Field of Glory: Empires

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Field of Glory: Empires

Post by dbemont »

Field of Glory: Empires will be out in the next month or so. Don't let the name fool you, this is quite a different animal than Field of Glory 2.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1011 ... y_Empires/

This is grand strategy with lots of attention to trade and the domestic tribulations of an expanding empire, with a new "decadence" mechanic that acts as a serious brake on map painting. Culture will sway the populace to identify with the nation, but at the cost of diverting resources away from the war effort, while also hastening decadence. Something like 400 building options, with some interesting randomization of the options open to you at any given time.

The game is published by Slitherine, but developed by AGEOD, using a whole new game engine. Military conflict looks interesting, with raiding, troop variety, frontage concerns, and generals... but your impact on the battle is strategic, not tactical. Once the battle begins, it is hands off... Unless, that is, you opt to export a particular battle to Field of Glory 2, which will apparently be a thing for those who own both games.

Like Imperator, this game begins shortly after the death of Alexander and encompasses a similar swath of Europe, Africa and western Asia. Lots of playable nations.

Dev Diaries: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1011390/ ... 356099618/

DasTactic showing off the military side of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8YRiu7 ... ex=2&t=65s

A Gamer_1745 showing off the domestic side of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkjtgwepvwc
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Oops, sorry. Can this thread be closed or deleted?
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Nope. It shall live on as a monument to your actions. :P
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

Well, no matter which thread wins, I'm still mildly excited, perhaps a bit more now that I've found Imperator: Rome to be a bit of a bust. I'm really more excited about the new Fields of Glory II: Wolves at the Gate expansion.

Also, Empires is turned based with two year turns, so it isn't really designed to be a campaign sim. So while it is cool that you can play out battles with FoGII, I don't think you'll be seeing a lot of detail occurring at an operational level.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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From what I have seen, each turn is one year. But that makes no sense, given the distance that an army travels in one turn. And the turn is labeled with a particular weather condition, which is silly if it refers to a year. I'm thinking the date will quickly become meaningless, you are just on turn 10 or 50 or whatever.

But as to battles, you have no control at all, according to the DasTactic video. You assign a general, who makes quite a difference. You have options as to unit types, and they make a difference. Frontage and terrain matter. (If you lack the troops to fill the frontage and your opponent can flank you, you are doomed.) Lots of variables and an interesting looking system, but unless you export to FOG 2, it's hands off once the battle occurs.

Really, this game seems to focus instead on how to adapt to expansion internally. Really, it looks a lot more promising to me than Imperator.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

With apologies to Sepiche, who posted the first FoGE thread, I'm going to post further updates here since this thread has more activity.

I've been posting some stuff over in the FoGII thread that really pertains to this game, so I'll post it here as well so folks can find it. It is one of the developer threads as mentioned above in the first post, but I wanted to post it here in full because it is an issue that some folks (well, me) have been wondering about.
Hey, I found the mother lode of how FoG:E battles will be fought in FoG:II, Dev Diary #9 Addendum - Playing Empires Battles in FOG2
Playing Empires Battles in Fog2
by Richard Bodley Scott

From an early stage in development it was planned that, in addition to the in-game battle resolution system, Empires would also have the option to fight out battles in FOG2 if the player so chooses.
The main objectives were:

1) That Empires battles fought out in FOG2 should be varied and fun. (Number one priority!)
2) That the armies of each nation should be represented by the correct FOG2 units for their nation.
3) That general skill and traits, unit experience, unit effectiveness, hit points etc. from Empires should carry over into the FOG2 battles.
4) That terrain should be representative of the terrain in the region where the battle takes place.
5) That there should be no adjustments to make the battles more “even”, and no adjustments to take into account the FOG2 difficulty setting. The situation should be as per the campaign situation.
6) That the export/import process and switching between the games should be as automated a process as possible.

