Field of Glory II - Greece Lightning 

"No one likes being hit up the ass". The Internet lied to me.

Oh my god its a game Jon hasnt had his eye on for a while. I never thought this day would come.

I love how Jon keeps talking about his general as if he didnt die in the first minute of the battle when Jon committed him into a fight where he got insta flanked.

I can't tell you how happy I am too see you cover this. I was given the code for it about a week back and I can't stop playing it. As someone who did their uni dissertation on the mechanics of Roman battles and how psychology and morale played a huge part in it, I can vouch for the high degree of accuracy. They also have an editor you should check out, as you can make your own battles and campaigns. They also have a MP, but it's only played a turn at a time.. bit odd, but it does make it easier for people who don't have 2 hours to play MP I guess

This video made me realize that in total war rome2 that I've been useing skirmishers as archers. I am such a fucking idiot.

The human cannonball of our city's circus retired recently. We're not replacing him, though. It's hard to find a man of that caliber.

I have multiplied chills about this video.

I'm starting to think Jon might like the Romans....

This was very historical having both armies focus their strength on the right and then fight a holding action on the left until the actual soldiers could come and relieve them.

"This is more realistic than Rome: Total War" Throws hundreds of arrows and spears at a single group of men, none of them die.

I just thought of something. I actually have a book on wars and battles of the ancient world. Since there is a mechanic of forces getting pushed back, you could arrange your men so that the weaker are in the center and the tougher are on the edges. That way, the center gets pushed in while the edges hold firm. Then, you have some other units, like cavalry, to flank around and envelope them in. I believe this tactic was first used by Hannibal against the Romans and it completely destroyed them. The entire army was either killed or taken prisoner. Since then, the tactic was used in countless battles afterwards, even by the Romans.

This game is published by Slitherine, who are the same mob responsible for the Fields of Glory tabletop set of rules. My guess is that the tabletop set was FoG One and this computer version is FoG Two. There does seem to be a lot of carry over in concepts and maybe even mechanics from the tabletop rules. For starters? Turns. There also seems to be Impact and Melee phases which was a core mechanic of the tabletop rules and there is the fact that your tool tips show the win/draw/lose chances as a percentage. Basically there is a LOT screaming to me that this is a tabletop set with all the dice rolling and factors hidden behind the animation. Now, what makes this all interesting is the current state of Ancient Gaming in the greater wargaming community. (yes, it's a thing) and for that you need a short - and possibly boring - history of Ancient Wargaming lesson. Now way back in the day there was a thing called WRG - Wargames Research Group - who made ancient rules. They existed in the pre-desktop publishing era back when physically getting something published was quite hard. They were old school with factors and average dice and casualties per figure and Romans were a super army because Phil Barker slept in Lorica Segmentata pjs. They were popular because in the land of the blind... Then mid 80s some time came out a set called DBM. These were VERY different and fast play. Rather than having masses of figures in each unit and counting them all and checking a table and taking away the number you first thought of you just lined up your stand of figures against his stand of figues, rolled one dice each, added some mods and the highest side won. To be honest these were a relatively fun set of rules. You could finish games and you didn't have to wank around with massive charts and tables remembering factors and casualties. On the down side they were pretty much a 'game' and in abstracting things there were some weird quirks. The rules also encouraged you to play to the games strength rather than attempting to re-use successful historical tactics and the rule set was not universally popular. People who liked it, played it. People who didn't like it put their ancient figures back in the cupboard and started painting tanks. Then came FoG about 10 years ago. Now FoG was supported by Osprey Publishing so the production standards were great. Quality rule and army list books with lots of full colour artwork. The rules went away from some of the abstract concepts in DBM and many ancient wargamers latched onto these rules in excitement. The rules were... okay... They meant well. There were quirks due to the way the dice system worked in that a six stand unit was always more powerful than 2 four stand units, combat could be grindy and games seemed to take forever to finish. There was still the impression that they were better than DBM and this set became the most popular for Comp Gaming (yes, that's a thing. There are ranking tables and everything). Now all this is English Language wargaming. In France there was a rules set called L'art de la Guerre that had been out for some ten years or something and was finally converted to English a few years ago. It's different again, appeared in the English speaking gaming community and in the space of two years has UTTERLY replaced FoG as the go to convention gaming set. Now this is the really interesting thing. Normally wargamers get stuck in their ways as re-basing an army of physical lead figures is a pain and simply building the army in the first place is a big investment in time and money. So people linger, play their old favourites in their own little social gaming circles and loudly point out what they don't like about the new rules while leaning over the gaming table of someone who does. L'art de la Guerre on the other hand has nearly 100% replaced FoG within two years! So, where am I getting at with all this and how does it relate to computers? Well tabletop FoG was replaced so quickly that it can't just have been 'these new rules are better' unless there was also a strong lingering feeling that deep down people were only really tolerating FoG. And why were they only tolerating FoG? Well possible because the feeling from 100s of ancient warfare buffs was that it wasn't a very good representation of pre-gunpowder warfare, had clunky or quirky mechanics, took too long to finish a game or ALL OF THE ABOVE. So? FoG II, our brand new computer game, might not actually have very good parents and might not be a good choice to breed from. Or not. Just saying :P

