Hegemony III - It's not Total War, it's totally war

Games
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Well, 9 months ago I would have told you, that Longbow was aware of player expectations for a more refined diplomacy and that the next DLC Isle of Giants is going to bring something new to the table. Alas, the gods seem to have decided differently! Meanwhile, I have created this little mod that tries to salvage things as far as I could hack the game’s mechanics.

As a matter of fact, the game even has a pseudo-alliance, it’s called “supply truce” there. However, in the base game this is only used in the Pyrrhus campaign and not available in the GUI. One thing the mod does is make the supply truce available for the player to attain.

Hegemony is a peculiar mix of the grand strategy/4x genre on the one hand (where people expect a certain standard of diplomatic options) and RTS / wargame on the other hand (where players usually don’t expect any diplomacy at all). Longbow always described their diplomacy system as “elegant” - elegant as in “a high ratio of meaningful decisions to complexity” and I can’t deny that’s the case, actually - it’s just that there are not many decisions, but those few there are i.e. war or truce, actually do impact the game :-) I definitely do like how relations are modelled by “intimidation” and “hostility”, in principle a very solid base to work with!

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Very true, now if only I had a diplomatic option for that, or say a spy! But alas we do not so we’ll take the motto of if you want it done right you do it yourself.

And we’re not messing around this time, we’re sending in the elite of the elite:


In an attempt to be mindful of KR’s suggestions the Romans have elected to throw money at our enemies to buy some time to continue the push on the Marsi:

Just before winter set in we took the city of Aveia and over the winter sent colonists to convert it:

Our next target in the south with the Marsi is the fort guarding resources feeding Aufinum. We mistakenly attempted to push early after taking Aveia and were repeatedly repulsed as reinforcements fed in from nearby Aufinum. Below I point out that not only are they well supplied in the city they’ve got a hardcore band of Hoplites who cut thru leves and spearmen like butter. It was not pretty. Lost half a dozen units to that hoplite meat grinder.


So we licked out wounds, threw coin at our enemies and colonized Aveia to free up the troops there. When spring comes we’ll give it another go, only this time we plan to send an army between the fort and Aufinum and cut off the fort from reinforcements. Once we take the fort we’ll occupy the resources and hopefully begin starving out Aufinum.

That is very nice. In my next campaign I’ll try it out!

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The plot thickens and then repeats itself.

The campaign against Marsi continues, the plan of sending two forces, one to attack the fort and the other to cut off reinforcements worked, the fort is ours.

However other events I’ll cover below have conspired against cutting off the remaining resources and laying siege to Aufinum. Or at least this season, we’re still primed for the assault.

But first some important good news, the army has been doing training and military reforms are now available that could help turn the tide of the war with the Marsi:

This means we can now recruit Hastati and Velites:

The history repeating itself portion of the program is brought to you by a diplomatic event once again. The Veii are a city-state to our immediate north we’ve been paying off to keep in a truce. It started at 25 gold a week, then they asked for 50 a week, then it was 80 and now they want 105.

The Roman generals have decided at this point the math doesn’t add up, while they’re loath to fight a 2 front war, the math on this is pretty obvious, you can buy units at the price of 100 gold a week and simply hold the north at the bridges.

The Veii have been told we will no longer buy peace, come die on the swords of our newly minted Hastati (we left out the part that fielding these has put us in the red).

Early scouting reveals enemy units have already crossed the river, the generals assure us bringing in some cavalary should prove effective against them.

Here is a summary of the city-states Rome has encountered and their relative power (the two I’ve specifically identified are more powerful than Rome and await us:

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Show the Veii what it means to cross the fabled sons of Romulus and Remus.

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Those archers are not to be underestimated! Rome is fortunate, though, they have been positioned on the wrong side of the river.

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The Romans are now fully involved in a two front war. With the added twist the Veii have taken to the sea in order to attack us:

And while this 2 unit probe was repulsed it does introduce the additional wrinkle of defending Roman cities along the coast.

When we last left off the Roman generals pressed the case for cavalry against the Veii archers stupid enough to cross the Tiber, so a unit was quickly recruited and put into the field with lovely results:

The Veii also brought two Hoplite units across that combined Roman arms and flanking quickly routed:

The Senate pressed the case for a late Autumn offensive against the Marsi in light of the Veii initial push stalling, the hope being that conquering the two Marsi cities (one being the Marsi capitol) would put Rome back in the black (the war chest going into this current campaign was 17k in gold, it now stands at 9k and we’re bleeding 200 a week).

So, it was agreed to push our luck, the siege of Aufinum has begun:

Both cities fell with relatively light casualties, the preparation of amassing armies near both and attacking at the same time worked well as neither could reinforce the other.

One last bit of news from the northern front. The Roman generals were of the opinion the Veii might potentially wise up and begin effectively using archers to snipe across the Tiber, to preempt this possibility the two nearest bridges were secured/built and all armies in the area ordered across.

The nearest fort was taken and will now serve as a supply depot and jumping off point against the Veii. They started it, Rome intends to finish it.

