The User Interface explained

This is the ultimative User Interface guide. Or so I hope. Work-in-progress, I am at estimated 30% progress but published it any way, because I want to take community demands into account.
Finishing will take much longer than I expected as I recently had a stroke, and I mistype a lot now. Now out of rehab, I am back working on this guide. - March 2022

Here I will explain almost every detail of the User Interface (UI), the reports and the management interface in comparison to the info given to you in the manual to the best of my knowledge showcasing one single turn in a hard difficulty game.

I will not, however, delve into planet generation mechanics. I will, in fact, skip it entirely.

After reading it, you will get a better grip on where to find what, which hotkeys are implemented and generally a better feeling for Shadow Empire, or so I hope.

A big shoutout to DasTactic, without whom I would never have had discovered this gem of a nailbiting, just-one-more-turn strategy game,
to Vic, the developer,
to the friendly community
and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020+ that made this guide possible.

"The good thing is, we have all the information in the reports. The bad thing is, we have all the information."

Introduction: Some wonky but important words before we get going

This game was coded by one. single. developer.

Vic, the dev of this game, hardcoded a lot of stuff into the save files, as I understood it, and so steam workshop/screenshots, WASD movement or free keybindings will probably never occur in the future.
The game was released without targeting steam users in the first place, or user experience as a service. The game is raw. This said,

Mouseover often hands you different information than left-clicking on the same menu item. This is not explained in the manual.
"Use CONTROL + F to search specific words in the manual PDF. It literally shows you every specific instance the word appears." Credit: laagamer

Do both until you get a hang of it and know where to look at.

Left-clicking something will choose it and right-clicking will execute an order. Make sure to always press the Escape button or I hotkey when just checking something to avoid trouble.

The manual, iteration 1.09. from 28th April 2021, is now mentioning mouseovers now, at least.

Vic made some decisions in the past that lead to a wonky, difficult and sometimes unnerving user experience (Ux):

Some menu scroll bars can be mouse wheel controlled, some don't but can be drag-and-drop scrolled.
Combat info you get is only accurate from your turn and once you close the combat result window, the info is gone. Better make a screenshot. But with Windows key and Print, because...
You cannot rename your leaders.
You can rename your models.
You cannot chose your own distinctive logo as your Empire logo as the AI gets to RNG choose the AI major regime logos first.

And so forth...

I still love the game.

Thank you, Vic!

General Overview: The Tabs and their places

Welcome to Shadow Empire!

What is a user interface? It is the surface on which we use and interact with the game via mouseclick or hotkeys on your keyboard, which I can recommend.

This is the User interface explanation as is in the manual page 33ff.

For obvious reasons I am using the same nomenclature as the manual but I will add my extended explanation here.

1. The Map
2. The Top Bar
3. The Top Tabs
4. The Left Bar
5. The Right Bar
6. The Bottom Bar
7. The current Map Order Mode
8. The Next Turn button

You will use the map and the top bar the most, the left/bottom bar is really important, the right bar as the least used is mostly clickable shortcuts, as is the Map Order Mode.

The Next Turn button you will use each turn. Once.
Mouseover the season will show you the actual turn and season count.
Let's go to The Map.

The Map - Info, hidden Info and Hotkeys part I

This is the map. "Here you can, among other actions, select your Unit, and move and attack
with them.", p. 35 manual.

Click on pictures to enlarge




I can recommend the graphics terrain mod[www.matrixgames.com] from @DasTactic, it makes it way easier to examine the strategic options in all zoom phases.

Moving the mouse to the map edges or pressing the arrow keys left/right or up/down navigates through the map. Using the mouse wheel or + or - hotkeys you can zoom in and out.

WASD is not implemented, as is not free keybindings, as A is artillery hotkey and S is strategic movement.

Left-clicking a hex transfers all hex information to the Bottom Tabs, those are explained on page 69 manual.


As you can see, the highlighted hex is a grassy plains hex, at 95/7 coordinates, temperature is 58°C, 70 units rain fell, zero scav points are available as no ruin is present, the recon is 2/400 - important for combat!) -, stack size is 0 as no armies are present, penalty is 0 for movement and the radiation level is at whopping 1009 rad, probably the source of the absence of units and assets. The small flag on the right indicates that this hex is owneed by The Senate, my empire.

