Decisions and Frontage

[Brindlebane]

Hi all,new to the forum,new to the game,new to the game mechanics.Okay i'm now the proud owner of AJE,NCP and the old ACW.I wish i'd found these games years ago.Anyway,it's took me a few weeks but i'm finally understanding the game mechanics and concepts,great stuff and these look like great games.So down to two minor questions.I've read most of the forum and wiki and manuals but could someone help me out with these two questions.

For AJE,what decisions should i actively be using each turn or looking to use.Merchants i use because they're free anyway,just not sure of the rest.

Frontage,without all the maths what would be a quick summary of what i should be looking at before i engage and then press the end turn button.

The more i play the games,the more i realise there's a deeper understanding needed in what i'm seeing.Great learning curve in this game,steep but fun.

[cwegsche]

Hi!

Regarding the desicions, it's all give and take. Look what you have and waht you need, then make your decisions.
Regarding frontage, the better and clearer the terrain and the better the weather, the more troops you can field. Leaders help in clear, wood and steppes terrain with their stats (offensice and defensive respectively) as well as with their rank (three stars leaders offer more frontage than 1 star leaders). The more difficult the terrain is, the more quality troops (legions) help.

Feel free to ask more if I can help you!

Cheers Chris

[loki100]

Hi, have a look at this thread and in particular the 4 posts by Narwhal.

There is more detail than you need to play the games but it will give you an insight into what is going on in the battle phases and may help you organise your forces for maximum impact - in particular if you are playing one of the non-Roman factions which tend to have an unbalanced set of advantages and disadvantages. Good eg is the Pontics in the AJE scenarios, you can't just group up an army and shovel it forward with much hope of success, so you do need to pay attention to what makes that sort of army work

For AJE,what decisions should i actively be using each turn or looking to use.Merchants i use because they're free anyway,just not sure of the rest.

One way to use decisions is to convert resources. Basically you have cash, National Morale and EPs. Different decisions consume different combinations of these and yield different returns. So think about what you need the most and use the decisions that yield that.

One eg, in the 4 Emperors scenario, a key is to get control over the Danubian legions. If I recall (not got the game open) you need NM over a certain value to do this, there are cards that convert cash/EP into NM, so they should be your priority. In other games you may want to raise units as fast as possible so need cash and manpower, again look over the decisions for ones that will help with this conversion.

So they are very situational, some are obvious, like the ones that help with sieges (but even then there is a judgement about when best to use them), others it really depends - in essence on the question what do you need most.

[ArmChairGeneral]

If what you need most is more supply produced in a specific region, the cards (regional decisions) that increase loyalty and development affect supply production. An increase in loyalty percentage results in a 1-for-1 percentage increase in supply produced in that region for loyalties over 50%, (it rounds to whole numbers of supply though, so you may not get access to all of the extra production).

Increasing the development level (Wild, Cleared, Civilized or Rich) nets a large increase in per turn supply production. (Loyalty and development may affect money production too, I haven't looked closely enough to say for sure.)

[Brindlebane]

Thanks for the posts,more game mechanic tips learnt there.Much obliged.