Slitherine

I'm an old-time miniatures player who can't really find the spare time anymore to paint figures and create terrain. I just stumbled across Field of Glory for PC and think it might make me a gamer again. I just had one thought to share.

I'm primarily interested in medieval gaming and think Slitherine might find it enticing to other cheapskates like me if they also made the full game available with one of the medieval supplements. That way, you would have a choice about how you get into the game.

It's just a thought; I'm probably going to give it a whirl regardless but I thought I'd pass my initial thought along.

Hi Donovan
Do 'give it a whirl' I was a miniatures player way back in the 70's then globe trotting work and family got in the way and I hadn't pushed or painted a base of figures for 30+ years.
Field of Glory has made me a gamer again, I now have all the supplements and it is a great community.
I view this as a recommendation.
My wife would view it as a warning

Funny, FoG TT rules got me back into miniatures after a long hiatus. My long-neglected Seleucid army even has some new units. I am biased toward ancients, but I find those modules far more interesting than the medievil ones.

Deeter

I've neither the time or money to collect & paint dozens of mini ancient / med. armies (I do so with napoleonics & that's hard enough). Also I'm rarely able to get a face-to-face game so most of my 30 years has been solo / PC gaming.

IMO you'll not regret buying FoG - excellant community of gamers of all ability levels. You're never short of an opponent for long.

Thanks for the encouraging words, gents! I have one other question, which probably is more appropriate to the Tech Support forum. You seem like a friendly bunch, however, so here goes...

I see in the system specs that the game can run with an integrated video card. Have you all found that to be the case? Or should I be thinking of springing for a video card? My PC runs an Athlon 3800 and has 3GB RAM with integrated video. My computer gaming ground to a halt when my last video card failed; we have two small children and just bought a house so my cashflow ain't what it used to be...

Im no techie but i am using an older card: Nvidia geforce 7600 GS. I dont think I'meven getting the most out of it as the weak link in my system is the mother board that only supports an AGP slot. However i can play Medieval TW with the graphics settings set to medium or low (no grass though) and joy most of the battles with just a touch of lag when things get really busy. A turn based game like this , smoooth.
Since this is a 6 year old card you should be able to hunt around for it or something equivilent for cheap.

FOG has a very small footprint so it should run fine with what you have now.

Deeter

Glad to hear it. Sounds sad but right now, I can either afford to buy a new video card or get FOG. I used to have a GeForce 7600GT which really was a great card. Medieval TW was my game of choice, too. I played the heck out of that till the card failed (insufficient cooling, I think). I have Rome and Medieval 2 but they never really got me fired up like the first Medieval did.

So that decides it. I'll pick up FOG! Next, I'll have to talk my old TW buddy into picking it up so we can play online...

We'll all be glad to play you too.

Deeter

sounds good!

I have to second this idea. I've been tempted by Field of Glory for a long time, but the cost starts to look prohibitive when I have to purchase bits of the game I'm less interested in. My main interests would likewise be in the middle ages.

I'm also looking at FOG but never play multi. How is the ai?

Mousehold wrote:I have to second this idea. I've been tempted by Field of Glory for a long time, but the cost starts to look prohibitive when I have to purchase bits of the game I'm less interested in. My main interests would likewise be in the middle ages.

You can just buy the basic game and then "Storm of Arrows", which is the main medieval expansion. Then "Sword and Scimitars" covers the Crusades and "Eternal Empire" is out soon and that deals with the Ottomans and late medieval eastern Europe. Eventually an early medieval expansion "Oath of Fealty" will come out too. You don't have to buy expansions from the ancient period that you are not so interested in.

stockwellpete wrote:

Mousehold wrote:I have to second this idea. I've been tempted by Field of Glory for a long time, but the cost starts to look prohibitive when I have to purchase bits of the game I'm less interested in. My main interests would likewise be in the middle ages.

You can just buy the basic game and then "Storm of Arrows", which is the main medieval expansion. Then "Sword and Scimitars" covers the Crusades and "Eternal Empire" is out soon and that deals with the Ottomans and late medieval eastern Europe. Eventually an early medieval expansion "Oath of Fealty" will come out too. You don't have to buy expansions from the ancient period that you are not so interested in.

I still have to buy the original Field of Glory first, which is no different from having to buy one expansion I don't want. None of the armies in that set interest me much. No, the $20 price difference isn't a big deal, but it's just a stance I feel I need to take as a consumer. I can't afford to pay $20 extra for every game I buy, or for game content I don't want, especially since I frequently only pay $20 or less for a game these days.

Field of Glory is already the most expensive PC game I know of, given that all of the current content costs about $140 up front. Add $20-$25 to that once Eternal Empire is released. As much as I love the idea of this game, that price is a hard pill to swallow. (The idea of paying $5 extra per expansion pack if I buy them piecemeal only produces some frustrating cognitive dissonance that just makes me want to not purchase anything at all. I bought Panzer Corps instead.) If I felt like I could get into FoG for just $40 instead of a bare minimum of $60 it would take to get Storm of Arrows, it makes a difference. Storm of Arrows + Swords & Scimitars for $60 would be good too, but $80 makes me die a little inside.

I know I'd love the game, but I won't get $80 worth of fun out of it when I consider the amount of hours of play I'm still getting out of $20 titles like Mount & Blade: Warband. I'm still quite okay with that at a $40 price point, but it's where I feel the need to draw a polite line in the sand and let the developers know what I'm interested in purchasing.

rich12545 wrote:I'm also looking at FOG but never play multi. How is the ai?

The AI doesn't give a meaningful challenge. Often if you take a passive stance it will just shuffle the units aimlessly. The PBEM is great and worth buying for that, but if you prefer solo play then don't buy it.

So the AI for this game is pretty bad? People don't play solo much?

rich12545 wrote:So the AI for this game is pretty bad? People don't play solo much?

I agree with Morbio, it is not very good - I used the AI to learn the basics but to get a really good game now I use multi-player.

stockwellpete wrote:

rich12545 wrote:So the AI for this game is pretty bad? People don't play solo much?

I agree with Morbio, it is not very good - I used the AI to learn the basics but to get a really good game now I use multi-player.

I agree that the AI is reasonable in giving you a chance to learn the basics in a non-threatening way. It's good for boosting your ego too... although the payback comes when you start playing multi-player and then the bubble is often swiftly burst!

The biggest weakness of the AI is that it doesn't seem to have any overall plan of how to organize an attack. If you are willing to play offensively then it isn't terrible in how it will respond. I often find that playing an army that I'm experimenting with against the AI is helpful before using it for multi-player games. An option to make the AI more challenging is to choose fewer points than you set your army for in DAG games and then letting the AI use its full points, e.g. set up A 600 point army and then only use 450 or 500. That will give the AI an edge of 100 or 150 points to even up the challenge.

Chris

I have lost to the AI, but only in historical scenarios where the armies and terrain are pre-selected. The AI doesn't do a very good job of selecting, deploying or maneuvering DAG armies.

Deeter