Overview
This guide offers to explain pretty much everything that works in game, and a few other things as well. Its a long one but divided in parts, you can take a look in what interests you more.
General Information
CURRENT STATE OF THE GAME: Released
GUIDE IN PROGRESS: No
** In case you haven’t played the game and want to see how the game feels, then download Hegemony Gold demo, which is the previous installment.
**I will try to add pictures throughout the guide for easier understanding, and some details might change as the game progresses. But the main idea doesn’t change.
To begin with, I am going to write down everything I know about the game. How it works and a few tips that might help you. It’s an informative and a very long guide for newer players mostly. It is divided in parts, so you can skip any part you don’t want to read about. You are welcomed to suggest any tip/trick you know, so I can add it. I forget sometimes ^^
Now let’s begin.
What is this game and what is your goal
The game runs on RTS style, with a pausing feature that helps you in various situations.
Your goal, primarily on the campaign, is to conquer the entire Gaul while having a few surprises that include the Britons and Germani.
The game is divided in 4 chapters with an in game tutorial to teach you a few things. There is also in game index which describes everything.
Commanding your troops under Caesar’s flag, will make your efforts of conquering the map rather enjoyable and replay able.
On the other hand, the sandbox mode, will allow you to conquer the world with any faction you choose from, offering more than 20 hours of gameplay per game.
There are multiple maps for sandbox, the entire map can cover that 20 hour gameplay, the smaller ones will obviously take less.
Playing the game
You have a starting city, and maybe some starting units as well. Your 4 primary resources are Food, Gold, Wood and Recruits.
There are various assets which you can capture using your units, in order to gain more of these resources.
Little by little while creating new units and by capturing assets and other cities, you try to expand your empire in order to conquer pretty much everything.
There are also forts and bridges. Bridges allow you to cross rivers, while forts allow you to establish a forward place for your units to stay and provide you with more vision.
There are various building upgrades for your cities, forts and bridges, such as Walls, Watchtower and Market. Many more as well.
During the chapters play through you will be given various objectives, which reward you when you complete them. This applies for sandbox mode as well. There are various random objectives which reward you well, so it will not feel like a “blind” mode.
Before starting sandbox mode, you can tweak some settings regarding your objectives, starting units/cities, rewards etc. etc.
Note
From here on, I will try to describe the details of the game as best as I can.
If something seems complicated, keep in mind that everything in the game is pretty much simple. Almost everything is a couple of clicks away.
The in-game tutorial helps you a lot as well. So don’t be scared by the details if you haven’t played the game a lot yet.
Economy Details
1) Your primary resources:
i) Food
ii) Wood
iii) Gold
iv) Recruits (I will be covering this resource type on the next part, Military Details)
2) A list of the assets you can capture:
i) Farm = Provides Food
ii) Fisheries = Provide Food
iii) Mine = Gives Extra Gold
iv) Cattle Farms = Provide food and Extra Gold
v) Logging Camps = Provide wood(hardest resource to move and gather)
vi) Cities = Provides Gold and Recruits(and many more)
3) Supply lines, workers/slaves and how to use them
In order to use any asset for resource, you need 2 things. First supply lines, and second Workers/Slaves.
Supply lines connect every asset you have throughout your empire. For example, when you capture a Farm you need to connect it to a city and put some workers/slaves in the farm. Then it can start producing food.
Selecting an asset and then right clicking on a city, it allows you to connect the 2 of them. Pretty simple. The whole process takes a couple of seconds. This applies for every other resource asset as well.
How to get workers/slaves, will be covered during the next part, Military Details
Warning: The longer a supply line is, the more loss it will have. For example, a 5% loss of food, will give you 19 food instead of 20.
A 20% loss on a very long supply line, will give you 16 food and so on…. That is why, near every city there are always farms, mines, logging camps etc.
Food is the most important resource. Without food your armies cannot win battles and your cities cannot survive sieges. Simple as that.
Food is stored in cities, forts, bridges and units.
Your food is not universal. Which means, each unit and each city has its own food.
So in order to see how much food a city has, simply select the city. On the lower right corner you can see details about your city. You can find food there as well. The same applies for every unit on your army.
Hovering the mouse over a city, allows you to see a yellow circle. That is the City Resupply Range.(CRR)
When your units leave the CRR, they will take all the food they can from the city.
Example: City has 500 food, your unit leaves the area and takes 50 food. Your city has 450 remaining. If the Unit comes back to the city, the 50 food it had, will be stored in the CITY again.
Note: There is a limit to how much food a city or a unit can hold at a time. Increasing that limit is possible through upgrades.
While your units are outside the CRR, they will consume their own food, where as if the unit is within the city OR the CRR, it will consume food from the city.
Wood, Is the hardest resource to gather. It is stored in cities, forts and bridges.
Wood is used to build upgrades on your cities, forts and bridges. It is also used for building siege weapons.
