Field of Glory: Empires Retrospective

Started by solops, February 09, 2020, 12:33:22 AM

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solops

FoGE has been out for a long time now. It has been through several big patches. I bought it on release, but I somehow never found the time to play much of it or FoG2. To those of you who have: How is is it? How is the single player experience? Is the FoG2 export, easy, fun, useful, etc? And how does it stack up against TW Rome2 as a place to spend my gaming time?
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Yskonyn

I find Rome 2 a more visceral experience, but the political system is nowhere near as detailed as that of FoGE. In Rome2 its all about expanding and Progress, but in Empires your have Progress OR Legacy. So even if your nation is on the decline you can still score points by cultural efforts.
So Rome2 is a wargame first and foremost, while Empires has more civilization sim elements, albeit still quite abstracted and still with a big focus on conquest (comes with the era I guess). In Empires you are constantly shifting population assignment depending on needs (food, manpower, culture).
That said, you click through turns rather snappily in FoGE regardless. Of course when you start exporting every battle to FoG2 (which is as easy as two button clicks) things slow down enormously. But you'll never experience the awe of seeing your armies clash in full glory as you get in Rome2.

So to summarize:
In Rome2 I feel I am playing a nation consisting of military units. But the battles are gorgeous! And real time.
In Empires I feel like I am playing a civilization made of people. Battles are abstracted, but pacing is relaxing due to being turn based.

"Pilots do not get paid for what they do daily, but they get paid for what they are capable of doing.
However, if pilots would need to do daily what they are capable of doing, nobody would dare to fly anymore."

MetalDog

I've got around 300 hours in on FoG:E.  Most of it multiplayer.  MP is really just the solo game with friends.  You take your turn, upload it to the server and wait for your friends to take their turn and upload it to the server.  It keeps my interest more than solo because your friends are relying on you to keep the turns moving.  And if you all get some time together, you can run turns until you have to go do something else.

As far as gameplay, it'll depend on what you like.  Combat in FoG:E is out of your control, outside of force composition.  You can watch the battles, but you have no effect on them.  Troops can gain experience.

The basic unit of territory is the Region.  It encompasses one area.  It produces Food, Infrastructure, Gold, Culture, Manpower, Metal, and Equipment.  You can build buildings in Regions that will bring you all of the above, as well as provide resources and benefits.  Buildings come in three Tiers, granting greater bonuses for previously built buildings. 

Groups of Regions form Provinces.  A Province will allow the controlled Regions to pool their resources and use them more efficiently.  A favorite tactic of mine is to focus building in one or two Regions at a time instead of having something being built in every Region you control in that Province.  The pooled Infrastructure of the Province is applied to a smaller number of buildings which gets them built faster.

There's more, but, it's late and I am tired.  More later.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Geezer

I picked up FOG:E with my Matrix coupon in December, but like you solops, have not really spent any time with it.  So the above comments are helpful and any more would be appreciated.  Thanks.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.  George Bernard Shaw

JasonPratt

#4
It hits a nice spot between the ultra-complexity of Imperator, and the more civ-like Aggressors (which also has smaller maps though it has the advantage of generating random maps in good civ-style.)

I kind-of don't recommend porting battles to FoG2 unless you're proficient in FoG2 already. This is not a good way to learn FoG2! (Speaking from experience. {g}) But of course you can sometimes out-fight the AI in FoG2 on what would otherwise be more likely a losing battle. Fights ported to FoG2 last considerably longer than tactical fights in, let's say, Master of Magic-style games (such as Age of Wonders), so choosing how to spend your personal time can be a factor, too.

The FoG:Emp fights, as noted, have no direct control at all, but there are more details running under the hood than at first apparent and once you're more familiar with the system you can make some tweaks to army builds for better situational efficiency.
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W8taminute

Quote from: Yskonyn on February 09, 2020, 02:51:26 AM
...

So to summarize:
In Rome2 I feel I am playing a nation consisting of military units. But the battles are gorgeous! And real time.
In Empires I feel like I am playing a civilization made of people. Battles are abstracted, but pacing is relaxing due to being turn based.

That's what soured my like for the game, the fact that I could never really understand what my civilization and people want from me.  Too bad because FoGE is a good game but not one that I understand.  Need to put some more love into it I think but other distractions are stopping me atm. 
"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

MetalDog

Some more thoughts...

