Demands and opinion

[Jonesy]

I am new and was likely doing something completely wrong, but I was in a death spiral of being unable to complete or out right deny some of the demands my faction would make. Such as, conquer some hex deep out of supply range in a minor regime's zone or my favorite was to declare war on my strongest neighbor that likely had a soldier population as large as my city's citizen population.

These demands seem silly, arbitrary, counterproductive, and downright suicidal at times. It felt even worse when leader opinion gets low and they start acting out and causing unrest in the city and lowering the other faction leaders opinion because I had to slap their friend's hands for being naughty.

Wouldn't it be better to have demands that were more fitting like say, a nationalist general or faction demanding that we produce our own ammunition, food, or fuel instead of relying on foreign trade. Or raise workers or soldiers wages by a certain amount for a period of time to help with morale or worker happiness. Something an advisor would suggest, not I see 84 hexes... but I would really like to to see 96 by a couple of months.

I love alot of aspects of the game, but this is the only thing that frustrates me.

[Sgt.Ray]

When playing the game a really important Office to have, some say it should be the first one, is Internal. They produce HR strats that not only give you options to hire better people but cards to outright "retire" them too. Pay attention to a reserve pool persons party affiliation and if it isn't the one you want to main don't hire them. So if you tick off a minor faction; you dont care about the blowback because they dont have alot of influential leaders anyways. That office also produces strats that increase relation like a bonus or family leave.

[Slippy]

If you start with an autocratic government type you can only have 1 active faction demand at a time which helps. Otherwise its a case of only picking the ones you think you can complete. Refusing a demand is only a 15% penalty and if you have minor factions with leaders you dont care about... who cares if they are unhappy?

The key to leader relation is a high word score. Occasionally you get an option to pick from 3 promises (these are not the faction demands). Always pick the easiest one to complete, complete it asap and your word score will rise. A high word score will help offset demands you refuse and improve leader relation.

Originally posted by Jonesy:

Wouldn't it be better to have demands that were more fitting like say, a nationalist general or faction demanding that we produce our own ammunition, food, or fuel instead of relying on foreign trade. Or raise workers or soldiers wages by a certain amount for a period of time to help with morale or worker happiness. Something an advisor would suggest, not I see 84 hexes... but I would really like to to see 96 by a couple of months.

You already produce nearly everything internally and there are demands to raise worker/soldier happiness over a certain level. I do agree the language used is a bit 'gamey', like increase VP by X amount but at least its always clear what you need to do.

[Jonesy]

Restarted on the same planet and followed the advice given, and things are much more stable this time around. I appreciate all the advice that got me over that curve.

[ABoxFullOfKittens]

Originally posted by Jonesy:

Restarted on the same planet and followed the advice given, and things are much more stable this time around. I appreciate all the advice that got me over that curve.

That's what I call the right answer. Retry that map, do things differently, see if it works better/worse and repeat. Do it a few times then do that on another map and repeat. You'll find the play style and decisions that work best for you. The advice above isn't wrong, but everything is situational based on whatever random factors happen to be generated in that particular play through.

EX: Going Autocratic might swamp you with less demands but your trading a PP surplus or better ini. leaders for it. Me, I like the best leaders from the start so I lean towards meritocracy. That choice might be best for me, but maybe not for you, or for Slippy.

Trial and error, with a controlled variable like the map you retrying now, is really going to help you hammer out what works for you.

EX: Interior first, yes you get human resource cards sooner but if you're strapped for PP maybe not so helpful. Also, taxes take from the private econ. so taxing too hard too soon can stifle growth. Further, your trading for sooner econ. techs or sooner military techs (generally) but if you have few power sources or strong neighbors "not" picking one of those two first could be fatal. You could also be trading off for earlier/better unit designs from a Model first approach. That can be a game saver on a harder difficulty/cramped play through.

Also, how you play will probably change and evolve over time. Mine has. Replaying a map a few times to try diff. strats can accelerate that evolution.

[Slippy]

Aboxfullofkittens makes some really good points and I agree with everything being said.

I personally never play Autocracy (I usually start merit/democracy) and never start with interior, but it’s all about what works for you and your style of play.

One the great things about Shadow Empire is that there are a lot of different opening moves you can make and pick from and there are many paths to success.