More Initial Thoughts

[elxaime]

OK, after many hours play (admittedly just with Rome in the campaign) some more observations. Overall, GREAT GAME with tons of potential and that quality of making you say "just one more turn." But here goes:

1. Agree with comments the AI needs work, which I understand they will continue to adjust.
2. With that in mind, I suspect the game will really shine when they start adding more short scenarios. Not only will these be easier to design AI for, they will also be more "doable" as multiplayer exercises. For example, custom crafted Punic War scenarios. So hope these are coming.
3. Diplomacy, as mentioned, needs lots more work to add various options.

[jhornborg]

Agreed, in my Carthage campaign (Normal difficulty) I could see that Rome was jumping out way ahead in Legacy points and had conquered a large chunk of Thrace/Dacia. However, I couldn't get in position to declare war on them until 210 BC, because Syracuse and the AI factions in Africa and Spain were constantly declaring war against me. I tried offering huge gifts to Numidia and Syracuse, which brought their diplomacy to +, but they still continued declaring war on me at the soonest opportunity. Pretty sure it would've been even worse if I wasn't using FOG2 for battle resolution.

A Punic War scenario would be sweet. I tried duplicating Hannibal's march on northern Italy, but from the time I captured Saguntum it took me 8 years to reach Cisalpine Gaul. The element of surprise was completely lost, so now I'm stuck fighting a defensive campaign in the Alpine foothills to keep the Roman legions from overrunning my Gallic allies. This northern diversion hasn't prevented Rome from steamrolling Sicily, and they're still dominating the Legacy points with no relief in sight (currently 190 BC). I suspect the campaign will reach a point soon where I'll just give up because Rome's Legacy score will be unreachable.

[vakarr]

Don't give up, pretty soon Rome will split into a civil war. You can also build certain buildings that increase legacy, or capture them

[MoLAoS]

Agreed, in my Carthage campaign (Normal difficulty) I could see that Rome was jumping out way ahead in Legacy points and had conquered a large chunk of Thrace/Dacia. However, I couldn't get in position to declare war on them until 210 BC, because Syracuse and the AI factions in Africa and Spain were constantly declaring war against me. I tried offering huge gifts to Numidia and Syracuse, which brought their diplomacy to +, but they still continued declaring war on me at the soonest opportunity. Pretty sure it would've been even worse if I wasn't using FOG2 for battle resolution.

A Punic War scenario would be sweet. I tried duplicating Hannibal's march on northern Italy, but from the time I captured Saguntum it took me 8 years to reach Cisalpine Gaul. The element of surprise was completely lost, so now I'm stuck fighting a defensive campaign in the Alpine foothills to keep the Roman legions from overrunning my Gallic allies. This northern diversion hasn't prevented Rome from steamrolling Sicily, and they're still dominating the Legacy points with no relief in sight (currently 190 BC). I suspect the campaign will reach a point soon where I'll just give up because Rome's Legacy score will be unreachable.

I'm confused. You couldn't fight Rome until the 100th turn? What did you do that whole time if you weren't subduing Africa or Iberia? You didn't conquer Syracuse? That's like, goal number one for Carthage. Were you trying to play historical Carthage thinking the AI would behave like the historical African allies of Carthage? As far as I know FoGE has failed to implement even something as kludgy as the "historical friend" modifier Paradox uses to push you down the path of history.

[jhornborg]

Don't give up, pretty soon Rome will split into a civil war. You can also build certain buildings that increase legacy, or capture them.

At the time when I attacked Rome, Tarentum and Bruttium had just rebelled, and I was able to ally with them. Fabius had also claimed central Italy in a civil war. So the timing seemed good. Originally, I planned to use Bruttium as a base, but then Numidia came rolling into my territory with a 100+ strength army, so I had to pull back my Sicilian army to defend Carthage. By the time I'd dealt with Numidia, Rome had already crushed the rebels and was en route to Sicily with two armies of almost 100 strength each.

