Shadow Empire
Shadow Empire is a deep turn-based 4X wargame with a unique blend of military focus, procedurally generated content and role-playing features.
Shadow Empire is a strategy, simulation and 4x game
developed by VR Designs
and published by Slitherine Ltd..
Released on December 03rd 2020 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 1,388 reviews of which 1,210 were positive and 178 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.3 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 38.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Shadow Empire into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Shadow Empire through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows Windows 8, Windows 10
- Processor: 1.5 GHZ
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 8MB video memory, 1280x768 or higher resolution
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 1 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX Compatible 9 Sound Card
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Unusual and bizarre game, has elements recognisable from traditional 4X games, Paradox titles, Civ and Total war, in a pseudo-scifi space colony future setting ala Rimworld. 8/10 Shadow Empire positions you as the head of state of a neo-industrial space colony after an apocalyptic galactic war that threw all of mankind back to the technology of the early 20th century. Partially though RNG and a bit through choice you can customise which planet you are on, from small planetoids to massive swap-planets with other intelligent aliens. Play is turn-based and the gameplay loop consists of managing the economy, bureaucracy and military of your nation every loop, dealing with factions, setting goals. Political and bureaucratic power is generated and spent as 'PP' and 'BP' points. 'PP' is used to execute 'stratagems', which are actions that effect your nation, zone, an individual unit or leader, as well as changing existing policy. 'BP' is the abstracted way of developing technology and economic/political development. Natural resources include food, water fuel, metals, energy, radioactive and rare earth metals, as well as special resources like high-tech machines and parts. A very interesting part of the game is how the economy and politics works. Unlike in other games, you are restricted by manpower needed to build and then operate buildings. It is not abstracted in any way, if you have 20k manpower then you can only operate within that limit. Additionally your nation has both a public (your state-owned mines, factories, farms) and private economy, (generates tax revenue) you must balance between those. Population growth comes slowly, from villages you acquire through expansion and certain events, so you are quite limited in some cases. This depends on how fractured your nation is (how many zones/states) and how you set up the game. Quite similar to Stellaris, your inner circle of cabinet appointees all come from different factions who can and will be a pain in the backside for political advantage and favours. You also have some internal non-government factions such as a major corporation, your militia, slavers, workers unions, a crime syndicate and a cult. Combat and logistics is very detailed, you can set up a full order-of-battle with independent or multi unit formations (battalion/regiment/division and brigade/corps/army based on size), you can transfer troops and equipment between them as well as set up ad-hoc battle groups with units from different formations. These must be supported by a logistics system that will supply food, fuel, munitions and reinforcements so they can move and fight. I have a few criticisms, first is that the game is the overall lack of polish, the graphics are of course stylised but they aren't really that pleasurable visually. There are numerous spelling and grammatical errors, and I don't think a lot of the tooltips and descriptions are that well thought out. Secondly, the in-game help available is quite limited, which isn't that bad because the people playing this game are pretty savy strategy wise but I'd say it limits who I'd recommend the game to. Overall I'd recommend to anyone who likes 4X games, the paradox suite of titles and colony sims i.e Rimworld.
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Players promised a deep game beneath the thick UI in their reviews, and the game delivered. I had to read the >300 page manual (more than once) and every item in the UI to understand what I was doing, and it was WORTH IT. Gradually this game revealed itself, and I was hooked. First thing you'll see is the planet generation, then the storytelling behind your civilization, then you're dropped into the map with all those UI items you can only slowly figure out... and as you play your first turns you'll then be hit by the detailed (REALLY DETAILED) logistics, all the positional wargame elements that made me feel I was playing a sci-fi version of Panzer General (that I craved), and simultaneously a planetary and societal simulation, complete with a self-driven private economy, that kept the war (and the end thereof) in-context and meaningful. Someone described this game as "Alpha Centauri-ish-ish", they were so right! The game has this faint aura of Alpha Centauri, a little bit of mystery, the meaningful customization of units, the alien planets, the ambitious simulation that goes deeper than any of its contemporary game in certain aspects. I love this game, I'll buy every DLC even if I don't play them. If you give this game your patience, it will reward you with gameplay you won't find anywhere else. Don't be intimidated by the price, remember you have 2 hours to refund, but 30 minutes in I already knew I wouldn't refund... and 5 hours in I knew I done goofed and would be a zombie the next day. I bought it just over a month ago and have already accrued near two hundred hours. This game is JOY. I RECOMMEND IT! :D
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This game is actually so fucking good. Don't be fooled by the appearance; Shadow Empire is so much more than your average complicated yet boring wargame. Obviously it's very complex. There's really no way to learn the game except to sit down with the manual and poke at the UI for a couple of hours until you've figured it out, but the complexity feels different to similar games in a way that's hard to describe. There's loads of stupid little detailed mechanics that are unintuitive and full of ideosyncracies, but the game is constructed such that it's easy to notice problems and learn how to fix them. It's clear that despite the game having an absurd level of simulationist details it is actually designed as a game first and not just for realism. Obviously you'll get past the complexity eventually, which just leaves you with the game. The 4X-ish framework built into a wargame full of detail leaves you with so much room to approach problems and develop your empire/military uniquely to fit the circumstances of the game. Or alternatively, it starts to feel like a proper oldschool grandstrat, full of little management details and satisfying blobbing, free of the RP trappings, event trees and mana of a modern Paradox game. Even the game's stupid amateurish visuals have such a consistent charm to them that gives the game more atmosphere than it has any right to have. Obviously the game is not for everyone, but the group of people it's for is much larger than it might appear looking at screenshots. If you're considering the game enough to read rambling reviews like this one, you should probably just give it a try.
