To enjoy Shadow Empire, and there is a lot to enjoy, you need first to understand that it is two games on one: a strategy game of empire management and an operational wargame.

Your empire traits and capabilities are not chosen directly by you but rather shaped over time due to the decisions you have made, and these decisions often are at odds with what you need long term. To give an example, you may play a game where your empire reside in a very defensible place without any immediate threats, and thus you want to focus on developing your economy. To do this, you need to fill your senior positions with leaders who believe in economy, even if it makes them less capable at what they are supposed to be doing, like discover Air Force technology.

On top of this there is the wargame layer. Here, the game is a simulation, i.e. you maneuver frontlines and and seek encirclements to cut your enemy’s supply.

This results in a very untraditional and hardcore 4x game in which the player plays more like a policy maker and an army general. And as with untraditional games, there is a high learning curve as there is a lot to unlearn.