[jhornborg]

I'm confused. You couldn't fight Rome until the 100th turn? What did you do that whole time if you weren't subduing Africa or Iberia? You didn't conquer Syracuse? That's like, goal number one for Carthage. Were you trying to play historical Carthage thinking the AI would behave like the historical African allies of Carthage? As far as I know FoGE has failed to implement even something as kludgy as the "historical friend" modifier Paradox uses to push you down the path of history.

I fought a few wars against Syracuse. Each time, I grabbed an extra region until eventually I owned all of Sicily except Syracuse. I could probably have finished off Syracuse if I'd been willing to concede major parts of Africa to Numidia, Mauritania, Gaetuli, Massaelyi, Garamantia and Nasamones. In hindsight I would have done that, if I'd known diplomacy with Syracuse was so fruitless, and that paying gifts to prevent future wars was useless. Not sure whether you've tried Carthage, but the first 80 turns was constant warfare against the African factions - you can occasionally make peace after a big battle, but they will declare war again as soon as peace expires. So making peace with Syracuse enabled me to fight in Africa. I did carve out a decent portion of north Africa, but I didn't want to overextend because my Decadence was rising and many of those North African regions are barren anyway. The last 30-40 turns I've had some breathing room in Africa (although that might have been the result of the patch).

Of all the African factions, I figured Numidia would be the best candidate for peace because they're right on my backdoor. I was content to continue fighting the others indefinitely. I probably should have claimed Hippo Regius, Syracuse and Saguntum ASAP, because those are key Legacy cities for Carthage. I wasn't aware how much value the objective cities have for Legacy scores, which I sort of hate actually. It feels too railroady and encourages using the same strategy on every playthrough.

[MoLAoS]

I'm confused. You couldn't fight Rome until the 100th turn? What did you do that whole time if you weren't subduing Africa or Iberia? You didn't conquer Syracuse? That's like, goal number one for Carthage. Were you trying to play historical Carthage thinking the AI would behave like the historical African allies of Carthage? As far as I know FoGE has failed to implement even something as kludgy as the "historical friend" modifier Paradox uses to push you down the path of history.

I fought a few wars against Syracuse. Each time, I grabbed an extra region until eventually I owned all of Sicily except Syracuse. I could probably have finished off Syracuse if I'd been willing to concede major parts of Africa to Numidia, Mauritania, Gaetuli, Massaelyi, Garamantia and Nasamones. In hindsight I would have done that, if I'd known diplomacy with Syracuse was so fruitless, and that paying gifts to prevent future wars was useless. Not sure whether you've tried Carthage, but the first 80 turns was constant warfare against the African factions - you can occasionally make peace after a big battle, but they will declare war again as soon as peace expires. So making peace with Syracuse enabled me to fight in Africa. I did carve out a decent portion of north Africa, but I didn't want to overextend because my Decadence was rising and many of those North African regions are barren anyway. The last 30-40 turns I've had some breathing room in Africa (although that might have been the result of the patch).

Of all the African factions, I figured Numidia would be the best candidate for peace because they're right on my backdoor. I was content to continue fighting the others indefinitely. I probably should have claimed Hippo Regius, Syracuse and Saguntum ASAP, because those are key Legacy cities for Carthage. I wasn't aware how much value the objective cities have for Legacy scores, which I sort of hate actually. It feels too railroady and encourages using the same strategy on every playthrough.

I don't see how you don't consolidate northern Africa pretty quickly on normal difficulty. I would expect to win a normal difficulty game in roughly 80 turns from early legacy victory as Rome, so probably 100 max as Carthage. I've played a game as Carthage but I don't really like it. You can't actually be the kind of nation Carthage was, whereas client states aside you can do so with Rome so its not as fun to play.

Did Numidia war dec you turn one?

[Infierno]

The AI is quite aggressive, for sure, and I find actually securing a meaningful alliance to be fairly rare. I'm loving my Carthage playthroughs and the hectic battles for Africa and the Mediterranean are quite fun, if not historically accurate.

