Observations 1.02

[Lucasiewicz]

I restarted a game with Carthage after the patch came out. I have some observations I wanted to share from my game so far:

- I feel that AI nations still declare useless wars, though indeed less then before. For example: as Carthage you start at war with Syracuse. I took Etna from Syrucase so it was down to one region and made peace afterwards. After the truce period ended Syracuse immediately declared war on me again, without it having a decent army or having allies to back it up. Result, 4 turns later it was completely annihilated from the game. I can't exactly recall the power values of our factions, but let it be clear that it stood no chance whatsoever. I was at war with Sardes, Mauretania and Iberii at the time, which is probably why it thought it was a good idea. But since it's a very interesting region I offcourse concentrated my force on them first... Some turns down the road I had the same thing happen with Saguntum. A few turns after we became neighbours it jumped to the attack (it still being a weak one region city state with not such an imposing army) unbacked by any allies.

- The AI factions tend to overlook defending it's capital/core region(s). Their forces are often far away campaigning and conquering. If they're suddenly faced with a multiple front war (i.e. being attacked by another faction in the back) they all to often end up losing it's more valuable regions. In my game I see it with Mauretania. They went all frenzy on Massaesylia and Numidia, but forgot to defend against Gaetuli in it's rear...

- allied AI behaviour isn't shining either sadly (at least in my game). I entered an alliance with Numidia early in the game. We were at war together against Massaesylia, but for some reason it parked it's troop in my capital Africa province for the better time, letting Massaisylia take all it's regions one by one... Seems different behaviour than the campaigning factions that forget to defend, but it ends up with the same result. Instead of fighting for it's core regions it has his armies elsewhere.

- lastly I have an idea. Can we have token/message (those round clickable things that appear on the right side of the screen at turn starts that summarise what happened in a region the last turn, for example when a building got finished) for when a region finished shuffling it's building proposals. I use those buttons so I don't have to go through all my regions looking for opportunities to construct buildings. Right now, I still have to memorise (or write down ) where I'm shuffling

[Pocus]

Thanks for the feedback. Actually all 3 items on AI has been reworked some for the next patch! It won't be perfect, but it should go in the right direction.

We can't add more right notification, in fact we are in the process of removing some. But I would advise to check the map and see where you have icons, if you don't want to read the message log. This is how I play and done this way, you don't have to read any of the right notifications or read the message log.

[Lucasiewicz]

Allright. I will look one the map for the icons instead. But is there one for a region that reshuffled its building proposals? I was missing that type of notification.

I've been thinking further about wars, conquering and diplomacy.

- I'm thinking it's quite historical (and challenging) to be constantly at war. Almost all entities were intermittently at war with each other and true alliances were rare, but, what I'm still missing is some sense in all these wars. Historically it was more about constant shifting alliances, based upon some projection of power. In FoG:E I'm personally only seeing AI-nations blindly declare war. Diplomacy should become more important. I'd like to see the AI make more use of diplomatic options, certainly in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of way. More short-lived alliances, fast changing relations, etc. A more dynamic environment to make some sense in all the wars

- I'm missing the option to install client states out of wars. Right now, only a ceasefire can be arranged when making peace. Most probably the war will have deteriorated relations up to a point where, when the ceasefire's is over, the AI-nation will declare war almost immediately after it ending. As a result, once you're at war with another nation, it will only ever stop when the other is completely conquered. It's quite historical to puppet a nation or install a client-state militarily, either as a step before assimilating it completely or to pacify border regions more permanently. Client states themselves should revolt and oppose their masters given the right circumstances off course.

- Lastly for today, I don't know if it's a good idea as a game mechanic to only have an army enter an independent/enemy region with the result of it conquering the region. I understand that it ties in with the decadence-concept so that you should be careful about conquering, but that's just it. It makes total sense that regions should not be just abandoned by nations or given away diplomatically/traded for once conquered, such as often suggested by players on the steam forums, so that game mechanics can not be exploited that way, but, on the other hand, you should be able to move an army without conquering somehow. It was done historically, think about Hannibal's famous march from Iberia to Italia. he certainly did not conquer all the territory in between to be governed by Carthage after he had passed through. You should be able somehow to conduct "defensive" wars without conquering, to for example plunder your opponents cities/capitals.