How does the game decide which FOG2 unit type to convert an Empires unit to?
Empires has a database specifying which FOG2 unit type each Empires unit type maps to, with a quality adjustment for some. The mapping is different depending on the national archetype. This information is passed in the export file, along with various other factors affecting the conversion.
The Empires system potentially gives "Heavy Foot, Warriors, Mercenary Foot, Urban Militia etc." to every nation. The FOG2 conversion system attempts to convert each nation's forces to FOG2 units that are appropriate to their historical prototype. So for example "Warriors" in a Gallic Army will translate to FOG2 Warbands, but those in an Italian army will translate to FOG2 Italian Foot. This means that Empires "Heavy Foot", for example, may translate to FOG2 Medium Foot for some nations, if the nation never actually had any troops that FOG2 would rate as Heavy Foot.
Also some units translate to a mixture of FOG2 units, because this leads to more historically realistic armies. Pre-Marian Roman legionary units translate to a mixture of hastati/principes and triarii units, in approximately a 2:1 ratio. Horse archer units, if present in large numbers, translate to a mixture of Light Horse and Cavalry.

How does the game decide how many FOG2 units each Empires unit maps to?
The Empires : FOG2 unit conversion ratio depends on the unit type, because it is points based. This is because the difference in effectiveness between various Empires units is often significantly greater than the difference between the effectiveness of their FOG2 equivalents. To get the same relative effectiveness as in Empires-resolved battles, the more expensive (and more effective) Empires units translate to more FOG2 units than the cheaper ones. Some of the cheaper Empires units may only map to 1 FOG2 unit, but some of the more expensive ones could potentially map to as many as 4 or 5 (cheap) FOG2 units in armies of nations that historically did not possess powerful units like Pike phalanxes or legions. Most units will have a conversion ratio somewhere between these two extremes.

For example, because Italian Foot in FOG2 are cheaper (and less effective) than Warbands, the unit conversion ratio for Empires Warriors > FOG2 Italian Foot will be higher than the unit conversion rate for Empires Warriors > FOG2 Warbands. Also, where different Empires unit types convert to the same FOG2 unit type, the quality of the FOG2 units may be adjusted depending on which Empires unit type they come from. (Thus, for example, Urban Militia in some national archetypes may be extremely low quality versions of the standard units. They will also have a lower unit conversion ratio as they are much lower rated in Empires points).
Because the points value ratios do not match up to an exact number of FOG2 units, there is a random element. For example, if the points system means that an Empires unit is equivalent to 1.37 FOG2 units, the system will generate at least one FOG2 unit, with a 37% chance of another one. So usually it will generate 1 unit, but 37% of the time it will generate 2.
A damping system on the chances of selecting subsequent "partial" units is used to ensure that the overall strength of the army does not vary excessively (about 3% in tests), and a unique random number generator seed number for each exported battle ensures that if you play the same battle (from the same export file) in FOG2 multiple times, the OOBs (and map) will be the same each time. (Unless you go back to the pre-battle Empires save and re-export it, in which case there will be a different seed number each time).

How does the conversion take into account Empires general skill and traits, unit experience, effectiveness and hit points etc.?
Unit Experience and Effectiveness affect FOG2 unit Experience and Elan respectively. FOG2 unit Quality is the average of those ratings.
Empires Hit Points represent current strength compared with full paper strength, so affects the unit conversion ratio.
Generals use their Empires skill rating for attack or defence depending on which side counts as attacking in Empires. General traits applicable in the regional terrain add their modifiers to those skill ratings. If there is an overall difference between the skill ratings of the opposing generals, then usually an adjustment is made to the quality of the opposing units, representing the effects on morale, physical condition and state of preparedness of the troops resulting from the better general's more skilful pre-battle manoeuvres. Sometimes, instead of a quality adjustment, the lower skilled general will have some of his troops arrive late at the battle.
Unit traits are not explicitly taken into account in the conversion process, because FOG2 already takes into account the different effectiveness of different troop types in different terrain.

Frontage
Empires units convert to an average of 2 to 3 FOG2 units, some more, some less.
We decided not to artificially constrain the frontage in FOG2 battles because it would severely restrict the tactical options – which would rather defeat the point of playing the battle in FOG2. We did not think it would be fun.
Also, as FOG2 battles take some time to play out, we wanted a decisive result, so wanted all of the troops present to be able to take part.

