2861

Sweeeeeeeeet, I’ll wait for that then before diving in! Thanks!

2862

Loving Order of Battle.
On the second scenario of the Sino-Japanese war campaign, I sent my entire army group south leaving my “home” city unprotected. I’m making great progress taking out the enemy and taking cities and then I see the little “efficiency” circles on the unit portraits have all gone an orange color. I look up at the top of the map and see that someone some units have come in from the top left of the map, taken my home city and then proceeded to follow me down thereby encircling me and cutting me off. All of a sudden my supply is gone and my efficiency has gone to shit ( I think efficiency affects your attack/defense and perhaps even your move capability.I’m trapped and I can’t even break out of the encirclement as all of a sudden my units can only move like one hex max and because their efficiency has gone in the toilet, the units that they were previously routing start to rout them! It was horrible-and glorious. Well played, computer.

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2863

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! I definitely mean to play more soon, still in the tutorial my own self.

2864

So to try and learn the AGEOD games, I snagged Birth of America 2: Wars in America by suggestion. After the Rise of Prussia tutorial, which was great, I wanted what was considered their easiest game to get into.

The tutorial for BoA2 is even better than RoP, and it has some tiny scenarios that are very helpful and awesome in not only getting a feel for the general interface, but watching the AI do its thing. I played one scenario where the British wanted to conquer two Carolinian port cities, and since, as the Americans, I just had to hunker down and keep them from doing so, I won by the skin of my teeth.

Then I try the same scenario as Great Britain, and the game wipes the walls with me. Whereas last time the score was America 36, GB 30, this time it was America 36, GB 5. Where did all those American units come from? Goddammit.

It was fascinating to watch and fun as hell to play, and I can’t wait to play more.

2865

Anyone have experience with AGEOD’s Thirty Years War? I want to get it, but scared it will be out of my depth. Maybe if they have good tutorials? The Steam video of gameplay they mention reading the manual, but I am not seeing a manual on Steam or their website.

2866

The thing about Ageod games is that they all use the exact same engine. At its most basic, AGE games just consist of dragging and dropping containers of units around the map. One cool thing the engine does is allow you to set the ‘stance’ of each container to attack or defend. If two enemy containers are in one territory, but they are both set to ‘defend’ then they will just sit there. There doesn’t automatically have to be a battle.

The other significant feature of the engine is that it models the OOB relationship between containers. Each container needs a leader, and that leader will get bonuses depending on what other container it is attached to. The detail of this relationship changes from game to game.

Once you get those parts, the rest of the interface is not too bad, but it’s just chore to click around and understand why things are happening. The other issue is that the combat is really, really detailed, so modelling everything that is going on takes a long time. Later games started getting too big for the engine to handle and can easy take 5 minutes to resolve a turn.

2867

So Slitherine/Matrix sent me a coupon for 41% off their games for being a customer for 12 years, yay! After scouring their catalog, I set my sights on a game I’ve actually wanted for a while: Close Combat: Cross of Iron. This is their remastered version, as it were, of the third Close Combat game, and my favorite, The Russian Front. Getting the original to run is kind of a nightmare, last I tried, so I’m glad for this revised version. Jumping back into the tutorial is like visiting a very old friend who I’ve not seen in years.

2868

Yeah they sent me a coupon for the same reason, there are advantages to being old other than a free bus pass :). I used it to pick up the Winter War and USMC DLCs for OOB:WW2.

2869

I used mine for the Last Days of Old Earth, but I haven’t even booted it up yet…

2870

Anyone with even the slightest interest in Napoleonic warfare should grab Victory & Glory, with or without a coupon. In fact, I should really go back and fire it up again.

2871

it’s a good game but when you play 3 times (great campaign) and win all 3, it doesn’t have replayability, it’s always the same = my opinion.

2872

If you follow this thread but not the bargain thread, you need to check this Bundlestars deal out, courtesy of @SlainteMhath:

2873

That’s a pretty awesome bundle! Personally, I don’t think the AGE engine is very well suited for ancient warfare at all, so I don’t understand why Alea Jacta Est is so popular, but tiers 2 and 3 are well worth it. I finally got my hands on Thirty Years’ War!

2874

Wow, that is an incredible deal. RUS Gold has been on my radar to buy for a while.

edit: and now I own every Ageod game except Birth of America 1 and Civil War 1.

2875

Thanks for that. I bought Alea Jacta Est on the Steam sale but refunded it because I knew I wasn’t going to get the value for $25. $2.49 on the other hand…

2876

The total information of AJE is pretty absurd indeed for this setting, but it still makes for a funny experience, and the production layer being taken out of the base game (as in the first Birth of America), it gets around some failings of their other games by being simpler, I guess. But I’m not a grognard, so I should probably step out of this thread ;)

Something that makes me chuckle: when run through Wine, Alea Jacta Est will display units and measures as those of the underlying game (Birth of America 2 or Civil War, I guess?). It was about time a game finally let me pay my legionaries with dollars.

2877

Aargh. The Ageod games look great for playing on a Surface but you need a Control key to combine elements into divisions (in RUS but it looks like CW2 is the same).

2878

I think every AGEOD game is like that, when you want to select more than one unit. I wonder if there’s a workaround? Because, yes, it seems it would make a good tablet game. I’m wondering whether to buy the whole package (I don’t have any of the games) or just get the first tier. TBH, the fact that Pride of Nations is actually part of the deal is sort of putting me off of it. Perhaps I’ll get the first two tiers as the Civil War game would be nice to have. The WWI game looks like something that I would just stare at for two minutes before quitting out of the game.

2879

Well I’ve been playing (more like playing the tutorials for) Rise of Prussia. This will be the time I crack through AGEOD games, I think. It took me 3-4 attempts, and a dozen or so hours, to break through on Paradox, and this will hit those thresholds.

So far I’ve gotten through the Chain of Command tutorial. I don’t feel solid on that yet, as I can tell there is a lot of depth in this system which I only have the most superficial understanding of.

Looks like it may be time to RTFM.

But I’m sufficiently motivated now, and I’m not trying to break through on a monster like Pride of Nations which, despite my efforts, I never did come to grips with. I spent more time reading the manual, and reading the forums, for that one than I ever did playing. I watched development, hoping to understand it, and never quite got there.

2880

I would recommend getting the top tier as Thirty Years War is their latest title and hits the sweet spot for Ageod games of 17th - 18thC warfare. There aren’t a ton of units like the WW1 game.