"Hegemony - Philip of Macedon" Game [Archive]

Jolt

05-13-2010, 12:34

Hegemony- Philip of Macedon site (http://www.longbowgames.com/hegemony/)

I just learned about this new game, centered on the Philippean rise to power and unification of the Greek States under the League of Corinth. This game was developed by a very small team over the last 6 years and has just been released. It has no DRM and a demo is available to see if it suits your tastes. I must say I've only tried the demo, and found it refreshingly similar to Rome: Total War (Albeit understandably, its Battle System is nowhere as complex as RTW). The graphics are pretty good and the strategy aspect behind the game is pretty awesome as well. You can only play as Macedon but as you conquer Greek-States you can recruit their units to form part of your army.

It costs 29,99 $ and there still aren't hardcase copies as this has just been released, but the team said that in a couple of months hardcase copies would begin to be made.

Though not exactly of the EB period, I decided to post here the game to publicitize it with an audience that is very fond of the classical period (& for the Philmacedonians like myself :P), as well as to showcase it to the EB team where someone might pick it up (Even the demo at least), and get a few ideas from the game to be implemented on the mod. The publicitation of the game is rather important as this is a small indie company which happened to produce a good game and it would be rather sad to see it fail due to lack of information and knowledge.

A review on the game. (http://sugarfreegamer.com/?p=719)

Release trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKstxAygy40

Some screenshots:
Siege of Athens:
https://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu150/Joltie/nighttime20siege20of20athens.jpg

Random battle between Hoplites and Macedonian auxiliaries:
https://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu150/Joltie/hegemony3.jpg

Peltast skirmish:
https://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu150/Joltie/phalangites20and20peltasts201.jpg

Overview of the strategy map centered on the Peleponese:
https://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu150/Joltie/Miniatures20Wide.jpg

I hope you guys try the demo and if you enjoy it, tell your buddies about it! :D Other people can weigh in their opinions on the game as well. :bow:

antisocialmunky

05-13-2010, 13:17

Looks like some sort of AOE + TW clone. :)

I assume it'll pop up on steam eventually.

Mediolanicus

05-13-2010, 14:07

I tried it for an hour. It's very good. Thank you for posting it, Jolt.

It is however a bit too much history on rails for my tastes.

al Roumi

05-13-2010, 14:34

New (?) Indie RTS game based on Phillip of macedon's conquest of Greece. Looks a bit like RTW but zoomed in a couple of degrees closer to the ground. Includes supply considerations and what looks like a real time map -so maybe a bit like RTW without the dual game mode (battle/campaign) we know from TW games...

Encouraging review on RPS (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/05/13/show-me-the-hegemony-phillip-of-macedon/#more-30222), developer's website (http://www.longbowgames.com/hegemony/).

Might give the demo a whirl this weekend...

Horatius Flaccus

05-13-2010, 14:39

Looks good, I'm going to try the demo.

Jolt

05-13-2010, 15:16

I was gonna post the thread also here, but it appears I was beaten to it. I'm about to go back home (I'm sick), gonna give the demo another try and I'll try to write a short review after that (But not before playing some Quake Live, which I'm itching to as I haven't played it in a month.)

Ibn-Khaldun

05-13-2010, 15:54

I haven't tried the demo yet(downloading it at the moment) but so far what I've seen have been quite amazing! One thing I really really like is their zoom option. I know that many wanted to zoom to the battlefield from the campaign map in TW series but it was not possible. This kind of gives us that and much more. Battles look like tabletop style ones but I need to check the demo before I can say something about that.

Nice find alh_p and Jolt! :bow:

gamegeek2

05-13-2010, 16:27

Looks like a nice synthesis of TW and Civ 4.

al Roumi

05-13-2010, 17:10

Cool, I'll be interested to see how you both find it.

A Nerd

05-13-2010, 18:11

I'd like to know how it is! Though I've always been fond of the risk style conquring of the map that has been common to all the TW titles.

