You might want to check out the dozen tutorial video's on You Tube that are a very useful introduction to this complex strategy title that is non-handholding and very deep in all areas! For example, if it rains, the area can flood, this can make is difficult for your army to pass it, but if it can, water holds bugs, so the units crossing the water may get infected. If they are affected their stats are impacted and will affect any battles they may have to fight. Have the right buildings in your city though, and you can bring them back and cure them! Told you it was deep!

I love this game and have over 100 hours in it. I prefer it over my Civ IV and it has postponed my purchase of TW Warhammer 2! If that's not a reccomendation, I don't know what is! :)

Yeah, Youtube's a pretty poor method. I'd be nice if there were a manual. Hopefully I'll find something text-based someone made.

For the life of me, I can't figure out the damned "fullness" of the flag for the army and what that means/how to refill it whatever it means when it is low.

The flag means they are sub par for some reason. Lost soliders in battle so aren't full strength, ill, leader is dead, etc.

Take the units back to the cities you created them in (making units in different cities means you can't just send them all to the one city to be replenished, like TW). Leave the units in their respective cities for one or two turns and you will find all is well.

But you may want to check out the Iceburg YT tutorial on army battles and exploration

So, the trailer and summary look pretty interesting, but how does combat work in this game? The trailer makes it resemble a low-budget Total War, but the forums make it sound more like Endless Space where you only have control over general tactics and army makeup and thereafter get to watch a video rather than commanding a battle yourself.

This is correct. You don't command battles like you do in in Total War games. You give orders and decide on tactics between turns and your orders are executed simultaneously with other players. You can zoom in (everything happens in strategic map) to watch the battles happening (they look similar to those in TW games up close) in real time but that's about it.

This should give you better idea about battles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e41WZt7pjI

Treat the whole game as a much more serious Civ style game. SO historically the General of an army had to come up with a plan, tell his captains, who would go to the troops and go/do what the general said. You are the general. Remember what Napoleon said "the plan changes after the first shot"! This is what Oriental Empires captures. Historically accurate control of battles.

Hmm. Informative video and post, thank you. I will have to think about this.

Hey Guys!

It's really a nice game. I have a couple of questions:

- Is GoG Version of the game up to date? (i have 1.0.0.5, GOG updater says there is no newer version on GoG avaible)
- Is KI in your games in lategame also so "stupid" and dont defend their cities? I played a game on hard and had the strongest and biggest Nation. The 2d and 3d strongest KI had great, fully build up Cities, but only 1x8 Stack in one city and nothing - NOTHING - else to defend them? I prepared for a big war, came with well armed force, avoided that single "defended" City, took 2-3 really big (120+ pop) cities without loosing even a single soldier and KI agreed instantly to become my vassals. It was abit dissapointing after playing over 200 rounds...
- I check regulary at different times for multiplayergames - but there are none avaible. Does nobody play MP or is it maybe because of being not up to date with the game?

Thanks alot!

I too have never seen a multiplayer game in the server list. Admittedly, I haven't tried creating one either so I have no idea if multiplayer actually works...