And now exactly the same hex in mouseover hex info:
Mouseover of the plains grassy part
Temperatiure
Rainfall
Scav points
Recon
Stack size
Penalty
Radiation


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When in doubt, always left-click and additionally mouseover any information presented to you!

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The player is currently in movement mode - hotkey M.

He should probably press I or ESC for inspect mode just to be sure. Always press I after doing stuff. You will waste soo many IP or industrial points when staying in R or road building mode and accidentally rightclicking a mountain hex. I did, so will you.

Right-clicking a Hex opens the Order Mode menu, where you can chose to build roads, air strike, attack units, move your own units, etc. as explained on page 35 manual.

The red color bar indicates that move order is chosen and active.














And of course you can mouseover the Order Mode menu points like this,



















but I will not bloat this guide more than necessary, you can try out this for yourself.

The Hotkeys from the Order Mode menu are:

I for Inspect mode; you can inspect and not accidentally move, build roads etc.
M for Movement and regular ground forces Attack mode. Rightclicking executes the move/attack.
G for Group Movement. Cannot be used when on a hex with a heavy SHQ and will move all units.
S for Strategic movement. Can only be used on roads/rails and uses up free logistic points.
A for Ranged ground attack with artillery or missile fire. As always, right-click executes this.
X for Air Attacks, right-click executes these.
Y for Air Recon, same as above.
R Construct Road menu, where you have to choose which type of road you want to build/demolish
T for Traffic sign mode, when you are short of logistics you can shut down roads and
Z for Zone border change. Clicking on a hex and then pressing Z changes all further hexes leftclicked to that first zone if they have at least 2 neighboring 1st zone hexes. Important when you conquer a new zone as zone borders may not be ideal. Check regularly.

To close the Order Mode menu click the exit button or press ESC.
I prefer using the shortcuts via keyboard, and cannot tell much about this, so YMMV. You have the option to use one or the other or both.

A Typical Turn: Summary

This is a summary of the steps to take. It will be explained en detail in the next chapters.

When the AI turn is done, I do this:

1. Watch the VID of last turns events
   
2. If Combat happened: Rewatch HIS
   
3. Drop down a save
   
4. Check letterbox Do it now, do it often, do it after each change in personnel, during your own turn.
   
5. Check and resume Demands
   
6. Check SHQ(s) for resource needs and resume these
   
7. Check Decisions
   
8. Decide time insensitive decisions
   
9. Kill off unwanted factions
   
10. Check treasury cashflow
    
11. Decide time sensitive decisions, attach advisor if necessary
    
12. Check Zone Overview
    
13. Execute time sensitive decisions and detach advisors
    
14. Repeat prior steps if necessary.
    
15. Check Dashboard and other reports
    
16. Check asset statuses, build/upgrade if necessary
    
17. Asset management; Check for private idiot industry unautorized building assets you want to have for yourself
    
18. Building/Mothballing/Closing Assets
    
19. Traffic signs
    
20. Move units into combat/Recon positions. Cut enemy units off, encircle them preferably or prepare encirclement for subsequent attacks.
    
21. "Recon in Force" on your main targets this turn: Attack with expendable units with barely enough Action Points to attack ensuring recon goes up and your casualties stay low.
    
22. Repeat that step until recon is 400.
    
23. Attack with tacbombers/artillery and obliterate the enemy.
    
24. All in with your best and most valuable forces.
    
25. Profit!
    
26. Liberating assets and cities: Open Asset menu in the bottom bar. Depending on the manpower needs and your own reserves, mothball/close assets to avoid gold rush drain from your core cities.
    
27. 
    
28. 
    
29. 
    
30. If you want to model a new model, now is the time for it as all combat is resolved and field testing of all battles will be modelled into the new model. Same for Diplomatic decision Oath of Peace, because you moved all units and gobbled up all available hexes before you establish borders.

[/olist]

Part I - Where To Look At, How To Do It And Why

Mind this is strongly biased explanation, but this how my turn looks like.

I play slow, and am an information junkie. Slow is safe. I can recommend using post-its for reminders like to do model design or Oath of Peace at the end of your turn next to your screen until you made it an automated habit.

If possible, I left the mouse over the relevant tab to guide you to it.