It took 53 seconds after this was uploaded for me to get a notification. That is unacceptable, youtube!

I guess Classical Jon just gets his General killed willy nilly, ignores it, and thinks everything is perfectly fine. But then again he did say he wanted to be realistic so he definitely missed that giant notification.

Sid Meier's Pirates battles as a full game. I love it

Wow earliest I've ever been here

You 'might' do some more classical strategy games. Might? Oh Jon. We know this would be your entire channel if you could find enough good ones (with a sprinkling of FO)! And when you do find them, we will sit back and enjoy the history lesson.

When I saw that this game was being released by slitherine games I instantly thought of you Jon.

I just started to watch, but I know it's gonna be great show.

Paradox interactive should purchase these guys and incorporate into Europa Universalis Rome 2

More MORE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREEEEE

I didn't see an ad before this. Now that I think of it, I think it's been a while since I've seen an ad before Jon's videos. Does this apply to just me?

Yay I'm early for a MATN video!

Wasn’t it a Pre-Marian armies that fought it Greece?

It melts my cold heart when the Roman legions deploy in checkerboard position. :D

I lost track of the number of times you said 'these guys'.

encore?

Roman cavalry wasn't bad. Look at Telamon (Gauls) Heraclea against Pyyrhus' Thessalian Cav, Magnesia (Seleucids). The bad reputation comes from the defeats at Trebia and Cannae, which was predominantly due to superior numbers of more manoeuvrable Cavalry. At Zama the 1,500 heavy horse did their work. After the republic Roman-Italian horse were generally replaced with foreign auxiliaries when on campaign, due to the majority of it being conducted outside Italy. Equites were generally regarded of superior station and rank, compared to infantry.

What’s up Jon?

historical xcom kinda? will we see xcom on the channel?

Why is this not WEGO with physics by now? I hate seeing this stylised one at a time with dice rolls.

Please okay mount and blade war and before the second one comes out

OK this is FoG clearly following up on the success PIKE & SHOT. P&S is one of my all-time favourite games - tactical complexity with a wicked AI. The visual style however needs a pivot. I understand the attempt to improve on the unit block style of P&S, but four figures per unit, seriously? It blows an opportunity to capture the drama of ancient battles to end up looking like the worst sort of 1980's WRG game.

It's not completely accurate to say that the Roman Legion Style is superior to the Greek Phalanx Style In a proper fight with equal commanders, soldiers and their tactics being followed properly then the Greeks will mop the floor with any Pre-Marian Army of Rome Of course IRL this wasn't the case, Rome at the time had much better and well trained commanders and soldiers while Greece has been in decline and weakening for quite some time now. There's also the fact that the late Diadochi were just bad at trying to follow the tactics and forgot what was needed to actually make their style of fighting as effective as Alexander.

hello John

If only this game was on hexagons

MATN - If you haven't yet you should checkout 0AD, it's similar to Age of Empires, it's Open Source and it's FREE.!, looks very similar to this game and I'd love to hear your opinion on that game.

I need to sleep Jon😱😨

You know what I'd love to see? Jon playing a proper game of Warhammer Fantasy. I imagine High Elves would suit Jon's playstyle very nicely.

Wait first time ever I’m early

Eww. Feels like a mobile, watered down port of a much better game.

Jon, no. No, the Romans armies were not superior to the Greeks. What caused the Greeks to fall was a lack of unity and having a ton of very powerful neighbors that also wanted their stuff.

