Carradice: Good: Field of Glory II and Field of Glory: Empires are on sale.
Bad: Sengoku Jidai Gold is not.
blueGretsch: I can't recommend Field of Glory II enough, if you like board games and chess-like gameplay. It may look like a Total War game on first impression, but that's far from how the game is actually played. Every unit is unique and has to be played accordingly. I spent 10 hours on the tutorials alone, because it was so much fun to try different tactics and try to do better. Some of the reviews might seem intimidating, but the game has several difficulty options, as you learn how to play.
Carradice: Sounds great. Would you give an example of how to use a specific unit, according to its strenghts and weaknessess? LIke peltasts and phalanx maybe? Or anything that you would enjoy mentioning.
Armored Brigade seems a bit daunting? Like you have to study hard in order to just get going? (maybe that is not the case). I like the idea of having units that do not need micromanagement.
Also, I would like to get Pike and Shot here...
Hi,
A good example are the slinger units or archers. Movement is "blocky" in the game, in the sense that units can't move through each other through the same hex or square, as you would do in a Civlization game for example.So you can't move your hoplite unit through your own heavy unit, you have to move around them on an adjacent hex.
However, light units like the slingers, are an exception; they can move backwards through a fellow unit's hex/square.
So at the start of a battle, you could have slingers at the front with some heavy unit right behind them, and when the slingers start running out of "ammo", you move them backwards through the heavy unit's hex.
Some units, like pikemen, will charge and move after an enemy if you initiated the attack and won the round. This can be very annoying because it might weaken your defense line and expose your charging pike unit. However if the enemy initiated the attack but lost the round, your pikemen will not charge after the enemy. Thus in some cases it is best to not attack with these pike units.
The terrain and elevation plays a big role as well. Some units get a penalty if they fight on a surface they are not designed or trained for. Heavy units for example, are best used on open terrain and not on hills or rough surfaces, whereas some medium and lighter units don't suffer a penalty (bowmen, warriors etc.) on rougher terrain.
The initial deployment phase is therefore very important, you need to have a battle plan and think several moves ahead. You need to examine the terrain around you, to see which units are best suited where, which also limits how you should deploy your units. Lastly, you also need to look at the enemy's arrangement on the map, what type of units they have and where they are deployed, you need to counter that the best you can.
Combat is not as mobile as in a Total War game, to use an example. The maps are not so big and you rarely move around that extensively on them, as the action is concentrated in a relatively small area.
I'm no expert by any means, I'm still learning the game myself as the rules are rather complex. How much you need to study the rules, units and terrain, depends on the difficulty-level you choose. However a basic grasp of them is crucial even on the lower difficulty levels.
Regarding Armored Brigade. Whenever I start a new wargame I always assume it's going to be tricky to learn, so by default I always study the manual and watch some guide, tutorial or gameplay on Youtube or Twitch. It's a process. I also assume that I will fail in my first attempts. The rules in Armored Brigade are quite complex if you start looking into them, but I think that goes for all wargames; the more you look at them, the more difficult it seems. I feel that the most important thing in AB is to understand the different units, what they are good at and not good at, strengths and vulnerabilities. The more you play the more you learn. Personally I find the mechanics easy to get into and use, the game is more about tactics than micromanagement. So I don't think you need to study that hard to get into this.
