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[ConscriptFive]

So uber-grognards Slitherine-AGEOD (ALEA JACTA EST, Pride of Nations, Civil War II) finally made a Grand Strategy Game that actually has mass appeal, Field of Glory: Empires.  Take place from rise of the Roman Republic in 310 BC to the fall of the Roman Empire in 190 AD, in the area of the world ranging from Scotland to India.  Similar the Total War series, GSG layer breaks down into old school turn-based battles.

https://youtu.be/xmCw9XZuhIQ

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1011390/Field_of_Glory_Empires/

Anybody else give it a spin yet?

[Wiles]

I have not played the series before, so I'm a bit confused by the battles. Seems like you can export from FoG:E to FoGII. Are there no battles at all in the game, or are they just less involved than Field of Glory II?

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I also picked this up, and while I'm just about to start my campaign, I'm under the impression there is a simplified 3d battle replay for you to watch.

Otherwise you can skip/autoresolve/view after the turn is complete, or export the battle to FoGII to play yourself.

[Majestic7]

Reminds me of the old Scifi games Rules of Engagement and Breach. In the first you command a starship, the second is a tactical squad game about space marines. If you board an enemy ship or get boarded, you could fight out the encounter in Breach while playing Rules of Engagement.

[Stench Guzman]

I'm pretty sure the Roman Empire didn't fall in AD 190.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I'm pretty sure the Roman Empire didn't fall in AD 190.

It didn't, but some quick research says that some historians mark that era (the reign of Commodus, of Gladiator fame) as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

So, I have indeed given it a spin.

Pros:
-- Much better mechanically than Imperator
-- Anti-blodding CDR mechanic
-- Sensical AI and army composition (one-trick pony armies get smacked sooner or later)
-- Interesting region development
-- Provincial automation for both resource production and building
-- Compared to Imperator much more fun battle resolutions

Neither-here-nor-theres:
-- Ability to export battles to play in Field of Glory II, which I actually haven't done yet because the battle resolutions are actually pretty satisfying
-- Very strong rebels, independents, revolts (in many ways this ends up being a GREAT thing, but every once and while it can be frustrating)
-- Trade is fully automated
-- Turn-based, where all moves are resolved at the same time.

Cons:
-- Naval combat does feel a bit meh, though to be fair I haven't done all that much with it.
-- Some slower starts can make the campaign feel significantly shorter
-- UI can be strange, nothing a DF player will really get upset over though.
-- Can take a few playthroughs to learn the mechanics, which aren't always immediately graspable (the manual is helpful, but I actually had to play to fully grasp a lot things)
-- Legacy is the only official victory point scoring method, and a lot of the time, it doesn't feel like it lines up with your ACTUAL successes.

[Trolldefender99]

I got it+FoG 2 and honestly I like Imperator (1.2 beta Cicero) better. It does however come to personal choice there between the two as they are rather different style games even if they look the same at first glance. But this isn't an Imperator thread, so I'll just leave it at that. It isn't really fair to compare the two. Field of Glory Empires has neat mechanics though to prevent blobbing. That is probably the biggest thing that really changes how its played. And actually the way it is is probably my favorite mechanic of any historical grand strategy game as after a while the blob gets too strong and boring since no one can defeat you.

I probably won't play much as it is currently however. But I look forward to seeing what they do with it as far as updates and new content goes if they do DLC or whatever. Looking at some of their past games, they do seem to support the game with updates and sometimes some expansion content.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I don't think thats fair at all lol, they're literally both grand strategy games based in Europe around the rise of Rome. Many of the mechanics are analogous.

But I digress, I do agree that Imperator is significantly different--after all we're talking the difference between the Paradox design strategy and AGEod design strategy, which is pretty fundamental. I will say, FoG: Empires definitely feels more feature complete upon release. End short rant.

Some other notes on FoG features:
-- The frontier expands (as I recently discovered)
-- Nations collapse and reform
-- There is actually several reasons to retool your regions/cities, including provincial efficiency, and negating the effects of urbanization.

Revison about an earlier statement: The campaign does NOT feel short lol, I may have mistake 190 BCE for 190 AD (yes, I know) so was a bit confused when I crossed that particular mark.

[Majestic7]

So, I have Fields of Glory 2 and like it, plus I want there to be competition in GSG market, so I bought this.

The game is better than I thought. There is an inbuilt mechanic for decadence that makes empires fall due to internal pressures, but if your empire becomes decadent, you get a chance to get your shit together. Often this means the empire splintering in civil wars and rebellions, but that's just !!!FUN!!!.

I'm kind of scratching my head on where the enemy keeps getting all the manpower. I started a game as Sparta, playing on easy to learn the ropes. I conquered southern part of Greece, then took over Rhodos and Crete. Macedonia had taken over rest of the Greece, so I need some time to get my economy together.

Now that I've been in war with Macedonia, I've been killing shitloads of their dudes. Spartan Phalanxes are so OP I win every fight as long as I keep my frontline together. So they lose ten units in every engagement. I'm pretty sure I've killed hundreds of their units so far. Despite this, they keep having more. Sparta gets -70% modifier to manpower so my budget there is tight, but even if I didn't have that modifier, I'm certain I had run out of soldiers with that amount of casualties!

You can hire mercenaries with just money and maybe third have been mercs, but where are the rest coming from? Where do they get the metal, equipment and money to constantly recruit new troops? It is weird. Since I'm playing on easy, I can only imagine this would be hundred times worse on hard difficulty. Macedonia isn't even that big geographically, they have just some of the Balkans and middle/northern Greece up to the Golden Horn.

It is quite shitty if AI needs to cheat and does it even on easy, which shouldn't give it any crutches.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Manpower is very economy-dependent. Though I'm pretty sure they also get a manpower malus, the Greece/Thrace/Balkans area is pretty developed at the start of the game.

If you're not in constant wars, and dont have a crazy manpower malus like Sparta, you can really build up big reserves of cash, manpower, and metals. Macedonia always seems to thrive in my games too.

[Karlito]

Macedonia has a national bonus to manpower, and starts with some manpower boosting buildings too. However, I think the real cause of the endless troop waves is the "Emergency Army" decision, which spawns troops at a cost of only legacy points and can be taken pretty frequently. Today's patch tamped down on the ability of nations to spam that out, though Macedonia will probably always have the legacy points to take it.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Also if you think emergency levies suck, wait til you encounter germanic independent/revolt armies--natural 300 strength with like 6-12 heavy goth infantries. They rock socks.

[Felius]

Been playing it non-stop the last couple days: Game needs a bit of patching still, but definitely great.

Now, if I can only manage to keep my core regions loyal and not constantly at the cusp of a revolt...

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Once you expand to a medium or large empire you'll probably need to retool many of your highest population regions to focus solely on culture (for loyalty and revolts), healthcare and food (if you wanna keep growing them), and possibly walls and guards (for revolts).

It's actually fairly challenging, before I started consciously working on them, I had several revolts in my core regions, and even lost my capital (though now both the new and old capital have 50 pop and are not in danger of revolting).

Towards the end of the game, when you can start thinking in provinces rather than single regions, although you still want to ideally develop regions individually, it's wise to special them somewhat. I.E. I have a number of stronghold regions--usually the provincial capitals.

In my Burgundi run I was so successful, I really generalize non-national/provincial-capitals to produce moderate amounts of money, food, manpower, and culture. Partially because I didn't want rebellions and germanic independents from crippling my empire by raiding behind my lines and giving my border regions the recently conquered malus.