FoG Empires Meta (anticipating Kingdoms)

[SuitedQueens]

So, after all this hype around Kingdoms soonish release I decided to dip my toes into Empires again, which is the best 4X/Grand Strategy mix on the market. I have to admit that this game has geneious design. Simple but complex at the same time and offers the infinite replayabililty. My intention woth this post is to recap the Empires efficiency meta without resorting to exported battles. I already checked in FoG 2 and Medieval any draw against AI converts to lost battle, so you can exploit only offensively. That stands for creating light horses and mercenary cavalry stack and launching them before your main force in order to Export to FoG 2 and do the max damage in 24 turns. Without further ado its time for the quick recap:

1) Specializing regions i.e. backbone of replayability.

1.1) Food is always important for your Province and due to the fact that % bonus buildings apply only to the current region its often adviceabke to stack all food in a single region on Open terrain to unlock Large Farms and have a higher chance of getting the relevant resource discovered later on. Another reason is that you always want lvl 3 building for Papyrus production. Good supporting buildings besides always needed lvl 2 infrastructure, military, at least lvl 1 religious, educational and govenment cultural buildings are commercial buildings that increase commerce value since these regions will be selling a lot of goods and especially papyrus.

1.2) Health. Lvl 1 is great value to spread cheap resources for bonuses. Lvl 2 and lvl 3 Healtb buildings provide insane bonuses as well, so well worth their slots at high initial population regions. If you are not aware initial population plays a huge role in your regions potential growth, but more on that in Legacy subchapter. Food averaged out between regions and Health will reduce the food needed to grow the next pop.

1.3) Infrastructure. Lvl 1 always great for spreading around cheap resources like wood, stone and coal. Lvl 2 is mandatory for land reclamation, upgraded roads and advsnced resource buildings that will unlock lvl 3 land reclamation uograde. At least one hilly region in your province should specialize in the infrastructure to make use of % bonuses buildings. To manipulate provincial infrastructure leave regions building slots open, while queue up buildings or cheap shuffle in 1 or 2 regions at the same time. What will happen is the infrastructure pool from all regions will be siphoned in those select ones and overflow gonna remain there. So 1 Production Point shuffle searching for the required building and 200 PP inflow will leave you with the properly generated structure next turn and 199 Production Points in the bank of said region to build it.

1.4) Military. Without Exporting Battles military is very important. Equipment stock is your real limitation. In efficient strategies you always need skirmishing stacks to soften up your opponent to reduce risks of losing your experienced units from the real army. Another reason is Military Experties calculated from your every region and averaged out. With bad ME your general pool will be shallow and its harder to get 2 offense or defense generals. Without rxporting your General quality is the main tipping factor really. Sacrificial skirmishing stacks also used to simply proc combats for chance of killing enemy good general. You have to keep in mind that Military has very good lvl 3 buildings for Commerce and Generals generation. Military in non-province capitals can only pool up to 50 XP and max 2 exp lvls for Units produces in provincial capital, so keep thst in mind. Walls and uograded garrisons from higher Military Expertiese help you to dissuade AI from raiding or attacking your regions. Otherwise its too easy for them to use your roads to conquer and pillage multiple regions at a single turn.

1.5) Commerce. Top priority field, but you need Commerce focused regions first to import all them rare goods from the other Empires to be uses in your and adjustent regions, and then produce expensive goods yourself later on to trade them to your and opponent Empires. The reason for specialization is that other revion might not have enough slots to fit in all the good Commerce, Trade Accumen and Tax increasing buildings combined with required Health, 3 Culture type buildings, Military and Loyality increasers. Progressing to Civ lvl 3 is paramount for increased base Trading Ranges and the other bonuses like more chances to get Emporium decisions.

1.6) Culture. Pretty much the best way to generate Legacy without going into war, and reduce Loyalty issues that will inevitably occur once you get more and more POP. Offsetting Decadence is rather important especially at higher difficulty levels. The fact that Culture buildings benefit your regions from most of the Decisions in the game is an added benefit. Another good news is that these structures often need rare resources, so can import them for your commerce regions for bonuses sake. Hitting opponent highest accumulated Culture regions will send them into downward spiral really quick. And avoid loaing your province capitals since they will have the most Military buildings, so it will be hard to move your province center there afterwards. Rebuilding regions takes time and generates Loyalty issues. Culture specialized regions need good amounts of POP to actually work on the culture as well. Taxation increasing buildings will benefit those regions. Lvl 2 Culture buildings are important for every region.

