Newbie AAR - Grand Campaign 310 BCE

[Warspite1]

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I thought I would give this a go and see if it tickles my fancy. I've downloaded both FoG II and Empires with the plan being to export the battles to FoG II. Sounds technical for a technophobe like me but I'll give it a go and see what happens.

As usual the plan is to launch straight into the game and read up as I go along as I really can't be bothered to do a load of reading beforehand. However I've been advised by loki100 on some essential reading so will take that advice on board in the following posts.

[Warspite1]

The game map - or most of it. Annoyingly I can't zoom out far enough to get one shot of the entire map for a nice overview but here is the majority of the playing area, but note the game also takes in the Nile/Red Sea, Arabia and the near east to the borders of India.

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[Warspite1]

The faction I intend to play with - Picts Et Caledonii!

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I'd like to play as the English but they are an 'Other Faction' so I may get more out of playing a 'Remarkable' one.

[Warspite1]

But before we get to all that I need to look at some of the important options.

AI Difficulty - I will try 'Balanced' According to the manual, "Ideal for a challenging yet not to difficult game. The AI will get minor advantages in Loyalty, Decadence Reduction and Upkeep". "At no AI Difficulty Level will the AI gain an advantage in combat".

But there are others I think I will check out the manual for before continuing.

3.6.4. Fog of War
Areas outside your Empire are obscured by the Fog of War. You can see changes to regional ownership and even the buildings constructed but have limited knowledge of military deployments. Fog of War is lifted if you have combat units in an adjacent region. Only ships or certain port and coastal fortification buildings (6.2.1) can lift Fog of War in naval regions. Allies share information with each other, thus removing fog of war.

I will play with Fog of War ticked.

There are three boxes unticked concerning reduced out of supply penalties, no administrative burden and slower progress and decadence. I will leave these unticked.

These appear to be the options that affect game play so I will move on.

[Warspite1]

These are divided into ‘Major Nations’ ‘Remarkable Factions’ and ‘Other Factions’. The first group includes those nations that dominated (or came to dominate) their regions at the start of the game. Those in the second tier are perhaps best seen as secondary powers which have the capacity to become major powers – if they survive. The final group are all playable but you will find they have less special events than those in the top two groups.

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Choice of Faction

So what information do I have on my faction and what does it all mean?

[Warspite1]

So here is what I know from the on-screen information provided:

Ruler: Catugnat
Clans - organised in warlike clans - Manpower bonus 10% - If tribal, can collapse on the death of a ruler
Warriors - Hundreds of skilled warriors potentially great leaders - 5xp bonus when unit is created
Raiders - a tradition of pillaging from neighbours - can issue raid orders - legacy gain decreased by 10%
Horde - Government modifier - loosely organised horde of tribes with no concern about building or permanent constructions. Men are easily made into warriors - manpower bonus 15% - Infrastructure penalty 10%

Treaties: None

Advantages:
Able to raid on land and using pirates (this can generate large amounts of money)
Infantry: Adequate

Needs:
Barracks to allow heavy infantry
Iron to allow a powerful army

Progression:
Try to progress to Civilisation level II as soon as possible (this avoids civil war every time a king dies)

Expansion:
Maybe easier to move into Ireland before England

[Warspite1]

So to make life easier, I will call my nation Caledonia (which I think it is anyway....).

What is Caledonia made up of? There appear to be two regions: Picts in the far north and Caledonia to the south.

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[Warspite1]

Caledonia appears more important as there is what I suspect is the capital symbol on the east coast.

I'll have a look at this information in a little more detail - starting with the information contained at the top of the screen

THE NATION PANEL

Top Left: is the Government Description which shows Type, Level and Status, Progression or Regression Points and if in a position to gain or lose these points.

Civilisations move vertically through three levels - Kingdom, Monarchy, Empire. Each of these have five Government status within - Young, Stable, Glorious, Old and Decadent.

Five Progression or five Regression points (these are stars to the right of the level but my nation has none at present) will mean the nation undergoing a change of status and/or civilisation level.
Progression
Young/Old will progress to become Stable
Decadent to Old
Stable to Glorious
Glorious to Young (on the Civilisation level above
Regression
Glorious and Stable that regress become Old
Old to Decadent
Young to Stable (on level below + descend into Civil War)
Decadent to Stable (and also trigger a Civil War)

So I assume my nation is at the lowest level Kingdom (although there is no I on the symbol so may be not) and is Stable.

Centre: This shows Status Age - which translates as 'Maturity' of the current status. When the Government Status changes, the Status Age is halved. My current Maturity is 15. This Maturity Age does not affect the Decadence Value of Young or Stable Civilisations - but does impact Glorious, Old and Decadent civilisations.

Top Right: Catugnat is the ruler of this tribal horde (these are generated automatically e.g on death of previous incumbent). But when I click on the symbols to his left and right I see that he's a bad diplomat, such that there is a 20% reduction rate to the acceptance of treaties, and 10 extra possibilities of degrading relationships with other nations. Sounds like a bit of a liability. But it gets worse. He panics when at war and there is a 50%war exhaustion build up speed up and a 15% increase in experience required for level up. He has a leader force penalty of 2. I think I need to get rid of this guy!

For bottom row see below.

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.

[loki100]

... He has a leader force penalty of 2. I think I need to get rid of this guy!

...

good to see you have adopted the correct faction in the British Isles

agree he's the sort of numpty I wouldn't send for the messages - but unfortunately in this game you can't sack him, you have to wait till he dies. The good thing is that at start with the Picts you don't need/can't anyway do much with diplomacy so his worst effects don't really have much impact

[RangerJoe]

Maybe get some more leaders through combat then send him on a suicide mission. Of course, you faction might fall apart from what I read.