Overall, I am absolutely in love with this game.

[PDiFolco]

As Carthage I've found that alliance with Numidia doesn't work... they'll dow you anyway even reduced to 1 region!
Now if I play them again I will first consolidate Africa, then Sardinia then Sicily, maybe abandoning Spain.
I think it's still good to dow Rome early, especially to prevent them from building a decent fleet, so you can kill off any troops they try to send to Sicily or elsewhere.

[jhornborg]

I don't see how you don't consolidate northern Africa pretty quickly on normal difficulty. I would expect to win a normal difficulty game in roughly 80 turns from early legacy victory as Rome, so probably 100 max as Carthage. I've played a game as Carthage but I don't really like it. You can't actually be the kind of nation Carthage was, whereas client states aside you can do so with Rome so its not as fun to play.

Did Numidia war dec you turn one?

What do you mean by "consolidate Africa?" I wasn't in danger of losing ground in Africa until the last 20 turns or so, when Numidia started raising huge armies on my doorstep while I was fighting Rome. However, I was always at war with at least 2 African factions, which diverted a decent chunk of my military away from Spain and Sicily. I claimed the entire Tunisia and Morocco provinces, and owned a couple of regions further east, but was avoiding capturing the barren desert regions. I don't recall when Numidia first declared war, but it was quite early. If not turn 1 then turn 2 or 3.

How do you win an early Legacy victory? I'm currently 5th in the Legacy race with 1700 points in 190 BC. The empires ahead of me are all within reach except Rome, which has 4,700 Legacy.

[MoLAoS]

I don't see how you don't consolidate northern Africa pretty quickly on normal difficulty. I would expect to win a normal difficulty game in roughly 80 turns from early legacy victory as Rome, so probably 100 max as Carthage. I've played a game as Carthage but I don't really like it. You can't actually be the kind of nation Carthage was, whereas client states aside you can do so with Rome so its not as fun to play.

Did Numidia war dec you turn one?

What do you mean by "consolidate Africa?" I wasn't in danger of losing ground in Africa until the last 20 turns or so, when Numidia started raising huge armies on my doorstep while I was fighting Rome. However, I was always at war with at least 2 African factions, which diverted a decent chunk of my military away from Spain and Sicily. I claimed the entire Tunisia and Morocco provinces, and owned a couple of regions further east, but was avoiding capturing the barren desert regions. I don't recall when Numidia first declared war, but it was quite early. If not turn 1 then turn 2 or 3.

How do you win an early Legacy victory? I'm currently 5th in the Legacy race with 1700 points in 190 BC. The empires ahead of me are all within reach except Rome, which has 4,700 Legacy.

Typically as Carthage I would wipe out Numidia straight away, and follow up with with the other African nations. Going west that is. How is Numidia getting the power to raise huge armies from the crappy desert regions? They wouldn't have any provinces formed access to much pop, etc. And did they pop up as a random spawn or did you let some run away? And aren't the desert lands part of your provinces anyways? Were you specifically not conquering those areas? I typically just take them in any case. What are you doing on your turns if you haven't conquered Africa and Spain and Rome by turn 190? I must play a totally different way than you. Carthage starts stronger than Rome and I typically control at least 10 provinces by turn 70 in Rome games. Never did Carthage passed turn 30 really.

[jhornborg]

Typically as Carthage I would wipe out Numidia straight away, and follow up with with the other African nations. Going west that is. How is Numidia getting the power to raise huge armies from the crappy desert regions? They wouldn't have any provinces formed access to much pop, etc. And did they pop up as a random spawn or did you let some run away? And aren't the desert lands part of your provinces anyways? Were you specifically not conquering those areas? I typically just take them in any case. What are you doing on your turns if you haven't conquered Africa and Spain and Rome by turn 190? I must play a totally different way than you. Carthage starts stronger than Rome and I typically control at least 10 provinces by turn 70 in Rome games. Never did Carthage passed turn 30 really.

