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That zeitgeist you hated grew, peaked, and faded away... Into the exact same zeitgeist! Edit: updated on last page
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May 10, 2020 22:00
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Nah, it's the same one, they just are pretty long. Reaching the end of one grants you a fate point too.
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May 10, 2020 22:14
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 Well, nobody died at least.   Okay after a turn of doing something it goes back to doing nothing. Only a year to go before we might get something good! Okay this one is actually good, the surplus fist pays off and we get the associated feat. I mean it should really have had this from turn 1 given my choices in government but it is what it is.  Free troops? Yup okay! "No retreat" is kind of good too if I manage to draw it as it gives a massive +75% defense bonus to whatever HQ and associated units I play it on and stops units retreating when hit during combat. This means that pushing back units with it is extremely hard and bloody for both sides.   You know what I can't quite figure out how putting pictures of me in classrooms improves meritocracy, seems a bit uh questionable but hey if it works it works!   Who knew that the apocalypse would have so many meetings. Decreasing peoples budgets annoys them more than increasing their budgets makes them happy so every time you tweak it you end out with a net loss of relation.    This one is tricky because I would really like better relation with our neighbours so we can peace out while we gobble up minors but increasing commerce so much would mess with our government score and losing 2 pt of meritocracy would put us under 40 which is the threshold which has a chance of generating a +20% research bonus feat. Argh.  I can't even open official channels with them because our chief diplomat kind of sucks and they don't really like me. Start of turn  Well the Sentinels are continuing to patrol but don't seem that excited about attacking which is nice. Also yeah Friedland capital is spotted to the south-east. Bit close to another major Regime but they seem distracted chasing raiders about for now.  We continue the strategy of bypassing Bloodstate infantry while our fast GR tanks sprint across the open plains. Our advance forces are now out of supply range but should be okay for one more turn.  This shows our current supply lines, the blasted sentinels about to cut the western road are not helping!  The road towards the metal deposit is extended by a hex, it's all we can afford! Anyway thats that for this turn, I wonder how Grey is doing? 
Saros fucked around with this message at 09:52 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 09:49
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Saros posted:
Yeeeah, I really think the developer has those effects backwards... Can't even imagine what the thought process for that must have been. Definitely not a mistake, though, since it's consistent throughout all three options.
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May 11, 2020 11:03
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Pencil pushing after the apocalypse. Right so here is my attempt to explain how research and generation of cards or 'stratagems' happens. Stratagems can be anything from sending a spy to another nation, setting a attack/defense posture of an army to holding a feast in a zone to improve morale. If you look at the top right of the main dashboard you see we are predicted to generate 63 Bureaucratic points or BP next turn.   Most stratagems are generated by the investment of BP's. BP are mostly generated by HQ's or offices/lab as well as a scaling bonus which you recieve for having a small beaurecracy. As you produce more from your HQ/offices you get less free points but you never get less overall for more investment in BP's. This is an obvious scaling mechanism to allow smaller nations to compete. BP are then invested by your councils every turn in research or creation of stratagems according to your budget priorities. As you can see they match!   For research it's fairly straightforward, the BP are invested toward whatever the research or discovery target is i.e. new technology, model or order of battle (OOB) for your units. The relevant council leader gives a substantial % bonus on this depending on their skills and how much they like you.  Research is assigned to discovery/reasearch as you can see above.  For strategems the BP flows to try draw cards based on your budget allocations. e.g. for diplomacy you have strategems divided into major and minor diplomacy. For stratagems, the BP are accumulated for specific types of strategems until one is randomly selected. You have a % chance of drawing a card every turn based on your accumulated BP and the card's weighting. Different things enable different stragagems e.g. government type but don't guarantee it will be drawn. As an example my fist score enables the 'all out attack' card.   As you can see above a card is selected to roll against and if it succeeds this is drawn then the process continues until you are out of points. Right now I am not drawing many cards as I am investing most of my budget in PP generation and researching. Finally all stratagems cost PP to play and PP is largely generated from investing BP in 'Political power' through your supreme council! This means you have to balance generation of cards and research against the capability to actuallly use them.  The last thing is Fate points and Stratagems. These are very powerful cards which can only be generated through events like occupying a new zone, an era ending and a few others and cost Fate points to play which are received in the same way as the cards or by negative event cards which give them. Saros fucked around with this message at 13:06 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 12:54
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Gimmick Account posted:Yeeeah, I really think the developer has those effects backwards... Can't even imagine what the thought process for that must have been. Definitely not a mistake, though, since it's consistent throughout all three options. "He must be successful and worth following if he was powerful enough to get his portrait everywhere" or something. Doesn't make much sense if you aren't running an autocratic government though.
