would band together using native xeno-cavalry and captured Major Regime equipment, thus creating a new deadly mid-game or late-game native/Minor Regime threat.
5. Alternatively, this could be used as a weapon to send the whole planet into an environmental freefall, or at least bring desertification to your cold war neighbor.

Raiders/natives are fun but lack..... depth?

1. Raiders/natives should fight each other. In my current game I was surrounded by 3 hostile raider factions (with cities that have 100k-200k+ population compared to my 38k population city), I've spent 120 turns under siege in my mega city ruins, but it can be winnable. The thing that struck me as odd was, these are raiders, why are they not fighting each other and the natives? Sure if my empire was threatening all of their cities at once they might band together. But, spending decades sieging a low-population city, working together in harmony with different raider regimes wouldn't make much sense. I would think by the first decade of siege something would have happened that caused them to... raid each other[&:]??? Maybe fight the natives that are closer to their cities than my forces that are 10+ tiles away? This could cure the "cursed RNG start", or at least make it playable without spending 120 turns under siege and then finally meet your first major who is rolling fast towards your borders with way more advanced tech due to their better start position. Not gonna lie though, this playthrough has been seriously fun not knowing if I'm actually gonna survive let alone win the game.
2. After you get Combat Armor and Automatic Rifles, Raiders/Natives are no longer a threat, more of an annoyance (with the exception of planets that generate 100 meter-tall Titans lmao[;)]). You would think after 25 years in-game the new generation of raiders would adapt to the new reality of the planet. Captured guns and armor would be worn by heavy infantry, captured artillery and tanks would be easy to operate after trial and error. Maybe a really successful Raider Warband that has captured old GR equipment just like you did? I think aircraft, railguns, and energy weapons would be beyond their ability and industrial capacity to maintain though. I like the idea of Raider regimes banding together if they are close together and being threatened by a Major Regime, maybe after a decade of government building they transform into a military dictatorship Major Regime? Or they could stay as a unique Raider/Freefolk Union Minor Regime?
3. Raiders should be able to capture equipment when they destroy your units. (Maybe a strategem could be implemented specifically for clearing raiders so all equipment can be destroyed on retreat for a negative attack modifier?)
4. We should be able to capture native cavalry and fill them with stimulants and cybernetic enhancements if technology permits. Since they are native they require less supply. However, Raiders will catch onto this and after so much equipment captured they produce these beasts in greater numbers (they have more supply of them) without the cybernetic enhancements. Just imagine a border ranger, mounted on a mad Arachnid with hydraulic jaws, riding into battle. This could create an entirely new class of units that mix your tech upgrades with native lifeform bonuses (jumper cavalry being great at mega-city ruins combat.) I have no idea how this would scale with some of the game's generated creatures, like you would need a swimming pool full of chemicals to subdue one of those huge Titan lifeforms.
5. Native Awakening, if natives are capable of standing on your border and shouting at you until you figure out their language, its entirely possible they steal some radios, talk to other native tribes, and start to create a new parallel society/culture to the humans on planet. Maybe they love genocidal violence as much as some humans, maybe they just want to defend their territory and develop their society, maybe its a mix, leave it to the RNG gods?
6. I haven't seen a single native/raider air unit. Raiders I understand but, maybe they develop dirigibles or recon/battle balloons on planets whose atmosphere permits it? Native flying units would be cool, as either pests that try to eat your units, or native air cavalry, again if atmosphere permits.


It would be really cool if you could see some of the events that occur post-Dissolution War, happen in real time. For example, unmanned spaceship crashes into tile, unstable nuclear reactor goes off in the wild, alien natives embark on a crusade, plague. Very low chance to occur as these things took decades or centuries to happen according to the planet generation screen. Unmanned spaceship crashing opens lots of possibilities by itself, is it really unmanned? Is it alien in origin (Remember aliens were definitely present at the edge of GR space)? Did it carry a bio-weapon? Is this some wanna-be GR successor state trying to annex your planet?


Sorry if these ideas have been all over the place and totally unfeasible. This game really stimulates the imagination.


And as always great job Vic, your creating something really special and unique, thank you so much for making games.

[KingHalford]

I'd really like to see a researchable cloning asset. It'd have to be pretty far down the tech-tree, and expensive to run, but it'd allow the player to grow sparsely populated planets towards the end of the game. That might also help the AI grow it's territory better in those last stages.

