Campaign features you'd like to see in FoG:Empires

[Yarev]

I understand that game is in beta so implementing new features now is not possible but maybe as a DLC?

My favourite features:

1. Fog of war
2. Seasons
3. Supply system for armies
4. Playable sieges (FoG2)
5. Playable naval battles (Mare Nostrum)
6. Scouts or spies (without any bullshit/fantasy abbilities, only for scouting and spotting)
7. Different battle types (ambushes,joining reinforcments, prepared defense...)
8. Family tree

And for Field of Glory: Empires 2

9. More deatiled and bigger map that allow armies to choose different paths in a region rather than "jumping" from region to region
10. A better graphics for top end PC wouldn't hurt

[sIg3b]

My wishes are much less ambitious:

1. Free choice of starting date for maximum variability.
2. Free choice of game length, so I can always choose to play a 10- or 30-year scenario, since I am afraid this is otherwise going down the path of unplayable monster game.

[Lebo44]

Faction diversification @ max for higher replayability - f.e I don't want to see pontus, macedonia, pergamon, selecuids etc to be virtually same faction, just with different colour and flag

[FrenchDude]

My wishes are much less ambitious:

1. Free choice of starting date for maximum variability.
2. Free choice of game length, so I can always choose to play a 10- or 30-year scenario, since I am afraid this is otherwise going down the path of unplayable monster game.

Having some scenarios focusing on some historical events (Punic Wars, Roman-Pontic wars, etc...) coule be very nice indeed

[Nijis]

Fabian and guerrilla defensive strategies. Remote underpopulated tribal areas (ancient Cantabria, medieval Wales) can often be steamrollered in strategic games by large empires, whereas in fact they could often resist much better than richer, more centralized states.

[Dux Limitis]

Four turns per a year with seasons.

[ronehjr]

Four turns per a year with seasons.

I second this.

[kvnrthr]

I hope that province control is not decided by one automatic pitched battle.

Politics, sieges, supply, foraging, etc should appear somewhere, of course not as an overly complex system, but I'd like to see them.

I believe armies only fought when both sides were confident in victory, or some urgent circumstance (mercenaries lacking pay, political incentives, lacking supply, breaking a siege etc) required a battle now, even at unfavorable odds. The latter would make the situation more interesting, as otherwise an inferior army would never try to fight.

Fortunately, AGEOD has implemented many of these before in Alea Jacta Est, so I hope they bring over some ideas from that and even improve on them.

[Lysimaque]

All the things from previous Ageod system+ Diplomacy+Political system

[Gargoyl]

I'd like to see the unintended consequences of improving trade networks such as spread of plagues and spread of religions.

I'm interested in how armies maneuver before battle for advantage and how this will be done before moving to the tactical battles of FoG II--perhaps initiated through some hidden choices each side makes, such as a virtual hand of cards on terrain, reconnaissance, local recruitment of troops, spies, defections, weather, religious auguries, etc. Each side secretly chooses, for example, two cards out of five (or perhaps the number of cards given to each side can vary depending on quality of general and if fighting on familiar land, etc.). The two sides' chosen cards then determine the set up for the tactical battle in terms of terrain, weather, advantageous positioning, surprise defections, additions of troops, pre-battle intelligence on the type and even position of enemy troops, morale, etc.

[Mord]

Some light character interactions. Family trees. Something to immerse the player besides numbers and charts. I'd be happy with a system like Medieval II had, but not too deep but not too shallow.

Mord.

[GBISSET]

Id like to see the same feature I would like in all strat wargames, which is an option to play out each tactical battles in other tactical systems including minis. The strat game would then just ask you how that came out, in terms of casualties and any other critical detail it likes. Any game system that does that is going to be very valuable to miniature players (a larger hobby than pc wargamers) and boost your sales. Of course Ill choose Fog II alot of the times, but best to have options.

[no one]

English is not my native language so i apologize in advance if it is difficult to understand me.

"Campaign features you'd like to see in FoG:Empires":

-The most important feature would be to have Field of Glory II inside Empires. The export idea is nice but i don't know how fast it is and i will need to export every time i have an important battle. The devs could charge a little more for this and FOG Empires would be a sucess anyway ( i will talk more about this later ). The players that already purchase the add ons in FOG II would have them inside FOGE.

-With FOGII inside FOGE i would also like to see all factions playable and more variety in units between nations. This could come as DLC no problem, and the advantage in having both FOGs working together inside the same game it could be make a lot easier to create new units, change stats and just update one game.

-Continuing talking about the battle system i would like to see naval battles and siege battles. Some player mentioned Mare Nostrvm. I never played that game but i saw a video on youtube and yes i like what i saw. Give the player naval and siege battles to give full immersion to the player in the campaign.

-About seasons. I saw some players mentioned in the foruns that would like to see 4ty to simulate seasons and the devs said because of the scope in time it needs to 1ty or 2ty. Both sides are right. I am RTW2+DEI+SUBMODS player and i know how important is to have seasons simulated in the campaign to bring more immersion and depth to the game. So this is my suggestion: Make 1ty but with seasons. As an example 300BC would be spring; 301BC summer; etc; etc;.... And each season would bring different effects to the population and to the armies in enemy territory.

-About the WEGO system and the point to point movement. From my understanding this helps the AI a lot in making the right decision and this is of course great for the player experience. As a bonus in comparison with TW games also makes the turns to go a lot quicker. But there is an important element i would like to see in this system. A sequential move order to capture a region.