Klearchos

05-13-2010, 21:47

That antiquity-style map looks great :beam:

Megas Methuselah

05-14-2010, 01:31

I'll probably eventually get it, but I hope it's moddable.

vartan

05-14-2010, 17:05

Looks like some sort of AOE + TW clone. :)

I assume it'll pop up on steam eventually.
You must not know of Seumas McNally (R.I.P.). If his memory means anything, it means this game ain't going down the toilet drain via Steam...

Skullheadhq

05-14-2010, 20:51

Played it, very nice game!

vartan

05-15-2010, 00:33

Played it, very nice game!
Did you end up finding what you were looking for? ;) bad bad

Martok

05-15-2010, 05:54

I've had my eye on this one for a while now. I don't like that it's RTS, that you're apparently limited to just playing as Macedonia, and that there is no diplomacy....yet I'm intrigued just the same. Haven't had time to check out the demo yet, so I'll be very curious to hear what the rest of you guys' & gals' reactions are.

Alexander the Pretty Good

05-15-2010, 07:27

I bought it on an impulse (not the platform lol) yesterday after completing the demo. I encourage you to try the demo, but some of my off-the-cuff observations are...

The good:

You can pause the game whenever you like, and issue orders while paused. This can be really important when you've gotten the "enemy sighted" alert but you're not sure where. Just pause the game and hit "v" to scroll through sighted enemies.

The sense of scope with the zooming feature is really cool. The demo according to the devs is only 1% of the map, and it certainly feels that way. It's also cool to discover more parts of the map and go "oh hey I've hit a new neighbor on this border."

I like that every unit is named after whatever town it was recruited at. So you have your "1st Aegae Phalagite Brigade" (or whatever) or your "2nd Pella Company of Peltasts".

The game has a (very critical) logistics thing. Your cities need food to defend themselves, and your units need food or their morale drops and they'll run in a fight. This makes the (gently paced) seasons very important; good luck getting a ton of food from your enemy's farm in the dead of winter! On the plus side, stumble upon a roving flock of sheep and you'll eat for a long time.

Even though the game only lets you play as Macedon, there is a ton of stuff for you to do. There are core objectives that you need to accomplish to win the campaign, but there are also "side missions" with multiple submissions. The rewards are usually cool, too, like giving you some of Alexander's historical companions so you can make them into powerful unit commanders. One side mission got me an Illyrian city that I had captured and made it a Macedonian city so that it stopped being angry about being occupied and it also contributes to the manpower pool for Macedonian instead of barbarian troops.

What I don't like:

Whack a mole. Your surrounding enemies will routinely send units to harass you. This is annoying because there isn't any AI for your units. So your units will sit there getting arrow'd if you don't tell them to attack or run away. And if you don't stop the raiders, they'll burn or capture your farms. Very frustrating, and the only solution seems to be capture the city their raiding from. But then they'll raid from another city next to the one you capped. The Athenians (from where I am now) are the dumbest; they stage regular naval invasions from the next city over. They always land in the same place, so I put one of my phalanxes on the beach every time I see them coming. They always die in droves (think Omaha Beach but spears instead of machine guns) but they keep coming back. And I have to move my phalanx from the beach back to a city for food then back to the beach every time they drive by again.

The scroll and zoom and camera are weird. It's not quite choppy, but it moves strangely and sort of laggy. There's also a bit of a pause when issuing orders to units, especially attack orders. I usually issue attack orders from pause where I can correct screw ups easily.

Part of the game involves "connecting" cities and towns and farms and forts via road. Doing so generates more money and connecting farms to cities means the all-important food gets stockpiled safely in a city. It's simple, just select one and right click where you want to connect it. However, there are non-obvious rules about what you can connect what to. So some cities just can't connect to each other, and there's no explanation given other than there aren't open "nodes" - even when neither city seems to have too many things connected to it. I just don't get it.

