Shadow Empire: George Miller's Alpha Centauri

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Capilarean: Apr 10, 2009

You were probably trying to build a whole brigade of them, which you also need to research the proper OOB for. In the meantime,you need to select "independent" in the build units menu,which lets you create individual units.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 08:51

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 01:52

Dorstein: Dec 8, 2000; GIP VSO

Is there a way to keep alive the militia of a far-away-and-separated-from-you minor one has unified without establishing another SHQ?

# ? Jan 4, 2021 10:43

Saros: Dec 29, 2009; Its almost like we're a Bureaucracy, in space!

I set sail for the Planet of Lab Requisitions!!

Nope they will starve without somewhere to draw logistics from.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 13:40

DTurtle: Apr 10, 2011

Interview with Vic (the lone developer) as well as a few Youtubers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNlODqsWNVI

Summary from Cranky Corvid on the discord:

quote:

Here's my notes regarding some of the more interesting points mentioned in the interview:
* Steam launch: The game is selling enough to be worthwhile given the years of work Vic put into it, but not exceptionally well.
* Near-future plans include (due to profileration of useless strat cards in your inventory in the lategame) the ability to mass-scrap unneeded strategem cards for currency that you can exchange for "cards packs" that are actually useful for you.
* Claims of an early foreign council for absorbing minors being overpowered: Vic says it's planet-dependent, playing on highly habitable planets with lots of farmer minors greatly increases the effectiveness of this strategy.
* In-game analytics: Vic used them a bit at the beginning, but analyzing the data takes time and more important tasks have taken priority since. They're currently switched off.
* There hasn't been much player feedback on the air force feature, probably because people haven't played enough with it yet.
* Vic likes the way the air force system interplays with different planetary characteristics and is considering expanding that more to other gameplay systems as well in the future.
* Vic would like to continue the development of the game for years, though it may end up being more or less depending on how well the game continues to sell.
* Vic wants to talk about possible future features he's considering implementing for the game, and lists some common complaints from player feedback: AI processing time, opacity of the rules, lousy graphics, and the complexity of the supply system.
* "Might address the graphics a little bit", does not want to go into details on this yet
* Can "work a little bit" on the speed of the AI
* Rules opacity and the supply system probably won't see more major work, prefer to focus on new features instead
* Hopes to add navies and ocean planets by the end of 2021
* Considering using a slightly more abstract system for managing the navy where seas are divided into larger seazones, and fleets based in ports are given missions to perform in particular seazones rather than players managing their movement on a hex-by-hex basis.
* Would like to add alien regimes based on the evolution of life on the planet (I take this means/may include non-human sapients?), or flesh out rebels, such as adding the ability to negotiate with them.
* Toying with the idea of an "extreme fog of war" mode, where lots of statistical information, like the exact statistics of vehicles and the abilities of leaders, is hidden until field tested with combat or, respectively, skill rolls.
* Thinking about expanding the leader system with familial relationships and prominent families vying for wealth and power.
* Also thinking about introducing something called "abundance rules", which would start to affect economically well-to-do regimes in the midgame and generate internal political strife premised around people wanting to adopt extreme or corrupt forms of ideologies favored by the state. Examples mentioned include syndism for democracies, fanatical authoritarianism, or aristocracy for meritocracy-focused states (but I think "oligarchy" might be more the word Vic was looking for there).

# ? Jan 7, 2021 23:25

Banemaster: Mar 31, 2010

DTurtle posted:

* Near-future plans include (due to profileration of useless strat cards in your inventory in the lategame) the ability to mass-scrap unneeded strategem cards for currency that you can exchange for "cards packs" that are actually useful for you.

Could just be easier to make cards that are already in the hand less likely to pop up.

# ? Jan 8, 2021 10:53

Saros: Dec 29, 2009; Its almost like we're a Bureaucracy, in space!

I set sail for the Planet of Lab Requisitions!!

That already happens actually, they get lower weights in strategem generation.

# ? Jan 8, 2021 11:01

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

When are navies coming?

# ? Jan 8, 2021 15:31

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

Lawman 0 posted:

When are navies coming?

next year

# ? Jan 8, 2021 19:53

Grevlek: Jan 11, 2004

I'm not sure what we could do to help with sales. I'm glad Vic mentioned that he's making money off it, but it seems like a hard game to drum up interest in, for others. I took to the game hardcore, but I've got two friends I've know for ten years plus who like Paradox and the like express tepid interest in the game only to bounce off when I've streamed it for them.