I was honestly surprised at the size of Numidia's army, considering I had captured their best regions long ago. It never occurred to me to wipe them out completely, although by letting them survive they were able to expand into Massaeyli territory. While expanding in Africa, I also captured all of Sicily except for Syracuse, the entire Baetica province in Spain aside from 1 region, and Corsica/Sardinia. At one point I starting pushing into the Mauretanian hinterlands, but received enough Decadence that my government regressed, so I decided to just defend the wealthy territories I owned instead of expanding further, until I was ready to attack Rome.

[MoLAoS]

Typically as Carthage I would wipe out Numidia straight away, and follow up with with the other African nations. Going west that is. How is Numidia getting the power to raise huge armies from the crappy desert regions? They wouldn't have any provinces formed access to much pop, etc. And did they pop up as a random spawn or did you let some run away? And aren't the desert lands part of your provinces anyways? Were you specifically not conquering those areas? I typically just take them in any case. What are you doing on your turns if you haven't conquered Africa and Spain and Rome by turn 190? I must play a totally different way than you. Carthage starts stronger than Rome and I typically control at least 10 provinces by turn 70 in Rome games. Never did Carthage passed turn 30 really.

I was honestly surprised at the size of Numidia's army, considering I had captured their best regions long ago. It never occurred to me to wipe them out completely, although by letting them survive they were able to expand into Massaeyli territory. While expanding in Africa, I also captured all of Sicily except for Syracuse, the entire Baetica province in Spain aside from 1 region, and Corsica/Sardinia. At one point I starting pushing into the Mauretanian hinterlands, but received enough Decadence that my government regressed, so I decided to just defend the wealthy territories I owned instead of expanding further, until I was ready to attack Rome.

Given the turn count and number of regions, did you just spend a ton of turns at peace or something? Should never have decadence issues with the number of regions/provinces it sounds like you had. Did you have a negative admin trait ruler and a super old government?

[jimwinsor]

My Carthage campaign that I’m currently streaming featured Numidia approaching me with an early alliance offer, which I accepted. This allowed me to focus on taking all of Sicily (plus Bruttium, which was needed to support my blockade squadrons). Mauretania opportunistically attacked my Moroccan holdings, and after trouncing my far western army I made the difficult decision to let that area go. I had no objectives there anyways. They conquered all the way up to Tingitania.

All remaining far western defenders focused on defending my two Spanish regions (including my very valuable gold mine), and fortunately for me all the Spanish Celtic nations were busily warring with each other too much to notice me.

Meanwhile my Numidian ally attacked Massasylia, and kept them busy in a see saw war that went on for decades. So that’s another African country I didn’t have to worry about.

After Sicily I was then able to shore up my holdings in and around the Africa province, form a line of coastal regions to Oea, and conquer Sardinia-Corsica. Rome this whole time was unfazed by my presence in Bruttium and focused on a costly war in the Alps (in which their legions were having trouble in).

I was very careful, in Africa, not to overextend and pick up worthless decadent desert regions. This meant fighting defense wars only after I picked up the plum provinces I wanted to develop. This would be a good time to digress on a common comment I’ve seen people make in forum talk: “The constant AI warring force me to take stuff I don’t want! Why can’t I give regions away or let them go free or make them into a loyal lapdog client state etc etc etc ...” And this comment, IMO, is WRONG.

It’s wrong in that the game doesn’t “force” you to do anything. If you are taking regions in a war you'd rather not possess, that’s on you. The game gives you ample resources to fight a static border defense strategy, including multiple fortification options for cities, structures that give free supplies to to your mobile border defense army while on garrison, etc. Rome can even have legions spend money to build forts and limes. And there’s a Hadrians Wall-ish wonder as well. So the tools are present. If you find yourself invading every settled oasis on the map because some tribal horde attacked you, that’s because you lack the willpower to say “no” to an offensive war strategy and the compulsive habit of bloating and blobbing that other games have got you in.

