Slitherine

We are releasing a new update for Field of Glory: Empires!

This is a massive one: let us know what you think of the changes in the posts below. As usual your feedback is extremely important to us.


Changelog:

GAMEPLAY (improvements and fixes)

- Mercenary decision won't pick slaves as a valid mercenary army
- Cotton Field structure can now be built again (Egypt and India)
- You can abandon a region which has the 'Just Conquered' modifier or is pillaged. It costs one government age per population as a limiter.
- Rebels conversion to a reborn nation won't happen in contested regions (fix some issues)
- Units in neutral territory can be moved away toward closest friendly region (up to 6 regions distance)
- When a region rebels, garrison is mustered, and you keep the walls.
- Slave decimation in case of revolt is one slave pop per 5 units raised (was 10)
- Can import or export up to 24 (each) different trade goods per region
- New Capitol building provided for free at all difficulty levels
- Fix to Judea temple decision could cause a crash
- New buildings and tweaked buildings (geared toward easier crowd control):
+Olympic Games (World Wonder, restricted to Hellenes nation)
+Tabularium (National Wonder, restricted to Italic ethnicity)
+Naumachia (gladiator games on water)
- Pleasure District (National Wonder) loyalty 25>30
- Coliseum, Circus Maximus (World Wonder) loyalty 50>60
- Circus, Racing Track loyalty 30>40
- Prison loyalty 10>15
- Fix to an improper evaluation in the 'Support Science' decision
- A region already defined as the main capital should not move to another region.
- Fix to Provincial units, if different per civilization level not given properly (e.g Galatian Hvy Inf.)
- DOW probability lessened and use extra factors.
- An enemy can't steal anymore a region only defended by an ally
- Provincial capitol will move to the correct region
- Ensure that auto garrisons raise against invasion and post-battles checks
- Fix to 2 late wonders not added properly (again)
- All nations are 'switchable' once they appear on the map
- 2 fleets made only of transports won't attack each other.
- Transported units don't skirmish or evade.

AI
- Will merge more often weak groups
- Allies should loiter less in other territories
- If under severe threat, will favor grouping and defending around capitals

BALANCING
- Master Fletcher can improve skirmisher ranged attack (provided it is not 0) and provides 5 XP
- Slightly bigger bonus for Peace chance from war duration
- Population with 2 or 3 unrest (was 2 only) are green in the region panel
- Heavy Infantry balancing (for non clumsy HI):
- Scots now have +15% "Money Increase cost"
- Rex Custodiae will cost a bit more (Are unique so not exploitable)
- Lin Teata will cost a bit more money but less metal, thematic with their gear (Are unique so not exploitable)
- Britonnic, Goths, Galatians, Pictish, Dacians provincial heavy infantries: They retain their excellent stats, but cost more in manpower and "Money Increase cost" is now 35%, not 25% as others prov. units.
- Brythonic infantry has the besieger effect
- Removed Phalanx from CAR
- Roman Fort and Limes can be disassembled
- Slave Market decision given more often (+50% frequency)
- Carthage initial treasury increased (1500>2500), friendlier neighbors.
- Mauretania hold on most regions removed
- North African nations don’t get cameliers until Imperial Level.
- Removed ahistorical phalanx to some nations.
- Rome objectives slightly more spread out (and far reaching)
- Cavalry balancing:
+ Heavy Cavalry and Cataphracts now place themselves between HI and MI and gain +1 hit point
+ War chariots get +1 hit point
+ Companions get +1 effec
+ Castrum Equitatum works for Med Cav too


UI-QOL
- Remappable hotkeys for common panels (K diplomacy | Nation panel | Ledger | Build structure | Unit recruitment | Trade panel)
- Added diplomacy button to UnitPanel, can contact a nation without territory.
- New context and gameplay texts for Rome and Epirus in Pyrrhus scenario
- Move camera to an army location when selecting a faction with no regions in diplomacy panel.
- Show recruitment spending as spent rather than part of the delta on faction bar and military recruitment tab.
- Army display options: Unit Count, Combat Power (as before), Categorized
- Fix to missing title in the 'one of the Civil War Warning' for Rome
- Upgrade buildings show as slot usage zero
- Fixed ambiguous or misleading UI behavior when ordering intercepts.
- Leave Trade Info open when switching Region Panel tabs
- In structure info and construction, moved description to the right; modifiers, unlocks, and misc stats to the left.
- Show Ally Battle option (default off).

Looks good on paper. Will say more after a game with it.

To make sure I'm understanding "- Can import or export up to 24 (each) different trade goods per region" correctly:

Each region can import 24 unique types of trade goods and export 24 unique types of trade goods? Meaning, if I export cotton from region A to 3 different regions that only counts as one type of trade good per this 24 limit restriction?