Showcased is turn 110 of The Senate, a mind and commerce oriented meritocracy.

To explain reports and game mechanics, I have put screenshots from other turns into this guide, you might see some variations in detail informations as intended.

1. Watch the VID of last turns events, Hotkey V, here awkwardly shown as "Shortkey".
   
2. If Combat happened: Rewatch HIS - Hotkey H - and check for enemy hiding and positioning. This helps to get personal recon on how many enemy units moved and their general strength in comparison to yours. You can see if you lost troops or didn't, too, but you get no detailed info on that.
   
3. Drop down a save. You might hate to do this, but I have made mistakes in the past and will in the future that are not save-scumming related. Like, accidentally mothballing an ice mine on turn one. If you are a save-scumming player, this is your time do to it anyway.
   
4. Check letterbox. If new factions are founded, this info is to be found there. Election results, Regime feats gained, Declarations of war, too, and KIA. Repeat this step when doing combat, as you might have missed a KIA message there. Time to Recruit a military then, maybe, if your reserve pool isn't providing anyone fitting.
   
   
5. Check and resume Demands. These are time-sensitive, so better be prepared.
   
   See the difference in the pictures? There is a scrollbar in the Overviews menu hiding more reports, but you cannot use mouse wheel, only manually left-click drag and drop...
   
   Now it is time to resume the demands or prepare to do so in the next turns.
   
6. Check SHQ(s) for resource needs and resume these. You only need the 1st SHQ in 90% of the games.
   In this picture we see that the overall stockpile is very healthy, but ammunition is going very low, last turn we used up 1k+ of ammo. Of course, mouseover gives us different but detailed info.
   Time to replenish that. On the right side bar, there is the workshop tab.
   Producing 10k ammo should suffice for some turns.
   
7. Check Decisions. The decisions tab shows us that 8 decisions are waiting.
   
   Only Check!
   
   don't resume them yet, as some are sometimes sensitive like Model design which you should do after all combat is resolved for maximized field testing on your turn or Oaths of Peace which I do after I moved every unit, so I take more territory before borders are fixed or demands of unfavorable factions of your empire. Maybe you can kill off/retire the founder of that faction so the demand disappears? This is a valid and working strategy.
   
8. Decide time insensitive decisions, like national budget allocation, research priorities or -tasks or OHQ commander appointments.
   Research priorities and setup is explained here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2314732568
   
   
   
9. Kill off unwanted factions, like Enforcement ones if you play Commerce or such via leadership strategems. Having an interior council is recommended as these deliver the retirement strat cards.
   
10. Check Treasury cashflow. If you are doing fine, good, otherwise it may be time to raise taxes via interior council national tax stratagems or calling the Secretary for new salaries. This menu is mouse wheel scrollable!
    
    In our case, the sales tax is at 50%, income tax at 40%, each leader gets equal pay - reduces envy - and soldiers get paid, but only 0.03 Cr.
    
    The overall finances are fine, one consequence of playing Commerce.
    
11. Decide sensitive decisions, but attach advisor to sensitive decisions. Do the roll, then detach the advisor if the friction is too high. Why? p. 255 manual, advisor and attached leader do the roll, and the better result is taken.
    Here I want to do the difficult Investigation Decision A, because I want a Meritocracy boost.
    The leader who is calling you is the one doing the roll, so better take a look at his stat block, clicking his image.
    
    Not the greatest stats for success. Maybe I have a fitting advisor?
    I like to go to the Cabinet Overview, as advisors are there to find. I have four, in fact. The amount of advisors you can have depends on the amount of zones you control. The Cabinet Overview is mouse wheel scrollable!
    
    The mouseover shows the details of the +58 to investigation roll. The missing +1 in the math comes from the scavenging skill being the highest skill in the family. She is currently otherwise attached, but we have the PP do work with. Call her with the CALL button top right in her card!
    
    Detach her:
    Call her again:
    Attach her, but make sure you looked the correct zone up, in this case Pollock:
    
    And now she is attached to him.
    
    Click her card.
    
    In the top row we see she is attached to Charlene Meteorway. Click the mini image and mouseover relation:
    
    This is bad. We better make sure she get detached directly after the roll on this turn so the -21 will never happen as it only happens when you leave her attached and end the turn.
    