Upgrades include Workshop (for siege equipment), Market (more gold), Watchtowers (More vision range), Walls (better defenses) and many more.
Near a city there is almost always a Logging camp for you to gather wood because it’s hard to move it around.
Example: You want to build something on city A, but city A has 200 wood and you need 400 wood. You can start the construction/upgrade, and it will go on until it is finished.
If you have city B connected to city A, then city B will give some wood to city A in order to complete the construction. Since wood is hard to move around, some of it will be lost during the movement.
Connecting city A to a fort, and then connecting the fort to city B, makes you an INDIRECT connection between cities A and B. Which means, wood can go like this:
City B —-> fort —-> City A
But there will be an even greater loss for the movement. Also wood, will Not transfer at all over long distances. That is why there are logging camps everywhere.
Important wood note: Wood will transfer between camps and cities, only when the city has no more wood to spend for an upgrade.
Gold is gained in a little different way than the other resources.
It’s not dynamic like food or wood, which you gather all the time, and it is NOT stored.
First of all Gold is global and is an ongoing expense.
Example: You have a mine that gives you 200 gold. Then you create a unit that consumes 50 gold. Then the remaining 150 gold is all you have. That’s it.
Even if you leave the game open for an hour, you will still have 150 gold. That is what I mean by “ongoing expense”. You do not gather it all the time. It increases by gaining more cities and mines. In case your unit dies, that 50 gold, will return back.
While playing the game, you can understand how the entire concept feels.
Military & Empire Management Details
Here i will cover everything you need to know about your military and your empire’s management. The reason i put these 2 topics together, is because they are directly connected to each other.
First of all, there are combat and non-combat units.
Non-Combat Units:
i) Workers = Use them to work at assets such as farms.
ii) Slaves = Use them to work at assets such as farms and disband them for more recruits.(Explained on “Tips”)
iii) Hostages = Use them for increasing a city morale
All the other units, such as skirmishers and slingers, are used for combat.
Non-Combat units are the core to your empire’s economy and foreign happiness.
Place workers and slaves inside a farm, and you can make it produce food.
You can train workers at a city you own. Whereas slaves are aquired through battle.
Defeating an enemy unit, causes that unit to leave the battle. If you catch up to that unit before it leaves, you can right click on them in order to capture and make them your slaves.
Another way to gain slaves is to capture an enemy farm(or mines etc.), while the farm already has workers in it.
Example: You capture an enemy farm which has 20 workers in it. When the capturing process is completed, half the workers will die and the other half will remain under your control as slaves.
On the map, depending on which faction you chooce, you get to have some NATIVE cities, and the rest are foreign.
That means:
i) You Cannot recruit hostages on native cities.(Because hostages are only for foreign cities)
ii) Units you recruit on Native cities, CANNOT replenish after battles, on foreign cities.
iii) Whereas the opposite applies too. Units you recruit on foreign cities, cannot replenish on any of your native or even other foreign cities.
Example: (i will try to make this simple)
You control Roman units. You capture a Briton City and a Remi City.
Now those 3 factions/cultures are different from each other.
A unit you recruit from a Roman city, cannot replenish the dead troops from Briton or Remi city.
It can only replenish from Roman cities(Native cities). The same thing applies for any other faction out there. Britons replenish only from briton cities and so on….
**Note: It doesn’t matter what faction you control. But if you have a Roman unit, you need a roman city to replenish dead troops.
Each faction has a different number of native cities, usually going around 4-7 cities.
Now for hostages, when you capture a foreign enemy city, due to the hostility between your 2 factions, the city morale is going to drop a lot. This can lead to a rebellion if left uncheked. There are 3 ways to prevent rebellions and increase morale of the city.
One of them is the Hostages. So basically the idea is to recruit hostages, and send them to any other city you control. Then the morale of the city that the hostages come from, is going to increase.
The idea is like “Dont rebel we have your people as hostages”. Pretty evil i know, i love it!
The other 2 ways will be explained on another part.
**Exact numbers may vary for each faction.
You start the game with a city, you need an army.
Example: Your city has 100 recruits max and available, 100/100 that is.
You train a group of workers, which take 20 recruits and a group of skirmisher unit which take 30 recruits.
The remaining recruits are 50/100.
Train 2 more slinger units(ranged unit) which take 23 recruits each so the remaining recruits are 4/100.
Gograntz, you now have your first army.
Now all you need to do is start expanding. Find another city and attack it. You will lose some troops and since you only have 4/100 on your starting city, only 4 troops are available for replenishment after battle.
3-1) Replenishment
Now if you capture a second city your troops can replenish from the second city when the following 3 conditions are met.
i) The second city has enough recruits
ii) The second city is a native city of your units(explained above)
iii) The city must be the Home city of your unit.
