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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind

 
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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/26/2020 6:01:44 PM   
Thomas8

 

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'Auto mouseover' option is enabled by default (OK sign (Check mark) rather than X sign) but its about extra info on assets and units that normally show on mouse hover ('name of industry',"public/private asset" and). When this is not selected you need to click RIGHT mouse button for this info to show up.

(8,20) is hex position - it doesnt show up on hover - you need to click on hex to check it - it shows on right side of the window. Syntax is - name of your mouse mode (Inspection mode, Move mode etc - to be changed by right clicking on hex), then there is hex terran type in next line (Plains, Hills, Mountain etc), then in next line there is either hex position (8,30) or name of map region that hex is in AND hex position (in example: Bear Grove (122,57) for my forest). Several hexes on map are grouped in geographic regions - but its created random during map creation (desert names, mountain ranges, forests, jungle names etc.) Then on the right from it there is image with visualisation of this hex terrain and when you hover over it it will show up information about ATTACK, DEFENSE and MOVE modifiers for different troop types (I dont recognize A 99 , but maybe its about this ? There are ATT-MOD - attack modifiers and DEF-MOD modifiers and numbers below there - but usually 25, 37 , 50 ,100). This info window is shown up automatically when 'Auto-mouseover' is enabled. Then on the right of it there is flag of current owner of the hex with text when you hover over it (Hex is controled by 'name of Regime').

PS: Extra information - in this hover pop-up window there is information what kind of industry is present on the hex (road, single built asset, or entire city). But no info about units.




< Message edited by Thomas8 -- 9/26/2020 6:04:41 PM >

(in reply to BlindGuyNW)
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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/26/2020 6:17:50 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Thank you, this is very helpful. :)

I'm slowly bookmarking various tabs and trying to get familiar with the layout. A lot of things can be accessed from the keyboard but there's also a bunch which can't :)

It looks like the OCR was misunderstanding numbers on the left bar, (the SHQ inventory bar). The "A," was actually a digit, which I confirmed by mousing over and reading the detailed tooltip. Fortunately, it looks like the tooltips are more informative anyway.

I think a lot of the issue I'll have is probably understanding what happens on the map, and making sure I've selected what I think I have. I hope to hear back from Vic soon, if he's able to provide any insight.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/26/2020 7:44:41 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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So some further experimentation has been fruitful. I think I'm starting to understand how the hex map works, if not the best way for me to personally interact with it. The strategic map is quite useful, if only in terms of letting me rapidly reposition the map selection to focus on something specific.

One thing which would help me a great deal would be a way to change the selected hex without having to mouse over the map to do so. That way, I could select a unit and move from hex to hex without having to worry about issues like how far out the map is zoomed, or where, precisely, the border between hexes is. A few keyboard keys devoted to this would be very much appreciated.

A lot of the info is more or less understandable, I just need to figure out a way to locate hex contents in a more parseable fashion. The fog of war complicates this, as does the current dependence on OCR. If I had a way to reliably tell what was in a given hex, or what my recon points allow me to guess is in a given hex, that would clarify things quite a bit in terms of the planning aspects.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/26/2020 8:46:39 PM   
DTurtle

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlindGuyNW
I've noticed an entry near the bottom of the game screen which often says something like "Name of my Regime, (8, 20). I presume this is a hex coordinate but am having trouble getting it to change as I move the mouse around, is it possible it only does so on click or otherwise? I did notice an "Auto mouseover," preference, but wasn't sure of its default setting.

It is the coordinates of the hex selected. So you have to left click on a hex for it to change.
The "auto mouse over" setting is for automatically showing hover text. If it is off you have to right click on all sorts of icons, etc for it to show that hover text.

quote:

I briefly got access to what seemed to be more detailed info about a hex, including data about roads and such, but was unsure how. The UI still seems rather opaque, but I'd appreciate any insight. I presume I'll want to explore most of the game in inspect mode, while I get familiar.

That detailed information shows the offense and defense penalties and the movement costs for a hex. It is shown when you hover over the hex coordinates you noticed before or the graphics to the right of it.
quote:

I've also noticed strange groupings of numbers and letters such as "A 99," repeated several times. I presume these are unit designations of some sort, but it's a little hard to understand what's being conveyed.


Unfortunately I can't think of what you could have been looking at with this.

quote:


I feel like I can access all the information I'll need, I just need to get used to how it's conveyed and be rather systematic about the UI exploration.

