'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Field of Glory: Empires is a grand strategy game in which you will have to move in an intricate and living tapestry of nations and tribes, each one with their distinctive culture.
Set in Europe and in the Mediterranean Area during the Classical Age, experience what truly means to manage an Empire.

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Bombax
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'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Bombax »

I will probably get shot down in flames here - or more appropriately die in a hail of javelins and arrows - because I know that most Forum members are likely to strongly disagree with my viewpoint.
Still, what the hell...
So I bought Empires, and there is much about it that I LOVE. In particular, I think the wider context it gives to FoG battles is terrific, and it's really well handled.
The downside for me is that, like every other AGEOD game I've ever played, it's fiendishly difficult for anyone who isn't a strategy game grognard.
Even on the Easy level, playing as Rome, the experience so far has simply been demoralising.
I'm sure that by asking endless questions and wading through endless posts on the Forum, and scouring the manual with a magnifying glass, and watching all the instructional videos on repeat, I could eventually reach the point where I give the AI a decent game on Easy level.
But I have a bit of a life outside computer gaming, so my time is limited, and so to be frank is my commitment.
I was hoping for a game which, at its easiest setting, would have the same learning curve as for example Civilisation - i.e. a way to begin playing and learning about the gaming mechanics without getting repeatedly whacked over the head, and without drowning in a sea of detail.
But predictably, AGEOD have delivered another high-end product designed to appeal, IMHO, to hardened and experiences strategy gamers only.
Ho hum.
Given that I like a lot of things about the game, I'll probably persevere with it for now. But the steep learning curve is a real turn-off for me.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by PDiFolco »

Well it's hard even for grognards, as the game has many original concepts, so previous experience don't help that much !
Maybe game is easier with some 2nd rank nations, Gauls Iberia or such, as the big leagues players tend to war one another. Carthage is a nightmare, as you have a very extended empire and not that much troops .
Bombax
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Bombax »

Well, I'm glad it's not just me!

I'm currently getting hammered in the 'Easy' level Pyrrhus scenario, and swiftly losing the will to continue...
This feels more like work than play, sadly. :roll:
loki100
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by loki100 »

Hi I'd suggest Macedonia as an easier way into the game. You are the most powerful in your region and can choose your early moves
devoncop
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by devoncop »

loki100 wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 1:26 pm Hi I'd suggest Macedonia as an easier way into the game. You are the most powerful in your region and can choose your early moves
Interesting how views differ. :D

I would say take a small relatively isolated nation like Dacia and that way you have a lot less regions to deal with and can learn gradually.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Qwixt »

As a side note, a user was complaining on steam that there was no even difficulty for the AI (no +/- for AI). The dev response said that they might consider making the easiest one ("easy") even, which would mean it would be more difficult.
Kaede11
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Kaede11 »

I've started playin with emporia in the grand campaign scenario and it is hard, but not unplayable. I'm even managing to grow after lots of struggles.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Pocus »

It depends a lot of the nation you play. And then there is some luck or lack of it.

Dacia should be a safe start. Macedonia is strong and rarely bothered by neighbors.

Rome can be a trap... Potentially strong, but the start can be rough. Then if you evolve to fast, usurpers appear.

Maurya is easy, very easy. A friend of mine (a strategy gamer) made a point of not reading anything, not a single tutorial or help topic. And jumped into Maurya. He is crushing all oppositions :roll:
AGEOD Team - Makers of Kingdoms, Empires, ACW2, WON, EAW, PON, AJE, RUS, ROP, WIA.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by loki100 »

Reason to suggest Macedonia is you are the biggest Greek based power. With a decent starting army. You should be able to dominate Greece and Epirus so that is 3 rich provinces just by taking out the minors.

War with Lysimakos should be a draw, maybe an easy win if they start to age (the Diadochi rules). Antigonus can eat you alive, if they are not otherwise engaged. So leave their regions alone unless they are old/decadent. Then join in feasting on the carcass.

At that stage it gets harder. Southern Italy prob means tangling with Rome, Asia Minor it will all depend on how the first round of collapse/gains went among the Diadochi. Illyria and the Balkans tricky due to the ethnicity issues.

Equally if you do not carry on expanding, the age-decadence rules will really hit you.

But if you are looking for a 50 turn, get yourself on your feet, explore the game mechanics faction then its as good as it gets. You have plenty of viable choices which makes for variation in approaches.
julianbarker
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by julianbarker »

The original poster said he was playing the Pyrrus scenario. I tried that at first but found that all three times I played Pyrrus just steamrollered to Rome and took it in two or three turns whatever I did. I gave up with that and have enjoyed the main game far more.
Bombax
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Bombax »