Now the third one needs some clearing, so here is an example:
You have city A. You create a unit there, and it can ONLY replenish from city A, because city A is the home city of your unit.
When you capture city B, select your unit, then hold right click on city B. A wheel will show up with various options. There is an option to make city B, the home city of the unit. That way the unit can replenish only from city B.
**Note: If city B is foreign city, from a different faction that is, then the Home City option will not be available(see reason 2 of replenishment)
**Note: Each city has a recruitment rate, which means the recruits will start generating automatically when it’s not full. But the proccess is slow.
3-2) Building siege equipment
Currently, there are 3 options available and require wood for construction.
i) Siege tower
ii) Scorpion
iii) Ship
i) Place it in front of a unit while besieging a city, for a defence bonus.
ii) It’s a simple ranged unit.
iii) Used for transporting units.
**Note: The game doesn’t have much water for ships to sail, so their use is limited for the most part. Also siege equipment doesn’t quite work well yet, so the same thing applies as well.
Military & Empire Management Details Part 2
When you find an enemy unit, right click on it to attack it with your own unit.
They collide and battle. Someone has to lose and someone has to win.
1-1)
These are the factors that determine both the winner and the loser.
Factors
i) Unit stats
ii) Flanking
iii) Morale/Food
iv) Number of troops within a unit
v) Stances
Additional Factor for sieges
vi) Walls & Defences
i) About stats, some units are stronger and some are weaker, so a ranged unit cannot directly win a close combat. That is why you need to keep them afar. Pressing F1 after selecting a unit, will bring up various information regarding its defences, attack etc…
ii) When you flank an enemy unit, it gains a huge morale drop, which leads to an easier victory.
In order to flank, you need at least 2 units. One attacking from the front, and the second one attacking from behind. If flanking is successfull, you will notice a special icon above the unit, indicating that flanking is in effect.
iii) Morale/Food
Now morale is the most important factor in a battle. When units are battling they start losing morale. If morale drops to 0, then the unit flees the battle(a shamefull display).
Flanking gives a negative morale as described from above.
But food plays an important role here as well. If your unit has NO food, the morale will drop way faster and, sometimes it can reach 0 from 100 in a second.
So keep your units well fed.
iv) Morale is the most important factor, but the number of troops you have takes a role on your battle as well. The less troops a unit have, the less effective it gets in battle.
v) Even though stances dont work that much right now. They are supposed to give you some bonuses. For example, cutting some speed from your unit for some extra defence.
vi) Now when you siege a city without walls, there is no penantly. But when there are walls, there are a few things to consider.
Attacking a city without walls:
i) Any number of units can besiege the city, more units result in a faster capturing process.
Attacking a city with walls:
i) Limited number of units can attack the city at once. Maybe 2, maybe 5, it depends on the landscape of the enviroment that surrounds the city.
ii) Walls auto attack your units within range, if the city has a building called Battlements, the range is increased.
The more units a city has, the more damage the city deals. This concept might not be working entirely yet, but even without battle, your legions on big cities can suffer a lot of losses.
Also, if the enemy city has walls, you can place siege towers in front of your units, in order to minimize your unit’s losses.(You need to build them first)
1-2) Capturing/Executing Enemy Units
When you defeat enemy units in battle, they will attempt to escape. Chasing them with your own units will make them stop. Hold the right click onto the enemy unit and will it will bring up a wheel.
There you have 2 options. To capture the remaining unit and make them your slaves, or execute them. Executing them, will increase hostility between your factions.
1-3) Experience/Upgrades
Through battles, your units gain experience that can be used for upgrades.
Selecting a unit, and pressing the K button will bring up the upgrade panel, where you can see how much experience the unit has and which upgrades are available.
There are various upgrades like, upgraded ranged damage, upgraded defence, less recruits for replenishment, more troops in the unit, more siege damage, more morale etc etc…
Each upgrade has 5 levels which may cost more to upgrade through each level.
1-4) Burning/Scaveging
You can use your units to burn an enemy farm, or mine, in order to kill some workers in it and make the asset less productive for a period of time. It can be used to starve your enemies and lower their total incomes.
Scaveging a farm on the other hand, can be used so that your units can directly take extra food from the farm, while damaging the farm itself. It can be done on your farms as well.
To do either of this actions, hold the right mouse button on the asset, and select it from the wheel that comes up.
Diplomacy
Now diplomacy is very simple, and can be usefull as well.
There are 3 situations will find yourself to be at, one at a time of course.
i) War
ii) Truce
iii) Alliance
War
War is the default stance among factions. At any time anyone is “allowed” to attack anyone. Any attack towards a faction, increases the hostility between you two.
Truce
When you enter Truce, a white dove will appear on every asset on the faction you are in Truce with(Same dove appears on Alliance as well). This means you cannot attack them, but also cannot enter near their territory. It might increase hostility(i am not entirely sure about that, i need to test it)
Alliance
Now to enter into an Alliance with a faction, your hostility needs to be as low as possible and it is even better when they fear you more.(Explained below)
When you are in Alliance, you cannot attack their assets, but you can march your units into your territory without any penalty.
