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field of glory EMPIRES

gogis

Scholar
Joined
Jun 9, 2018
Messages
100
The inability of subduing enemy nations without conquering them all coupled with the decadence mechanic is an almost crippling flaw, the population assignment automator is busted, the military mechanics could be better integrated with FoG2 and the building system is terribly gamey, but I can't put this shit down. I must have played more than 30 hours over 4 days.

So is Empire's Decadence system more or less the same gimmick as Imperator's Mana system? Both seem like flaw fulcrum points.

Not really. Playing as Sparta I amassed ridiculous amount of -decadance buildings and other cultural buildings so I can now conquer whole North Africa without even noticing. You can't rape mana system that hard in Paradox titles.

Basically put - if your core is not ready for mass murderage and slaves galore - sit tight and don't conquer. In Paradox games your only choice is to wait.
 

Inspectah

Savant
Joined
Jun 29, 2015
Messages
468
The game is prety cool when it comes to painting-stalling (building up). I'm so used to the whole jumping from Target to target that when I have to sit still, I get fidgetty
 

Hoggypare

Savant
Joined
Aug 13, 2015
Messages
126
It's not a conclusion, it was a question. The Mana and Decadence systems are mechanics within these two similar games that are both controversial. Fans of these games seem to either love them or hate in equal measure. Seeing as how they're both polarizing features, I wanted to know more about them, which is why I asked the question.

And thanks for helping to inform me about said question. It sounds to me like the Decadence system is more in line with something like the Stability rating in Europa Universalis.

Ah, sorry. I might have appeared a bit impudent here. Honestly this mechanic is one of the best I have seen in strategy games to fix their pacing (usual early expansion struggle, mid-game challenge and late game boring domination). Stability is a decent analogy, but still not quite - since You have barely any way of affecting stability, it's growth and declne. Even in older good PDX games it was still a waiting game depending on how much money you invested in raising its level. Here it is extremely dynamic. You can always destroy buildings that affect its growth. You have decisions to reform the country to lower decadence. You can focus on just conquering the objectives and getting those regions don't raise Your negative nation size modifier. You can produce more culture to counteract its growth or invest in buildings that lower it. Also decadence grows on province by province basis, and the more You make in one, the faster it diminishes in time - so having one Babylon Orgypolis to make use of those powerful buildings and the Prude Countryside is actually a very viable strategy.

The only thing that You can't affect all that much, that affects decadence, is your government age, and even that You can try to fix a little with some decisions and some countries get special rules (Macedonia, Ptolemies and Antigonids grow old twice as fast unless as Macedonia You conquer a province a turn, and as Ptolemies Your Navy is at least half the size of Your land forces, then You don't age at all, and as Antigonids Your aging is related to how many wars You have - the more the better).

I am giving all those examples to show that this system is actually not controversial at all, nothing like mana, it is well thought out, deep and interactive.
THE ONLY flaw with it is that it does not play well with extremely simplistic diplomacy. It is a grand flaw, as playing Carthage the way it is meant to be played is nigh impossible, but they said they will be tweaking diplomacy in the first patch.


The biggest negative I see is the "you take it you own it" system, rather than the, actually great, implementation of occupation vs. ownership and peace negotiations, since it means that you can't defeat an enemy (as they usually take forever to agree to a cease fire) without taking his lands, which then leads to runaway decadence.

On one hand I agree, on the other, this system is more suited for modern times. While I agree we should have more tools for that in FoG:E, let's imagine in antique times, a monarch conquers a province and then says to his court "Actually... I didn't even want it, so we're getting out of here". There should be a way of abandoning provinces, or 'not conquering them' but it should come with disadvantages. The best thing I can think of would be a choice to pacify it and bring under your administration, or not, which would be faster but not extend supply to Your army all that well. Just so those punitive expeditions were possible
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
The biggest negative I see is the "you take it you own it" system, rather than the, actually great, implementation of occupation vs. ownership and peace negotiations, since it means that you can't defeat an enemy (as they usually take forever to agree to a cease fire) without taking his lands, which then leads to runaway decadence.