Therefore, the normal FOG2 map generation is used, based on the prevailing terrain in the Empires province. Hence a mountainous, forest or swamp province will result in a mountainous, forested or marshy map, which may result in choke points, but isn’t guaranteed to do so.
This does mean that playing Empires with FOG2 battles will have strategic implications, meaning that the game will play out somewhat differently depending on whether you play all the battles in Empires or not. Personally, I resolve very one-sided battles in Empires and play the rest in FOG2.
Siege assaults are left to the Empires system and cannot be exported to FOG2
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Is this for single player, multiplayer, or both?
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by Sepiche »

Thanks for the details jz. Glad they went the route they are going instead of trying to force us into buying all those DLC.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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dbt1949 wrote: Mon May 20, 2019 8:48 pm Is this for single player, multiplayer, or both?
This is the answer I got:
Originally posted by jztemple:
Does this crossover between FOGE and FOGII also work in multiplayer?

Response:
Not currently. Whether we will add this in the future remains to be seen, but there are not only technical difficulties, but also it might slow down the campaign too much having to wait for two of the players to fight out each battle.
So just single player for now.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Some more information on Empires in an article titled Dev Diary #10 Units: Abilities and Modifiers. As noted, it discusses combat withing the game (not resolved using FoGII) and how different units have different functions, as well as how leaders use their traits and even how the location of the battle may affect how units perform.
Units in Empires have very diverse profiles and different roles. Some are heavy hitters, like phalanxes, legions and other heavy infantry. These units cost a lot to recruit and maintain, and will use a lot of metal, so can’t be mass produced easily. They have drawbacks too, like being relatively slow and not fit to fight in terrain like forests or mountains.

Another category is the medium infantry, which is apparently less powerful, more affordable and has the useful ability of being a besieger, meaning it will provide a bonus when you siege a city. This reflects the value of these formations in being able to construct heavy siege engines on the spot (you did not drag siege towers along your army when you were on the march). Given they are more affordable, you can field a lot of these troops, and this might be necessary since battles have an important concept of ‘frontage’, which is the width of the battle line. Previous players from AGEOD game will be well aware of this feature, as it appeared in 2004 with Birth of America, and it never ceased to play an important and realistic role in all our games. Failure to fill out your available front line will leave you very vulnerable to being outflanked or forced to commit your skirmishers to actual hand to hand combat (not a good idea!).

Image

The skirmishers are another sort of unit. They are not costly, although the manpower they need is close to the types above (so make a lot demands on your population to fill out their ranks from the pool of conscripts used for units). In melee, they are quite weak, but this is not where they should be used. They are there to help support your main infantry, by providing a combat bonus to them. A medium infantry unit backed by a skirmisher is as strong, if not more so, than a heavy infantry without support. Add to that they will weaken the enemy before melee through their missile attack, and you will quickly come to see that they are not optional to a good army composition.

Cavalry is another subset of units and plays an important role on the battlefield and the strategic map. Light cavalry will perform as skirmishers but most types can also flank the enemy. It means that should your opponent don’t fill up the battle line, then they will deal bonus attacks against the enemy. Should you manage to inflict a defeat to your opponent, then their pursuit bonus will deal significant damage during the retreat phase. On the strategic map, they are faster than even skirmishers, so can act as a fire brigade of sort. But they are not ideal if they have to fight on their own as they are rather brittle, except perhaps if they are heavy cavalry or cataphracts. Plus skirmishers help a city resists a siege, while cavalrymen don’t do much but eating the food stockpile in this situation!

The important thing to remember is that through quite a lot of fine tuning and testing, we have managed to give each unit a role that defines them well. And also that costlier units are not always better in all circumstances, so if you enjoy tweaking your army composition, then you should have some fun testing out combinations.

Image

But there is more to it than that, as units also have some custom abilities contextual to some terrain. For example, many Celtic nations have light and medium infantry which are woodmen, so they are better when fighting in the huge forests of Gallia. In the same way, German warriors benefit from this trait too, given how large and continuous, almost overwhelming, was the big Hercynian forest where many lived.

