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AGEOD games: Turn Based Historical Grand Strategy
Ethan Smith
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
Now that the title of this thread has turned nearly everyone off...
AGEOD is a French grand strategy publisher which releases simultaneous turn based games that take place during 'obscure' wars. They have released games dealing with The French And Indian Wars and the American Revolution, The 7 Years War, The American Civil War, The Russian Revolution, World War One, and a couple of the campaigns of Napoleon. They have a game set up for Q3 2012 which will deal with the Roman Civil Wars.
Besides their more obscure material, what's unique about an AGEOD game?
For one, AGEOD games deal completely with the warfare aspect of a war. In most games the economy is completely extraneous, to the degree that in Birth of America you buy units only via engagement points which you get every turn. This leads games away from the snowball effects that occur in other games, where conquering Prague immediately gives you the resources and manpower to move to Vienna. Another limiting factor is a far more realistic supply system that deals with 'cohesion', the morale of a unit. Units have a certain amount of supply, and consume another amount each turn--if they start running out they become far less battle ready and start dying off very fast (especially if its in winter).
A turn in an AGEOD game lasts a certain amount of time--1 week in Russia Under Siege, 2 weeks in Rise of Prussia/American Civil War, a month in Birth of America. During your turn you plan out (via drag and click) all the moves that your armies will do, while also controlling the 'stance' of your armies (aggressive, offensive, defensive, passive). When you click the next turn button, the month plays out, with your armies go along the paths you put out (depending--crappy generals may decide to take a leisurely pace), and engage with the enemy along those paths.
This means that generals are way more important in an AGEOD game than they are in your typical real time game, in which you can decide you retreat at any time. A general may be aggressive or passive by demeanor, and you can't stop midway in.
All in all, their games are beautifully complex, researched in depth (In American Civil War, each general [including minor cavalry captains] has their own bio), and perfect for multiplayer because they go light on the graphics.
In this thread we can discuss AGEOD games, I can explain specific games and link to helpful 'first timer' after action reports, and generally plug my favorite games publisher.
AGEOD is a French grand strategy publisher which releases simultaneous turn based games that take place during 'obscure' wars. They have released games dealing with The French And Indian Wars and the American Revolution, The 7 Years War, The American Civil War, The Russian Revolution, World War One, and a couple of the campaigns of Napoleon. They have a game set up for Q3 2012 which will deal with the Roman Civil Wars.
Besides their more obscure material, what's unique about an AGEOD game?
For one, AGEOD games deal completely with the warfare aspect of a war. In most games the economy is completely extraneous, to the degree that in Birth of America you buy units only via engagement points which you get every turn. This leads games away from the snowball effects that occur in other games, where conquering Prague immediately gives you the resources and manpower to move to Vienna. Another limiting factor is a far more realistic supply system that deals with 'cohesion', the morale of a unit. Units have a certain amount of supply, and consume another amount each turn--if they start running out they become far less battle ready and start dying off very fast (especially if its in winter).
A turn in an AGEOD game lasts a certain amount of time--1 week in Russia Under Siege, 2 weeks in Rise of Prussia/American Civil War, a month in Birth of America. During your turn you plan out (via drag and click) all the moves that your armies will do, while also controlling the 'stance' of your armies (aggressive, offensive, defensive, passive). When you click the next turn button, the month plays out, with your armies go along the paths you put out (depending--crappy generals may decide to take a leisurely pace), and engage with the enemy along those paths.
This means that generals are way more important in an AGEOD game than they are in your typical real time game, in which you can decide you retreat at any time. A general may be aggressive or passive by demeanor, and you can't stop midway in.
All in all, their games are beautifully complex, researched in depth (In American Civil War, each general [including minor cavalry captains] has their own bio), and perfect for multiplayer because they go light on the graphics.
In this thread we can discuss AGEOD games, I can explain specific games and link to helpful 'first timer' after action reports, and generally plug my favorite games publisher.
Ethan Smith on
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By obscure I meant 'generally doesn't have games made about it'. Because I can't think of a major WW1 game besides AGEOD's WW1. Similarly I can't think of another game that deals explicitly with the 7 Years War or the French & Indian War (though I guess Empire Total War kind of does it)
I've heard that the second game's engine runs a lot smoother and is simpler in general. All in all I'd say that BoA2 is the best game to start with because it doesn't have any of the extra factors (corps systems, politics, economies) that later games have and it's really well designed (unlike Russia Under Siege which is amazing but buggy as all fuck)
I'm fighting as France in the French-Indian War. It's July 1757 and I've won control of Albany and Nova Scotia. There's a massive army (probably 15000-25000 men strong) just to the northwest of my puny, albeit qualitatively superior 5000 man army in Albany. The good news is that they're out of supply. I'm not sure whether to consider marching what appears to be the entire British army to a puny fort in upstate New York hundreds of miles away from cities which could feasibly resupply them a failure of the ai or a realistic simulation of incompetence (which the British army was plagued with, initially).
I'm not sure whether to move forces across the Hudson to make sure they stay put until winter or just hope they stick it out and starve. Barring the Brits pulling something miraculous off, I think my plan from here is to siege those forces (once they are sufficiently weakened) and force them to surrender, secure the rest of Upstate NY (read: burn all those pesky British forts), then march on NYC. In the meantime, I'll use Indians and irregulars to put pressure on New England and the South.
In other news, Pride of Nations (a bit more of a slow paced, turn based game about the Industrial Revolution is now only 5 dollars. I'm not the biggest fan of the game but that's a pretty great deal.
Pride of Nations is a game that I really want to like, but goddamn even on a brand new processor it is unbearably slow.
edit: I've also played Rise of Prussia recently as the coalition, and it was really interesting--moreso than playing the Prussians (who have a huge number of advantages)