Best game from you guys until now - congrats!

[steelwarrior77]

Bought it straight away and already played it quite a bit! Love it. Just something needs fixing - the XP of my units in Empire does not translate to FoG2 usually as higher unit quality shown - please fix it so that my veteran legions can stomp the world muhaha ;-D

[Pocus]

It should, it should! I'm fairly certain we would have spotted this bug if there was no effect of experience on FOG2 unit. We will need proof about that

[steelwarrior77]

Hmmm, just checked, can only see unit quality in FoG2 and for example my light cavalry is always shown as above average unit quality, no matter if one star or 4 in Empires....or am I looking in the wrong place? Just checked the other units, Velites and Alae and Legionaries - cannot see a difference there either...no matter if 1 or 4 stars...

[loki100]

on translation, quality is influenced by unit experience, leader skills, effectiveness and supply.

So a better leader in Empires will see an uplift of unit quality in FoG2. I've had battles where good Empires units are often below average either due to supply or efficiency issues or having the weaker general.

may also be that some units are capped for FoG2 morale but best to ask that on the Slitherine forum, RBS (designer of Byzantine games) can answer that sort of question.

[steelwarrior77]

Thanks, I will check it out

[Respenus]

Although I will post my comments and observations in another thread, I wanted to take a moment to congratulate the AGEod team for a truly fantastic game. I am still learning the mechanisms of the game, but every time I learn something, it makes it all the more difficult to put the game down. So if one-more-turnitis is a symptom of an engrossing game, FOG:E more than passes the test.

I admit that right now I remain biased towards the old AGE combat system, but the foundations are there for a series of in-depth grand-strategy historical war games that are more than worthy of taking up the AGEod mantle. So onwards and to many more games to come.

[Pocus]

Thanks! And yes, we hope to restart fresh and strong with this engine!

[steelwarrior77]

Maybe I should not have started my first game on insane difficulty ;-D I am stable as Rome but cannot progress - always too little culture and too much decadence, if I conquer...How exactly does difficulty work - what are the penalties for the player and bonusses for the AI, do some kick in later in the game? And are there any penalties for the player later on kicking in?

[loki100]

Maybe I should not have started my first game on insane difficulty ;-D I am stable as Rome but cannot progress - always too little culture and too much decadence, if I conquer...How exactly does difficulty work - what are the penalties for the player and bonusses for the AI, do some kick in later in the game? And are there any penalties for the player later on kicking in?

best advice is to read the manual, sets out what goes on when you shift dificulty levels.

most AI gains come into play later in the game as they are sort of related to managing a larger empire

[steelwarrior77]

Thanks - any ideas what is the recommended difficulty for playing Judea? I guess the suddenly increased penalties came from Rome becoming an old republic - the manual does not state which exact values - which would be nice to know though - so I can adjust my difficulty accordingly...

[steelwarrior77]

Some feedback: I started another game on difficult difficulty and now I am doing much better on turn 60 than I did on turn 140 on insane - I guess there is a huge difference but I really want to know in numbers, what the difference really is...I even have abysma administrators in my goverment ad am doing much better....
Font have to be at least doubled in size - for people with no eagle eyes ;-D
And I would suggest to increase frontage in battle by 4 more allowed. And it would be great if we could at least deploy units in these battles or choose a certain deployment like in to End all wars...
Reshuffling would be less a grind, if we could hav at least two choices of each category...
Two turns per year would be also nice for more controle of units and generals, who live longer ;-D
Thanks for the great game and fun!

[loki100]

... - the manual does not state which exact values - which would be nice to know though - so I can adjust my difficulty accordingly...

that is deliberate .... basically the descriptions are guides and this allows Pocus to shuffle stuff as evidence emerges from much wider play

[H Gilmer3]

I'm going to have to give the game a big thumbs up because I have been playing on easy and my culture has gone to hell and I just realized that I'm too complacent about taking regions from people I beat. I need to play defensively and beat them in my regions so I don't take their regions from them.

Although I will say there really should be a mechanism for beating them in their regions and not immediately taking that region if you don't want it. Because I don't want your scroungy 3 citizen region!!

[steelwarrior77]

Agreed, maybe something like a defensive stance in the older AGEOD games...

[Pocus]

Or a kind of option to relinquish an owned territory? A bit like what the Roman did in Albion. But it would be rare. More often than not, you took and overextended then coped with that.

[steelwarrior77]

Great!

[Cabbage Jack]

Ha ha! I am terrible at this game

It's great fun to play and I know I'll get better as I start to put things together, but it's always nice to be reminded why I'm not in charge of things IRL.

[Franciscus]

Or a kind of option to relinquish an owned territory? A bit like what the Roman did in Albion. But it would be rare. More often than not, you took and overextended then coped with that.

I think that would be a good addition, yes !

Regards

[Lucasiewicz]

I'm really loving the game. Been playing it straight for two days now! It has great mechanics which are surprisingly deep, for example the building construction is very interesting!