    
    
    Continued in the next chapter!
    
    

Part II - Bottom Tabs: Where To Look At, How To Do It And Why

1. The size and unrest in the city maybe is of interest before we do the skill roll, too. Lets go to the quick zone tab, the bottom one of the Left Tab bar.
   
   As we see, The Senate has way too many zones to be displayed, a luxury problem. But we can hide the Bottom Tab Bar.
   
   Voilá, Pollock now in the quick zone tab and clickable. Clicking it centers the map on Pollock. Nice Ux for once!
   
   Now unhide the Buttom bar and we have The Zone Overview in the Bottom Tab Bar.
   
   
2. Check Zone Bottom Tab. Welcome to Pollock! As we see here,
   
   Pollock is a village size I zone with 11.900 populace, next city level is reached at 25.000 population, 1.300 Free Folk are living in the zone, Zone recon is 999 as we own the zone and there are 0 spies in it as we don't spy on our owned zones.
   The picture of the zone governor is shown as well as his relation to you (66), and the CALL and STRAT button allow you to call him as shown in the last chapter or give him stratagems to work with. The city size equals the maximum size of your cities' assets.
   
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   Mouseover the different informations like Populace, Next Level, Free Folk, Zone Recon and Spies will give you additional information, Of course you can do this on enemy cities.
   
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
   but I don't want to bloat this guide more than necessary. You should know now how this works.
   
   Here are the screenshots of the other information of the Zone Bottom Tab left-clicked, with mouseover shown.
   Zone Admin status is regular Zone.
   Admin strain is 0%, the overall most important information.
   Administrative strain or Admin strain for short can kill off your entire empire. Admin strain is explained in chapter 5.3.2 on page 171 manual.
   
   "Nothing forces you to create new Cities (and thus more Zones), but if you
   have Rural Assets further away than 6 Hexes from the Zone’s City they will
   start to give your Zone problems in the form of Administrative Strain."
   
   Everything is affected by admin strain. Resource production, tax collection, even max storage values.
   My first games I ignored this and wondered why my zone maximum storages were diving like a german sub in WW II. 84% admin strain. Guess why The Senate has so many zones at 6 hex distance...
   
   The other info given are the effects of the Zone Orders, these you can give your governor, CALLing them Yes, you need to give these to each and every zone seperatedly.
   
   Pollock got my standard treatment:
   • 15 Cr./turn(!) investment in the public sector. This gives a healthy happiness modifier and ensures that the public sector will build QoL - Quality of Life in short - assets, food domes and light private industry up to level III on its own, making the emperor's life much easier.
     This turn 15 Cr were given, and the overall sum of the investments is 330 Cr., that's 22 turns.
     
     The Senate can afford this, as it is filthy rich at 36.4k Credits. Commerce profile is really good at making money. You can start at as low as 1Cr./turn, but make sure you give them something.
     
   • Emergency food allowed ensures the people stay relatively happy as the national food banks are providing them with some soylent gr.., I mean standard food rations. The Zone has no own food dome, this is very important for this zone to have soon. *puts post-it on screen edge*
     
   • Recruitment signup bonus is set to 0.00 Cr. I only pay active soldiers. Volunteers will come over time anyway, as the 1st SHQ shows us, 1.700 came.
     
   • Colonist signup recruitment bonus is the same. The Senate is so big and powerful that work migration will occur anyway. The Senate controls a hex perk that provides it with 200 colonists each turn for free.
     
   • worker salary is set to 0.05Cr. I never change that, I also never fire workers. Both not shown in this part, but part of Zone Orders.
     
   • Regular zone vs. unincorporated zone: Regular zones pay taxes, are productive. Unincorporated zones are a) rebelling zones in your empire you set to unincorporated you set to unincorporated to cool down faster or b) newly acquired zones you conquered and are rebellious and unrest is high. These come into your empire unincorporated per se. Once unrest and danger are gone and population happiness is above 50%, you can incorporate these zones.
     
     Do not incorporate low happiness zones!
     It will take forever and three days for them to become happy. Source: I did exactly that.
     Manual 5.3.11.4 for reference, page 178ff.
   Income and Sales tax aren't given in Zone Orders but shown here anyway. These can be adjusted by your interior council director.
   The supplying SHQ is the 1st SHQ.
   