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May 11, 2020 12:54
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RBA Starblade posted:I love how this game's entire premise is "George Miller's Civilization" Any mods reading please change the thread title to, Shadow Empire: George Miller's Civilization, it's way better than mine.
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May 11, 2020 13:46
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Maybe it's "supreme leader elevated this guy to have the guys picture hanged alongside him. Maybee I can become elevated too like mr. Beria?" The assumption there would be that is motivating for backstabbing ambitious people in autocratic regimes - which is...meritocrat...ic? If you change the meaning of uh, meritocracy?
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May 11, 2020 13:54
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The game's definition of meritocracy feels a bit off sometimes but that's what happens when it needs to be something which is in a 3-way battle for ideological supremacy over democracy and autocracy
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May 11, 2020 13:57
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 Chill turn, there aren't even any decisions to make.  Imagine my surprise.  Oh, well that ice mine the private sector was building completed this turn and I guess that counts for my promise to build a mine! Thanks guys!  Ah excellent, we can now research the tech to make AT guns and fit high velocity guns to our tanks if we were so inclined. Also if we had any tanks.  We also draw a spy and a priest which is nice, spies are key early on for letting you do diplomacy and locating other Regimes.  The spy is dispatched to deeprange, a minor in the extreme north.  Flush with PP I order the creation of a new sectret service. We need a more reliable way to generate spies and covert operations cards.  The road is extended another hex and next turn the HQ should be finished so finally we will have some industry freed up. Thanks for the ice mine guys! Start of turn  The speed of our advance seems to have caught Bloodstate off guard. Their isolated unit is unable to fall back far with its supply lines cut and other units arriving from their southern forces fall short of the city. It is held only by a garrison of freshly raised militia.  We pick up another ruin hex by encroaching on the minor I just sent spies after. It's not like they were using it right?  Most of our army marches on the Bloodstate capital and as the tanks arrive I note that the fact that they have 30AP left, enough for three combat rounds.  Our recon is seriously understating the opposing strength in this but I decide to chance it. The tanks will hopefully be able to rout the Militia before running out of AP so my own militia can finish the job.  Annnd I seem to have forgotten the screenshot of the victory screen but have the triumphant parade of the tanks through the only slightly ruined city. Success! We have won our first war. That was... actually a lot easier than anticipated. Most minor Regimes fall apart if their capital falls and is held for a turn and with both our tanks and a large militia unit in the city the chance of them retaking it is basically zero. The downside is it's a raider city so there is functionally no infrastructure and the place is going to be a nightmare to administer but hey, Turn 8 and two zones that's not a half bad start! Saros fucked around with this message at 16:26 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 16:23
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That was incredibly well done of you, seizing the initiative like that. Watching some other Let's Players move up to a poorly defended capital with superior forces and then waste several turns with ineffectual artillery bombardments while the enemy reinforces the asset has been driving me mad lately. I'm surprised that an armored unit would be so potent in an urban hex, but I guess that's the technological difference making itself felt during the early game.