унылая игра

The Roman style was NOT 'very, very much the superior'. The Romans consistently had the worst of any head-on fight with a pike phalanx. It has to be understood that the Roman system succeeded only against a highly debased form of the pike phalanx made famous by Alexander, which was part of a combined arms formation. A pike phalanx was always supported and protected on the flanks by skirmishers and hypaspists, while cavalry would sweep away enemy cavalry and conclude the battle with attacks on enemies engaged by the pike. By the time of the Romans, the pike phalanx was being used inelegantly without the surfeit of supporting forces, instead having stopgap measures like articulated companies between formations to protect the flanks, or just nothing at all. It also had to make do with lesser soldiers, as the pikemen of Alexanders army were terrifyingly mobile, being able to maneuver and advance just as well, if not better, than the far later and more well-known Swiss pikemen did. Later Grecian pikemen simply didn't have the same mobility and discipline they should have had, instead being smashed into enemies like a club and used as the arm of decision in combat as the pre-pike phalanx would have done. The Romans were still entirely unable to face these devolved pike formations head-on, and achieved victory only through their system of centurions, essentially a modern day NCO, capable of taking forces and responding to battlefield opportunities independently, outflanking or taking advantage of available opportunities. But those men could have done such a thing with any kind of formation. Even so, a fight with a pike phalanx was an ugly one the Romans knew they couldn't really win head-on.....that was the entire advantage of such a formation, it will obliterate anything that's in front of it. Misconceptions and misinformation about the campaigns between Greece and Rome, both deliberate or not, give rise to the idea that the Roman system was somehow highly maneuverable and versatile......it largely wasn't, it just was compared to pike blocks being used like unwieldly bludgeons instead of properly as Alexander and his father had introduced and used them. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that Alexander or his father would have crushed Rome's armies like an eggshell. Instead, the Romans stepped into a world that was, militarily speaking in comparison to Alexander, post-apocalyptic.

What is this turn based garbage? Literally everything from the animations to the lack of context and story simply spells Trash. And let's not even talk about the flipping terrain.

Jon, please play other games. I find all this total war and similar super boring. Stellaris and FTL were entertaining though.

Roman victory proved the importance of superior numbers, money, and only fighting one front at a time. The Greek way of war lasted, and dominated, about as long as melee infantry did, culminating in the pike block which lasted through to the 17th century.

You really are screwed if you are light cav in Jon's army. We see a typical Jon gameplay here. He sends in light cav and forgets that they exist in 50 % of the turns.

lol the weakest part of civilization :D

*I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS IS BUT IT HAS AN INTRO SCREEN LIKE ROME TOTAL WAR AND I AM SO HYPE*

that a shot everytime Jon says "These guys"

>turn based battles >realistic hmm.

Jon please play age of empires 2

Republican era Rome fielding both pre-reform Principes Hastati Triarii AND post reform Legionaries? WORSE. GAME. EVER!

I would like to see Jon finish off the campaign that he's started.

Many a true Cheer for Many a true History of Many a true Classics with Many a true Nerd! *Many a true Squeak!*

Was Roman Calvary considered bad?

you know the phalanx vs legionary thing was resolved in one battle. the romans didnt give the macedonian a chance to recuperate. so maybe in other circunstances the phalanx would win against the legion.

Didn't notice this is a sequel... Wonder how's the first one .. probably has all it's content in one vanilla game and isn't dlc cut content heavy

Sorta cool the first romans tried a triplex acies, with 3 lines, with hastati/pricipe in front with the triali as the reserve force and javs as a screen unti.

for those not sure, this game is not an arcade, its highly realistic represenation of ancient battles (IN comparison to total war)

Let javelin be the front line, get charged and die immediately.

This game is shit.

I like this game

Will Jon ever return to Fictorum? We don't know. And now, the sport.

If you ever return to this game, I'm quite curious how the massive end battle would have shaped up. Thanks for the video!

hey jon, what do you think about trying the game receiver? pretty interesting thing to play. Cheers

This looks like the exact kind of thing I love, but only have my decent-ish laptop to run it on. Anyone with a bit of experience with the game, can you tell me if it'd run well enough in your opinion? (Its a few year old laptop that can run pretty big Stellaris campaigns provided graphics aren't too high) Cheers!

I notice the first Field of Glory isn't on Steam. Does it even exist?

More of this please! Loved it :)

I want too se more of this! So fun!