I've picked up Shadow Empire recently and I'm about halfway through my first proper game. I've also been dabbling with the open source MoO remake, Remnants of the Precursors. I think aside from people waiting to see when 1.13 is coming, there's a lot of good things for sci-fi/4x gaming out there at the moment.
Once 1.13 comes I'm planning a game with three human player races, starting in different systems, inspired by Hakim's fantastic AAR, if I'm remembering the author correctly.
How are you finding Shadow Empire, I'm on my 4th game which is Hard difficulty, im pretty much at war with every major power and it's not going well haha
I've got pretty easy settings: regular difficulty, fairly peaceful planet, no aliens, ect. I've got a war with one major, a big one to my West I'm friends with, and there's another one I can see that's getting it's ass whooped by two minors somehow.
Just busted out some new laser equipped infantry and rocket pod light aircraft to caulk some nomads in god awful mountain terrain. There's something satisfying about watching indi militia which was such a pain early game just get vaporised. I also really like the planet generation - creates interesting tactical environments. The major I'm fighting is boxed in by thick mountain ranges with rolling desert after that. Only small valleys give my mechanised forces and logistics train access and we've got a stalemate going on there. He's invested in more ground troops and I'm building a large airforce. I do feel the AI is a little complacent in attacking but it is an easier difficulty.
Just discovered that the applied science techs just go on forever. I was wondering why it was taking so long for my guys to finish the fuel refining tech and so I've discovered that they were just going to go forever. I'm probably the biggest producer of fuel on the planet now.
I feel I've also busted the economy a bit. I pay my leaders enough I don't really worry about relationships, my governors get to invest 100s of credits into the private sector and cities that aren't as well developed can just get more money thrown at them. Then again, I'm leading in victory points so I'm basically the USA of my planet and it feels like it. Somehow still don't have enough industrial points and logistics capacity for everything I want so I figure I've yet to hit late game yet.
It's kind of like Aurora where you end up making little stories about what's going on in your campaign - probably a result of SE's atrocious presentation