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May 11, 2020 17:28
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I'm surprised as well to be honest, I think but can't be totally sure that it was a freshly raised unit so the readiness was in the toilet and as soon as they took hits from the tanks morale broke and the whole unit ran. To be fair to those LP'ers early rifleman v rifleman combat can be absolutely brutal for the attacker if it goes wrong. Infantry are much stronger on the defensive and without stacking a lot of bonuses on the offensive it's hard to succeed. I think because of the picture on the unit people also expect the irregular artillery you get with militia units to be actual artillery as opposed to having stats on the level with really bad light mortars. [E] What systems would people like me to try explain next? Part of this LP is supposed to be an introduction to the game systems. Right now I am thinking, logistics, leaders, units & hq's, in depth technology/units/OOB's, private sector and finally zones + industry & population. Saros fucked around with this message at 18:36 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 17:36
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Saros posted:I'm surprised as well to be honest, I think but can't be totally sure that it was a freshly raised unit so the readiness was in the toilet and as soon as they took hits from the tanks morale broke and the whole unit ran. Colonization. I know that it's a mechanic in the game, but none of the Let's Plays I've seen have progressed to a stage where it would be relevant. Is there a limit to one city per zone, or does that only apply to initial world generation? Do you select a hex for the new city, or are there predefined spots from which you must choose? What about those free folk villages? Do they eventually disband when everyone there has moved into a city, or can they grow as well if you support them with industrial and educational infrastructure in the hex? The EU4 player inside me just wants to nurture and improve them with rail connections and public services, no matter how ineffective that is in terms of game mechanics. 
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May 11, 2020 19:00
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I think the free folk villages are essentially just pools of people that you haven't brought to your cities yet. If your cities are nice and safe, they'll flock over, if you cities are poo poo, you'll lose population and there'll be more free folk who definitely aren't registered to pay taxes, then you can use your military to force them in the cities. I'm fairly sure that there's one zone per city and one city per zone, no exceptions, and that founding a city is pretty costly to bring it up to speed and also leads to having to use a painting tool to assign hexes to it. City sites are not restricted, you can pick whatever hex You control, and probably have a logistical network to.
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May 11, 2020 19:09
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Is there any kind of airpower in the game? Anything naval?
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May 11, 2020 19:38
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Pharnakes posted:Is there any kind of airpower in the game? Anything naval? No, nothing, although the developer seems to be at least entertaining thoughts about implementing naval forces later on. I wonder if that would lead to a new water planet type, as well?
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May 11, 2020 19:50
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Gimmick Account posted:Colonization. I know that it's a mechanic in the game, but none of the Let's Plays I've seen have progressed to a stage where it would be relevant. Is there a limit to one city per zone, or does that only apply to initial world generation? Do you select a hex for the new city, or are there predefined spots from which you must choose? What about those free folk villages? Do they eventually disband when everyone there has moved into a city, or can they grow as well if you support them with industrial and educational infrastructure in the hex? The EU4 player inside me just wants to nurture and improve them with rail connections and public services, no matter how ineffective that is in terms of game mechanics. I think more accurately it might be the Victoria player inside you that hungers for rail lines. Don't worry we all have one. The short answer is basically as Sigsev said. The long answer requires a bit more explanation. Zones, Population and Colonisation! Okay so, Zones! You can think of each one as functionally a city-state and thats how they mostly exist at the start of the game, it's why a game with 4-6 major Regimes might have forty minors. There is one ever one city per zone and they define them. Generally less zones is better because of two things, firstly that everything produced inside a zone magically appears in the city as long as there is a road/rail connection between them and secondly that more zones is more logistical trouble because all zones report to a Strategic Headquarters or SHQ. Buildings like industry, mines, agriculture, exist within zones at at the end of the turn their production is added to the zone.  