AGEOD Forums

When this game first came out, I wanted to buy it, but something seemed to come up and cause me to push back purchasing it until I forgot about it. Then, the other day I saw the game once more at the Matrix Games site, and despite knowing that it was an older title with certain limitations like screen resolutions, I purchased it at last...my interest in the period won out. After playing with it for a bit, still on the long learning road yet, I'm quite happy with my choice to buy the game finally.

I've been doing a lot of reading here now to get more hints on the game when I noticed this Official Mod being talked about. Now the Matrix Games version of the game is at 1.07d, while the Mod is listed as 1.07c, so is the mod no longer compatible with the version of the game I now have? Also, what does this mod do exactly? No need to go into great detail on this, just some brief info would help. I tried to find more details on it here, but haven't seen anything on it, unless I missed it.

I don't recall which mod you are talking about, but the only one I remember of is one which changes some interface look and textures, so that should not be an issue

What you can do is to install the mod and see for yourself...make a backup of your save game before, and in case the mod displeases you or creates issue, you can always quickly re-install the game...

If anything goes to worse, contact me, I'll replace any damaged game if need be

Thank you for the quick reply! The mod I was referring to was something that was whipped up by Calvinus some time ago, some of which it looks like made it into what became the official 1.07c patch. After looking things over some more in the game, I'm better off at this point just trying to get the normal version of the game in my head before I start worrying about mods I think.

On another note, was this game by chance inspired by the old board game Barbarian, Kingdom, & Empire? Being an older board and war game fan, when I was reading about the evolution of peoples in this game I was reminded of the older board game. Of course, this game is light years beyond what that game was.

IIRC, and it was a long time ago (I miss this game, if AGEOD adopts the Clausewitz engine anyway, they ought to modernize this baby), the "official mod"'s main gameplay feature was a more scripted nature for the various nations/tribes.

In effect this meant that if conditions were right, barbarians showcased a more historical path in their conquest/migration, but if conditions for that weren't right, they tended to be a bit too timid (IIRC we drastically tweaked their preferences), since they were very reluctant to expand in non-historic ways.

Ah, I see then. So the mod was to give a more historical flow to the gameplay outside the players control. Very good then. I do have the mod downloaded, and once I do feel more comfortable with the game I'll try seeing if it will work with the Matrix version of the game. If it doesn't, I can always just re-install.

I have yet to really play more than a few decades in a couple of scenarios as I'm still working my way through the expanded rules, but I can already see the gem that this game really is. The brilliance to me is in the choices of 1) multiple country play per side 2) the Barbarian, Kingdom, Empire rise and decline mechanics 3) the solid layout of the ethnic and religious systems and their importance in the game as in history and 4) the entire strategem concept allowing the player to try and outwit or bend the fates to his side. The blending of these 4 main concepts I believe fit this chaotic period of European/North African/Middle Eastern history like a glove as well as make the game fun to play. Very well done indeed!

The sad thing is, I can see that back when this game came out, many people seemed disappointed with the concept of not running just one state. The idea of playing multiple countries to the best of your ability each to score points, rather than try to achieve some kind of non-historical empire with one country is hard for some people to grasp. I well remember the difficulty many of my friends and I had many years ago when we first came across and played the game Britannica, which uses a similar system. Yet with some practice and experience, one comes to appreciate the nuances of such a system, as well as how well it can be used to balance a game. This balancing ability is even more in evidence in Great Invasions with the very nice bidding system. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people and reviewers came into this game expecting another form of Europa Universalis, which with all it's strengths in depicting the Medieval world onward, just doesn't work for this particular period as well.

Well, I look forward to enjoying many hours with this game, and I'm going to introduce it to my local board gaming group as well. One couple are already interested in the game now from what I've told them about it, and if all goes well, we may see about trying out a LAN game of this. I hope that someday you do seriously consider giving this game another chance at life with an updated version, because as I said, I think you really hit on an excellent formula for depicting this rather neglected era of history.