Basically looks like Saros and DasTactics are the only people who can grow/save SE

# ? Jan 9, 2021 05:11

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

The UI is absolute dogshit. There's an effort to enjoyment ratio that is not comparable to, say, doing another civ 4 mod game.

# ? Jan 9, 2021 06:35

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

It could definitely be more accessible. You're in trouble when the onboarding process for a new user is "Watch sixteen hours of Youtube videos".

Side question - is there a way to create a political party in your country? I usually start the game thinking, "I'll run democratic/government/heart" and then the only parties in my country are absolute nutters who hate every decision I make

# ? Jan 9, 2021 12:50

Saros: Dec 29, 2009; Its almost like we're a Bureaucracy, in space!

I set sail for the Planet of Lab Requisitions!!

No but you will get more as your civilisation level increases. Parties will also move political desires over time depending on how much the leaders like you and your empire politics.

# ? Jan 9, 2021 17:32

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Grevlek posted:

I'm not sure what we could do to help with sales. I'm glad Vic mentioned that he's making money off it, but it seems like a hard game to drum up interest in, for others. I took to the game hardcore, but I've got two friends I've know for ten years plus who like Paradox and the like express tepid interest in the game only to bounce off when I've streamed it for them.

Basically looks like Saros and DasTactics are the only people who can grow/save SE

It's the fundamental wargame problem. Focus on features at the cost of usability. To grow your base beyond the hardcore grogs that know how hexgames work you have to make it easier to learn. I also had to literally watch youtube tutorials for hours and read the manual to figure out how the game worked, and not many people are going to do that. Having a more supportive UI and discoverable, learnable features is what gives a game a broader audience. Same problem with War in the Pacific for example--despite having played War in the East I just couldn't bring myself to learn the naval and air game enough to get into it.

# ? Jan 9, 2021 18:36

ulmont: Sep 15, 2010; IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Gort posted:

It could definitely be more accessible. You're in trouble when the onboarding process for a new user is "Watch sixteen hours of Youtube videos".

Yeah, I tapped out early and I have happily played most* Paradox games.

*We don't talk about Diplomacy or Hearts of Iron 3.

# ? Jan 9, 2021 19:07

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Grevlek posted:

I'm not sure what we could do to help with sales. I'm glad Vic mentioned that he's making money off it, but it seems like a hard game to drum up interest in, for others. I took to the game hardcore, but I've got two friends I've know for ten years plus who like Paradox and the like express tepid interest in the game only to bounce off when I've streamed it for them.

Basically looks like Saros and DasTactics are the only people who can grow/save SE

Compared to Shock Force 2 and even CMO, he's doing pretty well. I bet this game is going to have a long tail of sales. Hell WitE still gets 100 concurrent users daily.

# ? Jan 9, 2021 19:35

TheOmegaWalrus: Feb 3, 2007; by Hand Knit

New patch out!

quote:

