'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

[Bombax]

I just wanted to say THANKYOU to everyone who replied to my original post.
I'm now playing Dacia and that's given me time to explore the game mechanics without immediately getting steam-rollered by enemy nations.
Thanks to all for your help and advice!
Cheers,
Jay.

[rbodleyscott]

also, some units seem to become worse when exported. As an example, playing as Emporia, my Heavy Infantry becomes Hoplite Citizen when exported. This is a heavy troop with no training and offensive spears... so they are arguably worse than my regular infantry, which gets converted to Thureophoroi but don't get totally disordered in difficult terrain while having more or less the same POA + increased mobility. This basically means that my regular inantry is better than my heavy infantry in FOG:2, but if I played FOG:E battles, my heavy infantry would be better because there are "Attack" and "Defense" stats in that game.

However, the Empires Heavy Infantry will translate to more FOG2 units than the Regular Infantry will. So their additional power is represented in that way rather than by them being significantly more powerful units on a 1 to 1 basis.

Having said that, even on a one to one basis, they are in fact more powerful than thureophoroi in open terrain, because they will get a +1 modifier on cohesion tests for being heavy infantry, and the thureophoroi will get a -1 modifier on cohesion tests for losing a combat vs heavy infantry or cavalry in open terrain. So the hoplites will be either 1 or 2 modifier points better off in cohesion tests than the thureophoroi, meaning that in the open they are far more resilient.

This isn't a huge difference when compared to the difference between the units in Empires, but the disparity is made up by the Heavy infantry translating to more FOG2 units than the Regular infantry.

Dealing with the relative power of Empires units by altering the convertion ratio is driven by the desire to make the FOG2 versions of Empires armies more closely resemble the historical armies of their nation, while the Empires units are a bit more stylized to suit the Empires battle resolution system.

In summary, the power difference between individual Empires units is greater than the power difference between the FOG2 units they translate to, so the more powerful Empires units translate to more points worth of FOG2 units to compensate.

In your particular case:
1 Empires Heavy Infantry unit = approximately 3.78 FOG2 hoplite units.
1 Empires Regular Infantry = approximately 1.86 FOG2 thureophoroi units. (i.e. half as many).

This system is discussed in the developer diary here: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 47&t=91525

[Gilmer]

I just finished playing 500 turns on easy level with the Hiberni. Very big learning experience. Don't neglect those provincial units. Some provinces have some damn good ones, like the Gothic provinces. Heavy infantry with a wilderness bonus and 7 steps! Needless to say, when I got those, I stopped using the Pictish Warband provincial (although those were the backbone to my armies all through the island of England.

I lost. Macedonia won in 90 turns, but I wanted to see what the end looked like. It just keeps going. With a little reminder Madeconia won but you can keep playing. By the time the end of the game happened, I was second in legacy points, but Parthia was coming on strong.

[MoLAoS]

I've managed to expand into southern france with Emporia, using field of glory 2 to play the battles. It has been hard but I managed to become a minor power in the area after struggling a lot vs arverni and celtiberia.
The game needs to polish some areas... but it's playable and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Things I detected:

1. When moving population around, you should be able to select exactly which one you want to move. As it is right now, clicking on a population portrait also selects every single population to the right. Moving slaves around is quite hard and it's important because they produce more.

2. The game needs more support for the FOG2 gamer. I can see now that the core battle system this game offers by itself can be entertaining, but I was completely convinced because of the integration of both games. As it is right now, there is almost no info about the export and it would be quite easy to provide the players with more info. Units in FOG:E should have a "Converts to Thureoporoi when exported to FOG:II" or something like that in the info panel. There should be info about how do FOG:E generals affect the statistics in FOG2... etc... also, some units seem to become worse when exported. As an example, playing as Emporia, my Heavy Infantry becomes Hoplite Citizen when exported. This is a heavy troop with no training and offensive spears... so they are arguably worse than my regular infantry, which gets converted to Thureophoroi but don't get totally disordered in difficult terrain while having more or less the same POA + increased mobility. This basically means that my regular inantry is better than my heavy infantry in FOG:2, but if I played FOG:E battles, my heavy infantry would be better because there are "Attack" and "Defense" stats in that game.