Thanks for all the feedback, tips and comments. The previous poster sums up my experience of the Pyrrhus scenario! I'll give some of the other suggestions a try once I'm back home (in a week's time) :)
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by JWW »

julianbarker wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 7:17 pm The original poster said he was playing the Pyrrus scenario. I tried that at first but found that all three times I played Pyrrus just steamrollered to Rome and took it in two or three turns whatever I did. I gave up with that and have enjoyed the main game far more.
I had the same struggle with the introductory scenario, even when following some online suggestions. I finally went with Das Tactics' Syracuse Youtube scenario and made some progress in learning the game, even though Syracuse is hard pressed by Carthage from the very start. I've also seen a start in Britain or Ireland suggested, like the Ireland start in Crusader Kings II. I wish the game had an AGEOD-style in-game step-by-step tutorial. I can see some people getting frustrated with the game, especially on Steam with the 2-hour timer running and with people unfamiliar with this type game. Having said all that, I'm not frustrated by struggles learning the game, and I've seen some things that look very, very good in it.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Rosseau »

I found it educational to play three or four countries like Macedonia, Sparta, Epirus, Lysimakos and Aetolia at the same time multiplayer-hotseat with easy legacy option. Maybe if I pay close attention, I can figure out some trends beyond the bad-luck legacy token factor which has Epirus doing poorly but Lysimakos doing great.

Playing this way is much easier of course, but it can still be a challenge late game. I did notice I can't export battles (?) is this mode, but don't care to anyway.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Barrold713 »

I took the Macedonia tip and I swear the first turn my dudes barely said "sup homes" and everyone and their uncle launched aggressively at me. Getting a bare butt smackdown.

BDH
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Gilmer »

Pocus wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 4:49 pm It depends a lot of the nation you play. And then there is some luck or lack of it.

Dacia should be a safe start. Macedonia is strong and rarely bothered by neighbors.

Rome can be a trap... Potentially strong, but the start can be rough. Then if you evolve to fast, usurpers appear.

Maurya is easy, very easy. A friend of mine (a strategy gamer) made a point of not reading anything, not a single tutorial or help topic. And jumped into Maurya. He is crushing all oppositions :roll:
Yes, I have noticed how anyone who goes with Rome ends up most of the time in a war with 4 nations almost immediately. Senones, Etruscans, Samnia, and Tarentum. You started already at war with Senones, and then the others start declaring war (not always! but many times) and I see people saying, "Well, maybe I can get an alliance." And I'm thinking not when you're at war with 4 different nations!
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by ncarson »

Bombax wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 12:57 pm Well, I'm glad it's not just me!

I'm currently getting hammered in the 'Easy' level Pyrrhus scenario, and swiftly losing the will to continue...
This feels more like work than play, sadly. :roll:
I'm having the same experience. My armies sometimes just disappear... strange thing tho, I lost all my battles. Rome was conquered by the Carthaginians, and the final screen announced that I had won!

If this is winning, I'd hate to lose...
Gilmer
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Gilmer »

loki100 wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 5:15 pm Reason to suggest Macedonia is you are the biggest Greek based power. With a decent starting army. You should be able to dominate Greece and Epirus so that is 3 rich provinces just by taking out the minors.

War with Lysimakos should be a draw, maybe an easy win if they start to age (the Diadochi rules). Antigonus can eat you alive, if they are not otherwise engaged. So leave their regions alone unless they are old/decadent. Then join in feasting on the carcass.

At that stage it gets harder. Southern Italy prob means tangling with Rome, Asia Minor it will all depend on how the first round of collapse/gains went among the Diadochi. Illyria and the Balkans tricky due to the ethnicity issues.

Equally if you do not carry on expanding, the age-decadence rules will really hit you.

But if you are looking for a 50 turn, get yourself on your feet, explore the game mechanics faction then its as good as it gets. You have plenty of viable choices which makes for variation in approaches.
I have played about 220 turns with the Hibernii (Ireland). And have expanded east into South British Island. The Picts, Britons, and Brigantes keep growing and then falling apart. But, I'm playing easy and I have to admit I have restarted a couple of times when disaster struck. :( And then there was a slave revolt with a 200 power army that just walked right through the Brigantes and then started dismantling the Britons. So, I had at that point two provinces and I had the phalanx available (although it is CRAP in the hills and forests!!). Finally, planned it where I had a 2 attack General against a 1 defend general for the slaves, and destroyed their largest stack. Their overall strength was in the 300s. But they had a large stockpile of units that were not very good. 66 units at 200 power and I had about 36 units with a power of about 192. I destroyed them because of frontage and other things.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Jagger2002 »

After the Romans, I tried the Cheruscii Tribe in Germany. Much, much easier. They have nothing to start with but no one threatening nearby. So you build from scratch, learning all the time and you gradually expand. Eventually you will meet some real competition but by that time, you should have a solid nation that can take on some competition and be reasonably comfortable with the running a nation aspect of the game. So my recommendation is probably any of the heathen Celtic or Germanic tribes for a nice comfortable, low threat environment to test drive the game.
devoncop
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by devoncop »

Jagger2002 wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 4:39 am After the Romans, I tried the Cheruscii Tribe in Germany. Much, much easier. They have nothing to start with but no one threatening nearby. So you build from scratch, learning all the time and you gradually expand. Eventually you will meet some real competition but by that time, you should have a solid nation that can take on some competition and be reasonably comfortable with the running a nation aspect of the game. So my recommendation is probably any of the heathen Celtic or Germanic tribes for a nice comfortable, low threat environment to test drive the game.

That was my experience with Dacia too.
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Re: 'Easy' Level - REALLY?!?

Post by Kaede11 »

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.
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