I don't know if the game is worth $30. I'm hoping Longbow Games releases some patches, because the potential is definitely there. Play the demo - you'll either see through the flaws or you won't.

antisocialmunky

05-15-2010, 13:27

After seeing this, I was looking for other TW-genre games and I was wondering if anyone has anyone else played games that are TWish like XII Century by 1C by more in this period?

al Roumi

05-15-2010, 13:37

Thanks AtPG, I've just played through the demo twice and although i enjoyed it (both times), I am not convinced there would be much more to the game except "more of the same" and am therefore really unsure about paying $30 for the full experience.

I appreciate the supply considerations, combat mechanics, story telling and setting; but I couldn't agree more on the tiresome "whack a mole" defense the game forces you to play.

The trade/supply system for cities is interesting but it has a few faults:
1) you can't "unlink" a farm, villa or town once you have linked it up -this means that it can be hard to is properly absorb new cities etc if you cluster trade too much in earlier phases of expansion;
2) its not clear how economic or beneficial a given link is over another, this is a problem when you have strategic considerations (e.g. supplying a fort from a town) as well as when seeking the best balance of food to feed a city or city/city trade for economic benefit.

I would buy the game immediately if it was on sale for $10-15, I would have a hard time deciding if it was $20, but $30 is just too much for this IMO. I hate to say that as I think the developer is on to something interesting and that it will only be improved on, and I'd like to support Indie games with innovative ideas. They've just set the bar too high for me.

Ca Putt

05-15-2010, 13:47

Alexander the Pretty Good

05-15-2010, 18:03

You can unlink stuff - select the road and there's a menu button that lets you delete it. I agree that there needs to be more information available on how links work/which ones you should link.

Hannibal Khan the Great

05-16-2010, 02:18

I tested the demo, the Artwork is a bit odd and sometimes the unit design sometimes is aswell. but I really like the gameplay a lot much like Civilisation and rise of nations combined and supplied with a neat zoom feature for the map :DD

now the question arises if I buy This or Mount and blade :D

Mount and Blade any day. The mods alone make it a god among games.

I found the demo to be interesting, even if it took a bit to get used to.

Allhopeforhumanity

05-16-2010, 03:58

now the question arises if I buy This or Mount and blade :D

Id say Mount and blade, especially with the 268 BC mod on the horizon. You should check it out if you haven't already.

antisocialmunky

05-16-2010, 12:03

Well I bought it and kinda regret it because its still a bit buggy right now but I guess all TW fans should be used to that sort of thing :).

al Roumi

05-28-2010, 12:52

For any interested, Hegemony: Philip of Macedon is in an Impulse sale this weekend!

For £9.99, I am definitley getting it!

http://www.impulsedriven.com/hegemony

Alexander the Pretty Good

05-28-2010, 15:56

Though I haven't played it in a while, I'd like to comment that Longbow games seems to have excellent support for a small team of developers. They're beta testing their patches (which has actually made me hesitant to try it, I'd rather wait for the full patch) and if you post a problem on their forum they'll try their best to fix it. They've made repeated offers to people having problems to take the player's savegames and try and assess and even fix the problem from there.

That kind of support, coupled with the game's potential, makes it a pretty good buy at $15 USD. Obviously check out the demo first.

Alexander the Pretty Good

05-28-2010, 17:30

And everyone's favorite Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an interview (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/05/28/great-expectations-hegemony-interview/) with the president of Longbow games (I assume he's also essentially lead dev for Hegemony). Not much new information if you've played the demo/full game, but probably a better picture of the game than my scatter-shot impressions.

Alexander the Pretty Good

06-01-2010, 06:33

Triple post time:

Longbow released the 1.1.0 patch (not the beta) and the game's seems to have a lot less whack-a-mole. Basically they made it easier :P - the AI is more respectful of your garrisons (but still raids to get back territory you took from them to keep you on your toes). I'm having a lot more fun despite having to deal with a memory-related crash that keeps popping up. I'm also being much smarter about who I attack, minimizing the number of fronts I have with the Athenians while completely subjugating annoying factions like the Illyrians and Thracians, who won't let you be if you've taken some of their cities but haven't crippled them. I think with this patch (and hopefully with a fix for my memory problem) I could recommend this game at the $30 price. Anything less than that is a definite buy, though.