3. Diplomacy. It should be expanded. At the very least I would enjoy a way of returning provinces to original owners or releasing some groups of territories as client states. Plus, I see some inconsisctencies for the AI. Sometimes I try to start cooperating with them and there is only a 5% chance of accepting... so they refuse. Next turn the offer me to cooperate. It's weird.

4. Tooltips: The game needs to be clearer about where all the numbers come from, really. It's all about better tooltips, hovering the mouse around and knowing what is happening and, even more important WHY is it happening.

Anyway the game is good and it can only become better.

So the devs said that FoG2 integration was just a fun bonus and not a core feature. The way FoG2 conversion works is that based on various states you are getting a slightly random conversion into a few different units. So a Roman Legion from FoGE converts typically to something like Legion and Triarii or maybe 2 Legions depending on various factors. They seem to lose out on their range attack from the FoGE sim. Similarly Velites convert to FoG2 Velites. I've noticed that many of the medium infantry in FoGE tend to convert into 3 units if their conversion options are weaker. At first this seemed like it negatively impacted me with Alae and Legions but really medium infantry in FoG2 are pretty weak compared to Legions and Hastati. FoG2 is also easier because of the way the AI can't handle having no skirmishers which often happens in conversion battles. I've literally take my big army of slingers and velites and light cavalry and wiped out an 11 unit medium/heavy infantry line with out my opponent even counterattacking causing me to get 0 casualties in a battle that I lost in FoGE resolution. Basically FoG2, especially for Rome, lets you field multiple armies since you don't need to stack legions so heavily on your front line. Velites and Light Cavalry don't have cost scaling while every single infantry unit Rome has access to has scaling costs which are pretty brutal.

As far as Generals, the stats appear to convert into subcommanders or something? Sometimes I'll have 3 generals but sometimes I'll get 4. Generals are +50 POA so if you load up your frontline legions its a nice boost. Not comparable to the 2 rolls on the dice for FoGE though.

[rbodleyscott]

As far as Generals, the stats appear to convert into subcommanders or something? Sometimes I'll have 3 generals but sometimes I'll get 4. Generals are +50 POA so if you load up your frontline legions its a nice boost. Not comparable to the 2 rolls on the dice for FoGE though.

The generals' stats do not convert to extra sub-generals.

FOG2 takes into account the Empires attack rating of the attacking general and the defence rating of the defending general. If there is a difference between the general's ratings, then usually the weaker general's units have their quality downgraded and the stronger general's troops have theirs upgraded. This abstraction represents the effects on morale and/or battle readiness of the pre-battle manoeuvres - the better general being assumed to outmanoeuvre the weaker general in various ways - e.g. cutting off access to supplies or water, tricking him into wading across an icy stream on the morning of the battle, etc. etc. etc. Historically, there were many ways that a skilled ancient general could weaken the enemy's will to fight before the battle, and increase the morale of his own troops - see Sun Tzu, or Frontinus's stratagems.

If the difference between the generals' skill ratings is 2, this effect is increased - or sometimes instead of adjusting the quality, the weaker general may have some of his troops arrive late for the battle.

[MoLAoS]

As far as Generals, the stats appear to convert into subcommanders or something? Sometimes I'll have 3 generals but sometimes I'll get 4. Generals are +50 POA so if you load up your frontline legions its a nice boost. Not comparable to the 2 rolls on the dice for FoGE though.

The generals' stats do not convert to extra sub-generals.

FOG2 takes into account the Empires attack rating of the attacking general and the defence rating of the defending general. If there is a difference between the general's ratings, then usually the weaker general's units have their quality downgraded and the stronger general's troops have theirs upgraded. This abstraction represents the effects on morale and/or battle readiness of the pre-battle manoeuvres - the better general being assumed to outmanoeuvre the weaker general in various ways - e.g. cutting off access to supplies or water, tricking him into wading across an icy stream on the morning of the battle, etc. etc. etc. Historically, there were many ways that a skilled ancient general could weaken the enemy's will to fight before the battle, and increase the morale of his own troops - see Sun Tzu, or Frontinus's stratagems.