Thank you

Cataphracts still go to second line instead of archers - so they still not just useless they are harmful
(also archers with 8 range have higher priority than horse archers with 9 - maybe it have no difference because other stats same and flanking work from reserve but...)

I'll see about the cavalry balancing, but I don't think it's enough. Regular cavalry in particular still lack any sort of utility. Additionally, I don't see any fix for the Urban Militia problem of priority over support units, or Light Horse taking priority over archers with better ranged/support stats.

Noticed that with the v1.0.3 upgrade, instead of an army's Combat Power being displayed on the Main map, it is their number of units. Is this by design? Or is their a way to change it back to display Combat Power?

Disregard - figured it out. Can be changed in the Settings panel.

Ragu777 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:38 pm Cataphracts still go to second line instead of archers - so they still not just useless they are harmful
(also archers with 8 range have higher priority than horse archers with 9 - maybe it have no difference because other stats same and flanking work from reserve but...)

Cataphracts are classified as support units. And since they have lower distance to the center they get deployed first and push skirmishers and archers out of the second line. In order for the current deployment algorithm to work properly (i.e. not produce subotpimal results all the time) cataphracts shouldn't be classified as support.

Geffalrus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2019 12:48 am
I'll see about the cavalry balancing, but I don't think it's enough. Regular cavalry in particular still lack any sort of utility. Additionally, I don't see any fix for the Urban Militia problem of priority over support units, or Light Horse taking priority over archers with better ranged/support stats.

+1
Foot skrmishers are still useless in comparison to mounted skirmishers. Give us reasons to actually recruit foot skirmishers into armies. For example, make them more effective in forests and broken terrain than mounted skirmishers, make mounted skirmishers more costly - they have horses after all.

olin0111 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2019 8:17 pm +1
Foot skrmishers are still useless in comparison to mounted skirmishers. Give us reasons to actually recruit foot skirmishers into armies. For example, make them more effective in forests and broken terrain than mounted skirmishers, make mounted skirmishers more costly - they have horses after all.

The light horse I think are 5 equipment more expensive, which can be sort of a big deal early game for certain factions that don't have a province to start. Otherwise, like Regular Inf/Cavalry or Merc Inf/Merc Cav.......they're basically identical in cost. A major gripe I have with them is that they push my supporting archers away from the center, depriving my best infantry units of +3 support and replacing it with +2. 1 point of combat value can actually make a big difference, so I'm not a fan. Thematically, they'd be MUCH preferred on the flanks where they were historically deployed, and where my cavalry units often face weaker opposition (early game at least).

Someone in another post suggested that the best fix would be to actually have different zones in the battlefield. Center zone and two flank zones. Infantry get priority deployment in the center, while cavalry do so on the flanks. Infantry that get deployed to the flanks suffer penalties, making them easier prey for cavalry. Support and generals can mitigate that, but all things being equal, cavalry in the flank zones perform better in straight combat. I was also thinking that winning the flanks should provide an extra bonus of maybe giving the closest infantry units an extra +X to combat. This would all 1) incentivize the use of cavalry IN armies, and 2) incentivize the pursuit of good cavalry to be able to dominate the flank zones. I'm working on plotting out unit interactions to make things in the flank zones more interesting.

olin0111 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2019 8:17 pm
Cataphracts are classified as support units. And since they have lower distance to the center they get deployed first and push skirmishers and archers out of the second line. In order for the current deployment algorithm to work properly (i.e. not produce subotpimal results all the time) cataphracts shouldn't be classified as support.

Foot skrmishers are still useless in comparison to mounted skirmishers. Give us reasons to actually recruit foot skirmishers into armies. For example, make them more effective in forests and broken terrain than mounted skirmishers, make mounted skirmishers more costly - they have horses after all.

but cataphracts haven't in this info that they support unit,
about algorithm, i think it needs use actual combat stats, not unit types

light cavalry have more food usage than skirmisher - but yeah it doesn't matter, only reason i see for skirmisher is that they have siege resist - so i have small armies in my important city with walls

I am having trouble with the alerts that now DON'T appear on the right hand side of the screen each turn. Before the patch, I would get a notification for each province that finished building or grew, and I would work through them and handle all my provinces. Now I cannot seem to get these alerts?

Also, I can see SOME on map alerts, categorised into different types (set in the bottom left on the notices bar thingy). But I want to see them all, at the same time. Is that possible?

Can you please add some skirmisher units to Dacia faction as there is only light cav available (no archers, slingers or even javelinmen). I conquered two whole provinces and built military buldings but still no skirmishers. I'm not sure if thats intended or an oversight.