Changelog:

* We now have multiple difficulty levels, for those who would like more of a challenge, or if you'd like Hegemony to be a little less stressful.
* The enemy is now less aggressive in 'normal' difficulty. If you liked the difficulty level in version 1.0, set the difficulty to 'expert'.
* A number of problems with objectives have been fixed, including Bardylis disbanding his men, and not being able to complete kill quests.
* Hegemony now supports Unicode file paths, so it works on non-English versions of Windows.
* Issuing orders is now more responsive. This came at a cost: you are now required to double-click faster. This setting is configurable in the 'Gameplay' settings.
* Non-combat units now have a silver base, making it easier to differentiate them from combat units, especially when they're in cities.
* The asset list is now twice as wide, and units in the field report the region they're in. Garrisoned units have a (g) next to their station.
* If you have a wide monitor, you'll be able to open more than two dialogues.

al Roumi

06-02-2010, 15:18

I got the full game last Friday (as I mentioned above), I have enjoyed it more than just "more of the same" from the Demo.

I'm not sure which version of the game I'm playing, but it is quite challenging. At worst it feels like MTW2 on Very Hard where all the AI factions are out to get you.

Maybe I'm missing a large chunk of knowledge of Hellenic history but there doesn't seem to be much reason behind the AI raids other than "we are neighbours and don't get on". E.g. why is it that since the beginning of the game the Athenians have annualy landed a raiding fleet south of my capital?

Well, there is no diplomacy in the game but that should not deter from the main game-mechanic of the player managing resources to conquer lands -which is challenging and fun. I've not played a game where you have to consider logisitics so much (food!), but this is a refreshing burst of "realism" which affects how you go about conquering your enemies, e.g. sending scout parties to capture enemy farms and sheep while your main hoplite force moves (slower) into position. Without food and alone, your troops don't last long -and neither do enemy beseigers, so it's often wise to wait out a siege until the enmy morale wavers (unless they properly supply their troops).

Longjohn4

06-16-2010, 06:20

I'm loving this game, haven't been so adicted to a game for ages. The research and historical detail in this game are absolutely top class, and the map is beautiful. I'm a big fan of greek history, and it's great to see all small towns and mountain passes brought to life. This game has clearly had a lot of loving. There are great historical touches such as flocks of sheep you can capture, and the biographies of all the companions (generals).

The combat system isn't super realistic in that you have an infinite supply of troops, but the sense of progression is good. It took about a year to conquer the Chalkidike, and another for Thessaly. (1 yr = 1 hour game time = about 6 hours realtime as you have to pause a lot). It's also great to see supply depicted in the game so well, without it becoming at all dry or tedious.

It shows another way to do a realistic ancient historical computer game, and is well worth the rather modest price.

Alexander the Pretty Good

06-16-2010, 06:51

Hey Longjohn, I think I've seen you on the Longbow forums. :P I can't wait for further patches for Hegemony (got an annoyingly persistant crash up in the far eastern Danube area) and for future games from Longbow based on this engine and some of the gameplay concepts. The combat is quite abstracted (or contrived, if you're in a bad mood :P) but I don't think it's really much more abstract than TW games, really. The tactical fights are obviously much more simpler but there is a lot greater strategic depth to it.

I've really only been playing games recently to hold me over until I get more patches for this. I've fallen for it pretty bad. :P

al Roumi

06-16-2010, 11:05

I was able to apply the impulse patch which fixed the zerg AI shortly after my last post. It is a massive improvement in terms of preventing the whack-a-mole game play. Best of all, if you still want that kind of head ache, you can get it by playing on Hard, rather than Normal.