As an extra option, you get to Requisition any asset they own. Which means, you can “buy” their cities, farms, mines etc, in order to use them for yourself. Doing so, it consumes Gold from your part, and increases the hostility between you and the faction.
———-
Now, 2 major factors determine your relations with other factions.
i) Hostility
ii) Intimidation
Hostility
Hostility increases or decreases depending on your actions. When you attack enemy assets hostility increases, but when you leave the faction alone it gradually decreases.
Also, giving them back any requisitions, decreases the hostility as well
Its value is between -100 and 100.
If hostility is 100, then the enemy feels hatred towards you.
If hostility is -100, then they are open to diplomatic agreements.
Hostility affects 2 things.
i) Morale of allied and captured enemy cities
ii) Gold “burden” on diplomatic agreements
i) Morale, the more hatred a faction feels towards you, the more difficult is to keep their captured cities morale up and running. Which means you might need more units, or hostages to keep the morale in check.
ii) When you want to enter in a Truce or Alliance state with the faction, we will need to pay gold.
The more hostility there is between you two, the more gold you need to pay.
Intimidation
Indimidation works pretty much the same as hostility, but it’s determined by other factors.
Which means, when you expand and create a large empire, other factions begin to feel intimidated towards you, they fear you.
In other words, the value changes as the game progresses mostly.
The vaule is the same, between -100 and 100.
If indimidation is 100, then they fear you greatly and will reduce the gold expenses for Truce, Alliance and Requisitions.
If indimidation is -100, they show no fear, so any diplomatic relations will cost more.
You might have a very large empire but there can be factions with -100 indimidation. Which means they don’t fear you at all. If you start capturing their cities, they will start to feel scared, thus increasing the Indimidation value.(Not entirely sure about this yet, i need to test)
Tips
Roman Legions Replenishment
During your campaign playthrough, you will find replenishing Roman Legions to be hard. That is because you can replenish legions, only from the first city.
i) So building Training Ground from the start, and upgrading it will benefit you as you progress the game. The difference is not that big, but it can surely help.(Even though the building doesn’t work yet, keep it in mind for future updates)
ii) There are a few occations where you battle big armies, allowing you to caprure many slaves. Never let slaves get away. It is not nessecary to place them inside assets. Instead try sending them to your starting city and disband them. They will give you a few recruits to replenish your legions.
4 slaves give you 1 recruit, so a 20 slave unit would give you 5 recruits. It is not much, but can benefit you as hell after a big battle.
Preventing Rebellions
The morale of a city determines if your city is happy or not. If not it is going to rebel eventually. Three ways to prevent a rebellion:
i) Recruit Hostages at a city and sent them away from their home.
ii) Garrison Units inside the city, 1 or 2 are enough while having hostages as well
iii) Building the Nightwatch building can help as well. Even though it doesn’t work yet i think.
Attacking a city with walls
Always consider upgrading your legions with the Engineer upgrade for attacking big cities, with many garrison units. You can suffer great losses sometimes, because your capturing progress is not fast enough. Even though sieges might not be working well now, it happened to me once on chapter 2, and i lost almost all my legions, about 80% of them. (I had 6 units in total with many defence upgrades)
So keep it in mind, for future improvements.
If i am correct, it should mostly happen on capital cities, and not on lesser cities. You can spot capitals easily, they are bigger and usually have lots of space around them.
Also, when the game is completed, you will need to use siege towers as well, to prevent unit losses.
Autopause
I do not really like using autopause for various events, but consider turning on autopause only for sighted enemies. It’s the only autopause that has helped me when my attention is away.
Others
I will probably add more content through out the guide, maybe pictures as well. Feel free to comment if you have something to say. I hope this guide can help you clear up some details, i am still fixing up a few myself.
Hegemony Series History
Hegemony: Philip of Macedon was the first game in the series, which was made many years ago by Longbowgames, featuring the entire Greek world, including parts of Turkey and The Balkans.
Your main campaign was about Philip of Macedon (Father of Alexander the Great) and his efforts to unite the Greeks before he turned his attention to the Persians.
Hegemony Gold: Wars of ancient Greece was made a few years after, it was a very large expansion to the previous game, adding a couple more of campaigns, a sandbox mode and finally enhancing all of the game’s mechanisms which made the game far more enjoyable and replay able. (There is demo available if you want to get an idea of that the game feels like)
Now, Hegemony Rome was announced back in 2011 and was released in the middle of February 2014, as an early access game on steam while holding a closed beta, about a month or two before the release. The game involves Caesar and his campaign at Gaul, while inheriting all the previous mechanisms and taking them to the next level.