I'd appreciate any advice

Considering how much I missed without being blind, I wish you the best of luck.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/26/2020 11:26:14 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Hi,

Thanks for all the info and advice

I've been experimenting a bit and have discovered that I can pan the map using arrow keys, which seems to move my view, though not always in a fashion I find easy to understand. It appears to depend on the zoom level I'm at, though it's a little hard to predict where I'm focused at any given time. I can easily select particular hexes but struggle a bit when actually ordering units, because it seems quite possible to select a hex and not be sure where that is on the screen at large, which matters a great deal for my particular situation.

Perhaps the following info on how I interact with game screens will be of use, or at least interest. I have a method to bookmark, certain parts of the screen, at a pixel level, and bring my mouse back to them on demand. That is useful for clicking on tabs and other semi-static game elements. The software I use has a number of limitations, it doesn't understand game context, so bookmarks are made per-application, and they depend on the screen resolution, which is generally annoying because I have to redo them if my screen size changes or I move to a new machine, etc. Note that regular WINdows controls, and apps, which offers bona fide accessibility support, don't have issues like this.

Anyway, I can bookmark parts of the game screen and use OCR to scan it. That generally works well. I also have the ability to "step," across the screen, in the four cardinal directions. I use this to scan for tooltips and icons I might not otherwise find, and, in this case, to try and orient to the hex map. I can adjust the "size," of the pixel step, though by default it's 5 in any direction, which is quite small.

The problem is that sighted users don't think of hexes or maps in terms of pixels at all. To a sighted player, a hex is a hex with whatever is in it, and there's no need to fuss with the extra fumbling that comes with trying to find items on the screen by repeated mouse clicks, because you can just click on whatever hex is of interest and voila. THat's why I'd appreciate a way to move the selected hex without having to use the mouse to do so, because I have no easy points of reference on the map, and thus far figuring out where i am and what's around me has been the most tedious part of the entire exercise. I know the information is available, I'm just not sure how to get it.

If I had a way to find out what hex I was in, what contents are in it, and to interact with those contents from the keyboard or via commands of some sort, that would be ideal. If I could reliably go to specific points without having to click on an arbitrary spot, which will probably change with whatever zoom level I'm looking at, that would be even better. This is where I am at the moment. I know my empire is centered around hex 8,20, but it's difficult interacting with it or its surroundings because of the way the UI currently behaves.

I hope this at least helps explain my current situation. If anyone has any ideas for how to move forward, I'd very much appreciate them. I have contacted Vic by email, and would love to hear back. Thanks for reading, all.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/27/2020 3:10:28 AM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Hi ALl,

If it would be of use I'm willing to record a demo of what I'm able to do and where I struggle. This is something I've done for other games, I just hope it leads to some sort of meaningful change in accessibility. :) I'll look into doing so in the next couple days if I don't hear anything or figure out any of the issues on my own.

I was reading this thread on console commands, and it occurred to me that some of what i want could easily be implemented using a system for those. I just need a way to query info about the game state without having to depend on the mouse or OCR if I can avoid it. The latter is a problem just because sighted players obviously don't have to worry about it mangling things.

Anyway I'll keep poking at this as my mental energy allows. :)

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/27/2020 11:41:33 AM   
DTurtle

 

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Moving the map with the arrow keys always (at all zoom levels) moves you up, down, left, right exactly one hex.

If you click on the regime name in the top left of the screen, it always centers the view right on your capital city. That should at least give you a defined starting point.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/27/2020 6:09:48 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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HEy,

Thanks for that. :) The zoom levels seem to cause me a little confusion, if only because I have trouble finding a bookmark for a reliable "current hex," position. I'll have to keep experimenting.

I was able to raise formations and explore other parts of the UI reasonably well, and suspect some of it will just come with practice. I appreciate the manual includes asset stats and other info, which is a little tedious to read with OCR.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/28/2020 3:51:17 AM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Hi ALl,

I just wanted to drop a note of thanks for the quality of the Shadow Empire manual. Even if the game itself presents many accessibility challenges for me, the descriptions of the UI are invaluable when it comes to bookmarking the game screen, which is something I normally struggle with quite a bit. The detailed descriptions of tab layouts, information on what is displayed where, etc. is very much appreciated.

I am most definitely excited about this game and its potential. I just wish the map were slightly easier to get info out of, and I haven't really tried messing with the logistics system, which is probably going to be its own variety of difficult, but we will see.

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Post #: 39
RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/28/2020 7:15:55 AM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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I just heard back from VIc. His initial response was negative, I can understand why, given the broad scope of my initial message. Nevertheless, I intend to continue trying to enjoy this game as much as I can. I wrote back asking if he could simply add a way to select hexes from the keyboard.

In all honesty, if I could avoid having to click on the actual map for many things the experience would be 95% smoother. I think that most people do it so often they can't imagine how games could be played any other way, which is understandable. Nevertheless, I will keep going, and hope that such a relatively modest addition could be implemented .