Let's have a look at Republique above here. On the right hand side of the screen is a summary of the zone's production and inputs/outputs/stockpiles. The zone looks for any ongoing construction projects, upkeep etc and spends it's production on that before taking any excess and shipping it to the SHQ it is assigned to (SHQ pick) using logistics points that exist between the two cities, if none exist it hamsters the excess production up to it's storage limits. It also imports things it needs that it is short of (SHQ deliv) again using logistical points between the SHQ and the zone city. In this case the zone is recently conquered and the logistical network is overloaded so it is quite short of Metals so cannot build using its Industry points (IP). The SHQ can be told to prioritise or assign percentages of capacity to deliveries/pickups as well as unit supply and replacements as all run over the same logistics network.  Okay onto SHQ's, generally having only one is enough while you are small or midsize, however once you have a big empire or some circumstance makes shipping between two parts of your empire arduous you can create a new SHQ in a city. Each SHQ operates autonomously but you can set resources to transfer between them if you want. In the examples above 'Seedhead' is the location of my second SHQ, in this situation there was a pre-generated road through the mountain range between it an Photonridge my capital but building sealed roads or rail through mountins is nearly impossible due to the insane expense. I actually acquired Seedhead by guaranteeing its independence then someone war dec'd it so it joined me willingly. Pushing half my army across the alps in time to save the city was quite the trick I must say.  Check the bottom right, to complete a rail line between the railhead at Monia Sea to Steel head costs 120k metal and industry because of traversing two high mountains hexes which is just off the charts wild amounts of resources. The only connection between the two parts of my empire is a dirt road so they operate almost autonomously.  Okay so you might say why not take advantage of the free resources to the zone capital and make everything you can into a single zone. The answer is Administrative strain. There is a formula behind it but I use the rule of thumb that for every hex beyond 6 that a asset (mine, ruins etc) is from the city of the zone it is in you lose 10% of it's production. In this case about 1/3 of the world was uninhabited radioactive land with this big ruins cluster in the middle. To effectively scavenge them (some even had artifacts, the little pyramid icons) I had to set up a colony as close to the 6 hex limit as possible. This was of course Capio Mere as selected on the screenshot.  Building a colony is simple, you just build any building in the hex desired and when doing so tick the New zone box. Usual rules about building new assets applies like having to have enough logistical reach to get there etc. When the building is complete it creates a new city with only the population running the asset and claims a zone around it. Cities have to have a minimum of four hexes between them but you can freely allocate zone territories back and forth using a map tool.  Colonists are simple, they are recruited by your zones to a SHQ in the same manner as recruits and you simply select a zone and add them to it's population, consuming a small amount of logistics to ship them there. This and attracting Free folk are the only way to grow zone populations apart from the slow natural growth. It's worth noting that generally medium/small worlds wont be much more than a million survivors on the whole planet and once you start throwing around divisions of troops you start putting pertty drat serious dents in the total population of the planet as every soldier has to be recruited from a Zone's population and casualties have knock on effects both short and long term so if you start taking massive casualties or recruiting a lot of troops your population fades away into the free folk at an alarming rate. I was going to go on about populations, workers, free folk and public/private economies but I think this is long enough as it is and it deserves it's own topic. Saros fucked around with this message at 22:24 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 22:19
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Saros posted:I think more accurately it might be the Victoria player inside you that hungers for rail lines. Don't worry we all have one. Saros posted:
 That's completely insane! I understand (and agree!) that laying infrastructure through mountainous terrain is a major, long-term effort even for wealthy state actors, but that seems like poorly considered napkin math by the designer. Hopefully, he'll tone it down by a factor of ten. It'll still be something that only people like me construct, because doing so is not economically rational. Right now it's not economically possible.Saros posted:
On one hand, that makes it clear that villages do not really count as population centers, which is a pity. I do think that these should have their place in a wargame like this. A town of even 5000 people may pale in importance next to the 300000-strong capital, but if it's the only settlement in a vast stretch of desert, then that's a vital objective and supply pitstop. On the other hand, I thought that zones would be completely fixed, and with them the total amount of possible cities on the map. That the system is this flexible is really good news for me. Do emptied villages disappear from the map? If I build a city on a village hex, does the existing population get incorporated immediately, or do the two entities coexist? Thank you for the really great infopost! If we had a Shadow Empire thread in the games forum, this should definitely all go into the first post!
