Anyone got the Prima Strategy Guide Yet?

[hach]

Hi

Anyone gotta hold of this guide yet?
The 2 Previous guides by Prima and Brady were excellent companions.

[ElmarkOFear]

I have heard of two dates: One being tomorrow Thursday the 23rd and the other is Sept. 29th. Not sure which of these may be true, but I DO know it is not out yet. I was hoping for some nice reading before getting the game, but it looks like I will have to brush up as I go. hehe

You are correct. Both the STW and MTW strategy guides were great resources. The section in MTW concerning how the kill factors are determined, might have been boring for most, but it really let you know what caused your units to rout and how to increase thier staying power.

Plus all the nice unit listing and individual stats, helped in creating my initial armies.

[Scipio]

Ebgames has it in stock already, check this page here

[ElmarkOFear]

Amazon.com says the sucker is over 400 pages long! wow. The other two might have been 200 at the most. Gonna be like an encyclopedia. hehe

[Scipio]

It has been shipped to me Says will come to my door 5pm tmrw

[Nowake]

Damn Scipio, when you can, slip some info on how the dacians are depicted, will you?

[Scipio]

Yeah Ill give ya guys some info...but just enough to keep you whimpering for more

[sparkmaster4513]

I looked trough the Stat Guide while i was buying rome at EB games. It probably isnt worth buying. It lists all the buildings and army and navy uits, and gives a brief description. It also goes into depth about the Historical battles. it gives very little info about battles or the Campaign. Its not worth the 20 bucks for it.

[SirGrotius]

The strategy guide for Medieval was the best bathroom reader I have ever owned. All those stats at the end, I could compare units in a constant state of euphoria.

[Dorkus]

Does the guide have detailed unit statistics?

How about morale, terrain bonuses?

Also combat resolution formula?

If anyone gets it, and is willing to post some numbers (if there are any numbers), I would greatly appreciate it!

[ElmarkOFear]

The guide is only 178 pages long and not 400. It costs $20 U.S. and has units stats. I do not see a stat for morale given. Here is the info given for a sample unit:

Peasants

Soldiers: 61
Attack: 1
Charge Bonus: 1
Weapon Type: Light
Total Defense: 1
Armor: 0
Defense Skill: 1
Shield: 0
Hit Points: 1
Recruitment cost: 60
Upkeep: 100
No cost given

Peasant warriors are reluctant warriors, at best. Going to war is just one more burden of a hard life.


Building info gives:

Prerequisite buildings
What each building provides ex: +1 morale
No costs given for each building

All-in-all, at first glance, this guide appears to be the least helpful of all the guides I have. It has info. that can easily be found in the game.

I will give a better reply after having a few nights looking at it.

[econ21]

I've just got the Strategy Guide and spent an hour skimming over it.

It is VERY good for the unit stats - if you want to see the numbers, compare troop types etc, it is nicely done. Quite comparable to MTW; maybe a little better (gives overall defence as well as component factors of armour, shield and skill; includes a missile "attack" stat). This is probably the main function of the guide for me. It does miss information on morale and unit speed (e.g. are cats slow?) though. This unit information is bloated by stuff on buildings which would be better represented by a pull-out tech tree as came with MTW.

For everything else, I am not so sure. Certainly no quantitative information on combat formulae, unlike the STW and MTW guides.

I can't see much - anything - on faction specific campaign strategy tips. These were short in the STW and MTW guides, but very appreciated by me. This absence is a very big shortcoming.

A big disappointment is the "campaign map". It is advertised as fully detailed - indeed this is the big selling point on the back of the book - but I can't find it. There is a blurry, small thing on p187, but you can't make out many province names let along cities or other detail. p179 has a much better sized photo, but it covers only Gaul and a bit of surrounding provinces. Very annoying.

There is a fair amount on the historical battles, but these are of no interest to me.

Bottomline: buy it only if you want a handy way to access unit stats, to find out the best unit (Answer: Praetorians!, esp. the urban cohort ones)