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/28/2020 4:53:51 PM   
wodin


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You've really picked a tuff one here. No idea where or how you'd be able to start.

_____________________________


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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/28/2020 6:47:22 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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THat's okay. I'm used to dealing with fairly tough challenges. A lot of the info I need is already there, it's just a matter of accessing it in a slightly different way.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/29/2020 12:10:18 AM   
mroyer

 

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You got a whole other thing coming when you get to logistics. On the plus side, none of us can figure out logistics even with vision, so lack thereof might not be as big of a drawback as it might first seem!

Stick with it. We're rooting for you dude!

-Mark R.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/29/2020 12:21:17 AM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Hi All,

At the moment i have a question…

WHen I move a militia unit into a hex, which appears to have not been part of a zone previously, and no combat occurs, what happened? I gather the unit took over the hex in some fashion, but I wasn't sure how to tell whether the hex had enemy units in it or not. I gather that if no combat happened then there were no units to engage, but I Could be misunderstanding how the system works.

Anyone able to shed some light on these issues? :) Thanks for the support, all.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/29/2020 5:22:28 AM   
Clux


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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlindGuyNW

Hi All,

At the moment i have a question…

WHen I move a militia unit into a hex, which appears to have not been part of a zone previously, and no combat occurs, what happened? I gather the unit took over the hex in some fashion, but I wasn't sure how to tell whether the hex had enemy units in it or not. I gather that if no combat happened then there were no units to engage, but I Could be misunderstanding how the system works.

Anyone able to shed some light on these issues? :) Thanks for the support, all.


What happens its than your starting zone normally its surrounded by non-aligned which are "neutral" and at war with everyone, minors and major nations. So, when one of your units advances into enemy territory they capture it if there is nobody to defend it, unless its a Major, in that case its going to ask you if you want to declare war.

One of the biggest problems than you could face its than as you expand farther from your capital the supply lines have a harder time to catch with the frontline troops, and in one moment, unless you build a road/supply station/truck station they won't receive any supplies at all, and if you don't know what are on the surroundings of your frontline troops they're at risk of being cut off from the supplies. There is one way to change the color of the map to green (best) to yellow, blue, red and black (worst) so you know if your troops are or not going to receive supplies, if I'm not mistaken its the key "number 6" so you can toggle it. I hope than I answered your question and good luck!

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/29/2020 12:42:52 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Thank you. :) This was very helpful indeed.

One of the problems I face at the moment is finding a consistent place on the hex map. Can anyone speak to how it interacts with zoom levels? I need a way to move my mouse reliably to whichever hex is currently selected, so that I can explore the others in each direction, since it's the only way to move units and such at this point. :) I have a bookmark for the exact center of the screen (pixel position 720, 450, in my case,) but this doesn't quite seem to correspond to the center of the map. I hope the question makes sense, it's a little hard to explain. :)

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/29/2020 10:51:29 PM   
kongxinga

 

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Wow, this is an interesting challenge.
Brainstorming how I would play shadow empires, specifically reading and using the hex map.

There might exist a hotkey for jumping to your first settlement. That will be treated as 0,0 or 0,0,0 on the hex coordinate scale, either the offset coordinates or cube coordinates respectively (more on the hex coordinate types here (google redblobgames hex coordinates . Let's say the HOME key goes to 0,0 (using offset coordinates). Ok Cool.

Once at home, use certain key binds to move to the left or right. In offset coordinate this gets you to (-1,0) and (1,0). Once there, use textractor or similar to extract the relevant information. Textractor is a tool that extracts strings to be piped into other uses, such as translation or text to speech. If this is set up, you can pick the information you need to be extracted and piped to be read out.

For example, I move left after going to the home hex by pressing Home, then left arrow. This is the information I want to hear "Negative One, Zero, 2 Friendlies present, Friendly Control, Plains, Road Present, Supply Level 60, Elevation One Five Zero, 2 Friendly Installations present". If I wanted more information I would select it and tab through friendly units or installations as normal.

Then I move up, by pressing the up arrow key I hear "Negative one, Negative one, 1 Enemy Unit, Enemy Control, Forest, No Roads, Zero Supply, Elevation Five Zero, 1 installation present." Keep doing this to slowly map out your situational awareness, kinda like how some of the old dungeon crawler games had no map, so you either drew one as you went, or held the map in memory. As the map increases, there might be an ingame way of adding notes or waypoints or HQs as landmarks.

