Help me keep my interest in this game alive

[jaolhe]

Posted the same question to the Discord channel and Steam forums as well:

This might be a touchy subject for all the fans, but does FOG2 get a quite repetitive game for anyone else?
As a history and battle nerd I bought FOG2 with all the DLC bundle and was originally very enthusiastic. Read the manual, played the tutorials. Due to my interest laying mainly in historical (or semi-historical) scenarios started playing the historical campaigns. Thought it would be interesting to play them chronologically and follow the advance of warfare from the beginning, so started with Sargon of Akkad in the bronze age. Originally liked the game very much: turn based, quite realistic, right level of complexity for my ageing brain.

After completing the Mesopotamia campaign and now almost having completed the next in line (historically) Hittite campaign I'm start to feel bored. All the battles feel pretty much the same with only very minor alterations. I'd say much is due to ultra-samey maps, 80+% open terrain, no impassable bottlenecks, no differentiation between attacker and defender. Some hills or forests here and there, both pretty much avoided by both armies. Gameplay consists of mainly spear and irregular infantry fighting in broad lines, supported by skirmishers and some clumsy chariots trying desperately to assault the flanks. Not so many meaningful decisions to make as general. Total lack of siege and urban warfare in the engine also diminishes the experience.

The other source of repetiviness and lack of meaningful decisions is the unit buying system, your army is like 85-90% pre-determined and you can only make slight alterations with the remaining 10-15%. In those historical campaigns I've experienced there is also next to none army development during the campaign, there is hardly any points for buying new units between scenarios.
And how do you feel about the battle objectives in this game? All but one of the scenarios I've played have had the goal to rout certain percentage of enemy units (+one supply wagon escort mission). Does the engine generate scenarios where you have to attack or defend certain coordinates or do anything different than slay and rout certain number of enemies?

My question: does the game get any more interesting and varied if I continue playing? I know the bronze age dlc was the last released and some feel it lacking, is my experience due to that? I also understand FOG2 is originally a digitalized tabletop game, is that why the maps are so boring? Will there be any more interesting army development in other historical campaigns? I really would like to love the game and renew my enthusiasm. Do you consider it possible?

[Athos1660]

If I get it right, you've only played Historical Campaigns and/or Epic Battles.

If so, start playing Custom battles, changing each time the Map Types and Scenaio one.
Lots of replayability. Hundereds of hours of play.
The game shines with terrain changes.

Try Quick battles and Fight Now!

You can also try MP.

[MVP7]

Every time I come across a youtube video, an article, or a documentary on some ancient/medieval subject I tend to start up the game and play that scenario as a custom battles.

[SimonLancaster]

I think the game truly shines in multiplayer. Every battle is different and zillions of armies and opponents to face.

Do you play multiplayer games?

[Ray552]

Your options (with increasing difficulty and potential blows to one's ego, if you have enough guts to risk it )

1. Increase the AI difficulty - what level have you been playing at? As you increase the AI difficulty, you will get fewer points to purchase units, and the AI will get more. At the toughest level ("Deity" in FOG2 Ancients, "King" in Medieval), not only does the AI get more points than you, but your "Average" and below units will all drop one quality level ("Average" units become "Below Average", "Below Average" become "Raw", and "Raw" become "Untrained", the same as mobs/peasants.)

As if that isn't hard enough, the AI units will all go up one quality level, so its "Superior" units become "Highly Superior", etc. The AI does not get any special dice rolls, those are all per the standard game engine - I say this because sometimes people complain, "But the AI gets special advantages and dice rolls!" - no, it doesn't, those players just need to anticipate that stuff doesn't always go according to plan, just like war...

2. For Ancients only, download the "Rise of AI Global Mod v3.12" by roguedjack (instructions here: viewtopic.php?t=102040), which has a better AI, but at the cost of slower AI turns because of much increased processing required, compared to the "vanilla" AI.

3. As mentioned above, play Custom Battles (single player), use the "Potluck" option to generate random opponents (who are historically matched in time and geography.) If you remove the "Date" and/or "Geographical" filters, you can pick any list against any list - for example, Egyptian 2686-1551 BC against Anglo-Danish 1017-1041 AD.

4. Custom Campaigns - same as what you have been playing, but you pick the armies.

-----

5. Multiplayer - here's where it can get potentially ego-bruising. You can post mirror matches in the multiplayer lobby, and see who you get as an opponent. It could be anyone from someone who's fairly new, all the way to someone (definitely not including myself) who will beat you 40-0 in twelve turns, leaving you wondering, "What the hell just happened?"

If you can approach these games as learning experiences, asking questions and requesting advice (most experienced players will be happy to make suggestions), you'll get better each time.

6. Tournament play - either the Slitherine-run automated tournaments (https://www6.slitherine.com/tournaments) or the player-run tournaments (Ancients: viewforum.php?f=494 or Medieval: viewforum.php?f=641.

Hope this helps keep you interested in FOG2.

[Edit]

I forgot to mention - if you own FOG2 Medieval, it has a "Time Warp" option, where you can match a Medieval army against an Ancient army (but not Ancient vs. Ancient).

