Easiest AGEOD game to learn

[smittyohio]

So, what's the consensus on the easiest AGEOD game to learn?   Every time I fire one up and go through the tutorial, I feel ok... then I hit "new game" and immediately freeze up.   I really want to give one of these a valiant effort, but I think I need to start at the bottom...  Plus, for whatever game is easiest, what scenario gives the best overall introduction, without being so limiting that you aren't getting the true feel for the game?

FWIW, I have BoA2, ACW, RUS, RoP... and WW1Gold, though I'm not sure that one counts.  I'd be willing to get Alea Iacta Est, should that be the clear winner, however.

[spelk]

From discussion moons ago, I think the general consensus was the easiest one to get to grips with was Birth of America.

For me it was ACW that inspired me to make the effort and spend a good few days worth of play to get to grips with it. I also found attempting an AAR of it, forced me to comprehend, where if I was just playing for myself, I wouldn't have had the impetus to carry on. Weird that.

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[Jarhead0331]

I concur with Brother Spelk. BOA is definitely the easiest.  I think the Birth of Rome games may be pretty easy to sink into, as well. Personally, I struggled the most with American Civil War and Napoleonic Wars.

[Nefaro]

Birth of America 2.  Or perhaps AJE/BOR if you can handle multiple factions in many scenarios. 

I've enjoyed the latter most of all.  The scenarios portrayed in those Roman periods are quite interesting.

[mikeck]

BoA and either AJE or BoR. Any of those are a bit easier if for no other reason than they don't have Corp/division creation. It's easier to create an Army stack and move it. Also in those games supply is picked up along the way by troops and wagons as they pass through areas and can be restocked if you head into a depot or city. In many of the other AGE games, the supply system is more complex with towns "pushing" supply out to elements "pulling" it and Depots/wagons pulling first, etc, etc.

Now, with more complexity comes more strategy but there you go.

Personally, if you can, I would pick up Birth of Rome. BoA can be difficult in its own way... Namely starving armies. Weather is America in winter is tough. Because turns are in 30 day intervals, I find that as soon as an Army gets to where I want, I have about 2 months to lay seige before winter. If your army is caught in the field in winter, it's dead. There are ways to combat this by building depots and such but it can be tough.

In AJE/BoR, armies move a bit faster and weather is more forgiving. Compared to Birth of Rome, the scenarios are a bit shorter but much "bigger" both in terms of the amount of units and map area. I enjoy AJE a lot more because of this but it can be overwhelming looking at a campaign map stretching from turkey to Spain. BoR scenarios take place right along the med.

So in order of easiest to hardest, I would say BoR, BoA, AJE, RoP, RUS and then the granddaddy of them all ACW. WW1 is in a different class as it uses an entirely different engine.

Good luck. Stick with it and learn why things happen the way they do. Don't get frustrated when your super army of British regulars gets beaten by some militia. Look at the units, cohesion, terrain, etc and find out why. That's the beauty of these games. And once you learn one, it opens up all of them for you.

[bbmike]

I also agree that Birth of America is a good starting place. There's a really short (4 turn?) scenario that's good for learning the basics. Then I watched a detailed American Civil War tutorial on Youtube and starting playing AACW.

[MengJiao]

BoA and either AJE or BoR. Any of those are a bit easier if for no other reason than they don't have Corp/division creation. It's easier to create an Army stack and move it. Also in those games supply is picked up along the way by troops and wagons as they pass through areas and can be restocked if you head into a depot or city. In many of the other AGE games, the supply system is more complex with towns "pushing" supply out to elements "pulling" it and Depots/wagons pulling first, etc, etc.

Now, with more complexity comes more strategy but there you go.

Personally, if you can, I would pick up Birth of Rome. BoA can be difficult in its own way... Namely starving armies. Weather is America in winter is tough. Because turns are in 30 day intervals, I find that as soon as an Army gets to where I want, I have about 2 months to lay seige before winter. If your army is caught in the field in winter, it's dead. There are ways to combat this by building depots and such but it can be tough.

