ok why do players say the majors cant fight?

[Jimib4158]

you know when he outnumbers you 3:1 and 4:1 he doesnt have to be a genius

maybe its my roll i run into such massive AI major armies?

90% land, hugest map, many survivers of the cataclysm :/,,,,,,,,yeah he has big cities too

i still outnumber any of them in my best game ,but the guy i outnumber in pop 3:1
has fielded an army equal in size to mine :/......so hes no pushover

ANND ive found after 50 turns of war he is still pumping out troops because ive killed so many of his and hes replaced much of his losses, we have a huge 30 square front where massive amounts of troops face each other.......maybe i need to screen shot this?

im in a slight quagmire gaining ground ever so slightly

[tonechild]

I've been in similar situations where the AI just keeps pumping out large numbers of troops and it's a very dull process of grinding them down.

In my last game, There was a very large area of flat terrain and I had a difficult time covering all the open space. AI would also push past lines on occasion just to disrupt my supply lines for like 1 turn. Keep in mind it would sacrifice a whole unit just to disrupt supply lines for a single turn - which I feel is stupid but I guess it has the numbers so why not.

It makes the reward for disrupting the AI supply lines small though, if it lets you remove a few cheap units from the map it's pointless as they just respawn magically anyway since AI seems to field unlimited troops.

Overall this has been the only boring part of the game for me and it makes attrition warfare always favor the AI as well. That being said, if you can hold the lines long enough to out-tech the enemy you can overcome the numbers but again this reduces strategic options and creativity to grindfest.

TLDR - hold the line, increase BP production as much as possible, build better units then reinforce the line with much better units than the enemy. AI biggest weakness right now is player can easily out-tech them. at equal tech level AI can overwhelm the player and win attrition.

[Hobo Elf]

I've played two games, both in massive losses because the enemy AI comes at me with superior tech and superior numbers. The first time the AI just walked into my city, I was unprepared. Not surprising for a first game. Second time I was prepared, had slightly better understanding of the mechanics, put up a valiant front, but again the superior numbers and tech of the enemy AI eventually whittled me. They have too many medium tanks and I can't make enough med tanks of my own to fight against them without breaking my entire economy.
So I tried clever tactics like encircling their units to cutoff their supplies, but each time this would end with the AI encircling MY units instead.

From my POV the AI for Major regimes in this game is brutal. I've read posts online how incompetent it is and I just keep scratching my head. All of these posts were from 2021 so maybe the AI has been improved since with updates.

[George The Ork]

If you can handle regiments of light tanks, then nothing the AI can throw at you will be much better.

But it IS a high hurdle to cross to begin with as massed Light Tanks are the most pop-efficient units in the game. For an enemy with more population to put into the army then you, that is a tough deal.

But yeah once you can resist those, and set up a decent economy which can take many games to learn how to manage, the AI's vast armies are little more then fodder to be ground down.

I've had games were I simply couldn't build up my economy, bureaucracy, and technology fast enough that it resulted in my carbine armed padded infantry battalions facing down AI automatic rifle armed combat armour infantry regiments who turned them into swiss cheese, and tanks of a better quality and number. Whos only flaw was not pushing fast enough. Or another where my SHQ was literally 5 tiles from an advanced start major.

And I've had games where I won without even seeing the other regimes who were busy murdering each other in the corner. So map generation can vary the game by quite a lot.

The games difficulty is a plateau. Once you get over an enormous cliff it's just flat.

[Bagpipe]

There are folks who play almost nothing but this game remember, so take that into account. I am near 200 hours and still find the AI challenging at times. Nothing wrong with having an average IQ either, just have fun and experiment with different weaponry, tactics and stratagems.

[Dave]

Game settings matter a lot in SE, and not enough people (including myself) post theirs when they talk about difficulty. As one instance, grabbing a tech lead is as good as people have said, but what era you start in, and what tech acquisition speed you play at, and how pressed you are at the outset, all make a massive difference in doing so.

With 600 hours in I'm still fiddling with worldgen and difficulty settings to get a challenge I like. In general I find I need to risk getting steamrolled right at the start to get a hard but winnable game later. That's not a tradeoff you have to make in every other strategy game out there, but it's not the end of the world for me either.

[Jimib4158]

Well i finally won my firstt war against a developed major, its been a 100 turn war so far, and im finally at the gate of 2 of his leading cities, if i take them, i will break him.

The path to victory was paved in so much of both our blood :/

Wow and i outnumbered his pop 3:! even at the start of the war

i beat a major once beforem rushing him, but i had to dump that game cuz i wasted too much time early and the other 2 majors close graped the other 2 minor cities b4 i could :(

[BATTLEMODE]

When people make sweeping statements about Shadow Empire, take them with a huge grain of salt. The game difficulty changes drastically depending on the different game settings, map generation and general randomness.