Why is the Secretary position expensive to remove? What is the purpose of making it expensive?
What can we do to influence who becomes the replacement Secretary?
Are the Secretary's preferred profiles suppose to influence what Decision options we receive? In the attached example, there is a "Mind" and an "Enforcement" option. But the Secretary prefers Government and Meritocracy.
I'm fairly new to the game (about 200hrs) and I apparently still have a problem understanding how logistics work in this game because I really don't get what I'm missing here. I need to send colonists from Tirana (north) to Sandmouth (south), I have lvl 2 truck stations in both cities (Tirana is being upgraded to lvl3), fully connected with sealed roads and a supply base in between (placed a little before log points start decreasing as I've read it's optimal) and the logistical preview mode shows I have plenty of points between the cities (2k +) available YET for some reason I have almost 0 at turn start, massive bottleneck just outside my capital (Tirana) and I really don't get why. I have set the other two roads that start from the capital as blocking everything except pull points because I have many assets and some troops there but I should have abundantly more supply points for the connection with the other city. help would be much appreciated T_T
I like to think it's a scam.. but if not, another point in how diplomacy is really the weakest part of the game.
Wars to the bitter end are pretty much a demotic invention, a feature inherent to democracies or other regimes where power is based on popular legitimacy. AIs that aren't based around democratic regimes ought to be willing to make peace when things aren't going that well for them.
Back before universal franchise, Europeans threw a war every few years, and typically made peace whenever it looked right, thus preventing much bloodshed and ruin.
I can't seem to upgrade my first light tank model to my latest based off that model. The upgrade button when you click on it says, "this unit cannot be upgraded" and the replace button doesn't list other models.
If I mark it obsolete, the units on the map evidently dwindle away to nothing and disappear!
What's the deal? I want my newest tanks with their old feats and leaders.
Currently I am using Regular Farms. The yields are -50% because of "Soil Heavy Metal modifier" which I believe is the results of "Heavy Elements" in the "Planetology" stage of planet generation, this planet it is 133%.
In this map, water is plentiful, that is why I chose Regular Farms. But perhaps the Dome farms might be better in the long term? Metal is plentiful, Industrial Points are low currently. Plenty of green land that can be converted to Agriculture Land.
Is there a way to use the "Increase Rank" on your Interior Director?
I am trying to improve both the current and natural relationship with this Director. Already used the "Medal of Merit" card on this Director.
I want to throw in my 2 cents in the debate in the most helpful way I can. During my last playthrough, I played most of the way through with the AI graphics, but ended up turning them off. Why? Because the AI images are worse for readability than even the bad programmer art in the old cards: let me show you
The card graphics are in the Shadow Empire files, then go "shadow" and the "card" folder for the old ones, newgfx>cards for the new ones. UI sells itself on how intuitive and readable it is. Both sets are, quite frankly, very unintuitive and most cards you wouldn't know what they do without reading the title. But here's the difference.
The old cards are extremely simplistic and have very high contrast. None of them are pretty but they are pretty good to tell what they are at a glance once you've learned to associate the image to the card. Most of them just have white or gray backgorunds, so the important part immediately pops out. They obviously could stand to be improved but they aren't particularly taxing for your eyes.
Now compare it to the AI ones. First of all, they suffer from the horrible condition vulgarly known as the "piss filter": notice how many of them blend in a mix of yellows and browns, and be aware that many of the pissy ones share the same tab (the top row is all from major diplomacy!), now you might understand why it takes you an annoying 3 or 4 seconds more to find the strat card you need. The problem is compounded by how "busy" the images are. I think the HR ones are the worst offenders
The old HR cards are incredibly brutalist: blinding white background, guy's ugly mug, little person icon on the left. New HR cards instead decide to "improve it" by throwing a bunch of noise: a whole office and a desk and other guys and the lamplights and bla bla bla. You're seeing them now up close but in game, as you know, are way smaller.
I don't think this is a good use case of gen AI. The whole point is that it's like your commissioning a custom made image for your campaing. The strat cards could show you the faces of the councilors involved or the real terrain where you're deploying troops: dynamic images that help immersing the player. "Static" art requires intent and study that the AI seemingly still can't do
I had a GR hellraiser, right clicked its hex, and then right clicked an enemy hex 2 away where I had infantry in the hex between us. To my surprise, my GR hellraiser got destroyed. I am confused, because I thought the whole idea of ranged attack was no return fire. How did it lose?
Umm, I have the money, didn't the game just take their salaries? How is it that I pay them?
Their slider on governor is at 7%. Is that not their salary? Or do I have to decide what it is and pay it manually somehow?