Though I have a remark/question. I'm steamrolling my game as Rome so far, mainly because the whole bloody world is constantly waging war on each other. Carthage for example poses almost no threat, because since the game began, it's almost continuously at war with all it's neighbours (and thus far unsuccessfully). Being a bit smarter as a human player, it seems I am revered enough (leading the legacy-dance for quite some time now) so that I can pick my own fights more sequentially as opposed to Carthage's simultaneous fights... Which gives a huge advantage obviously. Though in the early years I had to simultaneously fight every independent nation on the Italian peninsula, thank goodness for those wonderful Roman Legions.

Offcourse it's not only Carthage that constantly waging war. It's like that for every other nation. From the Celts all the way to the Seleucids. The whole map's one giant battlefield with no room for cooperations or alliances... or even the absence of war for that matter.

[Pocus]

Dogpiling should be toned a bit in the incoming first patch. So it should lead to fewer wars.
The main problem with Rome comes from being a large empire, you'll see!

[Lucasiewicz]

Yes, I eagerly await managing my decadent empire

But it's still only 250 BC and I thought about sharing some bits of my experience so far. Kind of feels like conquering the Italian peninsula is not that difficult as it might have been historically. Will there be more flavour added to mimic some of the problems managing the socii posed? Or is it in and haven't I just not encountered it yet?

Anyways, the game's out for 5 days now and Steam tells me I've put in 30 hours so far. That's an average of 6 hours/day. Kind of proves I'm enjoying it immensely Especially because I'm in my 30's an not some teenager

[steelwarrior77]

I have a historical question - should the Alae units not become also legions after the Marius reform? Maybe a weaker kind of legions?

[loki100]

... Or is it in and haven't I just not encountered it yet?

...

you'll find it soon enough

basically conquest is relatively easy, holding your gains a lot more tricky

I have a historical question - should the Alae units not become also legions after the Marius reform? Maybe a weaker kind of legions?

probably yes for the existing alae when the reforms were made as the organised auxilia were really part of the Imperial army. I think the Alae just became slightly less competent legions?

but you need some form of Medium Inf (even as Rome with the legion's siege bonus) so its a good game decision that the alae flip to auxilia with the Marian reform? Watch out - the velites become auxilia with the Imperial reform and at that stage you need to rely on regional units for your light troops.

so you may need to do some recruitment and re-organising when that happens.

[Lucasiewicz]

Since we're already way of topic

I'm in doubt whether it's a good thing that by 250BC I'm already an Empire. With so many objectives easily within grasp it was impossible to stop going forward to tier III, Empire. And I had almost no pops working in culture...

I'm still in doubt what the best strategy is. Stay a republic for as long as possible or go with the flow and race towards a glorious empire.

I haven't even reformed my legions/military, so game-wise I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Should I have kept my Velites around for when the reforms trigger? I just disbanded them all in favor for Sicilian and Corsican slingers, which are better skirmishers...

EDIT:
guess I found the answer myself... Turns out that turning into an empire and having regions with loyalty under 75 is strife for disaster. Had two civil wars break out in 4 turns turning nearly all my regions in usurpers, and quite powerfull ones. Game over.

Feels all a little bit forced though. Probably because it's missing some flavour events leading up to catastrophe. If playing for the first time it feels like all s going really well (the manual basically tells to keep loyalty over 50) and all of a sudden crash boom. You to Brutus?

[loki100]

well no, the manual has a section on Rome and Civil Wars and clearly indicates getting your loyalty to 75+ is a good idea

[Lucasiewicz]

well no, the manual has a section on Rome and Civil Wars and clearly indicates getting your loyalty to 75+ is a good idea

Sigh. I only read 6.4 Loyalty and Unrest. Should have read 7.5 Civil Wars

Oh well. I'll restart as Rome some day. Guess it was important to stay as a Tier II republic as long as possible. But I think if you conquer along a historical path and timeline, you'll be an empire way before it was historically, just because of the progress tokens received from taking objectives. You should look to deliberately get ageing tokens but Rome does produce quite a lot culture from buildings alone (maybe less at gamestart; can't remember correctly).

Time to rule the (western) Mediterranean as Carthage now! 3th start so far. 1st was with the Belgae (guess where I'm from ). Someday I'll know all the specifics of the game, because I have a feeling a lot of nations will indeed play very differently because of the game-mechanics.

So, to recap and get back on topic; I'm loving the game!

[Cabbage Jack]

I just want to say one more time how much I am enjoying this game. I haven't had this much fun in a GSG since Crusader Kings 1 and I think the 'Wow" factor is equal to the first time I played EU2 17 years ago.

You nailed it. I'm absolutely dazzled by this game.

Thank you.

[steelwarrior77]

Could you do a quick fix for AI aggression - really too many wars around...

[steelwarrior77]

Thanks for the patch - I do not know if it was a side effect of the overly agggressive AI - but they could use some more units - so maybe a bigger manpower/money bonus for them? And maybe Carthage should get an extra bonus when humans play Rome - as its gets destroyed each camapign now - by uncountable wars by neighbours...And it would be great to see how many slaves were taken right in the pre-battles screen with the battle results...

[steelwarrior77]

I think that is a bug - targeting an army does not work - my army only marches to the province the enemy army was in, but does not go after it, if it moves to a different province...
And the income display seems to be broken - I should earn like 800+ a turn and get like 200...10 turns now? Maybe I changed the difficulty too often?