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Shadow Empire is a 4X/wargame mix that takes place on randomly generated worlds (random in terms of astrophysics, geology, biology and history) which all share a common back story. It provides you with a truly astonishing level of depth and captivating atmosphere and - to be frank - this game is absolutely insane. I don't even know where to start. You will manage almost everything in your nation in order to conquer your planet: diplomacy, warfare, economy, research and logistics. This sounds like basically every 4X game that is currently on the market. But oh my god, it is so much deeper. You will have to handle your generals, you governors, your advisors and your secretaries/ministers in about a dozen important organisations. They all have personality traits, stats and abilities and about 30 different skills. They have political and philosophical convictions, as does your nation as a whole. And whether they like you or hate you may determine the success of everything - from the output of your farms to the success of your artillery bombardment. You will also have to manage the economy: private and nationalized economies that produce everything that you need in order to grow your empire and have an effective army. The economy in turn determines if your citizens have enough money to buy food. And food they need because otherwise they will starve or leave and then you have no one left to be part of your army or work in your industry and everything will go to hell. Your citizens will get angry and will be afraid of danger, they will follow secret cults or be part of organized crime or corporate networks and it all plays into everything. You will also have to manage your logistics - oh god, the logistics. Using roads and railways and supply stations, you will decide what things can actually go from the place where they are produced to the place where they are needed: food, metals, ammo, fuel, water and much more. All your assets need input to produce output and if they don't get the input, there will be no output. So better get those input resources to where they are needed. Your troops need food, ammo and replacements, so better make sure that they are actually supplied at the front. But be careful in how you setup your roads and railways, because if you need all the logistics to keep up troop morale, you might not have enough left to actually get that damned food from the farms back to your central storage facilities. You will have to manage your research in 5 different research areas: basic research, advanced applied science, military research, air force research and order-of-battle research. All of these research areas will be handled by different people in your empire (again with different skills, their own opinion of you and so on) and you will need them all in order to use everything this game has in store for you. Depending on what your planet looks like (lava planet without an atmosphere? lush jungle? ice world? barren rock?) you will need completely different things in order to build up your society. It's crazy. And as a last example there is warfare. You and your secretaries will design EVERYTHING that makes up your army: from the offensive and defensive equipment for your infantry to the engines and guns of your tanks to the air-to-ground weapons of your aircraft and type of propeller of your helicopters and the design of your intercontinental rockets and so much more. But deciding what to use is not enough. Your will first have to discover all these ideas and inventions and then you need engineers that will actually have to develop everything for you and you better hope that they will do their job well. A badly designed tank with the best available equipment might not stand a chance against the older models of your competitors if they were simply better in their design. And then it's down to the warfare itself: Shadow Empire uses the "Decisive Campaigns" wargame engine which means that you get every last detail you would expect as a grognard: ground attacks and ranged attacks and air attacks and readyness and morale and supply and entrenchment and terrain bonuses and river crossings and general bonuses and and and. Oh, and I almost forgot: while you are worrying about your wars and your logistics, your economy and your strategy, there will also be random events for you to make decisions which will affect the lives of your citizens or the opinion of other leaders. Some of them will be beneficial, some will be bad surprises, but no one said that managing an empire would be easy. To summarize: this game is crazy. It's not for the faint of heart and it might not be a perfect game but it is endlessly fascinating. And it is laudable how a small studio (basically one person) can come up with such a truly magnificent, deep strategic ... thing ... that gives you so much to do and think about without asking for your money every 2 months because of some new DLC they want to sell you. Shadow Empire doesn't need that kind of stuff because it already comes with basically everything you could ask for. If you give it the time and commit to the learning experience, and if you can look past the dated graphics and overlook some of the shortcomings in other areas, you will experience an immersive masterpiece that simply has no equal. At least not for someone that's looking for hundreds of hours of deep strategic and tactical thinking and wargaming in exciting and immersive sci-fi worlds that change every time you start a new game.
