Shadow Empire - what say you?

[Huw the Poo]

Doesn't sound too bad mate, well done. With relatively good starts hopefully this will be a really fruitful game.

By bureaucracy points do you mean political points? Those are what you spend on strategems and making decisions. BPs are what you divide between your councils, who in turn use them to generate strategems and whatever else each council does. Unless I'm totally confused about it which may well be the case! Either way, BPs are important to generate anyway.

Anyway, on to the turn! I daren't look....I just hope those 3,600 nonaligned forces have decided to stay put or I could be in trouble.

[Undercovergeek]

Yeah man - the strategem doodahs - clenched fists on top bar

[Huw the Poo]

OK, I have new problems!

The good news is those 3,600 nonaligned militia were content to dig in and simply moon at my troops. As long as they're content to do that I couldn't care less; I'll keep my entrenched unit facing them until I'm able to bolster their numbers.

However, a new militia unit popped up to the south east, about 20 hexes from Photoglacier. They've found the ruins of an ancient mech, which will provide a very nice +100 research points boost to my military research council once it's connected to my network. However, they've also made the demand that the hex be held until turn 9 - and I have no way to reinforce them. They're only 800 foot and 200 gun, all militia, so the weakest unit you can have. And worse than that, they have about two turns' worth of food, and they're well beyond my supply network at the moment. I don't know what I can do to help them.

I'm starting to regret immediately developing that ruin; with no IPs to spare every turn, I can't build roads so all my units are going to run out of supply sooner or later. I can't do much of anything infrastructure-wise until the damned development is complete. After two turns I still have "1.1 turns" of construction remaining, so I estimate it will be another four turns before it's actually built. That's a lot of paralysis when I have such a weak economy and 1st MG Infantry Brigade spread so thinly.

Half of my BP budget is allocated to the interior council. I have to hope they produce some good strategems soon because at the moment my only source of IPs is the service tax on the private economy (in fact that's a large part of my credit income too). To further exacerbate the credits issue, the price of water is now so low that traders aren't willing to buy any at all, which is a shame because it's the only thing I can produce a surplus of at the moment.

Tough times, but as soon as I start getting some IPs back I can start building a supply network and reinforcing my units. Just need to hold on until then.

[Undercovergeek]

On turn 2 we manage to kill 400 infantry for no loss reducing the force to the west to 3100 rifle militia, the south doesnt attack but intelligence firms up their numbers to a lower 28 ltotalling 2600 rifle militia. My fear here was the southern force would try and flank me and head straight for the centre but they didnt move, i unlocked a buggy force from the defenders here and went further south to establish the size of the enemy territory - its a tiny plot of land that now belongs to me except the patch of land the enemy stand on and i assume theyll now be out of supply

To the east of my centre more water has been found, a mineable ice resource, not a lake - at the minute the amount of resources to mine this is too much. The bureaucratic centre is completed with no fuss and more of these resources are available

I appoint a head of military research, actually my advisor but hes the very best for the job so well see how he does

[bob48]

Sounds like you chaps are having fun 

[Huw the Poo]

Sounds like you chaps are having fun 

Yes I'm enjoying it a lot more this time around!

A quiet turn this time. I make it two more turns before the ruins are finally developed, and I absolutely cannot wait because I'm completely paralysed until then. I think my next construction will be some dirt roads to make a supply network, closely followed by an industrial building in my capital to generate more IPs.

As predicted, the new militia unit that appeared and instantly decided to guard the corpse of the ancient mech are now starving. I thought about having them come home to resupply but it would take so long to get here then back out that I'd be certain to lose control of that hex. So they're basically being sacrificed in the (probably vain) hope they can somehow hold on long enough.

I had the option of selling food for a decent amount this turn, but eventually I decided against it because once my ruins are developed I'll be churning out machinery which is a real money-spinner in the early part of the game. I also noticed that no credits are allocated to public spending in Photoglacier so I turned that up to three credits per turn. Doesn't sound like much but we'll see what happens.

Interestingly, I noticed a regular report I'd never bothered to look at before: strategem generation. I was able to see in detail how far short of generating strategems I am each turn, mainly because I simply don't have the BPs yet. A few turns down the road I will follow Geek's lead and build some admin buildings to produce more, and hopefully get some tariff cards I really want. At the moment I have a sales tax of 20% - that's on sales of private goods to traders - but an import tariff of 0% so I really need to turn that up. As far as I know, you can only do that with a tariff strategem.

Oh yeah, that huge unit that massively outnumbers me to the northwest finally attacked, but they left it too late; my troops are slightly better armed and they were seriously entrenched by then. The enemy lost 300 men and I didn't lose any. Satisfying!