[Warspite1]

The Nation Panel (Continued)

Bottom Left: Progress and Decadence Summary which shows the Historical Culture Value (left) and Applied Decadence Value (Right)

I click on this and the panel below appears:

On the left shows the relationship - Culture/Decadence Ratio (CDR) - between Culture (average Culture production for this and last 25 turns) and Decadence (too numerous to mention all the factors that go into this number at present).

In the middle of that bottom left screen is the ranking of the nation compared to others (progress token receipts and withdrawals are affected by positioning).

On the right this confirms that the nation is Civilisation Level 1 and Stable.

Bottom Right: Legacy Points - These are used to determine the winner at the end of the game and show the main components that make this value.

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[Warspite1]

The Regional Panel

Next I want to have a look at the Regions tutorial. As said above, I have two Regions. So what does the tutorial have to say about these? We'll have a look at Caledonia for this.

Top left (and moving left to right) there are six circles - these denote:
- This is the main capital of the Nation
- Terrain - movement cost, terrain defence etc. Essentially Caledonia is Rough, Hills!
- Defensiveness (not used in battle) - the city has a rating of 2.... 25 is average so there is some work to be done here.
- Accumulated Decadence - I have 0.60 in red. I will need to understand more about this.
- Loyalty and Revolt Risk - Apparently I have 0% so that's nice
- Building Slots - 1 (current) of 4 (maximum)

Top Right: is the factors panel that tell us of any factors impacting the region (there appears to be none currently)

Centre Right: This shows the resources used and generated from the province (not sure why he's referred to Province and not Region here). These are largely self explanatory i.e. Food used to feed the population and supply armies, Infrastructure is used for construction, money is mainly used to build and maintain armies, culture is used to counter decadence and impacts progression (culture is multiplied by Loyalty to give a value for the Region - culture is stored Regionally but applied at State level), Manpower is used to build armies, metal used to build and maintain heavy units, Equipment dictates how quickly units can be built from the region

Empire Wide Resources

Manpower Generation
I have a Manpower Generation of 15 for Caledonia and 3 for Picts

Metal
Overall Regional Metal Production = 4. 0 for Picts

Money
Income = 6 (structures 5 and Taxes 1). Picts - 1 (Taxes 1) - this is different to the Income screen at the top which states 17. Maybe Regional commerce = Structures and then there is 10 of Intrinsic Production on top?

Culture
Overall Regional Culture Generation 10. 0 for Picts.

Regional Resources

Food
I have a -1 Production shortfall and a stock of 5 (But Picts has a +4 Surplus and a stockpile of 2). The tutorial says that Food is a Regional resource so presumably this surplus can't be shared with the shortfall Region.

Infrastructure
Production of 12 and Stockpile 0. Picts has Production of 8 and Stockpile 0

Equipment
Production of 5 Stockpile 0 (Region can store up to 8 ). Picts the numbers are 4, 0 and 6.

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[Warspite1]

The Regional Panel (Continued)

Centre Panel: This shows the population information.
Above this is the Population number (generally building slots = population).
The population for Caledonia is 4 (no growth) and 3 for Picts (growth in 15 turns). To the right is ethnicity, which can effect Manpower gains but needless to say that is not an issue at present as the population are 100% highland tribesmen.

The population can be put to work in one of the four rows that match the categories to the right.

There are two classes in the game - Citizens - (on the right, arrive via population growth) and Slaves (on the left, these are bought or captured in battle)

Each population has a productivity rating - Slaves are best working on food or infrastructure, while Citizens work equally well across the four categories.

The Loyalty rating is shown by the bar at the feet of the population.

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[loki100]

few quirks that may help you.

if you only have one population in a region it can't starve. So you can have negative food production with no cost, now you won't grow but you could put that pop pt onto culture (hint this is a good idea)

you won't need too much equipment or metal for a while (at least till you unlock heavy infantry).

building pirate ships early on is a really useful economic development (you'll get a pirate lair in an early set of build options). These take no supply so can go and sit off say Denmark and loot and pillage on a regular basis.

Not in the manual (perils of an early deadline) but taking objectives drops 20% off your govt age, so don't grab them all at once, keep at least 2 of your opening set back for when you a glorious tribe (you'll work out why soon enough )

[RangerJoe]

Not having played the game but other ones, so maybe put another population into food production to grow? Then you could raise an army and try to capture another area. But the idea of building a pirate fleet is a good one, especially if it targets the commerce in the area that you want to capture since this should effect its defenses.

[Warspite1]

Thanks for the comments guys. Although this is not my normal MO, I am going to go through the tutorials first as this is a completely different game to anything I've tried before.

[RangerJoe]

A little different from WITP-AE?

Have you ever played Civilization? That is where I learned to build up the infrastructure before going to war.

[devoncop]

A little different from WITP-AE?

Have you ever played Civilization? That is where I learned to build up the infrastructure before going to war.

I seriously would not use successful tactics in Civ as a guide to Empires.

You will get crippled by decadence if you expand the speed you can do in Civ.

[loki100]

A little different from WITP-AE?

Have you ever played Civilization? That is where I learned to build up the infrastructure before going to war.

as above - really don't play this like you would play Civilisation, its genuinely poor advice

[RangerJoe]

I did not say play it like civilization. I merely stated what you had to do in that game before going to war. Find the key things in this game and get them. If you can go to war and win when your armies are poorly equipped against an army that has excellent equipment, then I applaud you.