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May 11, 2020 23:14
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The Grog games thread pretty much doubles as a thread for individual games like this close to release, usually there isnt enough headcount to really justify individual threads so it serves well enough. Also Grey has put up part 2 of his side of the LP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMI_i_FF55E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ITPN3gXABM I just realised that the arc by the Crocs head is a moon I thought Grey had put a bubble helmet on his dude. Saros fucked around with this message at 11:10 on May 12, 2020 |
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May 12, 2020 11:01
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 Lots going on this turn!  It did... a thing   Sweet, free stuff.  Anyway guess what we easily held though the turn. The Raider forces of Bloodstate, leaderless and dispersed scatter to the winds and we lay claim to their whole territory.   With the Fate point I get a new series of strategems. The red ones are kind of different, instead of good effects they give you more Fate points for some seriously bad effects.   I'm having some er, personell problems.  Ashdown is the chair of my supreme council so is really crippling my PP generation with his petty bullshit. I cant really do much as he is a faction member and removing him would plummet relations with all of them. Ugh, gently caress. I also don;t have the spare PP to do it either.   Alastair is my genius advisor and I yank him from his advisor position with the promise of another job.   He's dropped into position as the governor of our unruly new city, he is very good at it and I need that zone up and running ASAP.   My last reserve leader Grant Carbonus is set as the leader of the Secret Service. He will be good enough and he absolutely loves me which is a key thing for your director of spies and internal security to have!   Everyone wants to talk to me and we of course want to talk to them.   + Government is good but why do all my councillors care so much about this bloody hell.    My spy reports back and the northern minor 'Deeprange' turns out to be a bunch of chill Farmers. Probably the most peaceful of minor regimes I will work on annexing them via diplomacy. They have some claims on a bunch of ruin hexes which would be good to acquire.  As you can see my cabinet is not in a good state and my zones are rather unhappy. Yikes, only one thing to do now.    Cabinet after all the juggling and shifting.  Yesss yes yes yes! Our first homebuilt unit that will be capable of proper offensive work.   You of course by now know what every important development in Shadow Empire means? More meetings!  Our realm now stretches from the equator almost to the fertile south pole.  There is even a high plateau to the south accessible via only a single non mountain hex which would be perfect for farming. Of course as I was writing this I remembered to check the temperature of the hexes and it is around -20C.  Aw crap I guess my dreams of open air farms are crushed as the native life is poisonous to humans. Looks like it's domes forever unless I can figure out if it's possible to grow in the arid conditions of the equator.  At the end of the turn we are pulling the 1st MG Bde back to the capital so I can reinforce them up to full strength, they still havent had the chance since they were raised at about 60% strength. I don't know what the Sentinels are doing but they don't seem to need supply lines.    We have sighted all the major regimes at this point and made buddies with the farmers of Deeprange. Friedland doesnt really like us much and seems to be expanding north while Friedraum is more chill. Very little is known about all the regimes we have contact with except Friedland is militarist which doesnt bode well for future relations.   The Empire of Angry Max. So my question to the audience. Now that we have expanded into our first new zone and made contacts with our neighbours, only a handful of which are inclined to murder us on sight what shall be my objectives for the future? Shall we remake our society in another image? Shall we pursure an expansionist foreign policy and if so against whom? Do we make friends with Grey or hold him at arms length for an eventual backstab? Feel free to suggest your own ideas if I haevnt listed something you want here!
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May 12, 2020 13:31
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Is it possible to build defensive structures around the
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May 12, 2020 14:09
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Nope there are no defensive structures in the game at present as far as I know. I think it's in the post release patch bucket with naval units. Besides almost the whole drat world is rocky plains and sand dunes so fairly easy to go around anything you build.
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May 12, 2020 14:26
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What should you do? Crush Grey. See him driven before you. Hear the lamentations of his people. Strike now while he is weakest. What's the worst that can go wrong?
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May 13, 2020 02:08
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DasTactic got some MG bunkers in one of his games. They can be moved by strategic moves.
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May 13, 2020 02:38
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Actually yeah I had forgotten about immobile units, you can get GR automatons from exploration which are basically bunkers on tracks and require strategic movement.Randalor posted:What should you do? Crush Grey. See him driven before you. Hear the lamentations of his people. Strike now while he is weakest. What's the worst that can go wrong? I might not even have to.  