If the difference between the generals' skill ratings is 2, this effect is increased - or sometimes instead of adjusting the quality, the weaker general may have some of his troops arrive late for the battle.

Ah good to know. I guess the subcommanders are based on what units you use. Good thing I didn't realize good generals had an army wide quality boost, though. Would have made the game even more lopsided. Still getting use to the fact that I can't conquer IS, IF, CA, CS, SM, and be digging into Africa as Rome on turn 20 now that I'm trying to play with FoGE's battle resolution.

[rbodleyscott]

Ah good to know. I guess the subcommanders are based on what units you use.

The initial auto-creation of sub-generals is: Including the C-in-C, you get 1 general for the infantry, one for each non-light cavalry wing, and one for the reserve cavalry. If any of these sections has no units, a general is not auto-created.

However, unless the battle is small you can manually add extra sub-generals at deployment time to make the total number (including C-in-C) up to 4. In smaller battles you may only be able to make them up to 3.

[MoLAoS]

Ah good to know. I guess the subcommanders are based on what units you use.

The initial auto-creation of sub-generals is: Including the C-in-C, you get 1 general for the infantry, one for each non-light cavalry wing, and one for the reserve cavalry. If any of these sections has no units, a general is not auto-created.

However, unless the battle is small you can manually add extra sub-generals at deployment time to make the total number (including C-in-C) up to 4. In smaller battles you may only be able to make them up to 3.

Ah okay. Small battles is why you get 3 sometimes. Seen the AI with 5 a few times, though, is that cause they had a ton of troops?

[rbodleyscott]

Good thing I didn't realize good generals had an army wide quality boost, though. Would have made the game even more lopsided. Still getting use to the fact that I can't conquer IS, IF, CA, CS, SM, and be digging into Africa as Rome on turn 20 now that I'm trying to play with FoGE's battle resolution.

Yes, once you are used to Empires and FOG2, you will need to play on a higher Empires difficulty level to compensate. This is inevitable because the Empires system allows no player input during the battle, whereas FOG2 of course does, thus inevitably giving the player an advantage compared with Empires battle resolution. Also there is the issue of heavily restricted frontage in Empires battles in Mountains etc. We decided not to copy that in the FOG2 battles because it would take away the fun, and because we wanted FOG2 battles to be (mostly) resolved in one battle, rather than multiple rounds as in the Empires system.

[rbodleyscott]

Ah okay. Small battles is why you get 3 sometimes. Seen the AI with 5 a few times, though, is that cause they had a ton of troops?

That should not happen. If you see it again, please post a screenshot.

[MoLAoS]

Good thing I didn't realize good generals had an army wide quality boost, though. Would have made the game even more lopsided. Still getting use to the fact that I can't conquer IS, IF, CA, CS, SM, and be digging into Africa as Rome on turn 20 now that I'm trying to play with FoGE's battle resolution.

Yes, once you are used to Empires and FOG2, you will need to play on a higher Empires difficulty level to compensate. This is inevitable because the Empires system allows no player input during the battle, whereas FOG2 of course does, thus inevitably giving the player an advantage compared with Empires battle resolution. Also there is the issue of heavily restricted frontage in Empires battles in Mountains etc. We decided not to copy that in the FOG2 battles because it would take away the fun, and because we wanted FOG2 battles to be (mostly) resolved in one battle, rather than multiple rounds as in the Empires system.

I don't think it makes that much of a difference. If I'm playing on D5 or below using FoG2 increases expansion speed roughly 100%. At least for Rome. At higher levels you could still expand that fast but you'd get slaughtered by decadence penalties.

Edit: Another problem with empire resolution is that with skirmishers you actually prefer to lose rather than to draw because I guess stalemates bypass damage dodging. A Velite that stalemates takes 1 yellow and 1 red damage, which kills it. If it loses by 1 or 2 it activates its damage dodge and takes only a yellow damage. This is incredibly consistent.