v1.07.01 � 07th January 2021
� No longer access to RPG Infantry Brigade in Tech 4 start (you�ll have to develop a Model + Formation first)
� Road construction at very long distance from SHQ now also possible (was a glitch)
� Reduced XP spending on Resist Influence, Endurance and some other Skills
� Added chance for learning a random skill, not often, but possible. Much more chance if no other skill qualifies for spending XP on.
� Added in some securities for AI to not go overboard with Airbase construction and not produce any aircraft models with to low range either.
� Upgrading and Replacing in same hex and SHQ should now always work, even if logistical points is at 0.
� Fixed a glitch where some Major Stratagems where presented as not accessible due to not the right Faction in Power (unless accessed by Regime Tab in the bottom). This is fixed now.
� Have been making fixes to the AI garrison algorithms, especially for Minors, which were still leaving empty their City in some cases.
� A number of spelling and missing �00� corrections. *
� Fixed a calculation error in Dogfight Modifier during Air Combat.
� Fixed a crash with Management Tab if you had an Asset/Hex Perk at 0,0 hex.
� Fixed glitch with Mot/Mech Storm Grenadier Bat *
� Closed an exploit with Attract Free Folk Stratagem *
� Easier Logistics game variant now also doubles range of Supply Bases (the variant is more consistent like that)
� Fixed quite a major bug that caused �Maximum Storage� not to be transferred to SHQ in some circumstances, which led to some big Item losses in SHQ inventory.
� Made some nudges to Minor AI tactics (both for non-slow and slow AI mode)
� Fixed crash in combat window when doing combat with insane amount of enemy troops
� Fixed some Colonist/Recruits mouseover qty�s missing double zero behind 00
� Also fixed some wrong ratio in Replace Popup and Scrap and Upgrade Results
� Diminished Hi-Tech costs for Beam and Plasma Guns *
� Fixed some typo�s and spelling errors *
� Unification and Annexation Stratagems are a bit more difficult in general now, but also a bit more variable in difficulty (based on the aggression of the target culture) *
� AI now disbands old equipment piling up in its SHQs.
� A major AI now has 40% chance to always try to keep Airforce in the Air (instead of switching fully to Flak Gun production) *
� Fixed a sort of �hanging� request for Scientific Cooperation by a regime you already refused or at this time are even at war with *
� I speeded up a noticeable interface delay when clicking units a lot in some Militia cases / Units direct under SHQ cases.
� Added protective code for the crash issue with the permissions/virus checker for Steam version MyDocuments access. If system does not support internal savedgames/ directory will now be used.
� Added the relation change logbook entries to the mouse-over in the Leader Popup Window
� Added relation changes caused by Leader Feats to the relation change logbook of Leaders
� Fixed a nasty code bug which caused population happiness to malfunction.
� Fixed a glitch that caused Regime Overview Reports to disappear in rare cases
� Rule change: early Fate Stratagems will no longer disappear once you cross to respectively Tech Level 5+ or Culture Level 5+
� Added Max Size an Aircraft can transport through Air Bridge to its detailed popup.
� Added some mouse-over improvements for using Strategic Transfer through Air Bridges
� Added some map-arrow improvements for using Strategic Transfer through Air Bridges
� Fixed an Air Bridge calculation error were sometimes land connection got preferred. Should be fixed now. But keep an eye on it.
� Scrapping outside Zone was working well, but I have fixed the textual feedback to be a bit clearer.
� Prevented some map clicking when also clicking on a tab in the top
� Made a speed improvement to the slow AI that will hardly or not at all affect its quality of moves
� Beam Gun on Heavy Tank now rendered correctly *
� Veteran Sgt / Lt. will now longer trigger for Air Units *
� Added some protective code to avoid showing wrong Difficulty for Provocation Stratagem.
� Fixed an eternal loop "freeze" with Preview Points calcs
� Fixed crash with battlegroup transfers (finally!)
� Repaired the Roaming thieves decision, now targets private Food *
� Decreased Machinery cost for SAM Launchers *
� Fixed effect of Research Bonus on binary Tech advances
� Improved history flow with the battles now showing the original situation + combat results and only in the next step the after-battle state.
� Air Bridge SFX during turn startup are now really gone
� Fixed Leader Suitability Rating for Airforce Council
� Explosion before Combat with Air Recon gone for good
� Fixed a crash/corruption with Air Bridge calculations when enemy intercept became possible
� Combat sounds with Air Bridge intercept now also muted as you are not seeing their results and they are calculated behind the scenes, so to speak.
� Fixed a glitch for Tactical Nuke weapon, description of tech fixed and can now be used with Automated Turret as well *
� Machinery treasures have less quantity now (was a bit over the top) *
� Moved 5 Linear Weapon Improvement Techs from Military Research Council to Applied Science Council *
� Treasure Hoard Stratagem, AI giving you discovery and other similar events/instances will now NOT give certain techs that will be of no use because you do not have the earlier techs or because planetary conditions are not met. Did a manual pass tech by tech and it should be done right this time. *
� Fixed older game starts played with 1.06.02 or higher that were getting weird skill growth due to
the newly added personality modifiers on skill choice in 1.06.02.
� When establishing Air Bridges with the Air Bridge order they now limit you to the initial Air Bridge mission maximum range (which might be below optimal due to lack of AP or Rdn)
� A little bit more consequences from playing the Ask for Help Stratagem (to often). Also tuned down the amount of Credits you can ask for. (could be excessive in later game)*
� Fixed AI air unit relocation mechanism that was not using full range of its aircraft causing some to get stuck in airbasisolated areas.

# ? Jan 14, 2021 22:45

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

Yooper posted:

Compared to Shock Force 2 and even CMO, he's doing pretty well. I bet this game is going to have a long tail of sales. Hell WitE still gets 100 concurrent users daily.

Don't doxx my laptop that's been idling a wite campaign for months when I'm on call.

# ? Jan 14, 2021 23:06

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

Are transport helicopters useful for extending logistics

# ? Jan 16, 2021 03:34

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014; pretense is my co-pilot

I don't understand Prospecting Push, is it just bad? It costs a hojillion PP for just adding some prospecting points. Or does it have a chance to materialize new deposits even if there arn't any to find?

# ? Jan 19, 2021 20:16

Half-wit: Aug 31, 2005; Half a wit more than baby Asahel, or half a wit less? You decide.