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May 13, 2020 09:04
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 Peaceful turn and few decisions.     Exploring the new territory I have captured from Bloodstate gives me no less than 28 machinery across 4 separate events. Of course there is no logistical link to my capital so it all just sits there in big stockpiles.  I don't have a clue what happened or what this actually does but my Militia rating plummeted to 5% so maybe it's from owning a second zone?  We draw some spying cards. Influence faction can be played on other Regimes to meddle with their internal politics. Against an AI different factions have different playstyles so it can be useful for turning a hostile nation into a friend or just messing with their politics.  I send the spy to map out the zone occupied by the Sentinels.  Um, no. I sell off rare earth elements extracted form the ruins and flog a bunch of my machines stockpile to gather some cash as we are running a bit short.  Our new zone gets its orders, I leave it unincorporated which means that it doesnt pay taxes and you get doubled happiness increases. Hopefully that and the investment credits we are putting in we can make the population like us.  We also start construction on our metal mine. At 250 industry total it will take 4-5 turns, ugh. I could really really use the private sector to put up a light industry as it is my big bottleneck now. Unfortunately to build a state industry plant costs 1500! metal so you need the metal income first.  In better news our bureaucracy is taking off. We should start to get more cards and tech should come in faster. Start of Turn  I decide to launch an operation in the north-east to rescue our poor militia unit that has been trekking home for the last several turns. End of turn  Turns out there are even more raiders in the fog of war, goddamn. While we have taken a second zone which is a nice boon our industry is suffering. It will take us likely 8ish turns before we have both the metal mine and an industry up and running, however once we manage that we should be able to get properly off the ground, connect our two zones logistically and start investing in further buildings or a proper combat force. [e] Grey has put part 3 up, I am not watching these so try avoid spoilers in this thread please! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R19wfzT8Hco Saros fucked around with this message at 11:11 on May 13, 2020 |
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May 13, 2020 10:47
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Saros posted:
While I don't know what that is, either, it does sound like a serious bug. Weren't you close to a hundred before? Maybe report this and see what the developer makes of it. Speaking of bugs: Could you perhaps ask Vic to expand initial empire creation a bit? Right now you can give your empire a banner and a name, but the actual cultural name (i.e.: 'Iron State' -> 'Ironstatian') will still use whatever the randomly generated default was. That makes this customizing function essentially useless. Saros posted:[e] Grey has put part 3 up, I am not watching these so try avoid spoilers in this thread please! The only thing you should know about them is that Grey is significantly behind you in documenting his playthrough. So all of these are a little disjointed when coming from your own retellings.
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May 13, 2020 11:46
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Gimmick Account posted:While I don't know what that is, either, it does sound like a serious bug. Weren't you close to a hundred before? Maybe report this and see what the developer makes of it. I went back and checked and I was at 45, I thought maybe I no longer have any cabinet members supporting the militia but the director still does. Maybe it's because he hates me or something I dont know.  Turn 9  Turn 10  I will also pass on the initial empire creation thing, I hadn't noticed it myself but you are right.
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May 13, 2020 12:07
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Even if that isn't a bug it would be good if the game communicated why it has happened to you better.