   The Civilisation Score of Pollock
   and here with the mouseover of the left side:
   Here the QoL invest will do its work over time. Pollock is a small village, founded 22 turns ago and a little backwater of the empire, far away from the war zones, it seems. No own food supply, no QoL assets yet.
   
   • Hospitals or Sewers will produce health points if the governor succeeds with his Medical skill roll
     
   • Barracks, Scout/Police Stations will produce security points if the governor succeeds with his investigation roll
     
   • Schools, Universities and the like will produce education points if the governor succeeds with his Science roll
     
   • Brothels, Casinos and the like will produce entertainment points if the governor succeeds with his Oratory roll
   Here is her Skill Log:
   Her Oratory and Science rolls succeded, but there are no assets to boost.
   
   Population Info:
   
   The mouseover shows migration data. Sometimes useful.
   The left informs us about the current average private pay - 0.04 Cr, lower than the zone pay of 0.05 given in the zone orders. It is generally good that private salaries are lower than your worker salaries, as you will get new workers easier.
   The tax revenue is shown for this zone, private money owned and that the next private asset will be the aforementioned missing farming dome. *removes post-it from screen edge*
   
   
   Population Happiness:
   Here we see the effect of the missing QoL and the 15Cr./turn at work.
   
   You can find further information in this great thread from @Zgrssrd: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4830533
   
   Cultural Adaption Score:
   The CAS is 100, as Pollock is a colony founded by The Senate, not a conquered zone. It is mixed because of migration of population from conquered zones,too, and its 'Chronglacieruch' because the capital is in a zone called Chronglacier. Mind the mouseover text.
   
   Worker Information
   Here we see the salary, worker policy - not changed to never fire, *puts post-it on screen* - and the production malus of 3 % from a Cult effect . We will take a look at this in Cult subtab later.

Part III - Still The Bottom Tabs

1. Worker Happiness
   Now we're talking business regarding the decision to make. Happiness is only 31%, and this resulted in the event we're dealing with now. "Also can cause unrest."
   The Senate's national civ level is apparently quite high in comparison to the QoL in Pollock.
   
   Important discussion about worker happiness, QoL and national civ level: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4986813
   
   
2. Zone logistics points
   The items that are getting transferred are to be found in the Items tab later. The logistics guide can be found here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2308877114
   
3. Militancy level
   The militancy level seems to be the probability to get a militia unit, a mobile battalion in this case, on the next turn. Militancy is strongly dependent on your regime profile feats - Fist gives you much more militia -, militancy-producing assets, population happiness and the presence of regular units in the zone.
   The Senate recently cleared all opposition in the east and is moving troops through Pollock to the south, so regular units are present.
   Having safe haven zones without regular military in the inner layers of your empire ensures a flow of militia units into your empire. Militia units will upgrade every 30 turns to the next model.
   
4. Cults and Sects
   
   Anima Circle and Eternity movement are active in this zone, but only the dominant 33% eternity followers have an effect.
   
   There is no Danger, Unrest (yet), Corporate influence, Fear or Hunger in this zone, but if so, it would be shown next to Militancy and Cults.
   As there is no unrest yet, The Senate can relatively safely execute the decision. It would be better to move in some military units into it, so we make sure to remember that when doing that *puts post-it on screen edge*
   
5. Execute the sensitive decision and detach the advisor.
   
6. Repeat prior steps if necessary.
   
7. Check Empire Dashboard and all of the relevant reports!
   
   Continued in the next Chapter!

Part IV - The Reports dissected

1. The Empire Dashboard
   Manual 3.6.7., page 53 for reference. Further information in 5.6.2., page 208ff.
   
   Welcome to the Reports Tab in the Top Bar! This is the first thing you will see when you open it - the Empire Dashboard. You can use the mousewheel to scroll here. As always, make sure to leftclick and mouseover everything.
   
   Let's go through it clockwise, starting with the picture of the Secretary in the top right corner. The one in this place is the leader who gives you this report or is the executor of decisions. Everything is produced this turn and comes into effect next turn, mind that.
   