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An immersive 4x sci-fi wargame, think Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri but where Domination victory is the only form of victory and you have to make sure that all your units doing the dominating have both beans and bullets. If you decide to buy this game after reading this review, DO NOT get the GOG version for the following reason! I have over 100+ hrs on the GOG version, I bought the Steam version finally in order to get the open-beta versions of this game and play with the latest changes (updated weekly ish ) Unfortunately the GOG version can only receive major patches so you'll be waiting a LONG TIME in between patches if you decide to go with that version. Ontop of bugfixes and game balancing, the open beta version is often updated with the following [*] New Stratagems (Stratagems are cards generated by your councils that you can use on your zones, units, structures, etc and they can have a variety of effects) [*] New unit mechanics, a recent open beta patch made it to whereas if infantry get their suits or armor penetrated on planets with hostile or toxic environments they can die instantly! [*] AI improvements [*] New minor subcultures (So minor civs such as Guardians, Ferals, Scavengers, etc) and more... Anyways, onto the review. This is legitimately one of the best 4x wargames out on the market and for many reasons. This game comes from seasoned hex wargame developer Victor Reijkersz who previously developed and published well known wargames such as Advanced Tactics (and Advanced Tactics Gold) along with the Decisive Campaign series. Story The plot of the game revolves around a peaceful utopian future being suddenly snuffed out by a horrible galactic conflict that takes the lives of billions across many worlds. A full century of galactic warfare leads to a complete and utter reversal of mankind's progress. The remaining human civilizations have gone from pristine futuristic utopias where machines took on the drudgery of yesteryear and allowed humans to live a life of unfettered pleasure and luxury all the way back down to the filthy, grimy, sweaty and bloody 20th century. You lead one of the last remaining human civilizations on one of the last remaining planets that haven't been completely nuked to oblivion and you'll have to start from zero and build your civilization back up to the idyllic utopia it used to be. Gameplay features While at its core Shadow Empire is a 4x wargame (emphasis on the war part), this game features elements from RPG games with its Leader system. The Leader system You manage your civilization primarily through your Leaders who take on the majority of the bureaucratic affairs of your empire. Leaders will help you manage your Zones, run your councils, lead your armies, and more. You're the armchair general sitting in the command bunker and your Leaders are the ones who carry out your wishes. Your leaders will follow you almost always but be careful because they have their own political agendas as well. Leaders are often part of smaller factions and depending on the factions profile, they may not entirely align with your interests. You may want to pay your workers less and divert more funding towards your military but the leader of your Economic Council may disapprove. A disagreement every so often is nothing but constantly put your personal goals above the needs of your council members and your nation and they may defect or revolt against you. The "wargame" part This is where the game truly shines, it features a VERY indepth research and development system along with a deep logistical system. Research and Development You can design each and every one of your unit types to your liking. You can have cheap and expendable infantry with little to no armor and simple bolt action rifles or more expensive but heavily armored Space Marines with extremely powerful weapons and tools. You can have fast recon motorcycles, heavily armored APCs or just roll with as many light tanks as you can pump out. You can have strategic long range nuclear bombers, low flying and maneuverable attack helicopters to support your ground forces or high flying fast fighter jets to control your skies. You can have your units roll around on the battle with portable 75mm howitzers or lay siege to the enemy cities and fortifications with massive 240mm+ howitzers. You can have medevacs, aircraft that can airdrop troops and supplies to cut off units, the possibilities are endless and I've never played another wargame that lets you tinker your army to fit the needs of your nation better than this one. Beans and bullets While your units fight hard they don't fight hard on empty stomachs and certainly not without the ammo they need. EVERY unit you produce needs a supply of food, ammo and fuel (if its a vehicle)in order to keep fighting, these supplies don't just come out of nowhere either, they're sent along your logistical network by either trucks or trains, road or railway. You have to be careful not to leave any glaring holes in your lines because the AI can and will destroy your supply lines given the opportunity, cutting off units from the valuable supplies they need. If you aren't careful you can lose to the war of attrition! Know your environment The environment plays a huge part as well, depending on how your planet is in some cases you may not even be able to use aircraft or grow food out in the open. You may generate a planet that forces you to adopt WW1 style trench warfare with hundreds of thousands of manpower losses for the tiniest gain in territory or you can end up having a vast arid wasteland planet the likes of Mad Max where motorized and mechanized units are king and foot soldiers are cannon fodder. You can have thick jungle planets akin to Catachan from 40k teeming with hostile alien lifeforms along with a highly toxic environment and trees that reach the sky or an ocean planet with many islands that can only be reached via bridges or by air. The planet you generated for this game may have perfectly breathable atmosphere so you don't need to design your infantry to have air filters or you could end up with an irritated hellscape with an ungodly hot temperature that requires your infantry to have full envirosuits along with not just regular filters but radiation filters so that they can step foot outside with instantly dying. The bad part The only real downsides of this game are the following Graphics [*]If you care about graphics, you probably will want to cringe at the programmer art that this game has This is one of those games where its ALL about the gameplay and graphics are meant to be just visual representations. Learning curve [*]The learning curve is quite high and both the game AND manual does a poor job of explaining the finer mechanics Logistics To add to this, the biggest hurdle you will have early on is learning the Logistics system. It's a bit verbose and you WILL end up losing units and structures over it but keep watching tutorial videos and referencing the manual and you will eventually understand it! It's alot simpler to wrap your head around once you get it. char limit reached lol
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 14 December 2024 00:43 |
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| SteamSpy data | 22 January 2025 03:35 |
| Steam price | 22 January 2025 20:50 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 09:58 |
Online players
114
Developer
VR Designs
Publisher
Slitherine Ltd.
Release
03 Dec 2020
Platforms
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