[Martok]

Very cool, guys!  Am loving this so far.   

[Undercovergeek]

300 more enemy are killed on our western borders, their strength here now is reduced to 16, once i can clear these out we can race west and find all those lovely little bonus conveying towns

the enemy to the south hasnt moved - our buggy here forces continue to race round expanding our borders

We discover the propeller engine, and i put some resources into its research with the hope of developing some recon planes

Like Huw a team of explorers have found an artificial automoton some way from the capital but as we're heading west anyway theyre only 6 hexes away, i should be able to get them back to my territory safely and then build a network towards the facility

im running out of money and without any fancy precious metals have not much to trade - there is the metals mine that needs building but to do that is robbing peter to pay paul - well see what happens next turn

[Huw the Poo]

im running out of money and without any fancy precious metals have not much to trade - there is the metals mine that needs building but to do that is robbing peter to pay paul - well see what happens next turn

Yep I know the feeling. It seems we had pretty similar starts but we've differed in what we've prioritised. Soon I'll have loads of rare metals but I'm low on BPs and haven't researched a bloody thing yet - it's alarming to know you already have the propellor!

I've got a turn waiting for me but don't want to fire it up while I'm working; I wouldn't get any work done! Couple more hours to go...

[Undercovergeek]

No worries buddy

The guy I have researching is a level 5 inventor - he’s a monster

[Undercovergeek]

We discover padded envirosuits that convey some minor armour protection to the troops - ill not bother researching this for now. We also receive a new strategem - Blitzkrieg that can be attached to a unit leader - it increases attacks by 60% but reduces defence bonuses to nil and allows no entrenchment. I take it and apply it to the 2nd Inf Brigade and attack the raiders to the west with support from surrounding friendly troops - we have an overall ratio of 20:1 and kill 1800 of them but theyre still there for the next turn!

There are so many decisions to make i want A, but to get that i have to have B, and to get B i have to have C - what i need are industrial points to build more and be ready for when tanks are researched, to get those i need to build light industry, to build that i need metal, for that i have to build ametal mine which needs industrial points 

so were starting at the bottom of the ladder and building a metal mine, however this is hoovering up all our available IP and needs 250 - i make 40 a turn so industry will have to come to a standstill for 7 days whilst we pay for the mine

The forces to the south stay still, our buggy forces drive round them uncovering more territory

[Huw the Poo]

Yep I'm in the same position. The ruins development was finally completed this turn, so I haven't received anything from it yet but starting next turn it will churn out IP, metals and rare metals for me. Even better, my IP production is finally freed! So, decisions....

Currently 1st Inf Brigade are fairly close to the city so they can just about stay in supply, so roads not a priority yet. I happily spend the single IP, single metal and 100 reserves to bolster the battalion that lost 100 men in turn 2. Now I have to decide the best way to further develop my infrastructure. Thankfully water and food are solved problems for now, so, like Geek, I have to decide between a metal mine which requires IP, or bolstering IP production in my city which requires - yes, you guessed it - metal!

For now I decide to build nothing at all. I don't have enough IP to complete construction on anything so I'm going to let them build up for a few turns, possibly skimming a few off the top each turn to build machinery. Those machines can either themselves be used for production - saving me a fortune in purchasing - or sold for profit. Either way, building machines is a Very Good Thing. The next two developments I have my eye on will cost me around six machines in total I think, so if I build one per turn while storing the remaining IP everything should come together nicely a few turns down the line.

My long term goal will be to start building my supply network. For now dirt roads will do as anything's better than nothing, but later when I have the metal to spare I'll start building railways. With a supply network in place I'll be able to send 1st Inf Brigade all over the place, claiming territory and I'll even start thinking about where to site my next zone. I'll also need to raise a new formation, but I've never done that before and it looks quite complicated so I'll need to thoroughly read the manual before I begin.

The only problem I have left at home is I don't really have any capable personnel - certainly not a level 5 inventor like Geek has, the jammy git - and that's not likely to improve any time soon as my interior council's budget has zero BP allocated to HR strategems. So another goal is added - building up the admin buildings. More pen-pushers = more BPs.

This is the most stable start to a game I've had yet, and the first time I've really felt like I know what I'm doing. Consequently I'm enjoying it a lot.

[Martok]

[Undercovergeek]

Exactly 😂

[Huw the Poo]

Haha yep, pretty much.

God knows how people manage huge, sprawling empires. I'm putting a serious amount of thought into every turn with a single zone and a single brigade of infantry.