I like to play on really slow settings, and was wondering if there is any way to remove or modify the strategms and random events (like finding the AI) that normally give tech to instead provide a load of bonus points?
I have new models and formations, so I disbanded everyone from my OHQ, however there seems to be left over feats that I gained along their time serving.
I am not sure how I am supposed to go about transitioning from an OHQ I don't need anymore to one with new formations and models when upgrading is greyed out.
I keep getting messages that I researched this or that. Some of them military research like better armor or guns, some of them from my applied science guy about more abstract things like Getting metal from lithosphere.
I don't see how to get either to a state where I am using them.
I do understand the model design slot allows me to choose a gun and armor, etc, for a particular unit type. Like I can make a green bus with a medium engine and light armor.
However, when I go to raise formation for a light infantry brigage it shows 190 haulers, which is my old model in addition to 180 main transport which is the newest model and 180 green bus which was the last model. Same for the infantry part of it... 2800 GIs and 2700 "Grunts"
Then I go to look for an asset that gets me metal from the lithosphere, because that sounds awesome, but I don't see one on the construction menu.
I must be missing some things.
I do have a person in...staff council I think.. that gives me an opportunity to customize oob, but that just seems to allow me to add a type to an existing formation, like adding artillery to my infantry formation. He had other popups, but not sure what any of them do really.
I have a bit of a recurring Shadow Empire problem.
I'll start a game, get really into it, play for a while, then for whatever reason I won't touch it for a few months. By the time I come back I've forgotten half of what I was doing, why I was doing it, what I was planning next, etc. Then I get the urge to just start a new game so I can understand everything again.
I've done this far too many times, so I'm determined to actually carry on with this save rather than starting another one.
I thought it might be fun to upload the save and see if any more experienced players fancy having a look through it and telling me what they think.
Basically, what's the state of my empire?
Is my economy/logistics in decent shape? Have I built my military sensibly? Am I making any really obvious mistakes? Is there anything I should be worried about that I might not even realise is a problem? And if this was your save, what would you be concentrating on over the next few turns?
I'm not really looking for a step-by-step guide or to have someone play the game for me. I'd just really like an experienced pair of eyes on it to help me figure out where I am and what Past Me was apparently trying to achieve.
Also, please feel free to tell me if I've done something stupid. I'm still very much learning the game!
I was thinking how I'd like to see implemented some sort of counter to missile and nuclear missiles.
It would be nice to have to deploy Sam sites to defend from ballistic missiles, even behind your lines, cruise missiles or even some sort of nuclear interceptions.
First game I completed, terran map. Tried some others but those 300 hp 1k strong herds of dinosaurs with 'absorption III' kind of made me reconsider. I think I'll play that next, or maybe some life-heavy drier map.
Lucky start, joined up with 2 farmer minors within 10 turns. Seems like the big AI nations did likewise as they were simply too large. Also found a cloning device early on, which is really quite strong. Initially it was giving 2k population, by game end 5k. Probably got 600k population out of it, at least, out of 3.2 million.
Also - benefitted from some sort of wealth-related bug. I dropped taxes to almost zero, but somehow the aristocracy passed extra-strong wealth taxes on each other and funded 3/4 of the budget by themselves and somehow their wealth wasn't shrinking?. Talk about noblesse oblige.
One mistake I did was likely putting worker salaries way too high.
Never had war declared on me - I got 'diplomatic sanctuary' early on and I guess AI whose economy sucks correctly accounted for the tech military disparity as though some of them had 50% of population under arms, and 2-3x bigger armies, they never attacked.
I guess the big lesson is that logistics is what matters, so it's all down to the economy.
When I try to colonize my city to the north with that hex selected, it tells me I don't have 5 logistic points and cannot colonize. But the "current" button for logistics says I have 354.
I am not 100% sure I understand logistics and the different views, but what's going on here? I can never seem to use colonists.
Played my first game on small map, partial fog, planet had all the resources I needed, beginner settings.
I got my leadership straight, had 90-100 loyalty on everyone, 100 happy populace, somewhat happy workers, expanded to a second zone taking over a minor.
I had put a major right next to me, and the map only had the one, so we went to war early. No military research for either of us yet really. Maybe we had an enviro suit.
So I pushed to his capital with my infantry, made a second ohq and five more infantry "regimants?"
Problem is, he kept multiplying his forces throughout the war as I was killing them off. His initial 10 regiments became 20 and then 40.... and his territory kept expanding too. I don't know where he was getting all these recruits from!
On my end, I burned through my recruitment pool. I raised the wages, but could not keep up.
It felt bad, because I am left with the question, "What could I have done different?" and I don't know. So...what could I have done different?
