Field Of Glory 2 Empires

[Paulette Dzurilla]

Makingbold statements about titles you've never played is a recipe for disaster in my line of work. I only do it when the risk of being wrong is infinitesimal. I can, for instance, tell you that waging war in Field of Glory: Empires is far more interesting than waging war in Imperator: Rome despite never having played the Paradox game. What I'm not prepared to do - not yet anyway - is tell you that Slitherine's offering is more interesting and flavoursome in peacetime too, although I suspect that may indeed be the case.

Released yesterday, Field of Glory: Empires is a collaboration between three companies who've all made worthy Ancient wargames on their own in the past. A Europe and Middle East-spanning grand strategy WEGO TBS set in the days when gods were numerous, legions legion, and sandals de rigueur (310 BC to 190 AD) it's standalone but shines much brighter when partnered with Byzantine Games' excellent turnbased tactical wargame Field of Glory 2.

If you don't own FoG2, FoGE battles are merely a diverting spectator sport. The computer thoughtfully arranges your army on a strip of squares, the width of which reflects the terrain in the vicinity, then rolls dice to determine who advances, flanks, perishes or loses their nerve during each stage of the engagement.

If you do own FoG2 then you're in for a treat. When two land armies clash and that clash doesn't involve a city assault, you're given the chance of resolving things in person on one of FoG2's randomly generated, victory location-free, gridded battlefields.

Because the strong-on-release FoG2 has been patched to a state of near perfection over the past two years, the only conceivable reason for foregoing hands-on combat choreography is if the coming rumble is incredibly one-sided. In all other circumstances, knowing what you know about FoG2's talented AI, interesting cartography, inspired ruleset, and beautifully judged chaos quotient, you'll dab the 'Export Battle' button without a second thought. The export process itself is swift and heavily automated, FoGE automatically shutting down while its sibling starts.

Within a minute or two, the older title sculpts an appropriate battlespace for the younger one, and translates its general-led armies into lines of attractive hand-painted miniatures. The lines then spend 24 turns attempting to outflank, demoralise and annihilate each other. You're guaranteed entertaining satellite skirmishes (sideshows involving automatically-evading cavalry and skirmishers) moments of frantic finger-crossing (my stout Triarii in the centre have finally broken; please, Mars, don't let the panic spread!) and the odd twist (javelin-skewered generals sliding from saddles... elite shocktroops scuppering themselves by auto-pursuing into difficult terrain).

FoG2 has an unfailing knack for producing thrilling, unscripted engagements each with their own unique pattern and challenges. The fact that these engagements can now impact the fortunes of civilisations for years - centuries - to come, renders them even more gripping.

Has FoGE sufficient strength and charm to win friends without the assistance of its charismatic comrade-in-arms? From what I've seen during the past couple of days, yes. Unlike the Civ-endebted Aggressors: Ancient Rome, the last big caesar-em-up to wear the green lizard logo, this one is confident enough to plough its own furrow. The clever interlinked culture-versus-decadence and government age mechanisms that sit at the heart of the game, influencing a faction's movement up and down a twisted fifteen-rung civilisation 'ladder', have no equivalents in the genre as far as I know. In simple terms the older and larger your empire, the harder it is to keep debauchery and dissatisfaction in check, and the more likely you are to regress and suffer civil wars. To this grand strategy dabbler, Slitherine, AGEOD, and Byzantine appear to have gone to impressive lengths to accurately replicate the wavy life cycles of the great post-Alexander empires.

Happily, the devs also seem aware that imperial glory all too often brings domestic drudgery in diversions such as this. Through a very elegant admin option that allows players to combine controlled regions into handy provinces, then direct development with, in effect, one-click AI directives, governmental busywork is kept to a minimum.

Trade too manages to be both rich and effortless. The buildings that are your primary means, along with worker distribution, militarism, and diplomacy, of shaping the fate of your faction, feed and rely upon a fully automatic trade network. Spared the chore of shopping around for particular resources, you're free to focus on extending your network reach (partially determined by national characterstics) and bringing new beneficial commodities into your lands through policy decisions and buildings.

All three of the campaigns I've started thus far have followed a similar pattern - an early landgrab leading to over-extension and tears before bedtime - however I suspect this says more about my lack of imagination, and failure to grasp rule subtleties than any failure on the devs' part to endow factions with character. Picking, for illustrative purposes, three civs at random from the seventy plus available at the start of the 500-year/turn campaign, let me introduce you to...

While I don't know the game intimately enough yet to offer useful assessments of things like strategic AI, diplomacy, and late-game performance, and don't know the period well enough to properly assess realism, my first couple of days has convinced me that there's a rich, challenging, novel game here that grand strategy novices need not tremble before (Between them the video tutorials, manual, and in-game help system should answer most early rule questions).

Ordinary folk and monarchs succumb to the dirt of age as civilizations appear and fall. Landmarks and glories fall apart from the inside. However, the spiritual heritage still exists. The old wisdom is rarely completely forgotten since years progress along storylines and legends about ancestors and their exploits. Soon, the roots of the civilizations that came before them sprout into new communities, empires, and cultures. There is life after depravity. Ageod published the Game under Slitherine Ltd., and the title is an instalment of the Field of Glory franchise.

Invasion conflicts can help you increase your authority and elevate your civilization but use caution. Decadence poses a severe risk because they failed to see the early warning indications of oncoming crises, and many societies have fallen. The more problems that lie in wait for your kingdom as it ages.

Who supplies a stronger Army is only one factor in the fighting mechanism. Determining factors include picking the right battleground and commander to command your forces, as well as knowing the shortcomings and capabilities of your military and those of your adversary.

Additionally, Field of Glory: Empires enables you to outsource your fights, reload them into Field of Glory II, and then import the refer to the size to Field of Glory: Empires if you'd like an even more straightforward command.

However, war is determined not just by battlefields but also by deft manoeuvres. Simultaneous (WEGO) turn determination necessitates plans to stop or flee from opponent troops. In Field of Glory: Empires, every choice affects every character in a dynamic globe.

Fight vs tough teams in one of the most extensive asynchronous multiplayer systems ever made when you feel up to the task. Due to its near resemblance to factual details, the videogame is a fantastic resource for learning more about this time of European civilization.

The men of my unit were of one mind. There was a war to be fought and they intended to win it... In this war, at least, the moral[e] was not something brought down from the top. It came up from the bottom.

Private Robert E. Glover

Company D, 342nd Machine Gun Battalion, 89th Division

World War I was a pivotal clash that forever changed the world. Empires collapsed, new nations were born, and the maps of the Middle East and Africa were redrawn. Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine were created, as well as Ukraine, the Baltic nations, Poland, Hungary, and others. Today's conflicts and wars in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe are directly rooted in World War I. This war unleashed a century of conflicts that included the Second World War and the Cold War. American diplomat and historian George Kennan was right to call it the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century.

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