   All the abbreviations can be found here: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4827389
   
   The roles of your leaders are explained here:
   https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2307478602
   
   Below him is the Tech Level, it's value is the square root of the numbers of techs that you have researched.
   
   Admin level: It is the double square root of your bureaucratic points (BP) increased with the square root of the number of Organisations (councils) you have.
   
   Civilisation level: It is the square root of your average zone civilisation levels and diminished by one.
   
   The block below contains:
   
   • Next Turn BP's: The mouseover explains it here. The Senate has a huge penalty on the actually produced 6612 BP for its size. The Secretary still expects it to go up next turn, in comparison to the BP available this turn.
     It is an educated guess, because some bureaucratic offices might get damaged from war, workers may die, etc.
     
   • New PP's: The mouseover shows us some black box magic; let's dissect this:
     
     5.6.2.2 manual, page 208ff for reference
     The Senate gets 7 PP per default because of playing on hard difficulty. The 617 ppP are political power Points; those are produced when the Supreme Command Council (SCC) director rolls his administration skill roll, transforming the 317 BP he got from national budget allocation (low left info box below Budget allocated)) into said ppP. Let's look at the SCC in Organisations what happened there:
     
     Here we see that 85% of allocated BP are invested into Political Power generation. Because the 377BP are more than 100, those hit the BP cap and are reduced by 158 to 219 BP, which then get a 50% relation and a 88% skill bonus. 219 *1.5 = 328.5; 328.5 * 1.88 = 617.58, rounded down to 617.
     Those translate then into 617 sqare root = 24.84, rounded to 25 usable PP. 7+25 = 32.
     
     200% from profile bonuses of 32 is 64, so The Senate gets 96 PP to raise formations, play stratagems or execute decisions next turn.
     
     The relation bonus at 100 relation is very important, as we see here, as is the administration skill roll, where the SCC rolled a 100(!) at skill 88. The relation modifier is always (relation value minus 50)% for the cabinet and governor event rolls, and (relation minus 50)/2 for governor production rolls. Always keep track of your relation to your leaders and keep relations above 50!
     
     
   • Start turn Credits: As mentioned, The Senate is filthy rich. This is caused by having the commerce regime feat Wealthy Friends, 35 zones and a good portion of population that is paying taxes.
     
   • Prestige Damage: This is currently zero, as it only raises when you declare war on otherwise friendly minor or major regimes. Prestige damage hurts your PP production.
     
   • Income Tax: a bit redundant, as it is shown in the Treasury cashflow overview, too.
     
   • Sales Tax: Same.
   Budget allocated: Here you can see exactly, which percentage is allocated to which council in which priorisation, and how many BP got invested in each of these because of this. Very helpful for a quick view if some priorisations should be changed if you hit the aforementioned BP softcap.
   
   Word Score: You want this as high and as consistent with your general profiles as possible. The word score raises or falls when you fulfill or fail in the demands your factions ask you or your political speeches allow you. The higher the Word Score, the higher the potential loyalty of your leaders!
   
   Never accept demands of idiot factions! With exceptions, of course. Here is one in the Letterbox:
   
   The Senate is currently at war with 3 major factions, one of them already lost all its cities and gets mopped up, but it was able to declare war on Threestone, while The Senate was trying to Offer Protection.
   While its troops were already there, in striking distance and much further advanced than the minor regimes' troops, the Emperor decided to accept that demand of an otherwise despised faction as he ordered the attack anyway. This resulted in 221k future taxpayers, a +7 word score and a faction that is somewhat satisfied for some time.
   Besides, the empire has a zone where a zone event can consistently and every turn be triggered for a 2-4 mind increase, which is the preferred profile.
   Popularity Score: The score is the average of the support of those shown in the block: Population, worker, soldier and leader. The 90% is helping a lot to protect against unrest and external meddling, as other humans can play stratagems on you in multiplayer games.
   Version: Version# 81 is a game from v1.06.05; airforce included and alien life, but not alien regimes or stratagem scrap mechanics..
   
   
2. Urgent Issues:
   
   In the urgent issues you can find everything the game deems urgent, like lack of food for population or units, unrest or unhappiness, etc.
   Personally, I don't use this report. Not that it is bad, but I get the same info when I cycle through my armies, check every zone, etc. YMMV.
   