On one hand I agree, on the other, this system is more suited for modern times. While I agree we should have more tools for that in FoG:E, let's imagine in antique times, a monarch conquers a province and then says to his court "Actually... I didn't even want it, so we're getting out of here". There should be a way of abandoning provinces, or 'not conquering them' but it should come with disadvantages. The best thing I can think of would be a choice to pacify it and bring under your administration, or not, which would be faster but not extend supply to Your army all that well. Just so those punitive expeditions were possible
Eh, civilized countries opted to create client states and similar rather than outright annex fairly often, and treaties where captured territories were returned in exchange for peace (or vice versa) or other concessions weren't so rare either. And even tribals often opted not to take territory, and instead just plunder. While borders were more fluid than in the early modern age, it wasn't as simple as grabbing and keeping stuff. Consider, for example, the second Punic war – Rome went and trashed Carthage even in Africa itself, but opted not to take those territories, instead creating a client state to the west and imposing war indemnities on Carthage.
 

Hoggypare

Savant
Joined
Aug 13, 2015
Messages
126
Eh, civilized countries opted to create client states and similar rather than outright annex fairly often, and treaties where captured territories were returned in exchange for peace (or vice versa) or other concessions weren't so rare either. And even tribals often opted not to take territory, and instead just plunder. While borders were more fluid than in the early modern age, it wasn't as simple as grabbing and keeping stuff. Consider, for example, the second Punic war – Rome went and trashed Carthage even in Africa itself, but opted not to take those territories, instead creating a client state to the west and imposing war indemnities on Carthage.

Client states are a completely different thing, and I agree they should be implemented. For the purpose of what I was talking about it is the same really, just a different distribution of power. The conqueror still keeps (at least some) control over that territory
But we discussed PDX system of cores, wargoals etc. I doubt before the second Punic war Romans planned getting some territories in Spain, but they got there and did. Most of the ancient conquests were just going on with the flow. There were barely any reasons for Romans to get involved in Germania or Dacia, but they went in there and when they were already in, they tried to establish some administration. Not to mention some generals conquered territories without any approval of the central government. What I mean, it is a complex time period and despite the current faulty system, the PDX system would not solve the problems and would be just as artificial. The devs specifically mention that they tried to depict the time period, and not some kind of idealized totalitarian central planned economy, where You have absolute control over every part of the state

And by the way border raiding is already implemented, as for hordes, not so much, but in this timeframe they were not common (basically just Teutones and Cimbri) - and this would be solved with the same mechanic I proposed that would allow for punitive expeditions.
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
Honestly I love the battle system. So glad they had a but FOG2 discount. Its an interesting change of pace from total war and I see far more clearly now why people trash "arcade battles". Its also interesting to play without archers as Rome early on and handle the skirmish phase. Its very clear now why Paradox ran a skirmish phase and focused on light troops so much. At first I was having a lot of trouble cause I was used to Total War. Lol roll cavalry and then win. Medium cavalry and medium infantry are shit though. So its not totally free from issues.

Medium infantry are literally just crappier heavy infantry. Like you don't get impact buffs like heavies, you don't get the safety of light skirmishers, basically all you get is a mediocre terrain penalty buff but you still get hit with penalties vs light infantry having none so its not worth it. Better to just have light. Similarly while light skirmish cavalry is awesome, basically just mobile version of normal skirmish, medium cav is trash. Your charge is not super impactful, especially with everyone having spears of some kind, there's not a very big back or flank buff for charges, and a good charge is a pain to set up in the first place with the rotation mechanics. I haven't been playing Rome so no amazing heavy cav yet, if you ever get them. No idea if that is better. But enemy "armored cavalry" have the same issues as my medium guys. Also while medium cavalry do have the advantage of not having a cost modifier, medium infantry, at least my italian foot province level guys still get hit with the cost penalty. Why not just grab alae at that point? I guess maybe you could use medium troops and cavalry as garrison forces that never actually fight but just dissuade all the annoying low tier nations that war dec you for no reason but to waste your time from actually attacking your provinces? The AI seems to rate them as more "powerful" even though light versions are pretty much always better.
 

HeroMarine

Irenaeus
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 3, 2019
Messages
16,306
Location
Rio de Janeiro, 1936
let's imagine in antique times, a monarch conquers a province and then says to his court "Actually... I didn't even want it, so we're getting out of here".

It's called raiding, sacking, looting, plundering, pillaging, and even razing when ancients were really pissed.

The Roman Republic/Empire did it hundreds of times.
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
let's imagine in antique times, a monarch conquers a province and then says to his court "Actually... I didn't even want it, so we're getting out of here".

It's called raiding, sacking, looting, plundering, pillaging, and even razing when ancients were really pissed.

The Roman Republic/Empire did it hundreds of times.
Carthago delenda est.
 