I don't know...but every time I've tried using it has resulted in "We're sure there are no more deposits in this zone."

# ? Jan 19, 2021 22:56

Kickass Harpsichord: Dec 3, 2009

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

I don't understand Prospecting Push, is it just bad? It costs a hojillion PP for just adding some prospecting points. Or does it have a chance to materialize new deposits even if there arn't any to find?

I think the only case in which I would use it would be if I had more PP than I knew what to do with and had just conquered a huge zone that would take a while to prospect normally. I'm fairly certain it can't materialize new deposits.

So yes, it is pretty much "just bad."

# ? Jan 19, 2021 23:11

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Have been watching some dastactics and read Saros's SSLP, and the game seems appealing even though I've always found Paradox stuff to be hard to get into. One question:

The OP says that you need a railhead or rail station in a hex to offload logistical bits in that hex, but over on the Matrix forums someone is claiming otherwise (with a savegame to demonstrate it):

post 13 posted:

Nope, you have it wrong. Items can enter and exit, and supply can be drawn using any point on the rail that has sufficient logistics points. Railheads & rail stations are only necessary at the ends of the rail, to eliminate the 90% penalty for rail logistics that's heading towards a direction that does not have a railhead or station at the other end.

Since I've seen you be very insistent on this when corrected on it by other people, and I'd prefer misinformation about the game mechanics to not circulate, I went to the trouble of making test case for the mechanics. You can check out this savegame if you don't believe me.

In the test save, there is only one truck station in the regime and it is mothballed. There is one rail station, generating 2000 rail points, and one railhead, but they're both 6 hexes out from the nearest town. Nonetheless, the 475 surplus food produced by the level 2 farm dome in the town of Angelfire is being delivered to the SHQ without difficulty, I can send colonists to Angelfire from the SHQ at the full logistics bandwidth and not zero or 10%, and if I order the Independent Artillery Division at coordinates 119,6 to disband, it sends all its troops to the SHQ after ending turn even though their combined weight exceeds 10% of the available rail logistics, then returns them all the the turn after if I order it to cancel disbanding. The Logistics Used Pts mode shows it drawing the logistics points needed to move the subunits directly from the rail, not the railhead two more hexes away (if it had to draw its supply directly from the railhead, it would not be in green logistics range and would thus be unable to receive replacements).

I haven't got to the point of building rail yet, but I was wondering if people knew what the real story was. I'm not really fluent enough in the logistics system to even confidently interpret the savegame, sadly.

# ? Jan 20, 2021 22:33

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014; pretense is my co-pilot

Subjunctive posted:

Have been watching some dastactics and read Saros's SSLP, and the game seems appealing even though I've always found Paradox stuff to be hard to get into. One question:

The OP says that you need a railhead or rail station in a hex to offload logistical bits in that hex, but over on the Matrix forums someone is claiming otherwise (with a savegame to demonstrate it):

I haven't got to the point of building rail yet, but I was wondering if people knew what the real story was. I'm not really fluent enough in the logistics system to even confidently interpret the savegame, sadly.

My understanding is that what this is saying is that all that matters is the logistical points. The rail endpoints are necessary to not suffer a 90% penalty to rail points in a direction, but logistics can operate via any road/railroad that has a unbroken chain of points to the SHQ. The stations and railheads arn't actually supply points in and of themselves, they just eliminate that points penalty.

# ? Jan 21, 2021 00:31

DTurtle: Apr 10, 2011

Rail points go from the rail station to a rail head or another rail station. If there is no target for them to head towards, then only 10% of the rail points can go down a rail line. However, those rail points can be used anywhere along that route from the rail station towards the target. So units can get their supply from them, cities can use them to move resources, etc.

# ? Jan 22, 2021 16:33

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

I've been keeping up with the thread and a few LP's and despite not every really playing a wargame like this...(or ever?) I find the game really interesting and I'd like to try. is there a recommeneded goon endorsed post for baby's first play through or a good youtube video that explains the high level mechanics?

I think I've groked a bit about how stuff works and i'll just go in and start messing around but I'm thinking things like council order and build order and "breakpoints" i should know about?

I've also read starting on beginner is bad as you'd have to re-learn the mechanics.

# ? Jan 24, 2021 18:25

habituallyred: Feb 6, 2015

Kickass Harpsichord posted:

I think the only case in which I would use it would be if I had more PP than I knew what to do with and had just conquered a huge zone that would take a while to prospect normally. I'm fairly certain it can't materialize new deposits.

So yes, it is pretty much "just bad."

