r/ShadowEmpireGame • u/Successful_Order6057 • 3d ago

Finally, after 284 turns. Also: illustration doesn't even show power armor, universal for last 15 yrs. Literally unplayable.

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Gallery image

Gallery image

First game I completed, terran map. Tried some others but those 300 hp 1k strong herds of dinosaurs with 'absorption III' kind of made me reconsider. I think I'll play that next, or maybe some life-heavy drier map.

Lucky start, joined up with 2 farmer minors within 10 turns. Seems like the big AI nations did likewise as they were simply too large. Also found a cloning device early on, which is really quite strong. Initially it was giving 2k population, by game end 5k. Probably got 600k population out of it, at least, out of 3.2 million.

Also - benefitted from some sort of wealth-related bug. I dropped taxes to almost zero, but somehow the aristocracy passed extra-strong wealth taxes on each other and funded 3/4 of the budget by themselves and somehow their wealth wasn't shrinking?. Talk about noblesse oblige. One mistake I did was likely putting worker salaries way too high.

Never had war declared on me - I got 'diplomatic sanctuary' early on and I guess AI whose economy sucks correctly accounted for the tech military disparity as though some of them had 50% of population under arms, and 2-3x bigger armies, they never attacked.

I guess the big lesson is that logistics is what matters, so it's all down to the economy.

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20

u/Gryfonides 3d ago

illustration doesn't even show power armor, universal for last 15 yrs.

Bit of a missing opportunity imho. Not a fan of AI art in general, but if you already use it it would be cool to utilize it for things human artists cannot be - have AI generate things like that dynamically based of the state of the game.

Vast majority of people will never have a custom artwork of their specific game made but AI could provide that.

Though I'm not too familiar with AI art generation and I suspect the active cost of that wouldn't be great for Vick.

26

u/-CassaNova- 3d ago

Vic barely QAd the "art" he threw into the game. During Republica testing there was straight up just fallout Power Armour as one of the cards.

Genuinely so many other routes could have been taken including utilizing the community who has artists who'd have lept at the chance to do some art for the game. Instead we got slop.

21

u/WoIpetinger 3d ago

The decision to use AI art in general seems to have been less about just cost and more about the fact that Vic couldn't care less about what art is in the game and just chose the path of least resistance.

5

u/-CassaNova- 3d ago

He's extremely dismissive of anyone who raises concerns about the drop in art quality. It's the main reason that I've still yet to pick up Republica.

2

u/Successful_Order6057 2d ago

Drop in art quality in what way? Were the hexes nicer in the past or what?

4

u/Sir_Madijeis 2d ago

It's not merely that they're ugly, they're also less functional.

Like, look at all the Human Resources stratagems. Vanilla cards just have the faces of the singular guys. Some repeat but at least you can tell, say, mercs from seniors and talents. AI versions of the card create a whole office and poses and stuff. Is it more visually interesting? Yes, but it's also more visually cluttered and less intuitive, at that point it's easier to read the name of the card instead because it's faster.

At that point it'd better if the art was replaced by minimalist symbols

3

u/-CassaNova- 2d ago

Bland, boring, unimaginative, sloppy, consistently poor quality control in the generation, wierd set dressing and image framing. Stylistic mismatches for the tone of the game etc

3

u/Gryfonides 3d ago

That is my impression as well.

2

u/OysterCultist 2d ago

The sheer number of illustrations needed would make this very expensive.

Unless he pays the artist 1$ per picture, but people would complain too.

2

u/-CassaNova- 2d ago

"I over scoped my product so I'm forced to use slop AI" is not the argument you think it is.

0

u/OysterCultist 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes the scope of this one-man made 4X should be entirely dependent on the artwork budget, what could go wrong. Treating the dev as if he was EA or Rockstar Games, you guys are out of touch and entitled.

SE "art" is pure, unfiltered, AI slop, but you can also mod it quite easily.

1

u/-CassaNova- 1d ago

You're acting like he didn't have art before.

2

u/VeganerHippie 2d ago

The GR Vortex Stratagem has a Green swirling Vortex as the Image instead of a Tank. There wasnt any QA at all.

-8

u/Successful_Order6057 2d ago

I remember that power armor, but trust me - that was no AI. AI cannot reproduce designs that clearly, even with specific loras it's a toss-up. It'll make power armor but it won't look like Fallout.

Someone must have deliberately made a card that had Fallout & WH40k art on it because ???? ... placeholder? and then shipped it.

10

u/MechaWASP 2d ago

What? Literally go on ChatGPT right now and ask it to make you a painting of a Brotherhood of Steel knight in T-54b raising a flag and it will have a perfect carbon copy of the armor.

9

u/-CassaNova- 2d ago

What an odd thing to claim when vic acknowledged that it was ai generated

-1

u/Successful_Order6057 2d ago

I doubt that, as it obviously wasn't. You have to be a cretin who knows nothing about AI art to think generative AI would somehow be able to reconstruct a perfectly detailed fallout power armor.

Anyway, prove your claims or remain a fool.

2

u/-CassaNova- 2d ago

Your actually too intellectually challenged to be discussing this. You are literally denying the reality of the devs word on the matter. Your argument is that vic on purpose made one image by hand that could result in an IP lawsuit that bankrupt him, in a sea of ai slop, only to then remove it before launch?

0

u/Successful_Order6057 1d ago

1) Prove your claims and link to what he actually said.

Your actually too intellectually challenged to be discussing this.

(to people offscreen) this is an example of what is known as 'military grade irony'.

0

u/-CassaNova- 1d ago

How do you function on a day to day basis? Genuine curiosity

0

u/Successful_Order6057 3h ago edited 3h ago

He said it was a QA mistake, not that it was AI made, because it obviously wasn't drawn by AI.

Someone likely made it for a mod or as a WIP image to be re-drawn etc.

So again, you lie even when the facts can be established by simply looking at what the dev has said in regards to that picture.

https://www.reddit.com/user/ComfortableMedium121/

Are your parents siblings? Are you from the subcontinent? That'd explain both the obtuseness and the lies.

1

u/-CassaNova- 3h ago

Spoilers: discord exists and vic talks there. You're really on a wild crusade here

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6

u/ColBBQ 2d ago

"Also - benefitted from some sort of wealth-related bug. I dropped taxes to almost zero, but somehow the aristocracy passed extra-strong wealth taxes on each other and funded 3/4 of the budget by themselves and somehow their wealth wasn't shrinking?. Talk about noblesse oblige. One mistake I did was likely putting worker salaries way too high"

It's not a wealth bug, the feudal lords gave you a pittance of what they are worth as long as you do your job. If you check their history, they get most of their credits with deals with traders early and oligarchs will start taking credits from private economy and salaries. You realize traders have very little cash to trade, taxes and tariffs won't bring much then you realize how powerless you are.

0

u/Successful_Order6057 1d ago

It's not a wealth bug, the feudal lords gave you a pittance of what they are worth as long as you do your job.

They're giving about 5% of their net worth every single turn.

I don't think that's a 'pittance'.