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May 13, 2020 12:18
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 Still no deaths but a lot of decisions facing me this turn. Decisions and Events   More cards drawn.  Okay I think I have found a clear bug here, you can play militia loss of faith on other plays zones I also send a spy to look at Friedland.  The spy from last turn starts sending back info on the territory held by the Sentinels, its substantial but does not appear to have any sort of permanent structures other than a huge derelict walker and next to it a mercenary camp (provides 300 recruits per turn). The glacier on the left can also be mined for ice if we ever get there.   We choose the second option which I think has incorrect text, "Maximise" instead of "Restrict." +Government is what we are looking for.  I cannot afford the governor's relation to fall any further so I am forced to support him.  No brainer, the private sector is already building something, I think a waste treatment plant. It would be nice if they would build industry but oh well.  There is unrest and danger in hanson causing unhappiness and bad events, this time we manage to talk them down without bloodshed but it was a gamble to do so.  Both zones are actually seeing protests, I have enough cash from selling things last turn to bribe these guys but we get a few more democracy points.  Battle banner it is.  I really cant afford more meritocracy right now as it would mess with Democracy which at 40 is giving us a nice bonus so sadly we say no. Empire Summary     The unrest across the zones and the fact the governors only marginally like me is causing me a bunch of grief. At least both governors are quite competent.   The first turn which sees the large increase in BP budget from the construction of the HQ. I hope we can get padded envirosuits and tanks soon so that once we have our industry up and running we can then upgrade our infantry and build tank units. Stratagems  For a laugh I decrease Friedland's militia comitment.   Using the two Fate points I play out ancient archive strategem and we get a random free tech, Serpentization?   Hmm?  I am quite disapointed until I realise it has given us the capability to produce (very expensive) power plants. This is good in that you start with a run down GR power plant which produces 100 energy/turn and it can be some time before you get technology to build more which limits expansion of your industry as most industry/BP creating buildings consume power. Bad in that this is an extremely expensive power plant as it takes 4x hi-tech which has to be bought on the market for the forseeable future and frankly solar power is probably going to be much more efficient. However I think it is better than the other early game power option of oil power plants as water is generally not in that high demand and if you don't have an oil well converting food into biofuel to power oil plants is very inefficient.  For comparison. Start of Turn  Our diplomatic contacts with Croctopia show their territory extent.  End of Turn  Operation rescue-are-boys continues in the northeast while the reinforced to full strength MG bde is moved to block the Sentinels from rampaging any further.
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May 13, 2020 13:34
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Saros posted:
Hahahaha, does this work for the other ones, as well?? I'm looking at radiation leak here. Spike that danger rating at the worst time! Edit: Also, you can tell Vic that the process is actually called 'Serpentinization', since I don't believe that this is the kind of mistake he'll spot just by spellchecking himself - No offense. Gniwu fucked around with this message at 15:09 on May 13, 2020 |
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May 13, 2020 14:22
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^^ No sadly it seems to be just this one stratagem with this particular quirk. Logistics or "why are all my pixelmen starving." Okay so lets cover logistics for units first. Basically every turn units consume resources based upon what they are doing. All units (except robots) consume food, unsurprisingly. Units depending on what they are also consume oil, ammunition, energy (for high weaponry tech units) and even radioactives (for tactical nuclear equipped units). The resources do what you'd expect, e.g. without food your readiness drops and without ammunition you start to suffer combat penalties and without oil it becomes very difficult for mobile units to move. To make sure this dowsnt happen at the start of each turn your units try draw supply from the nearest hex with your logistical network in it. Unit logistics  Lets look at this in practice, I have turned on the unit supply overlay so you can see the way units are drawing supply. For the triplet of MIlitia on the right they are close to our logistical network so are managing to draw 100% of what they ask for each turn. You can see the white line along the road with the numbers representing how many logistical points it's costing to ship the supplies to the units. Once the supply has to trace a route off the logistical network (white lines) it starts to have a more difficult time. The first 50 action points (AP) worth of truck movement off the logistical network (generally a flat hex is 10AP for a truck, mountains, forests etc are more) supplies units 100% of what they request assuming there is enough capacity on the logistical network. Past that it supplies progressively less out to 100AP where it provides no supplies. You can see this in the case of poor 2nd militia in the top right where the shaded hexes represent 75%/50%/25% supply range but it has run even further past it's supplies! Units do carry usually 1-2 turns of supply with them so going out of supply isnt disastrous instantly. Apparently food is an exception and is always supplied 100% as long as any sort of supplies are reaching the unit. The logistical network.  The Logistical Network is what ties your empire together, we previously talked about Strategic HQ's which zones and formations are assigned to and they are the centers of your logistical network. Supplies and reinforcements flow from them and zones try to deliver excess production to them. Essentially logistical points are used to transport everything around your empire and they flow along your logistical network outwards from your buildings (truck stations, rail stations) that generate them.  