You’ll also fight mountainmen, if you have to deal with Celtiberian tribes, or people from Armenia or Colchide. Arabia Felix or the vast expanses of desert bordering Carthage proper will see cameliers with the desertmen traits, etc.

But some traits are not a bonus, they are a drawback. For example, elephants dislike cold terrain, and Phalanxes are not fit to assault a city.

Other traits are about how units fought on the battlefield. For example, skirmishers, horse-archers and light cavalry can deal damage even when they lose a duel, or to add insult to injury, they can even shave off part of the damages they received by evading the melee! As some of you know, the battle of Carrhae was a major defeat for Rome against Parthia, mostly because the latter had a lot of horse-archers (backed up by supply wagons to replenish their stock of arrows) while the legionnaires were trying (and failing) to reach the enemy line. In Empires too, I would not bet on the mighty legions if they have no support from archers or skirmishers, against a full battle line of Parthian horse archers!

Hopefully this will give you an idea about how Empires manages units and the different possible battles you will experiment.

But traits, also called modifiers, are everywhere in the game. Rulers have traits, ranging from being a superior administrator to being paranoid. The variations are numerous, and the chance to get the same ruler twice is very small. This in turn will shape your nation and alter your strategy, as a good military ruler will provide a lot of bonus which will be a boon to your army, while someone who despises the idea of expanding his realm will be an issue if you wanted to conquer and gobble your neighbor.

Units and rulers have traits (or modifiers) but each government is also different using their own range of abilities. For example, a tribal government will provide a bonus to manpower, and that’s fitting as units filled with warriors will need a lot of men and not that much heavy armor to be recruited. A merchant oligarchy like Carthage will enjoy extra bonuses for commerce but will be heavily penalized on manpower, thus lending to a style of gameplay where you’ll need to recruit a lot of mercenaries (and the ones for Carthage are rather good!).

In the end, through the judicious (or so we hope) use of modifiers, you’ll see that all the nations play rather differently from one another. Because their units are different, or perhaps their government. And then there are the custom buildings with special abilities! Here, we are mostly not talking about something like “Get +10% from that or that”, this would be dull… Buildings have specific abilities or behaviors that significantly alter the game and how you will tackle a nation. Judea with the possible, but difficult, task to rebuild the Solomon Temple (coming in no less than 7 levels of upgrades!), Saba with the impressive Ma’rib dam which can be either a boon or a curse (depending if you repair it or not), Dacia with its mountain fortresses, etc.

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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Field of Glory: Empires now has a release date of July 11th.

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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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For those who are interested, with the approaching July 11th release of the game, the Field of Glory: Empires Manual is now available for download as a PDF, in all its 214 page glory :D
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Thank you! I had seen people asking for this, but I had held out little hope that it would be released ahead of time.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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I finished reading/skimming through the manual and I'm really impressed. There is quite a lot of depth to the game and far more to the gameplay than just a "paint the map" exercise. And it looks like something I could get a lot more interested in than I was with Imperator: Rome.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Yeah, it really isn't a map painter at all. Which is great by me because I have had my fill of map painters. Conquest of territory is a means to certain ends, but historically it has consistently been the beginning of the story, not the end of it. Vastly expanding borders brings a fairly predictable set of problems, and that appears to be what this game is about.

My worry is that I will find it to be the game of my dreams, and that the public will then soundly reject it. I listen to the streamers and read the viewer posts, and it makes me uncertain there is a market for so much historical accuracy. Realistic troop types? Sure. The need for resources to build troops? Okay. But citizenry resistance to expansion, with efforts of buy off the citizenry leading to further problems? To the point that this, rather than further conquest, becomes the gamer's primary focus? It looks to be a serious challenge to a very broadly accepted fantasy version of history, and people generally do not like their fantasies punctured, particularly not in the guise of entertainment.