[Blothorn]

I just finished a game for the first time (110 rounds on a 40-hex-high planet, finishing in the laser era), and have some thoughts:
1. TL3 games get painful if you don't get any power production tech for a long time (and aren't lucky with generator perks). I'd suggest making power generators a starting tech. High fuel consumption makes them pretty painful to rely on (outside the rare start with abundant oil), so I don't think this avoids pressure to switch over to something more sustainable, but having it always available would give the player some more agency.

2. I think Combat Armor throws off the feel of combat, and I suspect it's due to its high effective thickness. Combat armor reliably appears before even gauss smallarms, but conventional/gauss weapons have half the penetration required for it. Lasers still have a penetration penalty but have the raw firepower to compensate--but they are likely to see Advanced Combat Armor instead, against which they again struggle.

I think that this is a large part of what feeds the tank meta: not only do infantry have a defensive bias, but once combat armor appears it's fairly hard to achieve a decisive attack with just infantry--the number of infantry required to dislodge the enemy is considerably greater even than what's necessary to achieve a favorable casualty ratio. By contrast, starting-tech light tanks have no particular trouble killing infantry with combat armor. Counterintuitively, I think that decreasing the armor thickness of infantry armor to be in line with the penetration of same-TL smallarms would make mass-infantry assault doctrines more attractive relative to armor-centered strategies.

3. Formation template research seems very slow--it takes away most of the excitement of researching a new model type to know that I won't be able to field it (except out of my limited attached-independent budget) for unknown dozens of turns. I'd favor speeding it up in across the board, as well as adding a "replace" option to OOB customization (possibly constrained by type, so you could swap one infantry model for another, swap between trucks and APCs, or swap types of armor, but not "customize" light infantry into heavy armor).

Along similar lines, it would be nice if we had fewer OOB types, but more control over subtypes. For instance, medium tanks and assault guns can both fill the Armor role; it would reduce the demand for OOB research if TDs weren't split from Heavy Tanks. Vice versa, it's annoying to manage distinct roles within an OOB type--for instance, if you want to use HV medium tanks and howitzer assault guns as your anti-tank/anti-infantry armor, the game doesn't give you any means of controlling their ratio within a formation. It would be nice to have player-defined roles and the ability to assign particular designs to a role and then specify which role(s) each formation should use (and in what proportion).

4. Very high QoL values seem too easy to achieve. New cities just need the four basic QoL generators (or two levels of most private assets) to hit 100, and even level 4-5 cities rarely need more than two levels plus a healthy private economy. I'm not exactly sure what to suggest, but right now I think this is adding tedium but not many interesting decisions.

[Atherys]

In the upcoming ocean update, I'd prefer to see a sea city mechanic. That way, players will have more direct interaction with ocean and its inhabitants, may it be pirates (land equivalent of raiders/slavers), trade houses, or sea creatures (monsters), rather than just making it another obstacle that players have to get across by bribing what's equivalent as bridge brigands. It'll also solve the usual 4X naval problem of it only being there for the sake of it, rare interaction due to lack of special points of interest, and potentially making ships and planes much more useful (especially carriers).

It's already 8th millennia in Shadow Empire. Technologies that cover aquatic planets/terrains should've been developed by now. Even if the technology degrades, there must still be one or two small sea colonies still standing. I also picture that it'll be easier to implement than trade houses, as it's like a city, but on a water. The city functions are already there and just needs to be adjusted for sea environment.

EDIT: Alright, now that I think about it, this idea might be much harder to implement because of the AI. There's almost no 4X AI that handles water interaction adequately, especially transports. But, if I have to trust someone to do it, one of them will be you, Vic.

[Kal Naar]

Hi guys,

Great game,

somethings I would like:

1. At the end of the turn there should be a layer that presented all the terrain that was lost since the last turn.
This would be a way to bipass the show AI turn, and easily identify where there are incursions.

2. For the AI turns to be faster

[finrodfelagund]

3. Hydro-Electric dams would be cool.

With major changes to rivers/lakes and upcoming ocean patch(x-pack?) I think this idea is worth a shot. Just as we can harness volcanic energy hydropower should be a thing in wet worlds, maybe even some terraforming features like dam lakes in the future.

[Silvokial]

Hello,

I've had 1607hrs spent on the game so far and many of my complaints have already been raised and are getting or seems like will be addressed.

However, there is something that's annoying me a lot and I do not think this was mentioned by anybody yet.

Open farming spread is just stupid, both and range and speed.

There is no additional positive effect from farm spread, but farms devour forests, which can be strategically important for defense. I do not disagree with forests being cut down, but how about we stop making maps look silly due to open farming?