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“Don’t forget to raze their city to the ground!” - Marcus Furius Camillus

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The campaign against the Marsi has concluded in victory and they’re fate the same as awaits all those who oppose Rome!

It took scouts awhile to locate their last city but they did:

And with that the siege began:

It proved a bloody drawn out affair requiring the cycling in and out of units for a protracted siege that lasted the better part of a year and resulted in more than a few units starving. The Roman generals clearly miscalculated how tough stone walls surrounding a city are and how much damage archers on those walls can do. Nonetheless the campaign in the south has concluded successfully.

Meanwhile in the north the news of a new enemy has dropped in our laps before the last Marsi body hit the floor, the Velrathi have declared on us:

And they’re no minor threat like the Veii and Marsi, this is a powerhouse rivaling Rome:

And before we could get scouts out to even figure out where they’re located, they did us the favor of immediately attacking and revealing for us where they are, northeast of Rome and east of Veii.

On the army development front military reforms have further refined fighting abilities and two new units are now available (although at present more expensive than we can afford, but when we fix the economics more powerful units await us):

With the business of Marsi concluded Rome turns its attention back to the Veii. Having crossed the Tiber it’s time to probe the enemy:

Simultaneously our best troops are committed in the northeast holding a bridgehead against the Valrathi who have been doing their own version of recon in force against Rome. They’ve made repeated incursions with 6 and 8 units and these aren’t push overs, it requires our best troops to hold them at bay and prevent invasion:

Surprisingly our recon in force against the Veii turned quickly into a route and we took their home city quickly:

With the added benefit that if we don’t convert the city culturally we can recruit archers (at the price of the added expense of more garrisons to keep the city under control):

There are only two cities left for the Veii, their days are numbered. If our forces in the northeast continue holding the line against the Valrathi next season against the Veii should hopefully wrap with their end.

All of this activity in the north and east of Rome has drawn into question the original strategy of heading south. Rome appears to be following a strategy driven by reaction rather than a plan. But so we can’t argue with the results.

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I assume the Velathri’s attack has to do less with a lack of Roman finesse in diplomatic matters than rather a lack of understanding in a purely linguistic sense ;-) Anyway, I suppose, their name will be forgotten by history soon enough - Ha Ha!

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Haha, yeah I was going to comment about the fact I was misspelling their name because my earlier joke stuck in my head about calling them Kilrathi. Apparently I like my own sense of humor a tad too much.

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After looking through this thread I’m tempted to get this and try it out. I played the gold version of the first, got bogged down and moved on. @easytarget did you play the first one at all and if so is this one a big improvement? (interested in anyone’s opinion really…)

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I’m betting KR can answer in detail about them. I played a bit of Hegemony Rome and concluded I’d just rather start a campaign as Rome in Hegemony III so that’s what I did.

I just like everything about Hegemony III so much I can’t bring myself to play the other ones.

My impression based on very little is they’ve been iterative works making improvements on stuff but not major changes.

It might come down to answering the question what bogged you down in the one you played?

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Latest news from the front lines.

Well actually this is news from the recently conquered Roman cities. Time and manpower was expended gathering together and transporting colonists to move to recently conquered cities to “Romanize” them.

This is not a quick process. But the benefits are not to be underestimated:

  1. Standing garrisons keeping down rebellions can be disbanded or moved to the front lines. They cost the same weekly outlay of gold either way, better that they were pointing the pointy end of spears at the enemy.
  2. Structures such as monuments, nightwatch and forums that help speed conversion to Roman culture can be dismantled and repurposed to markets and sanitation.
  3. Barracks closer to the front lines can be built shortening recruitment times to refresh the troops from attrition in battles.
  4. Morale improves immensely benefiting recruitment and taxes.

Net-net: this might take time but it’s so clearly the right choice given the benefits it has to get done.

So what did Rome get for it troubles, boots on the ground!

It took just over a year to scout out, locate the Veii’s last city, get our army in place and siege them out, once begun the new highly trained army made very quick work of the job:

Here is the larger map showing the breath of the current Roman empire which at this point controls the center portion of the Italian peninsula. If we’re to continue pursuing the Valrathi we are amusingly enough going to head north rather than south:

And this is the Valrathi city repeatedly sending 6 and 8 units at us (archers and light swordsman can’t be casually ignored), there seems no other course than to consider it our next target because it’s likely never going to stop until we take it:

In the south we’re paying 50 gold a week to keep the peace with the Samnites so we have the luxury of maintaining most of our elite forces in the north.

Does anyone care to venture how long that arrangement is likely to last given our previous diplomatic experiences?! ;)

I’ll close with a review of the Hegemony objectives since this is how the campaign is ultimately won it pays to pay attention to them because this isn’t strictly a paint the map excercise.

We have so far gained 2 Hegemony points against a target of 10. One for defeating an ancient rival in the Sabines, the other from an objective called meet the neighbors that saw Rome take control of the 5 cities immediately surrounding it.

We currently are working, albeit a bit mysteriously, towards defeating two city states AND controlling all their native lands. So, while we’ve definitively defeated the Sabines and the Veii apparently somewhere out in the fog of war is native lands they once controlled and someone else controls that we must also conquer to complete this and gain 2 more points (or is it just 1, not sure).