   
   Leader related reports:
   
3. Cabinet Overview: Quick access to all your cabinet members. I use it very often to check which advisor is attached to whom, if the relation between both is beneficial - 80% of the time it is not -, etc.
   
4. Personnel Overview: Here you can find all other leaders whose jobs don't have the prestige like the cabinet positions - OHQ commanders, governors and reserve pool members. I try to keep the reserve pool free from idiots with low stats, cap or membership of idiot factions via my interior counselors hire & fire abilities.
   The same, but with better UI and Ux you can find in MNG - Leaders.
   
5. Factions Overview: Here you find all factions from within your Empire with detailed info about the leaders that support the faction, its political weight and profile preferences as well as the faction happiness. Check often.
   
6. Demand Overview: Here you find all demands the public/the factions want from you resolved ASAP, and event related demands like the hex of that city the event wants you getting conquered. Check the timers of the demands, take notes.
   
7. Section KEY OVERVIEWS:
   
8. Feats and bonus overview:
   The headline says Feats and Bonuses, though.
   This mousewheel controlled overview is very informative. Every underlined word hides a detailed 2 sec mouseover information.
   
9. Technology overview: Mind that you can click every Tech here and it opens an information window. Every single tech isn't underlined as in the Feats and Bonus Overview but is clickable nonetheless. Another UI riddle for us. It tells you if a tech is linear or binary.
   
10. Formation Type Overview:
    
    
11. 
    

The Bottom Tabs Revisited - The Unit Tab Dissected

20. Move units. I do this after I assess the unit statuses, stats and supply situation.

To get knowledge of your units stats and supply status we have the unit tab in the Bottom Tab Bar.

I will focus on the 14th MG infantry battalion from the 3rd MG infantry brigade, currently fighting against critters.


First an overview:
This is the icon of the 14th MG infantry battalion in the left info field, next to that is the detailed information field about this unit, then the info field about its commander status (relation, suitabilty, postures, actions you can take) and on the right is the composition of this unit shown, 800 Infantry Guards II, 200 MG Axi III and an Engineer Team that is a unit feat.



Here are the troop quality settings shown, and it seems I am a bit lazy allowing low quality troops as reinforcements. *putspostitnoteonscreenedge*

This shows the action points for moving/attacking the unit has now and the mouseover reveals that Mr. Osiris did a good job producing additional AP with his Mobiletactics roll. We can take a sneak peek into his stat card here.
He has a very good WAR 44 and good CHA of 36 at cap III, and he is doing his job professionally. Mind that he is in line with my two of my preferred profiles, meritocracy and commerce and his happiness of 90 is reflecting this. The 31 bonus Action Points can be found here in his skill log
as well as all other bonuses he gave to the 14th MG infantry battalion. We can guess that the skill roll of 193 is producing (193 - 100)/3 bonus action points.

The AP are 0 at this point as the 14th fought critters this turn.

This shows the readiness(RDS) of the 14th, it is 70/100 at this point as the fight that took place reduced their readiness by 30. The info box tells us that environment - radiation, temperature, atmospheric and biohazards - casualties and supply situation affect the readiness, too. The 14th is fighting in radiated heavy forests at 56°C but wears combat armor that protects and insulates them well enough to have no effect. Readiness will be recovered via the operational command skill of the commander. My educated guess for the readiness recovery formula is (skill roll -100)/2 readiness recovery percentage.

The heart symbol shows the morale of the 14th. It seems they are very confident as they chew through forest critters with automated weapons, combat armor and suffer no losses. Morale is recovered via the leadership skill.


The star shows the units experience, and as they recently killed critters, they gained xp.

The barbed wire is the symbol for entrenchment. The longer a unit stays in a hex, the better it gets entrenched up to max entrenchment defined by the hex environment. Entrenchment is purely defensive and doesn't help when you attack. Attacking from an entrenched situation does help defending against counterattacks, but it sure is better to keep attacking units on hexes where other, nonattacking and deeply entrenched units defend them.


Here is the HQ power shown as 75% for the 14th MG infantry battalion at a range of 6 hexes from its OHQ unit. 14th is the highlighted unit in the north.

So the OHQ power starts to diminish when OHQ unit and subunit are 6+ hexes away.