So Home would jump to 0,0. Pressing 1 could jump me to an important landbridge I had set and am trying to capture. Then I use arrow keys to move along the grid "Seventeen, twenty three. 2 Enemies, Enemy control, plains, Grav Rail present, No Supply, Elevation Negative 20, No installations." By using landmarks plus the key based navigation, you can picture the strategic situation. You probably still need a pretty good memory to hold the situation in your head, but as a wargamer you have a good chance of having that. How else do people on this forum who play War in the Pacific keep track of the logistical needs of some random destroyer on some island in the pacific, with hundreds of units to control, and thousands of hexes.

In summary, customized textractor, hotkeys, and arrow keys to move, have the textractor set to target specific fields to extract, piped to a reader. This solves the "Where am I" problem you face, especially with different zooms. You always know you are offset 4 and offset 8 from your home hex if you hit Home, and Right Arrow 4, and Down Arrow 8 times respectively.

< Message edited by kongxinga -- 9/29/2020 10:56:42 PM >

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/29/2020 10:59:54 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Hey,

Yeah. I have OCR capability from my screen reader, the part I'm missing is just the keyboard accessibility for hex movement. I'd be in favor of something like "Q W E, A S D," just because I'm used to that kind of thing from roguelike games.

I have yet to actually see how the game handles display of enemy units by default, do they show up below the hex info like friendlies do? Dealing with the graphical mouse-only aspects of this particular map make it hard to get started, but I feel like i'd be okay once I figure out a way to really do so.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 12:19:09 AM   
kongxinga

 

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The game has a recon component, so sometimes it does not show any enemy units while there is an enemy unit, so your unit gets ambushed and bushwhacked.

With enough scouting (recon buggies are good at this), you would see the presence of a unit, but not the type, and with even more recon you can see the type but not the strength etc.

The textractor component comes in handy from deliberately selecting the specific strings to read, since that information you need to know about the hex is split into several places and textractor or similar tools would pull place them together in a convenient place.

When you select a hex, multiple tabs with more information shows up. These are units, structures etc, and each can have multiple members. So I can select a hex, and then select structures, and tab through the farm, ice mining facility, etc that exist in the hex. The same for friendlies, although typically I would click more than once since that cycles between selecting different units in the stack. Each unit has multiple elements (450 riflemen, 50 machine guns, 10 light tanks) as well, so to get a full picture you need to tab or cycle through that as well to get the full picture. And each element is customized too! So conceivably you would also want to drill down into the element to find out what armour it has for example.

I went into the game to check on the enemy, and it looks like with sufficient recon, you do see the number of enemy units within, and double clicking does cycle through each to give you the information that you have about it. Of course, like real commanders, this information is limited and often wrong, and you either need to recon more, or take the risks. So enemy units DO show up below the hex info like friendlies. The better recon, the more information you get such as numbers, types, disposition.






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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 1:34:32 AM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Hey,

Thanks so much for confirming that. :)

I'm going to download textractor and give it a look, hopefully it will ease my dependence on OCR, at least.

THe key piece missing for now is easy navigation of hexes, and unit movement. If I can get that sorted I'm very excited to see how far I can go. I really appreciate all the enthusiastic support.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 2:15:55 AM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Hey,

Okay, the Textractor program is really cool from what I can see thus far. I'm not sure how to start customizing it to do what I need, but it's amazing just not having constant OCR typos and missing information. I was looking at all the unit data for instance, it was awesome to be able to read that even if I had to go into another window to do so.

Thanks for mentioning it :) I just wish I could figure out the map issues.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 6:23:45 PM   
kongxinga

 

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Hi,
I hope it helps. Textractor is somewhat fiddly and needs some trial and error to get to work, and now I realize that it itself is rather badly accessible and for certain games would need extensions on itself. I was looking over the issues, and saw someone trying to use it on Clausewitz engines, so I got excited but that was you haha. I am going to fiddle a bit with it to see what text I can extract, out of the box. I haven't used it on strategy games yet, but I won't know till I fiddle around. I do hope you are able to figure something out.



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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 6:27:43 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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YEah. :)

The art of game accessibility for me is in many ways just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. I'm a huge fan of strategy games in general but until I discovered OCR was unable to do much of anything with them. I just wish more had better keyboard support.

(in reply to kongxinga)
Post #: 53
RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 6:43:10 PM   
kongxinga

 

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Well good news and bad news.
Good news. The game's text is getting extracted. Bad news, there are 60 ish fields I am extracting from when I click around the map, not withstanding what I will see if I go into menus. Good news, it looks like the information. For example the field GDIPMeasureString Outputs this results.