Sometimes you get a preview of what prospectors are eventually going to find on the prospecting screen. If they say they think a metal deposit is in a zone and you don't have any other source of metal it would be well worth it to find it now.

The Discord has a tutorial channel with some good starting stuff. You can also look through the ingame questions thread on discord for random advice. I took a stab at starting advice earlier in the thread, if you look at post history.

# ? Jan 24, 2021 21:18

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

habituallyred posted:

Sometimes you get a preview of what prospectors are eventually going to find on the prospecting screen. If they say they think a metal deposit is in a zone and you don't have any other source of metal it would be well worth it to find it now.

The Discord has a tutorial channel with some good starting stuff. You can also look through the ingame questions thread on discord for random advice. I took a stab at starting advice earlier in the thread, if you look at post history.

ah thank you!

and you're referring to the mulitplayayer discord linked in the OP?

# ? Jan 24, 2021 22:55

habituallyred: Feb 6, 2015

Certainly am!

# ? Jan 25, 2021 04:17

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Has anyone messed around with the new world type in the beta patch?

# ? Feb 21, 2021 17:57

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

no maybe you should post the patch notes so people know whats up

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4824133

# ? Feb 21, 2021 20:17

Squiggle: Sep 29, 2002; I don't think she likes the special sauce, Rick.

Oh cool, they made it harder for AI to build roads at some point. That alone is a nice thing to see.

# ? Feb 21, 2021 20:21

Grevlek: Jan 11, 2004

I think alien minors is very exciting. I can remove yet another caveat about how this is like Alpha Centauri except for....

# ? Feb 21, 2021 20:23

BulletHole: Aug 20, 2003; "I own this fat j-bag, oh yes i do." Sehnsucht

Recently finished a game with 1.08 and at some point he greatly reduced the turn times. It's fixed one of my only big complaints with the game - even late game turns seemed to be completing in less than a minute, often significantly less

First time trying to mess around with aircraft; aircraft design is super fiddly! It didn't seem like I got any designs worth building until I had turbojets, and every time I updated a design I ended up trying 5-10 different sets of components before settling on a design, with little understanding of why the changes I made produced the differing parameters at the end. But once I did get large turbojet bombers setup, they proved verynasty.

The way airbases work doesn't seem great though. There's no way to build them faster or support aircraft in a mobile way, right? Range ended up being by far the most important stat because otherwise the aircraft were out of the war a turn or two after it started on any fronts that I was having success.

# ? Mar 11, 2021 01:31

everydayfalls: Aug 23, 2016

It does seem like the model system is a lot more clunky with the number of choices aircraft give you. With infantry you pick an armor and a gun and for the most part bigger is better. When you get to tanks and other mechanized units there is a trade off with resources but that is still pretty straight forward. Then you get to aircraft and balancing all the design decisions means going through the design process several times to just understand what your options are.

I think it might be greatly improved if on the last aircraft design screen you could step back to the individual choices. That way if you�re a little under weight you could bump up the bomb load or whatever.

# ? Mar 11, 2021 23:37

ThisIsJohnWayne: Feb 23, 2007; Ooo! Look at me! NO DON'T LOOK AT ME!

Or one screen with drop down menus for each of the different component categories.

# ? Mar 12, 2021 18:40

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

I wish there was a simulator honestly

# ? Mar 12, 2021 21:06

everydayfalls: Aug 23, 2016

ThisIsJohnWayne posted:

Or one screen with drop down menus for each of the different component categories.

This would be a whole new ui element, so I assume it would take an engine rewrite.

As long as he is at it he should include the ability to type in numbers instead of sliders everywhere. Would make much more since for the trade and workshop screen.

# ? Mar 12, 2021 21:31

ThisIsJohnWayne: Feb 23, 2007; Ooo! Look at me! NO DON'T LOOK AT ME!

everydayfalls posted:

This would be a whole new ui element, so I assume it would take an engine rewrite.

As long as he is at it he should include the ability to type in numbers instead of sliders everywhere. Would make much more since for the trade and workshop screen.

Not to go all "It's one new ui element Michael, how long could it take? 10min?" but...

# ? Mar 12, 2021 23:17

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

I keep trying to make a glorious socialized communist paradise, but the local corporation keeps being super helpful by finding new ore deposits and building amenities for my workers :mad:

How am I supposed to destroy capitalism when it's being so friendly

# ? Mar 15, 2021 21:04

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 01:52

Dorstein: Dec 8, 2000; GIP VSO

I let my corporation get out of control and now I have no hope of even touching it with the anti-trust card.

Any suggestions?

# ? Mar 15, 2021 21:11

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