An army invades a region: 1 - There is an army there. 1.1 The army strenght is below 50% in comparison to the invading army? 1.2 If yes, will retreat to the city and join the garrison. 1.3 If no a battle will start.
2 - There is no army there, then the invading army starts raiding the region ( lower army upkeep to the invading army; penalties to the population in that region )
Next turn
3.1 - An army comes to the province to attack the invading army. A battle will start. 3.2 - No army comes. The invading army can a) siege the settlement if have wall; if the settlement doens't have walls then the invading army can start a battle to capture the city or b) the invading army can continue to raiding.
Next turn
4.1 - The invading army laying siege can start the battle to capture the city or wait another turn to force the city to surrender without a battle. 4.2 - The invading army can continue to raid to deplete the region resources. 4.3 The army defending the city can attack the invading army. ( if there is no army just the garrison , this option is not available )

This system as just a quick example what could be done in the current game to make regions more harder to conquer or just to raid a region. Because it will take 2,3 or 4 turns to conquer a region/city , this mechanic is useful to give enough time for the faction being attacked to prepare move against the invading army. Also because in some situations it could take 3 or 4 turns to conquer the region this means that the invading army would suffer from attrition in the winter or in the summer if the operation is happening in a desert region or maybe because it lacks supplies.

-About spies. i forgot now if where the Devs from FOGE or the devs from Imperator Rome that mentioned they never saw a good mechanic using spies in strategy games and because of that they weren't going to use them. I agree. I also never saw a good espionage mechanic in strategy games, so i suggest this simple mechanic. If an army invades your country you will know the exact strenght/units that army invades. Same will happen if a navy came close to your regions. But if an enemy army is not in your territory or a enemy navy is not close to your waters you will get only partial info about them.

-About family tech tree, politics, etc. I would like to see to 2 consul in rome , 2 kings in Sparta, a fight for political power in democracies or a struggle to keep the generals loyal, etc, etc... But i understand this is maybe just asking too much. Maybe one day who knows.

-About satrapies. I watched the stream and i noticed there wasn't any satrapy in the Seleucid Empire. I really hope that satrapies will exist and that we will have the option to force a nation to surrender and become our client state.



Talking about FOGE sucess. We have an interesting situation where we have 2 companies creating 2 similar games at the same time. But the funny thing it doens't matter how much money and time paradox spends in developing Imperator Rome , and i agree that they also have interesting features in their game in the end they will never have a great combat system like we have in FOGII. So i can't understand from a marketing point of view when you already have the right tool ready to make your game the best game in the market and decides not to use the full potencial but instead give us an export option. Also i want to mention that in the last weeks i saw many videos on the youtube from devs talking about the coming Imperator Rome and the features in the game, and from FOGE i need to come to the foruns to read something about the game. Is good to read the developers news about the coming game but it would be much better if it would be possible to make more videos on youtube explaining those features and playing the game at the same time.

[loki100]

a lot you've asked is in the dev diaries , so some quick answers:

a) the linkage to/from FoG2 is as near automatic as it can be, you decide to fight a battle with FoG2, it opens, you finish the battle, it closes and returns you to Empires.

b) seasons work as you suggest, every 4th year has worse weather but some areas (mountains etc can have bad weather at any time)

c) the Seleucids do have the Satrap system. In fact all the different Diadochi have some very unique game play features

[no one]

a lot you've asked is in the dev diaries , so some quick answers:

a) the linkage to/from FoG2 is as near automatic as it can be, you decide to fight a battle with FoG2, it opens, you finish the battle, it closes and returns you to Empires.

b) seasons work as you suggest, every 4th year has worse weather but some areas (mountains etc can have bad weather at any time)

c) the Seleucids do have the Satrap system. In fact all the different Diadochi have some very unique game play features

a) if that is the case good. However how about naval battles?

b) I have read all the dev diaries and i don't remember anything about seasons but if that is the case good.

c) Ok but when i watch the stream i didn't saw any satrapy. If they exist and i can force a faction to become one that is great.

[JamesHenderson]

Am I only thinking that FoG:Empires is a just a fast made copy of Imperator Rome?

[anguille]

Am I only thinking that FoG:Empires is a just a fast made copy of Imperator Rome?

Yep...

[devoncop]

Am I only thinking that FoG:Empires is a just a fast made copy of Imperator Rome?

No....the combat mechanics are infinitely better than Imperator Rome imo and the mid to late game should be MUCH more of a challenge than Imperator given the decadence and culture mechanics.

[MojoAmok]

Am I only thinking that FoG:Empires is a just a fast made copy of Imperator Rome?

That's well off the mark. Imperator Rome isn't even out yet as something to 'copy' and development on FOG:E would have started long ago - in the release stream, they said they'd been working on the new engine for something like three years, IIRC (it might be a Slitherine engine that we'll see more of in the future if I understood them correctly). And the assumption that releasing FOG:E at about the same time as Imperator is a great business move is quite spurious as well.

But fundamentally, I see very few game mechanics or points of focus that are shared between FOG:E and Imperator. It's a completely different game that just shares the same setting. Each game is probably more in-depth in certain areas and more streamlined in others, but there are some really unique features here that are period defining that I don't recall seeing in another grand strategy game (ie. decadence and culture). This is actually a quite innovative title (especially considering the FOG 2 integration, which is what I have wanted since forever).

Imperator looks good and I'll get it eventually, but the design decisions on this one are much more in-line with my druthers. In particular, I just don't want the level of abstraction in the warfare that Imperator is going with and a lot of the focus points there are at the margins of my interests (like, babysitting a large number of characters).

[SirGarnet]

Imperator Rome is not going to be a wargame, while this is down to the ground with its proven combat engine.

I would like to be able to scrape together garrisons from locals, captives, etc. and a small cadre of reliables and take a risk in order to keep more for the field army.