There is also a minor bug, where Former Governor can still trigger an event for a non-existent city.

At the time of writing this post, I am playing on Open Beta Patch v1.11.06

[Vic]

There is no additional positive effect from farm spread, but farms devour forests, which can be strategically important for defense. I do not disagree with forests being cut down, but how about we stop making maps look silly due to open farming?

Actually the "Areal Size" can give significant bonuses to agricultural production.

From the manual:

5.5.2.2. areal
Open Farming has a big advantage over Domed farming in that it will expand
its Areal to neighbouring Hexes. Although a single Hex (200x200km!) is
more than large enough to support a very large number of farmers the choice
picks of land are always rare. That is why, with time, an Open Farming Asset
will develop activities outside its own Hex where choice picks of land are
still available. Areal also represents the range in which operations are taking
place, not only the amount of operations.
Each Areal Hex gives a +5% production modifier. An Areal Hex can only be
used by one Asset at a time. Usually an Areal Hex is assigned to the closest
agricultural Asset.
Every turn there is a 25% chance the Areal will be expanded.
Maximum distance range between an Areal Hex and an Asset is 3 Hexes.
The Hexes in question must be accessible through Friendly Territory.
With full Areal (ideal terrain around assumed) around an Asset it will have
almost 36 Hexes of Areal. Which will mean almost 200% production bonus.
This is the true big advantage of Open Farming over time.

[Vic]

@All
I am making notes and adding requests to to-do lists! Your input is much appreciated and quite often agreed with.

[Silvokial]

5.5.2.2. areal
Open Farming has a big advantage over Domed farming in that it will expand
its Areal to neighbouring Hexes. Although a single Hex (200x200km!) is
more than large enough to support a very large number of farmers the choice
picks of land are always rare. That is why, with time, an Open Farming Asset
will develop activities outside its own Hex where choice picks of land are
still available. Areal also represents the range in which operations are taking
place, not only the amount of operations.
Each Areal Hex gives a +5% production modifier. An Areal Hex can only be
used by one Asset at a time. Usually an Areal Hex is assigned to the closest
agricultural Asset.
Every turn there is a 25% chance the Areal will be expanded.
Maximum distance range between an Areal Hex and an Asset is 3 Hexes.
The Hexes in question must be accessible through Friendly Territory.
With full Areal (ideal terrain around assumed) around an Asset it will have
almost 36 Hexes of Areal. Which will mean almost 200% production bonus.
This is the true big advantage of Open Farming over time.

Well noted about the bonus, my mistake; however, this bonus is still insignificant if a city loses its natural strategic protection because private economy cannot be stopped self-handicapping by insisting on building open farms. There is no way to control this. Every forested open-farming map will naturally become a tank fiesta exactly where it strategically matters the most.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

I would appreciate some sort of message when researching an Incremental Research, but progress has reached a point where it's no longer efficient, so I can remember to switch to a new research. For example give me a message every turn after research progress has gone to less than 1-2% per turn.

I also feel that research becomes too easy after the mid-game. BP generation can get so high, that you can go through the whole tech tree well before the end of the game. I often reach a point where I can research top-tier techs within 1-2 turns. I feel that BP cost of research should increase for later techs. Perhaps an option that causes tech costs to scale up slightly depending on the amount of settlements owned would be a good solution.

My personal preference would be if the tech tree was expanded to include a new higher tier of Incremental Techs which could be:

* Very expensive to research, but providing bonuses that go beyond 100% while actively researched

* No research progress, but provide a passive bonus per turn based on how much BP is spend on them per turn

* Instead of providing bonuses, they generate special cards, like Artifacts (Blue cards) or Fate Stratagems (Green cards) or Political Stratagems normally created from Scrap Points (Brown Cards).

* Instead of providing bonuses, they can be used to generate extra resources per turn.

* Instead of providing bonuses, they can be used to generate characters or train existing characters in specific fields.

* Very expensive to research, but at the end they provide a GR unit

* Very expensive to maintain, but provide a minor boost to a particular alignment while active

[JohnRa]

I'd like to propose three things about keyboard commands:

1. Keyboard commands to show/hide the panels. I'd prefer Shift+Arrow Keys like Shift and Arrow Left to show/hide left panel and so on (left/right/bottom)
2. Keyboard commands to move the hex selection. Here I'd like Ctrl and the Arrow Keys. That would be particular helpful for searching those "conquer that hex" hexes
3. Having an appendix in the manual, that lists all keyboard commands

Certainly no too difficult to implement ideas and not ground braking, but a lot QoL!