Of course, I have no idea how good a game it will actually be. The Let's Plays don't tell me much about the AI or the pacing or the general fun factor. But from what I can see, it stands out as an unusually honest effort to make a game that reflects history.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Another video, this one more a discussion than a playthrough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_IJA1frxuE
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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jztemple2 wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:38 pm For those who are interested, with the approaching July 11th release of the game, the Field of Glory: Empires Manual is now available for download as a PDF, in all its 214 page glory :D
I think I remember reading somewhere that Matrix Games does NOT plan to offer one of their nice hard-bound (optional) manuals for this one, can anyone confirm or (even better) tell us that indeed there will be a hardcopy version of the manual?
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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ChuckB wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2019 3:35 pm
jztemple2 wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:38 pm For those who are interested, with the approaching July 11th release of the game, the Field of Glory: Empires Manual is now available for download as a PDF, in all its 214 page glory :D
I think I remember reading somewhere that Matrix Games does NOT plan to offer one of their nice hard-bound (optional) manuals for this one, can anyone confirm or (even better) tell us that indeed there will be a hardcopy version of the manual?
from their website http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 34&t=92341
"Important! Field of Gory: Empires will have a printable pdf manual, but not the hardcover"
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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dbemont wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2019 7:48 am
ChuckB wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2019 3:35 pm
jztemple2 wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:38 pm For those who are interested, with the approaching July 11th release of the game, the Field of Glory: Empires Manual is now available for download as a PDF, in all its 214 page glory :D
I think I remember reading somewhere that Matrix Games does NOT plan to offer one of their nice hard-bound (optional) manuals for this one, can anyone confirm or (even better) tell us that indeed there will be a hardcopy version of the manual?
from their website http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 34&t=92341
"Important! Field of Gory: Empires will have a printable pdf manual, but not the hardcover"
Thanks! That's good and bad news, I guess (Bad, because these Matrix Games hardbound manuals are REALLY nice and GOOD, because I always buy them but rarely read them ...)
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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A new video have been posted by RepublicOfPlay, 7 Major Features in Field Of Glory Empires!. It gives an excellent overview of the systems of the game by someone who actually knows what he is talking about, rather than one of those random "Let's Play" videos by someone who's only spent a small time with the game.

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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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Another video, this one by Slitherine, Field of Glory: Empires - Military Operations Tutorial

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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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This looks like a Total War clone. Looks good but still................
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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dbt1949 wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:01 pm This looks like a Total War clone. Looks good but still................
I wouldn't dismiss it as a clone, it's made by AGEOD which has been making a line of these strategy games for years. This is supposedly the first game using a new engine.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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dbt1949 wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:01 pm This looks like a Total War clone. Looks good but still................
I think you are going to find that the emphasis is totally different. This is the first game I remember where expansion brings with it many serious problems, and for most nations, you end up paying more attention to the cohesion of your nation than the battles themselves.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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jztemple2 wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 6:19 pm
dbt1949 wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:01 pm This looks like a Total War clone. Looks good but still................
I wouldn't dismiss it as a clone, it's made by AGEOD which has been making a line of these strategy games for years. This is supposedly the first game using a new engine.
I have 4-5 games from AGEOD and they don't like me. I hope this is a completely new engine.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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I do believe it has been stated that this is a new engine and watching the various videos it would appear to be so.

More videos:







UPDATE: A new one released today. Enjoy :horse:

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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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It's out now and it's also forty bucks.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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dbt1949 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:48 am It's out now and it's also forty bucks.
Yes, but if you own Fields of Glory II, you get it for 25% off (USD 29.99) on Steam. Have to see if they offer the same discount on Matrix Games / Slitherine if you bought FoG II there.