Here we see the supply situation. The 14th is a bit struggling to get food and ammunition but the situation is manageable as no one is starving. The small colored square on the left of unit symbol reveals supply status, from green (no problems) to black (return into supply range asap or starvation will kill this unit over time).

Chat request - Attaching a Unit

Under construction!

Right Bar, top tab 'Orders Bar', 3rd subtab from below is Unit Admin, where you can click on 'Change HQ' once you chose a unit.
In the Bottom Tabs, 2nd subtab you can see and leftclick through the Units on a hex, as you can see in the Top Tabs on the right, OOB button. I had to crop the screenshot a bit to get below 2MB size, so OOB button is not shown in the picture.
It doesn't matter if you attach a GR unit or an independent or militia unit. Mind that readiness drops by 30 when changing HQ. Nevermind, you cannot attach militia units.

I did that with a GR (galactic republic remnant) unit, it is now attached to 1st MG Infantry Corps.

A bit redundant, but you will find a way that suffices you and the OOB button helps you find that one unit you are missing out.

The Hotkeys Summary

The Hotkeys are on page 33/34 manual, chapter 3.3.1.

Attack cascade

1. Move units into combat/Recon positions. Cut enemy units off, encircle them preferably or prepare encirclement for subsequent attacks.
   
2. "Recon in Force" on your main targets this turn: Attack with expendable units with barely enough Action Points to attack ensuring recon goes up and your casualties stay low.
   
3. Repeat that step until recon is 400.
   
4. Attack with tacbombers/artillery and obliterate the enemy.
   
5. All in with your best and most valuable forces.
   
6. Profit!
   
7. Liberating assets and cities: Open Asset menu in the bottom bar. Depending on the manpower needs and your own reserves, mothball/close assets to avoid gold rush drain from your core cities.
   
8. 
   
9. 
   
10. 
    
11. If you want to model a new model, now is the time for it as all combat is resolved and field testing of all battles will be modelled into the new model. Same for Diplomatic decision Oath of Peace, because you moved all units and gobbled up all available hexes before you establish borders.

[Skywalker]

Thanks, that's not easy when your health is working against you here , so slow down then.
It is a game I just started with and have already got a nice impression of it.
Also saw a Turn checklist through the matrix forum and I can compare it to your TURN checklist.
Try to check the main steps for a TURN otherwise it does get very long ( and boring ) to check all the conditions.
Would be nice to see a picture of how it is all roughly organized around my person as supreme leader of a one city state you always start with?

[maerchen]

I had a stroke in 2021 that handicapped me and steam decided 2022 to make updating guides for laymen like me a lot more frustrating. Thanks to your comment I checked the UI and I believe they changed it back to normal usability.

I am still interested in this game and will still hang around. Do you have questions or requests that I should build in this guide?

When the Oceania DLC comes out I will probably take a deeper look at SE b myself again. Atm my physial and mental powers are still limited.

[Skywalker]

I follow this tutorial and is it updated ?

[maerchen]

That is the prerequisite tech for rocket engines, yes. You cannot model a valid propeller engine ultra light aircraft in no atmosphere conditions, though, and need rocket engines then.

[Authorofallsin]

I have tested moons, no atmospheres, rocket engines and it looks like you cannot have an airforce unless you have the "propeller engine" tech, that same tech is what gives you airbases.

[Badbooty]

Pleased to hear you are well! Thanks for the reply ....Gods Speed.

[maerchen]

I had a stroke some days ago,so it will take much longer than expected. My right hand isn't doing everything I want from it. But I am happy that I am not much more handicapped than a numb feeling.

The manual is still not covering as much as I want it to, so yes, I am still polishing this guide here.

[Badbooty]

Gonna finish this, or wanting for changes from Vic?

[cipco2]

I haven't conquered any zones but built a few new ones every 50 or so turns. I set up some new assets but never closed any (aside from mines getting depleted).

My guess is that the workers are migrating to the newly founded regions but the civilians are moving from the new regions to the more civilized regions.

[maerchen]

Did you conquer new zones lately? Did you close/mothball the assets there?

What does the mouseover the population Info say about which direction workers do flow?

Strikes are common in mid- to late game. I just pay them off. 0.008 seems a bit high, but that depends on your game being early or late. I would raise both taxes 20% to aford the pay-off.