| Title | 6th best game of 2019: Field of Glory: Empires |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Game reviews |
| When | January 21, 2020 |
As soon as you boot up Field of Glory: Empires, you can tell what you're getting. Just look at that patchwork map with those little armies standing around. Look at all those numbers and tooltips and region labels..
I am so pleased to see this on your list, and hope you’re able to make good on that Tomsplaining live stream threat sometime in the not-too-distant future.
I don’t understand a bit of that but it does sound pretty cool. I’d like to see a playthrough myself because I have a feeling that, like most nation-building strategery games I’ve dabbled in, ill jut get stomped flat while I’m poking around figuring out whether to invest in pointy sticks.
Great review! Very interested now.
Yeah, wishlisted just for that borderline pornographic description of the logistics system.
I enjoyed the game too, but for me it had a major negative that’s not mentioned in the review: the victory condition makes finishing a game with a minor power start quite the chore. I would typically play to the point where my team had the highest score and was pulling away from second place while maintaining a good decadence rating. I would tell myself that the game was one and I was just saving myself a couple of hours of tedium but it still made me feel bad not to be able to see the victory screen.
OK @tomchick, now I wish I pulled the trigger when I had it in my shopping cart during the last sale. The resource management sounds awesome. The city building choices too.
Did I read it right in that you prefer sticking with the automated battles and not exporting out to Fields of Glory 2?
This is one of those reviews that reinforces my policy to find reviewers who have consistent views and can express them eloquently, not ones you always agree with. I love Tom’s reviews but I can see right out of the gate this ain’t gonna be my cup of tea.
Great review Tom, and I concur completely. Best Strategy Viddya/PC Game I played in the last year, to my tastes.
BTW, I am pretty sure you can export battles for later and not fight them in-game.
This guy is pretty decent here - Link.
Though I am sure Tom has some pretty good playthroughs too that I haven’t seen. He played it once…maybe back in Spring? Forget.
Edit: Summer.
Glad I’m not the only one who thinks that’s hawt!
I also feel the same about major nations. 500 turns is a lot, and I’ve generally decided I’ve won before the game has made it official. Or I’ve just played it as a sandbox to see how well I can do in relation to the other nations. It’s like being able to end a game of Civilization at any time and see where you stand on the Quayle to Caesar leaderboard. But instead of “hmm, I did better than Neville Chamberlain but not quite as good as Louis XIV,” it’s “hmm, I did better than Dalmatia, not quite as good as Epirus.”
I love the combat in Empires, so I haven’t exported the battles to Fields of Glory II except as a lark.
This review, even more than many of my other reviews, is definitely NOT a blanket recommendation! :)
Do you know off-hand how to do this? I might have to Google it to look into it, because it seems like you have such limited control over the transition between games.
Uh, maybe don’t pay too close attention to that? It took me a while to really wrap my head around this game, and I doubt a playthrough from that long ago was very well informed.
Gets me every time! Thanks for the corrections, Shuma!
-Tom
Well, OK then, on the wish list awaiting a sale this one goes.
Click Export. When it asks you to overwrite, say yes. Then, when it asks you to exit the game and open FOG II, say no.
Then it will either:
1.) stay in the Battle turn and you can just play.
2.) It might take you to the main menu. No worries. There will have been a save created called “Pre-Battle Turn for Blah-Blah” that you can load that will take you right back to where you left off.
Your Battle will be under “Empires Battles” at the main menu of FOG II.
I don’t frequently care about the same things as Tom, but it’s these kinds of personal analysis that make his reviews worthwhile. In this case, it happens that I also agree that this review might’ve been the most interesting thing I’ve read about the game, and I’ll now have to take a second look at it (starting with Tortuga’s playthrough, or some other).
Well that was kind of like watching someone read stereo instructions. I don’t doubt the guy knows his stuff and the game sounds interesting enough, but I didn’t really get much out of that. Guess I should check the other link.
I’ll fire this up again to look at the building side of this more. When I was playing it though I had the opposite impression that it was more a wargame about all battles all the time rather than a logistics game.
On sale at Fanatical for 30% off right now.
That’s a nice game and a great write-up. I haven’t played it that much, just a single big campaign and couple attempts on smaller ones. But I’m very glad that we have some games apart from larger-than-life attempts from Paradox and Creative Assembly.
Cause this game is simpler than any Total War or Paradox game. It won’t give you an intricate simulation. And that’s fine. Besides it has its own complexities like building system. If you compare it to Imperator Rome it’s like comparing, say, Into the Breach to XCOM. Those are broadly similar game but Into the Breach is a game on a chessboard where every single number matters. Similarly, every 10% bonus in FoGE matters while in Imperator all those bonuses converge into a mess where everything compensates everything else. A good game.
Also
You can play Empires as a Paradox style blobber — paint the map your color! — but it comes with a built-in risk based on your CDR.
I think now Tom thinks there’s nothing left of Victoria 2 in Paradox games, it’s all Stellaris and Hearts of Iron 4. Imperator: Rome actually has a somewhat similar trading system and it’s more involving, no less. You manually create trade routes sending trade goods to other provinces, and they allow to build units or apply province-wide or even empire-wide bonuses. But of course the economy is nowhere close to FoGE complexity. And the game makes it all uncontrollable by making world consist of tens of thousand provinces. E.g. Sicily has 30 provinces in I:R, each with its own populace and trade good and economic stats. FoG:E has 4 or 5.
Excellent and highly fair review of a very good game.
Ave! So glad to see this game recognized, and I couldn’t agree more. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s by far one of the most interesting and involved grand strategy games released in recent years.