---
VE MODEPlains GrassyNimnon (33,27)NimnonNo Unit selectedNimarbes PaxASSETSITEMS
VE MODEPlains GrassyNimnon (33,27)NimnonNo Unit selectedNimarbes PaxASSETSITEMS

Adv.[1]
Adv. [1]​

Adv.[1]
Adv. [1]​

View the mini-map. [F8]MINIMAP
View the mini-map. [F8] Minimap


---

Bad News. To make sense of these, we'll have to go through the fields one by one and pipe the text through Regex or some rules to get the information you need. This is not insurmountable, but it is a text analytics task. For example, VE MODEPlains GrassyNimnon (33,27)NimnonNo Unit selectedNimarbes PaxASSETSITEMS is nonsense, but with some rules we get get the info. Plains hex, coordinates 32,27, city of Nimnon, Grassy Terrain, Tile called Nimnon, No Unit Selected. This looks promising.

My own textractor is nearly black magic (it works and I don't dare touch it) for my use case, but with some extending it seems we can make it work for this game (as others have made it work for other games).

Can someone guess what the other information is? I think Nimarbes is the region, but what is VE mode, and Pax AssetsItems?

< Message edited by kongxinga -- 9/30/2020 6:48:25 PM >

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 6:50:12 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Yeah. :) I was playing around with it last night, and while it was hard to consistently get text all the time, I did get it most of the time..

The keyboard accessibility is the other piece I'd love to get working, but we probably can't do that without help from Vic. Until I can avoid having to click on the map as much as possible, things are going to be difficult whether we get text or not.

Still, I'm optimistic. :)

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 6:52:16 PM   
DTurtle

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlindGuyNW

Thank you. :) This was very helpful indeed.

One of the problems I face at the moment is finding a consistent place on the hex map. Can anyone speak to how it interacts with zoom levels? I need a way to move my mouse reliably to whichever hex is currently selected, so that I can explore the others in each direction, since it's the only way to move units and such at this point. :) I have a bookmark for the exact center of the screen (pixel position 720, 450, in my case,) but this doesn't quite seem to correspond to the center of the map. I hope the question makes sense, it's a little hard to explain. :)

Experimenting some more, I haven't found any way to center on the currently selected hex. There are several ways to zoom onto cities or units. However the position of the selected and zoomed to hex on the screen is not completely the same. It can shift right or left and up or down by up to a hex. As I mentioned before, using the arrow keys shifts the map by exactly one hex. So while you might not immediately click on the correct hex by clicking in the center of the map, it should give you the coordinates of the hex you clicked on, and then you can shift the map and click again (without moving the mouse). Its the only way I can think of to get to wherever you want to get to.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 9/30/2020 7:07:17 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

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Understood, and thanks for checking. :) I'll do some more experiments myself.

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RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 10/1/2020 6:25:05 AM   
Soar_Slitherine

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kongxinga
VE MODEPlains GrassyNimnon (33,27)NimnonNo Unit selectedNimarbes PaxASSETSITEMS

Can someone guess what the other information is? I think Nimarbes is the region, but what is VE mode, and Pax AssetsItems?

"VE MODE" is probably MOVE MODE but the first two letters are cut off. "Pax" is used as a component in regime names, so "Nimarbes Pax" seems to be a regime name it's reading from the title of the corresponding tab in the bottom panel. ASSETS and ITEMS are tabs in the bottom panel. Then it seems to loop around to the top of the screen - "Adv.[1]" sounds like the indicator for the number of advice popups available from the top panel, and the minimap text is also up there if I recall correctly.

< Message edited by Soar_Slitherine -- 10/1/2020 6:26:10 AM >

(in reply to kongxinga)
Post #: 58
RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 10/3/2020 5:47:20 AM   
MtnPatriot

 

Posts: 13
Joined: 6/26/2020
Status: offline
"Hi All,

Long time no see."
Am I really the only one who chuckled? Has the modern world devolved to the point that we can't laugh at a blind man's jokes because our laughter might offend someone?
Blindguy, I have nothing to offer beyond moral support. This game has enamoured me like no other in the last few years, but the UI is counterintuitive at best, and an equal adversary at worst. I wish you the best of luck in your explorations of it.

(in reply to BlindGuyNW)
Post #: 59
RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind - 10/3/2020 5:12:10 PM   
BlindGuyNW

 

Posts: 46
Joined: 11/2/2015
Status: offline
Hey,

Thank you for the good wishes and humor. :)

The game is definitely still challenging. I intend to try and do some more exploration this weekend and see if I can figure out a predictable way to handle unit movement at the moment.

Textractor helps but the order in which it outputs things is, as demonstrated, unpredictable. I guess I'll just have to get used to it for now.

(in reply to MtnPatriot)
Post #: 60
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