Field of Glory: Empires - Persia 550 - 330 BCE

An excellent addition to the FOG Empires campaigns. It is fun playing as Cyrus the Great and conducting his military campaigns. I can't wait for AGEOD to develop additional campaigns in the future! Regarding feedback for the developers, I think the leadership traits should be overhauled to be more detailed. Currently, leaders have 0-2 stars for offensive and defensive ratings and some may have one additional trait such as a siege bonus or movement perk. I think the developers should overhaul the leadership and experience system based on the original AGEOD games like Alea Jacta Est and Rise of Prussia where leaders (particularly the "military geniuses") had multiple leadership traits like "Great Strategist" or "Fast Mover" to add more bonuses in battles and campaigns. Winning battles should also allow leaders gain more "stars" for realism. Just my thoughts!

It is interesting because it is a new period. Unfortunately, the DLC does not solve the issues of the core game. The decadency mechanic is relatively easy to manage, so soon Persia and other nations, mine included, rule over huge lands. It takes you roughly 50 years to recreate Rome a few centuries ahead of time and conquering Carthage, after you took whole Italia. Many UI issues still persist, such as that it is still impossible to know in-game what buildings exist. There is no buildings overview. So, all you do is guessing what building might else exist, if you do not have some wiki open. Or that the UI simply does not tell you what your units cost. So, if you need to cut expenses, you are checking your recruitment center for unit expenses -- instead of each of the standing units to tell you what they cost and need. The UI issues are as if the devs had no sense for what the players need first before they make a choice. But the UI issues are known since release. The biggest issue remains how simple the game is. You can crank up the difficulty where the AI gets huge buffs, but actually, Paradox is much better at handling mid to late game issues. This is a game design issue. This game is a much bigger blob game than EU4, VIC2, or IR for that matter. Once you solved your culture/decadency issue by spamming cultural and anti-decadency buildings, you steamroll through the game. And in late game, most provinces are as advanced as yours, so the decadency system breaks. I would say that the game is fun for 100 years/turns, but mid to late game it shows how badly balanced and designed it is in this regard. I'm still recommending it because I hope that the devs listen and make their next DLC (or game) better. It has potential, it is a fresh change, but overall ... it could have been better. Mid to late game Field of Glory Empires simply is no challenge.

The DLC is overall nice, but compared to the original game feels rushed out. The focus is obviously on the Achaemenid empire, and the DLC gives its best if played as Persia, even if in my opinion developers went too far with predestination: Media, Babylon, Lydia and Egypt are but sacrificial lambs and the only real threat comes from Rome (if want to expand westward and leave enough time to them to develop legions) or satrap rebellions. However the way Greek-Persian wars are simulated is very satisfying: a minor nuisance on the western border for Persia, a struggle for life for the Greeks. Developers followed strictly Herodotus' strategical considerations and therefore the duel is mainly between Athens and Persia (the former's mighty navy and overflowing coffers are much more dangerous than Spartan armies which, indeed, do not stand a chance against veteran Persian troops). After Persia, Greek factions offer the most fun experience: Athens is incredibly powerful (as in the original campaign), but personally found more enjoyable to play as Sparta which, unlike what the game suggest, is a pretty weak faction. Athens' strong bonuses and unique strategic advantages allow for a quick expansion and aggressive gameplay, almost as much as Persia; which is good since sooner or later someone will come asking earth and water and, before throwing them into a chasm, is wise to have a powerful fleet at hand. Western factions do not provide a substantially different experience from the original campaign: the main obstacle to become the main western power are the blood-thirsty Romans but, in order to win the game, player's faction has to confront Persia as soon as possible. As for the other main factions, beside Egypt which plays almost exactly as the Ptolemaic kingodm in the orignal campaign, they are basically bad copies of Persia: take down Cyrus and then Babylon, Media or Lydia will build the very same empire (of course the sooner Persia is erased from history, the better: which lead to a rather simple strategic planning). Regional decisions are a very nice touch, especially those with tactical implications; by mid-game however their usefulness starts to wane. The other innovation are negative/positive regional improvement: these are found somewhat randomly and can be dealt with through different way: in the early turns their impact may be quite significant. Now, as for the complains, I have to point out that the map, naming, leaders names, regional improvements retained the Roman/Hellenistic theme of the IVth centuty campaign, and that I find quite nasty (after Cyrus may have an Antiochos ruling over the Achaemenid empire; besides, Persians were not so keen about building amphitheathers or gymnasia everywhere...). Furthermore, regional units are the same as in the original campaign, so, to make but a few example, Galatian infantry and Armenian cataphracts can be recruited as soon as Greater Armenia and Galatia are established: by the time those units are available (very early for the oriental empires) there is basically nothing that can stand against them. I acknowledge that this is a game and not an universitary treatise but the former cripple the pretense of historical plausibility which the designers tried to follow for the original campaign, while the latter leads to clear exploits with very strong impact on the gameplay (yes, I could avoid recruiting the Galatians, but the issue is that there is nothing hardcoded against my Persian armies being made around a strong core of murderous, unbeatable Celts which, through a time machine, traveled back a couple of centuries to stomp merrily the poor Greeks). So overall I enjoyed the DLC, and hope there will be more in the near future; but hope also for more polished releases A note about playing battles in FOG2: FOG2's DLCs are not required, nor seem to have a role if installed. The "conversion" of FOGE armies into FOG2 ones has some irks, the worst being the fact that Greeks, except Sparta, can deploy Macedonian-style phalanxes which can easily tear across Spartan hoplites (further weakening an already weak faction) and almost all infantry but the Galatians; also, Greek cavalry appears in FOG2 as a quite powerful shock unit