Anyways, digression over and back to my Carthage ... at this point my main goal was to level to a Tier III Merchant Empire, and I found myself stuck at Glorious Republic and 4 tokens. Even with careful defense warfare and a massive commitment of citizenry to Culture, I could not crawl back into the top tier of the CDR. It was then I made the difficult decision to attack my loyal ally, Numidia. They had one of my objectives. Rome had a couple objectives as well, thus it was either them or Rome, so ...

Once I leveled to Young Merchant Empire, my government age plummeted and I was now good to go to build new armies and take on some more regions. I expanded in Spain to form the Baetis province, and had the luxury of a war of revenge against the Mauritanians. I generally took their good regions, then turtled up after that.

Years of mostly defense wars later, Rome finally declared war, on or about turn 100. With Imperial Legions! But fortunately, no navy. And that’s where we are now in the campaign (which continues later today).

The last point I want to make is this: EVERY game is different. We see a bunch of totally different Carthage experiences in this thread. So to say, ‘oh, on turn X you should do this, so on turn Y you’ll be able to do that, because on turn Z so and so will attack you’ is just errant nonsense because each game throws up different curve balls and opportunities at you. I’ve been playing this game since the beta in February, and the replayability of Empires continually astounds me.

[MoLAoS]

My Carthage campaign that I’m currently streaming featured Numidia approaching me with an early alliance offer, which I accepted. This allowed me to focus on taking all of Sicily (plus Bruttium, which was needed to support my blockade squadrons). Mauretania opportunistically attacked my Moroccan holdings, and after trouncing my far western army I made the difficult decision to let that area go. I had no objectives there anyways. They conquered all the way up to Tingitania.

All remaining far western defenders focused on defending my two Spanish regions (including my very valuable gold mine), and fortunately for me all the Spanish Celtic nations were busily warring with each other too much to notice me.

Meanwhile my Numidian ally attacked Massasylia, and kept them busy in a see saw war that went on for decades. So that’s another African country I didn’t have to worry about.

After Sicily I was then able to shore up my holdings in and around the Africa province, form a line of coastal regions to Oea, and conquer Sardinia-Corsica. Rome this whole time was unfazed by my presence in Bruttium and focused on a costly war in the Alps (in which their legions were having trouble in).

I was very careful, in Africa, not to overextend and pick up worthless decadent desert regions. This meant fighting defense wars only after I picked up the plum provinces I wanted to develop. This would be a good time to digress on a common comment I’ve seen people make in forum talk: “The constant AI warring force me to take stuff I don’t want! Why can’t I give regions away or let them go free or make them into a loyal lapdog client state etc etc etc ...” And this comment, IMO, is WRONG.

It’s wrong in that the game doesn’t “force” you to do anything. If you are taking regions in a war you'd rather not possess, that’s on you. The game gives you ample resources to fight a static border defense strategy, including multiple fortification options for cities, structures that give free supplies to to your mobile border defense army while on garrison, etc. Rome can even have legions spend money to build forts and limes. And there’s a Hadrians Wall-ish wonder as well. So the tools are present. If you find yourself invading every settled oasis on the map because some tribal horde attacked you, that’s because you lack the willpower to say “no” to an offensive war strategy and the compulsive habit of bloating and blobbing that other games have got you in.

Anyways, digression over and back to my Carthage ... at this point my main goal was to level to a Tier III Merchant Empire, and I found myself stuck at Glorious Republic and 4 tokens. Even with careful defense warfare and a massive commitment of citizenry to Culture, I could not crawl back into the top tier of the CDR. It was then I made the difficult decision to attack my loyal ally, Numidia. They had one of my objectives. Rome had a couple objectives as well, thus it was either them or Rome, so ...