The fixed AI has not stopped AI raiding compeltely, and I'm glad it hasn't. More powerful or embittered enemies (Athenians, Illyrians, Phocians...) still raid your territory but I found the Bylazoran tribes (can't remember their name) much quieter. I think the enemy factios only attack if they have the numbers to do it -I certainly don't see so many single unit raids (if any).

Anyway, the change really unlocked me strategically and freed up troops which had otherwise been tied down on garrison/defensive duty to be more offensive. My personal strategy has been to try to keep a rolling frontier of consistent dimensions, creating a hard/fortified border with an un-fortified/ungarrissoned centre. This allows me to reallocate the forces from an "internal" city to the frontier. Sounds pretty simple really but force concentration is what it's all (and has always) been about.

Unfortunately this same dynamic which we've seen on TW games, where it can be fairly simple to pacify internal regions and focus troops on the borders, means that the game gets easier the larger you grow your empire (assuming you grow it appropriately, e.g. creating as much of an internal "safe" space as possible). As the game gets easier, the challenge decreases and so does the reward and enjoyment (unless you like winning easy fights).

The challenges faced in the mid/late game are when confronting rivals of similar size -factions who have also expanded or control similar concentrations of resources. I think/hope Longbow have written in enough of these large enemies to make my continued experience as fun as the beginning has been.

Or I could just start a new game on hard and go back to spitting teeth :smile:

Alexander the Pretty Good

06-16-2010, 17:24

I definitely think the early bits are some of the strongest, both due to your relative weakness and the scripted objectives and unique rewards for completing objectives. I want more quests to give me unique units or make my Hypaspists unit bigger, not more gold. I'm swimming in gold! It's not enough of a reward any more.

If you want a real fun fight though, conquer through to Thebes without dealing with the surrounding Athenians. They were pouring our of Euboea and the surrounding lands and I had my hands full for a straight half hour. Then my game crashed, and I had saved 30 minutes prior. :( But then I started the game over! :D

al Roumi

06-16-2010, 17:59

I've taken half the Epiric (is that how it's said?) lands, going to finish them off. Then it'll be Methone's turn. I'm not sure whether to open a second front with the Chalcideans at the same time... I may have the resources/units for it now, but I think the first few cities will take some fighting to claim as the Chalcideans will have a fair few troops.

I still don't have triremes :blush: although Bylazoran tribal cavalry are great!

Alexander the Pretty Good

06-16-2010, 21:59

In my current (on hold) playthrough I blitzed Methone, Pydna, and Dion immediately after securing a border with the Illyrians. It's saved me a lot of frustration with Athenian raids.

Longjohn4

06-17-2010, 06:30

If I started again, I'd deal with Methone and Pydna early too. In my current game I got beaten up badly in first attempt at them, and left them alone for a while, but that was early on before I figured out how much catapults help.
They're still raiding a bit in the Chalcidike, and now that I've taken Thessaly I see their big stacks in Euboia, I know that once the winter is over, I'm going to raided big time. I think a few units of Thessalian cavalry will deal with them though.

I have a little cleaning up to do in Illyria and Thrace, and then it'll be time to attend to religous duties, and start the Sacred War. After that maybe I'll take your tip, and deal with Euboia before going after Thebes

al Roumi

06-17-2010, 10:39

I dealt with Methone and Pydna after securing Larissa and the northern/inland cities of the tyrants of Pherae. Most of my force moved up via Dion and then on to Pydna and Methone. I had more mercenary Hoplites by then and the forces I had in the Macedonian cities south west of Pella were garrison troops, so i had more strength based around Larissa.

That's also something else I was slow to learn, Macedonian "national" cities don't need garrisons if they are walled, although they may need defensive forces to counter raids. At the begininning of the game I thought every city would need (or would be wise to have) a garrison of spearmen, whereas I now realise that unless the city is on the border/shore, it won't need a defensive garrison. I had been eating up my macedonian manpower with units with poor combat capability (spearmen), I've since culled many of these spearmen units and replaced them with Phalangites -much more useful in combat!