There are three more points for cultural dominance, and being this is Rome you’d just have to know we’re good at that and our colonizing is paying dividends here as we’re 92 against a target of 100. It won’t be much longer before we’re got 5 of 10 points.

But here’s where it gets tougher. Three more points each are available for trade hegemony, naval hegemony and military hegemony. We’ve got quite a ways to go to accomplish these and that’s where hegemony and map painting start to merge because unless I’m missing something obvious the only way to get these is thru expansion via conquest because to scale to them requires more cities so you can grow trade and pay for a larger army and navy. I mean technically I suppose it’s a sort of pie of limited proportions in that if you destroyed say the two most powerful navies and armies you would relatively speaking in the process make yourself greater in those categories and thereby closer to hegemony. Which is why it’s not strictly a map painter. But the reality of it is, you often have to expand just to find these other powers and then reduce them by force which is tantamount to painting the map purple to accomplish it.

Apologies for the wordiness but hegemony victory conditions are rather at the core of how the campaign is won so it seemed worthwhile to spend a minute explaining where we are against them.

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I sure can share an overal impression. First off, H3 is the better game with more mechanics at the disposal of the player and a more stable engine. H1 has a lot of polish and you can really feel that the team around the McNally family has put a lot of love into the world building. However, for lack of mechanics it seems to be designed in a more micro-heavy way than H3 to keep the player entertained. Resources seem to be scarcer in the beginning, resource nodes on the map more exposed and AIs more aggressive. Both games are worth your time, but H3 probably offers the more “chill” experience (especially if you’re playing on “novice” difficulty level).

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Thanks!

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While I’ll likely play out to victory the campaign (currently at 5 of 10 hegemony points), I may bring to a conclusion reporting on it as we’ve reached what I’d consider the tipping point where the numerical and qualitative state of the Roman army is effectively insurmountable. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t believe reading about inevitable victory is terribly interesting.

The current campaign against the Velrathi that has gone on now for three seasons exemplifies the inevitability yet curious diplomatic obliviousness to the plight that awaits them (which reminds me of the central conceit of a movie I adore called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which in the title spells out their demise in the story and some of the humor is derived from this cluelessness).

Look at their attitude towards Rome, they’re “wary” of Rome when I have more than 2x their power ranking and I’ve taken 4 cities of theirs in 2 years (they should instead be completely terrified):

And taking the cities was frankly trivially easy to do. So much so Rome fought on two fronts simultaneously against them.

Yet take note of their clueless diplomatic attitude, they still ask for 600 gold a week for peace, I literally laughed out loud typing this:

And yes I know diplomacy in strategy games is hard to get right. But it’s hard not to ask here does diplomacy not take into consideration the relative power between the two nations? And it not, why not?

I think the game concept of Hegemony is an interesting one, that’s why I spent time describing the victory conditions in my last post.

But the trouble is by mid campaign victory still comes down to a rinse/repeat affair to attain military/trade hegemony because it’s really just a numbers game. Rome will inevitably take enough cities and sufficiently paint the map and take the relative power of the remaining nations down sufficiently to achieve hegemony thru nothing more elegant and certainly not interesting than brute force.

Here’s a screenshot of Rome currently on the map and a graph showing the trajectory of our power which over time will just continue to bend upward:

Every nation still on the map is now playing the role of either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, and just like them it simply hasn’t dawned on them yet they’re dead men walking.

I think Longbow took an interesting approach with the game mechanic of hegemony in order to address an age old problem, yet in the end the campaigns takes a very similar path anyone familiar with historical strategy games almost always sees.

And while I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy the power fantasy reward of building an army, training them up and making them killing machines (I mean it is the reward after all for doing it right), but it does remove any challenge unless late campaign wrinkles are introduced to throw a wrench in things.

Love it or hate it, the fact remains Realm Divide in Shogun 2 attempted to solve this by throwing the entire island at you at just the point your victory looked inevitable.

Playing Hegemony III has been the most fun I’ve had with a game this year so far. But I would love if they picked up the project once more and put out one final DLC and fleshed out diplomacy a bit.

This game coupled with Imperiums: Greek Wars diplomacy (which imho is probably some of the best diplomacy in any game period) would be absolutely stunning. What I wouldn’t give for the ability to co-federate leading to federation instead of just brute forcing it.

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This is on sale at wingamestore for $9 and the Eagle King for $4.50, which is not the cheapest ever but pretty cheap, and Eagle King in particular hasn’t been that cheap on Steam in some time. In case anybody is interested! I know I am…

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Cool, there’s hasn’t been a sale for ages (other than GOG last summer) and I see the entire series is on sale with 70% discount.

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Yeah, heck of a deal. I wonder, if Longbow are the dev and publisher wouldn’t they have to approve this sale?

And does that mean perhaps there’s still some glimmer of hope?

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I have no idea if WinGameStore can put up a sale all by themselves or if Longbow would have to trigger this somehow. But unexpected it is…