In AJE/BoR, armies move a bit faster and weather is more forgiving. Compared to Birth of Rome, the scenarios are a bit shorter but much "bigger" both in terms of the amount of units and map area. I enjoy AJE a lot more because of this but it can be overwhelming looking at a campaign map stretching from turkey to Spain. BoR scenarios take place right along the med.

So in order of easiest to hardest, I would say BoR, BoA, AJE, RoP, RUS and then the granddaddy of them all ACW. WW1 is in a different class as it uses an entirely different engine.

Good luck. Stick with it and learn why things happen the way they do. Don't get frustrated when your super army of British regulars gets beaten by some militia. Look at the units, cohesion, terrain, etc and find out why. That's the beauty of these games. And once you learn one, it opens up all of them for you.

I would stick campaigns of Napoleon in there somewhere...probably after AJE and before RoP.    The overall order seems about right.  ACW was too hard for me as was RUS.  At the moment RoP seems just right and again, I would recommend getting the expansion to Gold since it is pretty close in terms of the evolution of the game engine to what ACW2 will be.

[JasonPratt]

Shouldn't Pride of Nations should be in that list somewhere?--over to the right, just under WW1G?--which isn't exactly an AGEOD game. But Pr0n definitely is. Isn't it?

(Updated to add: duh, I just realized the replies assumed the games Smitty had already, which doesn't include Pr0n. And which he shouldn't think of buying anyway at this point, as it's notorious for various reasons, only one being the difficulty.)

I'm finding that WW1G is easy enough to learn in small bites, but the bites have to be small and proceeding in a slow expansion of topics, which the game design and interface does not remotely foster.

Anyway, I suppose that by BoA the advisers above really mean BoA2, which is a refined engine compared to BoA (and provides better value in campaigns and scenarios).

[smittyohio]

Thanks all!  The consensus seems to be BoA2, followed closely by AJE.  I'll reinstall BoA2 and give it another go... maybe it'll "click" this time   ;-)

[mikeck]

If BOA2 doesn't click, pick up AJE and give it a shot. I never cared for BOA so just because you don't like one doesn't mean you won't like any! Plus AJE has some more expansions coming soon... Parthians for one...anyway, enjoy and report back with questions!

[Nefaro]

Birth of Rome generally has smaller more manageable map sizes, in it's scenarios, compared to AJE.  The latter has some small ones, too, but the conflicts in AJE generally cover a larger area with a lot of Roman vs Roman 'civil wars' whereas BOR is the earlier Republic period where Rome is fighting external peoples and expanding it's borders.

[Slick Wilhelm]

FWIW, I've just started playing Rise of Prussia(RoP) for the first time, and I thought the tutorial was excellent. I own and have already played pr0n, AACW, BOA2 and RUS, but for some reason I always forget how this engine works between my Ageod gaming streaks. The AGE engine is the only one I can remember where after taking a break from it, I have to start all over with the tutorials to refresh my memory.

On a side note, my vote for best AGE game is RUS.

[W8taminute]

I wish there was some kind of process flow for AGEOD games.  It usually takes me several sessions where I get trounced by the ai until I learn the curve and come up to speed with any given AGEOD game.  If there was some sort of guide on what repeatable actions to do each turn it would decrease the learning curve.

Take any Civilization version for example.  Each turn consists of a logical flow; Check research, check diplo, check production queues, check exploration units, check tile improvements, etc.  Within each check is a set of simple action items to take to complete each task.  Is there some kind of action item turn template for any AGEOD game out there?

[Hiimori]

Is there some kind of action item turn template for any AGEOD game out there?

This would be very helpful indeed! We are still struggling with our first AGEOD game (AJE) and I always got the feeling that I'm missing important actions and opportunities each time I conduct my turn  8).

[JasonPratt]

Take any Civilization version for example.  Each turn consists of a logical flow; Check research, check diplo, check production queues, check exploration units, check tile improvements, etc.  Within each check is a set of simple action items to take to complete each task.  Is there some kind of action item turn template for any AGEOD game out there?

I'll give WW1G props for FORCING an action flow on the players! In that regard it's actually simpler (although players usually hate its action flow. ;) )