HeroMarine

Irenaeus
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 3, 2019
Messages
16,306
Location
Rio de Janeiro, 1936
let's imagine in antique times, a monarch conquers a province and then says to his court "Actually... I didn't even want it, so we're getting out of here".

It's called raiding, sacking, looting, plundering, pillaging, and even razing when ancients were really pissed.

The Roman Republic/Empire did it hundreds of times.
Carthago delenda est.

Yeah, I was gonna edit it in "razing to the ground and salting the earth".
 

Hoggypare

Savant
Joined
Aug 13, 2015
Messages
126
let's imagine in antique times, a monarch conquers a province and then says to his court "Actually... I didn't even want it, so we're getting out of here".

It's called raiding, sacking, looting, plundering, pillaging, and even razing when ancients were really pissed.

The Roman Republic/Empire did it hundreds of times.

Ah, Yes!? Feel free to name me some examples of those 'hundreds' when Romans, or anyone else civilized, did raiding on strategic scale. When a Consular army would be dispatched to a region to just loot and plunder.
I don't know of many such instances, but I know of many when they kept what they conquered.
Adding to examples I named earlier, even when Romans razed Carthage, they kept Africa Proconsularis to themselves, neither did Lucius Mummius after sacking Corinth say, "a'rite, we're done here lads" - Greece was annexed and introduced under Roman administration. From other examples, when Seleucus' Argyraspides were rampaging through Sogdian killing and pillaging the dissident tribes, it was still introduced to Alexander's Empire. So did Gedrosia and Arachosia, which is basically a fucking desert. The only time when they didn't conquer something was when they could keep control by different means (usually client or allied states - and those options, as I said previously, are lacking in FoG:E), or when they were unable to hold it.
But go on, I am always willing to learn something new

Also border raiding and pillaging is in the game
 

Inspectah

Savant
Joined
Jun 29, 2015
Messages
468
My lads, how do you use cavalry? They seem to always get fucked by the auto-resolve. Gets kinda tiring playing all their battles on FoG2
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
My lads, how do you use cavalry? They seem to always get fucked by the auto-resolve. Gets kinda tiring playing all their battles on FoG2
I don't use cavalry, except skirmishers. They just seem really weak to me, although maybe if I wasn't playing Rome and had more access to large plains they would be better.
 

HeroMarine

Irenaeus
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 3, 2019
Messages
16,306
Location
Rio de Janeiro, 1936
let's imagine in antique times, a monarch conquers a province and then says to his court "Actually... I didn't even want it, so we're getting out of here".

It's called raiding, sacking, looting, plundering, pillaging, and even razing when ancients were really pissed.

The Roman Republic/Empire did it hundreds of times.

Ah, Yes!? Feel free to name me some examples of those 'hundreds' when Romans did raiding on strategic scale.

An example of strategic scale raiding? How about the pincer campaign of Tiberius in Germania starting in 6 BC?

754px-Germania_Enobarbo_e_Tiberio.jpg


Now please stop being fussy about it. Let's just talk about the game.
 

Hoggypare

Savant
Joined
Aug 13, 2015
Messages
126
My lads, how do you use cavalry? They seem to always get fucked by the auto-resolve. Gets kinda tiring playing all their battles on FoG2
I guess it depends what You want from it. It gets this skirmishing bonus, so it doesn't suffer so much on lost rolls, but one-on-one it is worse than infantry equivalent. However there are many regional variants that are great, especially in their preferred regions. It also gets pursuit bonus. I myself mix in some cavalry in my armies, but would not rely on them. I might try some steppe nation campaign for that though.

An example of strategic scale raiding? How about the pincer campaign of Tiberius in Germania starting in 6 BC?
Now please stop being fussy about it. Let's just talk about the game.
Yes, I also know than one is not hundreds, and Romans still tried to conquer Germania, they just failed, so it is not even a valid argument.
And it is You trying to school me what 'raiding' is... please...

I am talking about the game all the time, and how it depicts antiquity as a historical period. Lack of large scale raiding is not its problem, the fixes are needed in other fields, especially diplomacy, peace resolutions and ability to form as client states.
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
The routing system kinda annoys me. Like in the thick of the fight the battle just ends. If this idiot hadn't suicided on me to make the other side cross the 40% threshold on the last action before my turn, since the win condition only happens at the start of your turn, I woulda wiped out 88%, not 44% of his army.
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
So I wish I had looked into what regions provided what units earlier cause I woulda rushed Corsica so hard. Massive skirmisher buff having a 2 range unit wow. Of course the military isn't typically the issue compared to decadence.
 