The most important mechanic to understand is C(ulture)D(ecadence)R(atio).  Culture and Decadence are generated by a variety of methods: Regional population working on Culture, buildings that produce Culture or Decadence, war, expansion, revolt, or Civil War.  All those things effect one or the other.  On your turn, your Culture number is compared to your Decadence number and a Ratio is generated.  Then, that number is compared to all the other empires on the board.  Where your Ratio falls in relation to the other empires will determine where you rank.  If you rank in the bottom third, you have a 35% chance per turn to lose a Progress Token.  If you lose 5 of them, your government and civilization regress with bad effects for your society.  If you rank in the middle third, you have no chance to automatically gain or lose Progress Tokens.  If you reside in the top third of the rankings, you have a 35% chance per turn to gain a Progress Token.  If you gain 5, your government and civilization progress to a higher level with good benefits over all.  The only way to effect gain or loss of Progress Tokens outside of your ranking is to take or lose Objectives.

The AI will assign Regions for you as an Objective.  It can be in the hands of Neutrals, opponents, or allies.  If you take the Objective, you get a Progress Token.  Lose the Region and lose a Progress Token.  Pretty straightforward.

Trade is a bit abstracted.  I am still a bit foggy on its proper workings, but, these are the basics.  Each Region can naturally produce resource(s) or receive them due to buildings built in that Region.  These resources can be shared in your trade network automatically with a couple of restrictions.  The first is distance from the resource.  Regions that border the Region producing the resource have access to that resource.  Regions beyond that will only share it if you have enough Trade Acumen to reach that far or buildings in the Region adjacent to the resource producing Region can use that resource for one of their buildings.  I think.  And there are circumstances where a building can need a resource as a Bonus resource, but if it is not already in that Region naturally or through a building that uses it as a foundational resource to begin with, you do not meet the criteria for the Bonus and will instead suffer a negative version of the Bonus,  Savvy?  Yeah.  Me neither.  Thankfully, they have a system in place when you build a building in a Region that it will tell you if you meet the requirements to meet all, some, or none of the benefits or Bonuses.  Even with my limited understanding, I don't have much of a problem running my economy in the black.

Another strong game modifier is your Leader.  The Leader of your country can have effects that range from abysmal to glorious.  And he will effect as few or as many areas of your empire as are generated when he takes control of your empire.  The usual areas effected are Diplomacy, Military and Economy.  You have effects for manpower, gold production, treaties, loyalty.  Some of the more esoteric effects include food production and others which escape me at the moment.  A good Leader can carry you for a long time in this game.  A bad one can wreck it.  And there are times where rulers seemingly fall every other turn.  It can be maddening.

One of the neat things about this game is that you are presented with decisions that effect your empire in different ways.  You can buy or sell Manpower or Metal.  You can hire engineers to speed up construction of your buildings.  You can declare national holidays, amnesties, taxes, or reforms.  Hire mercenaries and seize merchant ships.  Produce long distance trade caravans and send your army with them to force open markets.  There are quite a few options.

The metric used to determine a winner is called Legacy.  Legacy is gained each turn from a variety of sources.  Objectives held, age and type of government, World Wonders built, maybe one or two more.  At the end of the game, whoever is the Legacy leader wins.  That easy,

I may have forgotten a few things, or glossed over something important, but I think I covered just about everything.  Be glad to answer questions if anyone has one.

And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Grimnirsson

FoGE is a blast in my opinion and the new diplomacy system out now makes it even better:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1011390
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JasonPratt

Very much agreed on the new diplomacy options. Should have been in there from the beginning! -- they're a pretty basic functionality. At least the update is free. Maybe it was delayed out of concerns for the dev being unable to code the AI yet to use them properly?

Worth noting that the diplomacy transactions work opposite and a little counter-intuitively than what I'm used to in other games. It's easy for me to set up a trade backwards!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Tuna

So on most all my diplomacy requests from the AI, I am being asked for a certain kind of regional unit. When I say yes, am I paying for them to have those units? Or is it just rights to build them?

MetalDog

And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

solops

"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

JasonPratt

As far as I can tell from playing around with that option, I think they're paying you to buy the regional unit you can create. I used it to trade for a bunch of Saracen territories from one of my client states: they bought x-number of regional super-camels, and paid for it with regions. But I had to spend the gold and other stuff to make the camels!

So in effect, for the cost of paying the (somewhat increasing) costs for specialized units, I got regions instead; and my client state got those units.

Update, so in those offers from the AI, they're asking you to make some regional units for their use, and you need to counter-offer with what you'll accept as payment.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

solops

Surely something like this would be explained in-game!
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin