One interesting quirk I’ve noticed was using Auxila to defend provinces.
They’re technically skirmishers, I guess?.. But their stats allow to use them as heavy infantry against mediocre armies. What happens when you defend a province is that Urban Militia plays the role of infantry while you Auxila gus stand behind them and on flanks. Militia gets recked and your army is routed even when it looks like it could be a win if only Militia didn’t help.
I’m also not sure how the game decides who wins. This means I’m not sure if I can use those armies with weaker cannon meat. If it’s all about losses then it makes sense to have tankish units that deal very low damage but don’t get any damage at all, and then you make most damage in pursuit.
Also I’m not sure about Cataphracts combat role. They beat basically everything, don’t they? And they stand on flanks, but before skirmishers. Looked funny when my Urban Militia died while Cataphracts on their flanks obliterated everybody. Certainly looks like something that would work better in FoG2 export.
While I like the Trade/Building system in general, and can easily buy into the abstraction it represents, I really don’t like the building selection mechanism. It’s basically randomization masquerading as complexity - i.e., let’s pretend we’re giving the player a choice, when it really isn’t.
The idea is that you’re supposed to decide whether to go for an available building, or take a chance on a better building coming at a latter time. The problem is that so many of the buildings are either useless or only situationally useful, so that you very quickly reach the point where building anything offered to you is a bad idea. So you end up shuffling… and can end up shuffling buildings for a very, very long time, if the RNG is against you.
I think this system would be better if buildings got “removed” from the shuffle list when you use the shuffle, until such a time as you actually build something, meaning there would at least be a known end to the pain. Much the same as with the diplomacy - randomness does not always make for better gameplay.
I agree about diplomacy. And maybe “removing” building options with shuffle would be fine. But what to do when nothing left, start over? That would add to the headache.
But I like building system in general. You have to work to get this wonder or emporium in your country, and it will probably not be in a perfect place. It’s an elegant way to make your power feel authentically limited
Interesting. I only shuffle about a quarter of the choices as a lot of things that aren’t ideal can still be good enough to use to get to the next tier.
I find the big problem is once you get to tier 3 on whatever you’ve specialized your region for. By that time, I’m usually running out of building slots and the maintenance cost of buildings is starting to add up. Building anything which doesn’t significantly advance the region then is just not worthwhile - unfortunately, one also tends to have 10-15 (or worse, if one has a Crafting District) buildings to cycle through in the hopes of getting something useful.
Not sure how much I shuffle, but by that point I’m pretty sure it’s more than 25% - probably closer to half or more. But I think even 25% would be too much by the time one has gotten 100+ regions to deal with.
I agree that that the late-game micro gets tedious, but I think this happens whether or not you shuffle. Also, I do a fair bit if infrastructure investment in any region that’s going to get large so I’m often not that worried about infrastructure upkeep.
To add to the Building Tips I gave above based on my experiences:
Specialize
I.e., build up a province to Tier 3 in one specific resource. Provinces make sharing food and infrastructure between regions and focuses military production in a single region.
You don’t want any military buildings other than walls outside your province capital (with a few exceptions that give province-wide benefits).
Build up one or more open/plain province to generate all the food (go for wells as soon as possible, to eventually create papyrus). It’s still useful to have a farm or similar in other provinces (IMO), but you don’t need more than a couple of food buildings anywhere else.
You want roads everywhere, so need to build 3 infrastructure in every region, but don’t need more than that. Create one or two infrastructure powerhouses in rough regions (warehouses FTW). Leave them idling when you want them to distribute their infrastructure to other provinces. If you want to build emporiums and wonders fast, this is the easiest way to go.
Specialize everything else into either money or culture, depending on how the RNG works. Every place needs to get some culture buildings, though, so that you can get that refined bonus. And the money buildings are often critical to spread those bonuses around, so you can’t ignore either.
Good advice, I do the same. Also commercial ports can be very helpful, one thing I haven’t decided yet is when to start using papyrus, I usually wait until I’m about to start producing it (as it’s typically far away) but until then my cdr stagnates.
Also, what determines how quickly the infrastructure stockpile can be drawn on?
Finally trying to learn this, playing Dacia (I think someone said they are good starter). First stupid question. My objective is “Dacia(Dacia)”. No tool tip, no other info like the help screen shows. Is that saying to form the province Dacia Magna?
It just means you’ll get legacy points for holding that territory in that province. It’s a gimme, since you’ve already got it. Later on, the game will start throwing out objectives that you actually have to go get!
The Commercial Port is awesome, and the main reason why going for the Harbour early is worthwhile. Also an important reason to stay away from the Crafter in the early going at least on coastal provinces - once you’ve got the Crafter, you’ll never see the commercial port (or it’s even more insane upgrade) pop up because of all the crap you need to shuffle through.
Of course, thank you. Seems obvious now, but I didn’t expect it to be an objective I already had.
Quickly lost my first game. Figured I better go after the neighboring Celts early. Intelligence said they had 6 units, I had 6 units, and surely my guys must be much better equipped than the Celts. Nope. Wiped out 4 units in one turn.
Any one have any suggestions for a better starter empire than Dacia?
First of all, it is very unusual that any rival faction will single you out for attack in the early going. Which is kind of like allowing an NFL quarterback all the time he needs to pass. You can concentrate on building up your regions without a lot of worry.
Second, you start with rather decent defensive structures, and you can soon build even better ones. So when you do go to war, no little enemy armies are going to walz through your regions. And that allows you to create a stack or two, which should have good luck against most anything you are likely to face. Just remember to pay attention to unit types, terrain, and frontage. Oh, and generals!
You are not rushed as Dacia, so there is no need to attack the independents with less than a clearly superior army. But even if you do and you get wiped out, this is not a fatal setback.