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
In the FoG II engine for this time period and outside of catraphacts (and in a pinch if the enemy infantry is low quality or already been softened up, lancers) cavalry is for protecting your flanks, running down over-confident skirmishers and flanking maneuvers. Roman cavalry until the Late Empire was also very mediocre
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,661
Is it all buildings that add to decadence or simply the ones that state a modifier?
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
So I dealt with decadence simply by building decadence lowering buildings everywhere and ignoring the ones raising it. Big mistake. After you get to empire tier, decadence stops mattering so much and instead you'll see loyalty becoming the most important statistic, since it can very easily lead to civil war (and it happens all the damn time when you're an empire with low loyalty), with civil wars being far tougher than the majority of regular wars. Slaves are a trojan horse, in provinces with high population you want to get rid of them while you can - they add a LOT of unrest, and you won't be able to quell it with buildings and culture alone. All the powerful loyalty boosting buildings give decadence, and I wish I had built them.

Really loving these mechanics, btw.
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
So I dealt with decadence simply by building decadence lowering buildings everywhere and ignoring the ones raising it. Big mistake. After you get to empire tier, decadence stops mattering so much and instead you'll see loyalty becoming the most important statistic, since it can very easily lead to civil war (and it happens all the damn time when you're an empire with low loyalty), with civil wars being far tougher than the majority of regular wars. Slaves are a trojan horse, in provinces with high population you want to get rid of them while you can - they add a LOT of unrest, and you won't be able to quell it with buildings and culture alone. All the powerful loyalty boosting buildings give decadence, and I wish I had built them.

Really loving these mechanics, btw.
Its basically a management game like a tycoon game or something. You have to manage different penalties and balance them against each other. A bad ruler can screw you but other than that its mostly about your choices. As Rome I'm on turn 69, lol, and I have spent like 10 turns with all my pops in production and sometimes food. The province mechanic is a bit of a pain because its hard to fine tune the pop growth vs building production trade off since the game sort of averages out production so moving a few pops in one region can set you back the .5% production to make the turn count round up. I'm in a golden age so I have to rush conquest to make the most of the decadence modifiers. I think I went golden a little too early so I would be able to conquer more than 4-5 provinces before my 12 turns run out. I'm well in the lead on legacy though, mostly cause other nations are shitting themselves.
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
So I'm not really sure what this means but the games says I was declared the winner? I thought the grand campaign was 500 years/turns not 70. Ah well, not like they force me to quit. Probably for the best in case the massive issue with Latium having 17 loyalty I just noticed bites me in the ass. Damn slaves.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
So I'm not really sure what this means but the games says I was declared the winner? I thought the grand campaign was 500 years/turns not 70. Ah well, not like they force me to quit. Probably for the best in case the massive issue with Latium having 17 loyalty I just noticed bites me in the ass. Damn slaves.
I think I read somewhere that if you get too far ahead in legacy points compared to others, you will win early
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,485
So I'm not really sure what this means but the games says I was declared the winner? I thought the grand campaign was 500 years/turns not 70. Ah well, not like they force me to quit. Probably for the best in case the massive issue with Latium having 17 loyalty I just noticed bites me in the ass. Damn slaves.
I think I read somewhere that if you get too far ahead in legacy points compared to others, you will win early
Okay well looking at the legacy screen that totally happened.

Nasamones really hit Egypt and Carthage hard. Both Ethiopia and Blemmyes are powerful south of Egypt as well Judea stretches across Syria from the Egyptian controlled Sinai to Anatolia. Carthage and its allies/vassals mostly lost to Mauretania in the west.

Boii having been pushed back by me in a reverse Great Migration is fighting Macedonia in Illyria while Byzantion and Galatia role over Thrace and Danubia. The Antigonids control 80% of Anatolia but that's pretty much it.

The Seleucids stretch from Atropatene down to the middle of Arabia to Characenia and they control the coast of the Persian Gulf but Maurya and Parthia have the map from the eastern edge into Media and Persis and north To Choramis and Sogdiana.

I guess no one really exists who could fight me, aside from Celtic and Germanic slaves who vastly outnumber Italians in Rome. I didn't build slave markets to avoid decadence so while most of Italy is 80% Italic Rome is only 35%. Venice amusingly is mostly Balkanic cause of Boii's weird progression. Venetia and Carnia are roughly 75% Balkanic and mostly Celtic otherwise.


Edit: Got a passive aggressive update saying I already won but I can keep playing if I want.
 

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