... and the answer is "no", offer only available on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/1 ... s_Edition/

I normally like to buy from Matrix Games directly and then get the Steam key from them but this offer is too good to pass on
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

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dbt1949 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:48 am It's out now and it's also forty bucks.
Forty bucks doesn't look like a lot of money for how much it looks like they put in to the game. Forty bucks sounds like a lot of money for a game that I can't tell if it's work or enjoyment before actually playing it. I'll watch for reviews that really appeal to me or sales. Historically, Slitherine games I've thought I was going to love haven't felt like high value games to me. This looks to be the exception but I'll wait for ally'all.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

dbt1949 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:48 am It's out now and it's also forty bucks.
On Steam there is a Masters Edition Bundle which has a 25% discount. The bundle includes Fields of Glory II. Since I already have FoG2 it will let me get FoGE for only $29.99 USD :D. And for those who don't have FoG2 but wish to get it so you can play out the battles in tactical glory, well, that's a nice discount.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

So I got the game and put in 30 minutes to just try it out. I first fired up the short, fifteen turn scenario where as Rome I'm supposed to build up my forces and then capture two enemy provinces. Even though I'd watched the tutorial videos I wasn't sure what to do, so I put in orders to build new military units. After waiting a turn, the enemy attacked my army at Rome. I used the export function to FoG2 and looked at the battle, but realized I didn't have the Real Life time to play out the battle tactically. So I just let FoGE play out the battle. After one round it was a stalemate, after the next I had lost several units and been forced to retreat. At the start of the next turn I clicked through a bunch of menus and realized I really wasn't in the mood to spend a couple of hours figuring out what the hell is going on.

I did start a new game of the main campaign and picked a tribal nation way the heck out on the periphery of the map. I'm stopping for now, RL taking priority, but when I continue I'll try to use this tribal nation, Saka, as a learning experience. I'm feeling like I did when I first started Crusader Kings II, not sure of what to do. I'll also go back to the manual and skim through it again and try to get a grasp on what is the best way to play out each turn.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by dbt1949 »

I went ahead and got the bundle. $30 is still more than I like to pay tho.
We'll see.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by Archinerd »

Must resist OO effect.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

I'm taking my wife to therapy after major knee surgery, so at today's session I took the opportunity to read/skim through the manual once again. Yup, this is a game that unless you're willing to spend some time reading the manual, you're probably going to be pretty frustrated.

The first Steam Game Guide has been posted, Grognerd's Guide to Structures, Trade Goods and the Economy:
Hello, I'm Grognerd, and I am one of the playtesters for Field of Glory: Empires. Which should explain why you're able to see a Steam Guide for this game on release day!

That being said, this Guide is still a work in progress. Complete to date (July 11, 2019) are all the basic Tier I to III structures, plus a comprehensive catalog of all 51 Trade Goods. Not complete as of this date are the Tier III "Great" structures (aka National Wonders), the World Wonders, and all the country and ethnic-specific structures. I hope to add those sections in coming weeks. But what we have here should be enough to get you off to a great early and middle game start!
A review of the game at Wargamer.com:
BLUF – Bottom Line Up Front: They nailed it. Slitherine-AGEOD’s new grand strategy game Field of Glory: Empires is here and I think it just set the standard on how challenging is was to be top dog in the days of Rome. I’m talking at least XII Ave’s for not only producing one of the best ancient grand strategy games on the market, but because the designers have also taken the genre one step beyond.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by Citizen »

Making it so that I have to purchase this game AND Field of Glory 2 to fight the battles seals the deal that I'll never purchase either. Even if did happen to own FOG2 AND purchased Empires...making me save, exit, load a new game, fight, save, exit, reload the saved battle and then reload Empires.... :hand:
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

Citizen wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 5:45 pm Making it so that I have to purchase this game AND Field of Glory 2 to fight the battles seals the deal that I'll never purchase either. Even if did happen to own FOG2 AND purchased Empires...making me save, exit, load a new game, fight, save, exit, reload the saved battle and then reload Empires.... :hand:
I don't know why so many people have this wrong. You do NOT have to purchase Field of Glory 2 in order to play Field of Glory: Empires. FoG:E has its own combat system which allows for variables such as unit type, experience, terrain, etc. You can view the battle happening as an animation, or just view the battle results, or even just let the battle happen without bothering to look; this latter will come in handy when you steamroller over weak opponents.

The integration with Field of Glory 2 as a tactical battle resolver is purely an option that the devs thought would be a nice bonus to folks who had FoG2. It is not in any way necessary.

