Shadow Empire: Turn 1 Guide

Where are you? What’s in the surrounding territory? Who do you border? Non-aligned, Minors or Majors nearby?

Use your starting militia forces to explore the initial area, especially along any pre-existing roads.

To move your units, left-click on the unit icon. You’ll see a white arrow indicating the range and the direction of your potential movements. Then right-click on the hex you wish to reach.

Look for Free Folk Settlements, Hex Perks (relics from pre-collapse, gathering sites for merc etc), borders for other zones and any enemy units.

Who’s on your team? What leaders do you have? Do any of them dislike you? What Factions are there? Take a look at your Leaders and Factions to find out more on your human resources.

This is the Personnel Overview report. From here you can get a recap of the Leaders you have at any given time.

REL: It indicates the Relation level they have with you. The higher the better
CAP: Capacity Level, it points to the overall Leader ability
TR: Technical Rating
CR: Command Rating
IPR: Interpersonal Rating

It is a good idea to determine if they are assigned to Jobs that suit them well. You’ll start with a Zone Governor, a Council Director and an SHQ Commander.

Factions are important to keep your regime in internal peace and to have focused Stratagems from them. Happiness is the indicator of how good the relationship is between you and the faction. If over 60 the relation is considered good. With Happiness below 60, expect problems coming from the faction.

To get Faction Happiness up, there are 3 main things that you can do:

1) Appoint their Leaders to important Jobs, and especially the kind of Jobs that their Profile likes the most. Also, it pays to take special care of their Faction Leader, he has more impact on Faction Happiness than other Leaders.

2) When they issue Demands to you. Accept them and deliver them as well.

3) When making Decisions, move your Regime Profile towards the Profile of the Faction you want to have increased Happiness.

4) Getting your Word Score up. A noble supreme leader with a high Word Score gives a big boost to the Faction Happiness of all Factions.

Ideally, you’ll try to keep all Factions happy, but if you cannot you should consider choosing which you’ll make happy and which Faction you’ll make unhappy.

Cabinet Overview

Faction Overview

Check out the decisions you have to make by selecting the decision tab in the top-right menu.

On Turn 1, there’s always the Ascension Speech that you can use to pivot your Political stance and the Decision to set up your first Council.

Your leader reactions to the Ascension speech should give you and idea of what preferences your leaders have (and whether they match yours)

Usually go with the Economic Council first, for the prospecting ability to find new metal sources.

You will have some stratagems available since the game begins.

You’ll always get a set of Fate Strategems at the start, including one that will cause you troubles in return for some Fate Points.

Of the other strategems, you’ll probably want to use your Covert Ops – Send Spy to gain more info on the neighbours (if you have the card)

Depending on where you’ve started, and who you’ve found, you might want to plan to use your initial Industry to build a building, or to raise a formation of troops.

If you’ve got trouble nearby, consider raising an independent brigade of Buggies to give you some mobility and punch against infantry.

If not, then consider either the long slog of the Industry building line or a Bureaucrat Office for some extra research early on.

Consider doing some trading, to boost your economy. If you are in a Planet poor of heavy resources, consider purchasing Metal and Machines. Even if the price could be high, the more you wait the higher the price could get potentially later.

Once you’re done, end your turn by clicking the top-right button.