Once I leveled to Young Merchant Empire, my government age plummeted and I was now good to go to build new armies and take on some more regions. I expanded in Spain to form the Baetis province, and had the luxury of a war of revenge against the Mauritanians. I generally took their good regions, then turtled up after that.

Years of mostly defense wars later, Rome finally declared war, on or about turn 100. With Imperial Legions! But fortunately, no navy. And that’s where we are now in the campaign (which continues later today).

The last point I want to make is this: EVERY game is different. We see a bunch of totally different Carthage experiences in this thread. So to say, ‘oh, on turn X you should do this, so on turn Y you’ll be able to do that, because on turn Z so and so will attack you’ is just errant nonsense because each game throws up different curve balls and opportunities at you. I’ve been playing this game since the beta in February, and the replayability of Empires continually astounds me.

This must have been a very high difficulty level for you to have no real contact with Rome until turn 100.

[jhornborg]

It’s wrong in that the game doesn’t “force” you to do anything. If you are taking regions in a war you'd rather not possess, that’s on you. The game gives you ample resources to fight a static border defense strategy, including multiple fortification options for cities, structures that give free supplies to to your mobile border defense army while on garrison, etc. Rome can even have legions spend money to build forts and limes. And there’s a Hadrians Wall-ish wonder as well. So the tools are present. If you find yourself invading every settled oasis on the map because some tribal horde attacked you, that’s because you lack the willpower to say “no” to an offensive war strategy and the compulsive habit of bloating and blobbing that other games have got you in.

Agreed, it's nice that you can win the game without painting the map like in Rome:Total War. Technically you don't even need the victory regions as long as you can prevent your rival from holding theirs. So it's great that the game doesn't "force" you to undertake historical objectives, however it shouldn't prevent you from doing so either. In my playthrough it's felt like I had zero chance of lasting peace with Numidia, although your experience differs significantly so maybe it's completely random. I also have a problem with games that require 8 years to march from Saguntum to Cisalpine Gaul. Not that I expect to recreate Hannibal's exploits every game, but the option should be there. And although the objective cities aren't technically necessary to win, I would probably focus on holding them next time for the Legacy points. It also doesn't seem viable to play a mostly peaceful merchant republic, with the constant war declarations and toothless diplomacy, and I'm not sure whether there are enough options to make that approach fun anyway. So my first impression is that FoG:E is a great battle-generator for FoG2, but I probably wouldn't play it as a standalone.

[jimwinsor]

The last point I want to make is this: EVERY game is different. We see a bunch of totally different Carthage experiences in this thread. So to say, ‘oh, on turn X you should do this, so on turn Y you’ll be able to do that, because on turn Z so and so will attack you’ is just errant nonsense because each game throws up different curve balls and opportunities at you. I’ve been playing this game since the beta in February, and the replayability of Empires continually astounds me.

This must have been a very high difficulty level for you to have no real contact with Rome until turn 100.

Surprised me a bit as well, but only a bit, because as I said, every game is different.

Rome did use the time to build up huge holdings in the north and east, so the current Punic War should be interesting ...

[Geffalrus]

My initial expectation of the game was that the play style of "sit and turtle" was going to be decently well supported. Which I think it is at least with the building mechanics. I think the diplomacy aspect needs to be beefed up with options and AI tweaks to truly make that feasible. If you're not gonna spend your money on a conquering army, having more options for how to cultivate friends and allies is necessary.

Personally, I'm more of a "go out and conquer" player. But I recognize that a game that supports multiple strategies is a more interesting one. There just needs to be a bit more effectiveness to a concerted diplomatic push to make friends and buy off enemies.

[jimwinsor]

Yeah nothing I said above should be construed to say the game wouldn’t be better off with more diplomatic options| Those would be most welcome in the future.

[Geffalrus]

Yeah nothing I said above should be construed to say the game wouldn’t be better off with more diplomatic options| Those would be most welcome in the future.

In the meantime, MP adds the human component that expands some level of diplomatic........complexity.