And the process "making me save, exit, load a new game, fight, save, exit, reload the saved battle and then reload Empires" is fairly automated and painless, I've already done it three times and it is trivially easy. You should watch the "Battles" video above to see the process in action, starting at 3:26 in the video. It is a few mouse clicks. If that is too complex for you, you will most likely not enjoy FoG:E anyway.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

So I've played about three hours now as the faction in Saka, in the northeast corner of the map:
Image

I did some reading in the game guide I linked above and also in the manual, but mostly I just played and played, well over thirty turns. I tinkered around with the menus and the various systems within the game. I had picked a nomadic tribe way off the beaten path so I would have limited contact with other factions. Turns out that after a few turns of building up my army I had a pretty much unstoppable horde; think Genghis Khan. So I conquered region after region of independent tribes, which allowed me to expand my holdings to a much larger area.

Now this would sound like a good thing, but in the design of the game, if you get larger without having the right infrastructure you start turning decadent, as in this nice diagram I grabbed from one of the videos and annotated:
Image

Since I was a tribe I was actually Tier I, which is the bottom row of the diagram, but the idea is the same. I went from a Stable Tribal Horde to a Glorious one, then an old one, and now I'm a Decadent Tribal Horde. After that I go back to stable but with a triggered civil war which will probably break up my large land holdings.

Now the gameplay turns out to be fairly simple in overview, with lots of details if you want to really get into being as efficient as possible. You start each turn reading messages and responding. Then you review your production of things like food, infrastructure points, money, etc. You can do this on a region by region basis (regions being the smallest land holding), or on a province level, a province being a grouping of regions. In the same way as a Civilization city, you can manual adjust everything in the province or let the AI do it by indicating a focus on, say, raising money or gathering food or whatever; I think there are six choices.

Periodically you will be given an opportunity to select which building to build next. There are pluses and minuses to each choice, way more complex than can be mention here. Suffice to say that it is important to chose buildings in each region that will complement buildings in other regions rather than duplicating effort or, for instance, erecting a building that requires an expensive imported material. Better to wait and either conquer a region that has the material or build a building that will make it for you.

Next are your military plans, or at least they were in my game. I had one of the largest armies in the area, but that is expensive to keep up not only in money but also in manpower. And setting the production of a lot of my regions to support my armies meant I choked off the need resources to build more buildings and keep my people happy, just like real life. Still, I was a conquering machine by this point so I kept production to support the army.

However, there is another thing to keep in mind, armies will eat you out of house and home. Out in the steppes an army sitting still for a couple of turns would use up all the food surplus in a region, leading to famine and the decay of the army. So there's that.

And these military operations do have a point besides land grabs. The objective of the game is to win by having the greatest legacy point total. You get these points for various things, but in my case I got them only for holding certain regions. So I didn't want to just randomly conquer any old independent tribe, it should be one that in a region that will grant me legacy points.

Now there is a lot more to the game. I haven't even touched on naval operations, wonders, governments, etc. And there is a whole trade system in the game which happily doesn't actually need any interaction, but if you understand how it works and how to optimize your trade, you will be more efficient and that leads, eventually to more legacy points.

So while it is early days, I'd say that I haven't seen anything that would turn me off from the game. I intend on continuing with my Saka faction, even though I know it is ultimately doomed, but I really want to take on the Seleucid empire and kick some butt 8-)
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by Citizen »

I didn’t say you needed to buy both to play - I said you need to buy both if you want to play out the battles vs watching an auto resolve...which is accurate.
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Re: Field of Glory: Empires

Post by jztemple2 »

Citizen wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 9:39 am I didn’t say you needed to buy both to play - I said you need to buy both if you want to play out the battles vs watching an auto resolve...which is accurate.
True, but the devs never promised to have tactical level combat included. The integration was a nice-to-have feature. And you said just "to fight the battles" which is open to interpretation. Had you said "need to buy both if you want to play out the battles vs watching an auto resolve" I would have gotten your meaning. Anyway, to each his own.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
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