1.7) Slave markets. Its better to place them in high culture specialized regions cuz you have to offset Loyalty generated by slaves and incresding their freedoms decision. 5 Markets is the minimal requirement for lvl 2 Civ in the early mid game. Have like 1 per province is the rule of the thumb. Before doing any conquest use your shuffle option extensively to pull Slave Markets into the build queue. For fast conquest you have to generate some Culture and at least 1 Slave Market to offset incoming Decadence gains from the new regions. Advancing to lvl 3 Civilization also helps to generate more Slave related decisions. Managing slaves that includes starving them is paramount. One if the reasons you want many Slave markets is the ability to scrap one of them at any time to redistribute slaves not accounting for occupied building slots into the other slave markets without decision or to stop more from arriving temporarily befire you rebuild Slave Market again.

2) Win conditions, Diplomacy and Conquest. We already talked about Economy, which is the biggest part of any 4X and Grand Strategy. Focus on Gold and Equipment to maintain your native doom stacks, mercenaries and skirmisher suicidal debuff brigades. Manpower could always be generated by high POP and Military buildings & traded by Diplomacy or Decisions usually for Metal or Provincial Units. Now a few notes on the effective plans:

2.1) Conquested regions take about 25 turns to show a net profit considerable enough to make conquering them worth it especially if they are of different ethnicity. Due to how conversion rates work you will have to build all possible related structures and maintain above 100 Loyalty, which again is very difficult for the first 25 turns after the conquest. You wage wars to expand only for 9+ initial POP territories. 6+ initial POP is the minimal number you are looking for since 6 or less regions will grow too slowly. Thats another reason to not pay attention to the tribes from the Europe besides high base Disloyalty and their bonuses for fighting in Forests despite them having very nice provincial units.

2.2) Conquer to siphon Legacy, resources and potentially turn opponents into the Client State. You dont need all that extra Decadance and dipped average Culture you get from the new regions. Your targets are: Greece, Rome, Carthage, Egypt, all Diadohis. To create a buffer zone from tribes you have to gift away your border regions to also increase Diplomatic relationships with far away nations OR use punitive expeditions thst gonna turn weak Barbarians to your Client states. Getting 25 Relationships via gifts or insults wont guarantee them not attacking you at the opportune moment, but will prevent crippling Raiding attempts. Thats another reason why anti-Raiding Military buildings are good. Keeping your armies at the birder for Retalition (impossible without General) doesnt take the advantage if reduced upkeep coat when they are located in provincial capitals as well. To sum up: you wage wars to Pillage their regions, pull the money out of the Capital, get reasonable slaves and peace out for Legacy and more resources. Hanging in top 10% of Lrga y has very sizable benefits.

2.3) Diplomacy. You dont want to go into war until you are ready. AI will become extremely aggressive for every opportunity you present especially at higher difficulties. Thats why having walls is important if you dont export battles. Look up detailed reports to see who's in war with whom. Use gifts and insults accordingly. You want to get on good terms with major nations you gonna trade with. Especially the ones with huge gold and manpower banks, but lacking in Metal. Make Egypt your good friend since you need to trade one of their lesser developed regions to use as the launching pad for overseas invasions. Moat of Diplomatic actions are selling your Provincial Units for resources. Barbarians will be scared to attack Major povers as well when you gonna gidt your border regions to them.

2.4) 8 light horses are enough to put up with 1% Revolt risk and scoit around by rottating between borders nicely. Archers are OP compared to other Skirmishers. Your Battlegroup should be based on the regional frontages. Regions with many flanking squares like Steppes and Deserts require more Cavalry. Its very risky without Exporting battles to take less forces than frontage allows. The idea is to keep loses minimal since reinforcements take a long time to arrive, and thats another reason why roads in every region are so important. Fill non-flanking frontage with the suitable infantry and support them preferably by archers. Flanking squares better supported by Light Horses because they have a nice flanking value to prevent your losses during retreat and incur more grief on running opponent. Use chikepoints with good defensive terrain and reduced frontage to hold off AI. Same applies for the Naval battles.

2.5) For sieges you need less cavalry i.e. none at all. Use skirmisher stacks and bough mercenaries to soften opponent up with initial assaults and delayed assault on the same turn by the main stsck. Another option are to starve opponents and wait for the breaches. When you do this can simply move away from the region back and forth bia movement order. There is a chance that opponent gonna buy a unit which would trigger the land battle whwn you return on the same turn. Can gamble on assault command resolving since breaches calculated before the army movement. I dont reccomend sieging and thats another reason while peace outs are important.

2.6) To delay force arrivals use +/- move speed Generals, starting at different regions, using roads, Force March.

[samirshakur]

excellent explanation, I loved it, you were very detailed