In a similar way to unit supplies losing capacity after certain distances the flow of the logistical network does the same. The difference is that this distance is dependent on the type of building and road/rail they are flowing along and is set by the amount of 'free AP' the relevant building has. In the example above we see that the Logistics points (LP) (grey line and numbers) coming from our capital Hanson are flowing out along the road network and heading south but before they reach the hex we are trying to build a mine in (orange triangle) they go from 222 Pt's to 178pts. This is because our only logistical asset at the moment is the Private transport hub building which provides 50 "Free truck AP" and 400 logistical points. As dirt roads cost 10AP to move along by the time they hit the 5th hex they are exceeding their free ap allocation and start to dimish. Of note above is that if set to default logistical points will spread evenly out along all roads they can access so you can use 'traffic signals' to guide them. I have restricted the amount that can flow out the NE and NW roads from the capital so they each have 88LP and the southern road has 222LP which should add up to the 400 generated by the transport hub. Dirt roads cost 10AP, Sealed roads cost 5AP and Rail costs 2AP for your network to traverse. The actual terrain under the hex is ignored.  Supply bases are a special case, they simply 'reinvigorate' truck logistics with an extra 50AP (or more for higher level supply base) up to the max of 100AP. They don't add any actually capacity to the network they just allow it to extend a bit further. Sadly they cannot be chained together each LP flow only gets boosted once. I'm just going to use the example from the manual here. Rail heads are simply a building that allows rail LP to be fully utilised in a hex , you can only use 10% of a rail lines capacity to deliver to a hex without a station or railhead which means you can build a line then use that line to slap down a rail head but its hard to do much with it until it's built. To provide all the things your empire needs "stuff" flows along your logistical network. Everything costs some points to move except Energy, Oil and Industrial points but they still require a connection. At the start of every turn zones ask the SHQ for any resources it cannot produce locally it needs for construction sites or say, feeding the population or its local industry then ships the excess production to the SHQ. The SHQ ships directly to units and units can actually use the logistics network to carry them about using 'strategic move' mode. This of course costs a lot of LP's!  Every step requires LP along the path the goods flow and this can exhaust your network's capacity if you are trying to ship too much so you can set the max % a SHQ is allowed to use for each type of shipping. Yes they can total to more than 100% this is just a cap. So yeah as long as everything is going well and you set up sufficient logistics supplies, goods and units should flow freely around your empire. Saros fucked around with this message at 10:37 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 13, 2020 15:52
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So all that seems to mean that dirt roads in open hexes don't actually do anything?
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May 13, 2020 18:20
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Does this have a release date yet? This looks pretty cool even from what we've seen so far, and I get the impression that there is a lot of replay value.
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May 13, 2020 18:30
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In terms of supply draw? Yeah if there was a road the logistical network would extend along it further which would allow the point where supply to the unit was being traced from to be closer. Someone in the grog thread said June 4 but I haven't seen anything official and don't know where that info came from. It's largely complete and everything now is just polishing. Vic also disappeared fri-mon to put get the manual and documentation finished and sent to whoever does graphic design etc for matrix/slitherine which seems to suggest it can't be far if he had a hard deadline for that. Saros fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 13, 2020 |
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May 13, 2020 18:31
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Saros posted:Someone in the grog thread said June 4 but I haven't seen anything official and don't know where that info came from. https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4812726
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May 13, 2020 18:53
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 Pretty stoked, this looks like a fun take on both the hex/counter and 4X genres with a UI that seems totally useable, if a little ugly.
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May 13, 2020 19:25
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Bold Robot posted:
Yeah, same. All of Vic's other games are great, and this one looks even better
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May 13, 2020 19:55
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2 theories for your sudden loss of militia. 1: Actually paying your troops means they no longer count as militia. 2: Grey discovered the same bug and hit you with it.
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May 13, 2020 23:56
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habituallyred posted:2: Grey discovered the same bug and hit you with it.  Oh god, I hadn't even considered that! And seeing as his own documentation of the playthrough lags far behind that of Saros, we won't know whether that's the case for a very long time!Unless Saros wants to ask him nicely about it...?
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May 14, 2020 00:57
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