When Field of Glory 2 released Rise of Persia my review of it quickly in note how glad it covered this period of Middle East warfare. So I was stoked when this was announced for Empires. I have only put a few hours into it, but I love it so far. I went with Persia. And starting its sitting in its small historical context but ready to begin pouncing quick. As Im starting to steamroll through Median lands and Babylon soon. I would say the main emphasis of this DLC is 3 theaters. Of course the Middle Eastern part. The Greek (Spartans Athens, ect) and the Rome, Syracuse, Carthage fun (when they were just infants taking baby steps and much of the region was up for grabs). There are a good amount of smaller nations to play, for the European aspect most are west as the up beyond the Balkans into that region of Europe of Germany towards Russia are not playable factions. But there are early Scythians in their respective starts. All in all I would say 15 is well worth the price for the new time frame. It has a lot to explore in new ways. If you liked the base game, I think you will like this.

Good fun in a neglected time period. And I love Cyrus the Great. Plus Greek squabbles. You can't go wrong with that. Definitely worth the $15. Only issue is by the end of the campaign the world is a lot more developed than it was historically. Compared to the standard game's opening in 310 BCE you'll have a Europe covered with sprawling, developed states, quite likely a Roman Empire covering well beyond the Italian Peninsula, regions with booming populations and numerous high-tier buildings. This has no real bearing on the game being fun to play. But it's hardly historical, as I suspect the game/s building mechanics were devised to model the period of Rome's ascension, not the early iron age.

Excellent addition to a very smart game. Adds lots of nice little RPG like elements to the original and new campaigns. Will you motivate troops before a key battle at a small cost ? Will you send out settlers to colonize distant coastal provinces etc etc. Also some nice stuff "impediments" in regions like rampant wolves. Sending in large army or building archery facilities helps clear the problem. Never seen such concepts in Grand Strategy before and it adds some real flavour. The Rise of Persia is a great time period which is often ignored by most similar titles. Well worth the $ and hopefully more DLCs are coming later. I'd love to see late days of the Roman Empire. Or more focused maps around specific conflicts ie the Dacian wars or Rome v Phillip 5 of Macedon .

I wished a similar DLC was for Imperator Rome. I like this game and DLC though and recommend it to players who enjoy empire building and resource management with a historical twist.

Highly recommended, the decisions keep the game fresh and stop it being a grind. I wouldn't buy the game without also getting the DLC.

The DLC is a nice Addition to the Base Game with some interesting Features like the Regional Decisions. It's nice to have a Map from 550 BCE, there are not so many Games which Start the Timeline before the Rise of Rome. The Bad Things are, that the Main-Campaign with Cyrus II. from Persia is just too easy for experienced Players. There are some Mechanics, which make it very, very easy to gain Land very fast, almost too fast. Persia is overpowered because of this Mechanics. I know, the Developers wanted to Rise Persia in the historical accurate Timespan, which was a very short One, because Cyrus II did almost Conquering Lands like in the Blitzkrieg. But as said, it makes Persia too easy, it blobs too fast and the Enemies can't really stand against a good Persia Player. It would have been better, to let the Player decide if he wants these Mechanics in the Campaign, because i'd rather conquer Lydia, Media etc. than seeing it crumble.

It's a little rough around the edges (a few typos here and there), but that's expected for a launch-day title. All told, enjoyable experience. If you are interested in the time period, pick this DLC up.

This is probably the best of the 3 possible Campaigns in the game and definitely worth having if you enjoy the game. Chariots are definitely one of the highlights here, also Babylon and LydIa are like super fun kingdoms.

Outstanding content from Pocus and the gang. FOG Empires is a fantastic game, and coupled with FOG 2 it's the icing on the cake. The DLC brings more features, more decisions and more strategy to the table. An instant buy.

This is a better game than fields of glory but still is frustrating at not being able to build what you want. They say your the king/leader but i am given war goals to take. If i was king i would set my own.

Significant mechanical changes. I'm not history buff and I don't have any specific weakness for this time period and I still think it's worth it.

Love the DLC. Brings a lot of flavor to an already great game.