Welcome to The Few Good Men

Thanks for visiting our club and having a look around, there is a lot to see. Why not consider becoming a member?

FOG Empires is out

I was really interested in this, because I thought the strategy map would play like a more intelligent version of Total War, and then the FOGII engine would be used for the battles. But as I understand it, you can only use FOGII for the battles if you manually export and import savegames? So it's not seamless..

Any initial impressions?
 
Importing and Exporting is pretty seamless. There is a button in Empires to export and it then starts FOG. There you click on Battles -> Empire Battles and the battle starts as usual. After the battle you get asked if you want to start Empires and there you can click on 'Import battle' and you are back where you started (with the result). Works well enough for two separate games.

Btw I managed to nearly bankrupt the Romans in three years time and could then become dictator as a bonus. Just like in real life :D
Not an easy game but it is nice that you get a 'story' behind the battles you fight.
 
Btw I managed to nearly bankrupt the Romans in three years time and could then become dictator as a bonus. Just like in real life :D

Thankfully in our times, it's very different. First you bankrupt the company or public service, then you get fired as executive director for sheer incompetence, and then you get the bonus.
 
So I've played this one a bit and I can definitely recommend it.

I can also recommend to read the manual... Well, I didn't and took my Gothones to rampage across eastern Europe. You can use the in-game battle system but for the tight one you want FOGII. Let's say I played a LOT of FOG recently. :)
The AI is a bitch and you'll have German tribes pillaging if you look weak. The Lugii declared war on me because I seem to have accidentally conquered some of their beloved regions. Took quite some effort to put them down.
My empire now reaches from the Baltic and is only 2 regions shy of the Black Sea. Unfortunately my 'empire' is more like a horde of uncultured, decadent tribesman facing a slave revolt and civil war. Maybe I should have build some more culture buildings and slave pens? Maybe.
:D
The game goes from 390BC to 190AD. Let's see if I can last through to the end. This is 'my' world as of 271BC:

2019-07-16 12_03_54-FieldOfGloryEmpires.png
 
I just bought this yesterday and started off as the Britonae, it's really engaging and pretty overwhelming at first. I've just read section 3 of the manual so far so really don't have a clue what I'm doing, although I have just taken the Brigantes capital region, but looks like the Picts are now amassing on my borders.

I love the FOG II compatibility, it really adds context to the battles and at the moment I intend to play every battle that's possible with FOG II (can't do sieges or naval battles).

I've figured out how infrastructure affects building structures for your regions, but no idea how to get up the CDR table, something to do with culture I think and completing objectives.
 
There is a lot to learn with this one. I have the manual open on my laptop next to my gaming PC as I play. It was very busy starting out as Rome on the "balanced" level. I restarted that game three times as I learned lessons the hard way. Then I loaded the Grand Campaign and selected the Briton tribe (I forget the spelling etc.) This was a much slower pace as compared to Rome. It let me explore the building options and generally go at a slower pace while I learned the mechanics. I now have control of almost the entire island and will eventually launch an invasion of Normandy (or whatever it is called in the game). I am having a lot of fun with this and looking forward to the next turn like when I played Civ4 back in the day.

Importing tactical battles between Empires and FOG2 is very simple and has worked several times with no problem. I like the Empires in game battle resolution also.

There is a lot to think about before crossing into and attacking an enemy held region. Not only the amount of units you have but the type of units is very important. I had some veteran / experienced heavy units that did very well in open terrain. I took them into a mountain region and lost several of them in the resulting battle. Then had to go through the time and expense of replacing them and then getting the replacements back up to the same experience level as the lost units.

Having a general makes a difference. After learning the hard way I always check to make sure my army stack has a general. They sometimes die in battle or just of old age and once I didn't notice. I found my units at a disadvantage as a result.

A combined arms force is necessary to do well in both an exported battle and a battle resolved within Empires.

The route you take to enter the enemy region is also important. If you cross a river or not (etc.) to get into the region some of your units will start the battle as tired or exhausted.

Then there is supply for the army .............................. lots of stuff, still learning.
 
The route you take to enter the enemy region is also important. If you cross a river or not (etc.) to get into the region some of your units will start the battle as tired or exhausted.

I love this kind of small details. Exactly the stuff that CA forgot with their Total War series. Hopefully having your units tired or exhausted actually makes a difference in the battle?
 
The game goes from 390BC to 190AD. Let's see if I can last through to the end. This is 'my' world as of 271BC:

Seems you're the Saxons. Who's in possession of Denmark when the game starts? The Jutes? Vandals? Anglii?
 
Seems you're the Saxons. Who's in possession of Denmark when the game starts? The Jutes? Vandals? Anglii?
I think only German independents. But this may be random. For instance in my game the Saxons only appeared after 30 years or so.

I've figured out how infrastructure affects building structures for your regions, but no idea how to get up the CDR table, something to do with culture I think and completing objectives.
CDR is only culture. Objectives give you legacy.
 
I love this kind of small details. Exactly the stuff that CA forgot with their Total War series. Hopefully having your units tired or exhausted actually makes a difference in the battle?

Yes it does in the Empires "in game" battle. I think it also translates to an exported battle but not sure of the details. In the in game battle there are three phases - skirmish, main battle and pursuit (I may not be using the exact same names that the game uses for the phases). During the skirmish phase the missile troops (if you have any) fire. This results in some enemy units showing as tired, exhausted etc. Then when it moves to the main battle you may have an exhausted veteran (who was hit by missiles) against a fresh regular (who was not hit). This makes a difference.

So if you arrived on the field with some of your units already tired / exhausted they will be further degraded during the skirmish phase (if the OpFor has skirmisher/missile units).

It is very easy to draw the arrow on the map that will send your army stack into an enemy controlled region. Understanding all the details / nuances of making the move into the region can be much more complicated.
 
Looks very good and so far the reviews are positive. I'm beginning to feel like I should get back into the FOG games. Got that itch.
 
Back
Top