Shadow Empire Dev Diary #2

Posted on January 24, 2020 by vic

Posted the second Development Diary on the Matrix Games site:

https://www.matrixgames.com/news/shadow-empire-dev-diary-2-military-conquest

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Shadow Empire Dev Diary #1

Posted on December 20, 2019 by vic
Generating a new Planet

Posted the first official Development Diary on the Matrix Website: https://www.matrixgames.com/news/shadow-empire-dev-diary-1-planet-generation

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Shadow Empire officially announced & Beta tester positions available

Posted on October 9, 2019 by vic

This will not come as a surprise to many :) But yes.. Shadow Empire is going to be published by good old Matrix Games. Read the official announcement and detailed game info now: https://www.matrixgames.com/news/shadow-empire-is-announced

There is also an opening right now to join the Beta Test! Surf over here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/news/shadow-empire-open-beta

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Shadow Empire Design Snippet #30

Posted on July 31, 2019 by vic

Snippet #30: The Tech Tree

Time for a new Snippet. Shadow Empire will have a Tech Tree. But it is not completely your regular kind of tree…

Part of the Tech Tree

The essence of Shadow Empire research is that it is a two-step process. First you have to discover a Tech and then you can chose to research that Tech.

Discovery is easier than researching, thus often you’ll have to make a choice which of your discoveries you’ll actually want to focus your research on.

Due to the random discoveries you’ll never have exactly the same Techs between which to chose to focus your Research on.

However having said that… the system is only partly random. This is because Techs always belong to a Tech Group. Once you have researched 3 Techs in a Group all the Techs in the connected Groups will become open to Discovery. So for example in the above screeny the Player will only be able to make discoveries in the Basic Tech Group. Once the Player has researched 3 Techs of this Group he’ll be able to also discover Techs in the Chemistry and Engineering Tech Groups.

In case anybody wonders what the small letter codes “Mi”,”Ec” and “Ap” signify… They signify the Council you’ll need to Discover and Research them: The Military Research Council, The Economy Council or The Applied Sciences Council.

That’s it for this Snippet!

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Early Beta for Shadow Empire

Posted on July 4, 2019 by vic

Yes there is an opportunity to help me test and evaluate Shadow Empire!

Full Beta will still be several months off, but we are starting with early beta testing.

We just sent out a “welcome back” email to the initial group of SE testers from over 1.5 year ago. But considering the holiday season and the huge amount of idle time experienced by this group we’ll need some fresh players as well.

If you were not part of the initial test group you can now sign-up for joining the early beta by clicking on the following link: http://www.matrixgames.com/beta/cnda.asp?gid=719

Existing testers received an email and should be able to start testing right away, while new sign-ups will be added monday 8th of July.

See you soon on the beta forums!

Best wishes,
Vic

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Shadow Empire Playtest Snippet #2

Posted on July 3, 2019 by vic

And I finally found some time to post a new Snippet. Here a playthrough of the first 12 turns of one of my test game.

turn 1: Playing Steelland. Spreading out
turn 2: Still expanding outwards. Encountered minor regime Phoenixkeep in the south.
turn 2: Managed to infiltrate a spy in their Zone.
turn 3: The enemy in the south has like 8000 militia force. I think I can take them and will start concentrating my forces before launching my offensive.
turn 3: My other neighbour are some raiders over in Deneba. I decided to keep them calm while I annex those farmers in the south first.
turn 3: Furthermore I decided to spend most of my Metal and Industrial Point production on buying a unit of buggies to give me some more offensive punch.
turn 4: Still building up towards the attack into Phoenixkeep. In preperation I changed the CO of 1st MG Infantry Brigade with mr Wulfram, a guy that has at least some military skill…
turn 4: Also my food surplus is down to +70 so I have ordered an Ice Mining Facility to be constructed so I’ll have the water to build a farm after. Rain ain’t spectacular on this Planet.
turn 5: Increased soldiers’ salaries to get morale a bit higher. And heck I gave my Leaders a raise as well :)
turn 5: Slow build up, attack still some turns away. Note the blue bars indicating low readiness due to marching all the way south.
turn 6: Discovered Automated Rifles
turn 2: Managed to infiltrate a spy in their Zone.
turn 6: And had to pay off those pesky raiders is in the north to avoid an incursion while all my troops are focussing on Phoenixkeep.
turn 7: Upgrading all my Riflemen to Riflemen II, they have a Carbine instead of a Slugthrower rifle.
turn 7: It seemed Phoenixkeep already knew what was going to happen next and they declared war on us first.
turn 8: Phoenixkeeps farmer militias are afraid and trying to entrench themselves in their City. I fully encircled it and then attacked with maximum forces and concentric bonus.
turn 8: Almost managed to destroy them in a single blow… but not quite.
turn 10: After giving my troops one turn to recuperate I attacked again and forced them to surrender.
turn 11: Gained a Zone and a complementary Fate Pack (4 Fate Cards)
turn11: My two Zones… Halkan in the north and Psimchron (conquered from Phoenixkeep) in the south.
turn 12: Raised a second Brigade… it feels like those Raiders are stirring for war and I do not trust the Major Regime far west of me either.
turn 12: Didn’t calm down those Phoenixkeepuch enough. Had to send in the troops to stop them from protesting.

That’s it for this Playtest Snippet. Thanks for following the development of Shadow Empire.

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