So if you have ever wondered how an Imperial Roman legion would fare against Swiss pikemen of the late 1400s, here's your chance to find out.

[Enry1977]

Posted the same question to the Discord channel and Steam forums as well:

This might be a touchy subject for all the fans, but does FOG2 get a quite repetitive game for anyone else?
As a history and battle nerd I bought FOG2 with all the DLC bundle and was originally very enthusiastic. Read the manual, played the tutorials. Due to my interest laying mainly in historical (or semi-historical) scenarios started playing the historical campaigns. Thought it would be interesting to play them chronologically and follow the advance of warfare from the beginning, so started with Sargon of Akkad in the bronze age. Originally liked the game very much: turn based, quite realistic, right level of complexity for my ageing brain.

After completing the Mesopotamia campaign and now almost having completed the next in line (historically) Hittite campaign I'm start to feel bored. All the battles feel pretty much the same with only very minor alterations. I'd say much is due to ultra-samey maps, 80+% open terrain, no impassable bottlenecks, no differentiation between attacker and defender. Some hills or forests here and there, both pretty much avoided by both armies. Gameplay consists of mainly spear and irregular infantry fighting in broad lines, supported by skirmishers and some clumsy chariots trying desperately to assault the flanks. Not so many meaningful decisions to make as general. Total lack of siege and urban warfare in the engine also diminishes the experience.

The other source of repetiviness and lack of meaningful decisions is the unit buying system, your army is like 85-90% pre-determined and you can only make slight alterations with the remaining 10-15%. In those historical campaigns I've experienced there is also next to none army development during the campaign, there is hardly any points for buying new units between scenarios.
And how do you feel about the battle objectives in this game? All but one of the scenarios I've played have had the goal to rout certain percentage of enemy units (+one supply wagon escort mission). Does the engine generate scenarios where you have to attack or defend certain coordinates or do anything different than slay and rout certain number of enemies?

My question: does the game get any more interesting and varied if I continue playing? I know the bronze age dlc was the last released and some feel it lacking, is my experience due to that? I also understand FOG2 is originally a digitalized tabletop game, is that why the maps are so boring? Will there be any more interesting army development in other historical campaigns? I really would like to love the game and renew my enthusiasm. Do you consider it possible?

Try multiplayers... it's a different game!

[jaolhe]

Many thanks to everyone who was kind enough to take the time to answer my questions!
I'll take note of the suggestions and perhaps try to tip my toes in multiplayer some time in the future. After not playing the game for a month, I've been feeling an itch to return and finish my historical Hittite campaign at least. It's a pity if these historical campaigns don't use all the available options in custom map and objectives generation, it wouldn't have been big effort from the devs to include.
Maybe from now on I won't adhere so strictly to the historical chronology, and try some classical/early medieval campaign in order to see if the game is significantly different when it's not bronze age vs bronze age army.

[martinworsey]

Your choice of period is probably the least popular. It covers a much longer time period and a much smaller geographic area than later periods. This is probably why the bronze age was released a long while after the other modules.
Personally I like the period as it is distinctive from the later ones, has its own character and some rather nice looking units.
If you are playing solitaire, it may be worth looking at the Tabletop Mod for visual enhancement and expanded army lists (although bronze age lists are still more limited than later periods). Also look at the Historical Battles, including some of the community created ones. I believe that a few of these may cater for your "wish list" in terms of urban fighting and different tactical situations.
I think the difficulty for the developer is the balancing of competitive and "historical" play. In my opinion though, they do a good job with this.
There is a vast amount of content and options for you to delve into.

[jaolhe]

Your choice of period is probably the least popular. It covers a much longer time period and a much smaller geographic area than later periods. This is probably why the bronze age was released a long while after the other modules.
Personally I like the period as it is distinctive from the later ones, has its own character and some rather nice looking units.
If you are playing solitaire, it may be worth looking at the Tabletop Mod for visual enhancement and expanded army lists (although bronze age lists are still more limited than later periods). Also look at the Historical Battles, including some of the community created ones. I believe that a few of these may cater for your "wish list" in terms of urban fighting and different tactical situations.
I think the difficulty for the developer is the balancing of competitive and "historical" play. In my opinion though, they do a good job with this.
There is a vast amount of content and options for you to delve into.

Thanks for the info! Tabletop mod sounds interesting, but is there any way to get it working in historical campaigns and epic battles?

[martinworsey]

Sort of.
The Tabletop Mod has 3 versions: single player battles, multiplayer battles and campaigns.
If you look in the community content threads, there are epic battles and campaigns created by Paul59 and he uses his models. He is also a very talented scenario creator in my view.
Some other creators credit using Tabletop Mod models.

[jaolhe]

Sort of.
The Tabletop Mod has 3 versions: single player battles, multiplayer battles and campaigns.
If you look in the community content threads, there are epic battles and campaigns created by Paul59 and he uses his models. He is also a very talented scenario creator in my view.
Some other creators credit using Tabletop Mod models.

That sounds good, must take a look at them. Anyone hasn’t come up with a hack to use the graphical portion of the mod in the official historical content (Epic battles and campaigns)?