Where to start?

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Franciscus]

Well, Gray, I am actually re-starting with GI, also...
How to start?...

Let me give you some thoughts, although other more veteran players sure will have other and better suggestions (PalPat, Gjergj, Alexander, to name a few)

- First, this has nothing to do with AGEOD engine games. Everything you so well know from AACW serves you nothing here.
- The first obstacle is the real-time nature of the game. At first you should play with the least possible speed (key -), and pause when needed (but many options - like available stratagems to play - are unavailable while paused )
- The second obstacle is the multi-nation type of play - you control many nations, which can even be at odds with one another sometimes . Sure, you can and should relegate to AI the nations that you do not want to play, but still events pertaining to AI controlled nations belonging to you will continue to pop up and demand your attention...
- I think the "anglo-saxon" tutorial is a good place to start - but do not play it as told in the small manual. The saxon horde will not embark in the ships, and you have to move it to another province (and split your remaining army :bonk in order to be able to embark some troops to England. But then, you can forget the horde for some time and have fun fighting the Britons. After a few battles, if you win, you must make peace (or wait for them to sue for peace) in order to effectively get some provinces from them (control is not the same as possessing), and in the end you will evolve to Kingdom status. And you have in the beginning only to care for the Saxons, as the Angles are "raiders" yet (a pre-barbarian stage of some nations, that, even if belonging to you, are completely independent from you until they evolve)
- Then the 350 Historical Grand campaign with the (I think) green player is a good place to continue - you have the Alamani, Suevi, Saxon, Jutes, but in the beginning only the Alamani are evolved enough for you to control, the rest are mere raiders and you can have good fun fighting the romans and/or franks.
This is what I am doing at the moment
Regards

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[PhilThib]

Have you tried selecting less troops? Might be a load capacity problem on the Saxon fleet

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Franciscus]

Move your horde to Holstein and forget about it for now. Then go back to your army, split it - click on the tent to access army management and the the anchor will become active. The horde will eventually spawn fresh troops and boats.
The tutorial is just another scenario, not a proper tutorial. I suspect many players got stuck right where Gray was and quickly threw the game to the trash bin. Some polish would do wonders - Have I mentioned already that a GI gold could do a lot to improve GI (and Ageod, Phil and Luca's) "reputation" ?

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Franciscus]

Remember: I told you the "tutorial" is not a real tutorial. Do not mind the "instructions" in the manual regarding the tutorial, at best they are there just to give general pointers to the whole game. A proper tutorial is/was really needed, yes.

An adivce, Gray:
You will find loose ends. You will get crashes. It will be extremely difficult to manage properly all of your nations. But try to have fun, and go with the History flow. As I am "getting" more of this game I am beginning to feel that as a game design it is probably, until now, the greatest work of PhilThib. It is a pity the apparently "rushed" state (what is the reason for poor Luca to have this malediction upon him ? Years later WW1 was also "rushed" to market and his games deficiencies are clearly not his fault...:coeurs
The game is extremely fun once you enter the spirit. I am currently playing grand campaign 350 as Alamani, 5 years into it. After a few wars with the Romans and Franks, I am pratically where I started, and at peace with both of them. The Franks are striking northern Gaul, but as I also have this region as a fututre objective I am getting fun secretly provoking revolts in my "allied" armies and seriously hampering their war with the Romans. Brilliant !

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Bruit Bleu]

Even if the tutorial doesn't correpond to the manual, the game mechanics are easy to understand.

The real problem of the tutorial are the boats unable to load the saxon horde because they lack of transport boats which only "spawns" after a few years where the horde is.
It was too long for me to wait for a proper navy, so when I tried GI again a few weeks ago, I played the tutorial with the other barbarian player and all came back quickly.

Learn how to move and fight, and the basics of diplomacy (declare war and propose a peace) and you can play a campaign with a barbarian tribe easily !
Have the betamanual at hand for a description of the stratagems and a reference for others subtilities, and you can play a few years (or decades) without difficulty before changing to a kingdom.
When the moment will arrive, you'll be familiarized enough with the game to know what to do and why.


To Franciscus : I'm playing the same campaign as you ! Very good choice !
I'm having a great fun ruling Gallia with my Alamans after having annihilated the Franks who conquered it for me ; and now that I control the Hun Horde, the Gothic and Roman people fears...
There are a lot of CTD, but the time passes anyway. I'm now approaching the Vth century !

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Palpat]

The game's Beta manual alludes to a Free-For-All Campaign where you start with only one nation. Is that even possible in the v1.07c version?

No way.

Also, a shortcut/function key that would highlight/contrast the "VP regions" specifically, (in other words all the provinces associated with a VP region contrasted against other regions/provinces) would be helpful. This particular information is not so easily ferreted out (unless I'm missing something after reading the manual twice.) If there's a key combination that I'm missing here, please let me know.

I don't think you're missing something. VP location are stated in the palace, and only there IIRC.

[Bruit Bleu]

Also, a shortcut/function key that would highlight/contrast the "VP regions" specifically, (in other words all the provinces associated with a VP region contrasted against other regions/provinces) would be helpful. This particular information is not so easily ferreted out (unless I'm missing something after reading the manual twice.) If there's a key combination that I'm missing here, please let me know.

As Palpat says, you can only see what are your VP Regions (ie Germania, Gallia Septentrionalis, Danuvia, etc) in the Palace - directly with CTRL-P shortcut.

But instead of clicking on the Provinces one-by-one to find which Province belong to what Region, a sub-mode in the Economic mode shows the map with Regions divisions. You can see easily what are your VP Regions that way !
(Beta Manual p.15 : a screenshot of this submode)

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Flop]

I very much doubt there'll be any more updates for this game, since they'd have to be done by Calvinus, and he's hard at work on WW1.

Anyway, I recommend reading the two AARs by Alexander Seil. They helped me quite a bit, when I was trying to get into the game. Unfortunately, he seems to have given up on finishing the second one, so it's pretty short. They can be found here and here.

edit: I've just noticed that the thread above this one contains an excellent AAR, by Gjergj K. I guess maybe you've already read that one.

[Gray_Lensman]

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