Victory Points - Multipliers ?

[Don Powell]

Will victory point scoring have multipliers or less total point requirements for smaller / less powerful nations?

i.e. One can understand if Rome and Carthage (for example) would have similar VP requirements in order to win the game since the overall nation power at one point was quite close.

But for less powerful factions - Seleucids , Macedon etc - it seems it would make sense that their ambitions and associated VP goals would be at a different scale.

I remember an old Victorian Era board game called Pax Britanica that had a nicely balanced scale of VP requirements - where countries like Turkey were assigned far lower points required for victory. This was a great system because - instead of expecting Turkey to arise back to a dominant power (over England, France and Germany) - she was instead expected to retain all of her original territory and perhaps make some modest regional gains.

This approach would sound good to me in the Ancients settings as well.

Will there be any provision like this to make the lesser powers truly competitive in terms of game victory ?

[loki100]

The same scaled system was used in Pride of Nations - which makes sense as the same pair of designers are behind both

Without going too far into detail, it looks like every nation in Empires is playable, including those that will spawn in game (Galatians, Parthians, others depending) but in truth about 10-15 are going to be feasible/interesting. So yes, you can play as some bunch of Steppe nomads, no doubt have great fun but ...

All use the same legacy system to derive their final score/win. But there are many routes to gain/lose legacy, not just conquest. And you can get legacy for being a long lived now decadent/old state - after all the Roman Empire has 'legacy' even if it collapsed. So if you build a small rich cultured state you may well gain a lot of legacy, perhaps more than rampaging your way to regional or global dominance. So different playstyles and options open up for different states so while all use the same scoring each have some pretty unique means of running up a decent legacy score.

And an ill-thought out rampage will cost you more than you gain, so simply constructing an ephemeral Empire stretching over poor provinces may not give you much legacy.

[Don Powell]

That sounds great.

Such talk makes Aggressors: Ancient Rome and the upcoming Paradox Imperator game far less of a purchase consideration than they previously were.


Now ... if my Ask from the other thread on AGEOD style counters goes through ... I may not be leaving the house a lot after this is released.

[Stratman]

I am sensing the Greatest Game!!