Alexander the Pretty Good

06-17-2010, 13:12

Quite. Also, walls cost 2 manpower of the culture the city is. So walls on a Macedonian city cost 2 Macedonian manpower, and walls on a non-Macedonian city cost 2 mercenary manpower. I don't think the game ever lays it out for you but they posted it on their forums and it's true in game. So if you need more phalangites just go Mr. Gorbachev all over the place. Cities without walls will never rebel, regardless of the culture.

al Roumi

06-17-2010, 13:55

Also, walls cost 2 manpower of the culture the city is.

:bow: I did not know that... Thanks ATPG!

moar Phalangites...

Watch out Athens, Philip's gonna get ya!

Meneldil

07-11-2010, 12:42

I played it finally, and tbh, I thought the game has great potential but fails to deliver.

The battles just plain blow. I didn't expect them to be of MTW quality, but seriously? Units that break formations as soon as they start fighting? Useless archers and skirmishers? A bunch of companions who rush straight into a squad of Hoplite and rout them without taking any casualty? Units that don't answer to threat and will let the city they garrison be taken by the ennemy without even fighting?
The sieges are horrid, even when you stack a bunch of catapults. It's slow, long, boring. We're in 2010, units shouldn't hit a city's wall in order to capture it anymore.

No diplomacy? In a wargame? Who got this wonderful idea, pray tell? As if Philip didn't try to ally and establish links with the surrounding people.

A bunch of MMORPG-like quests? Invisible walls that prevent you from attacking an area before you've completed one quest? I'm not playing Warcraft3 but a 4X wargame. Why can Athens attack me while I'm can't fight back until I defeat the Illyrians?

It's too bad, cause the game really had some nice ideas, especially the whole food gestion part.

al Roumi

07-12-2010, 18:02

This are mostly fair points, although its clear you've only played the demo - there are no artificial barriers to your expansion in the full game.

I'm not sure you've learned how to use the units properly either, not much stands up to head on melee with hoplites except other hoplites or Phalangites (who win). Archers and Peltasts are great and very effective when deployed behind/to the side of a line of battle. Cavalry charges in the side/rear of engaged units are also effective.

I completely agree on the diplomacy point, although at least in the current build your neighbours do not attack you as default behaviour -you usually have to provoke them.

Meneldil

07-12-2010, 19:52

I played the full game, though the wall south of Macedonia disappeared at the end of the tutorial. Fair point. My mistake if there is no other of those.

I've learnt to use the units: you need phalangites, catapults and companions and can wtfpwn everything. Even when considering the different population costs, the archers and spearmen aren't worth it. Companions can defeat pretty much everything head to head. Spearmen, hoplites, they all die in seconds, even when charged from the front. Maybe it's different if you play the hardest difficulty, but in normal, my Companions win battles by themselves.
Even all that isn't that bad, you can defeat the AI in most Total Wars by stacking a single kind of unit. But overall, the battles feel pretty arcade. Saddly.

It might sound like I'm really hating the game. I actually had a lot of fun playing it, but the weak points appear pretty quickly and they kind of ruin the game for me. But it has a great potential, if they make a new version or patch it up, I'll probably go back to it.

Longjohn4

07-13-2010, 09:38

The companions are a little uber, but you do only get one unit of them, so once you start fighting on several fronts they don't unbalance the game. The battles are a bit arcadey, but they do encourage combined arms, and integrate nicely into the campaign game.

More detailed sieges and diplomacy would be nice, but I don't really miss them. The game is a great new way to do historical games, so you have to cut them some slack and accept that not every feature can be in the first version.

Alexander the Pretty Good

07-14-2010, 14:30

Martok

09-21-2010, 02:41

[Martok prepares his dark magic, recites the proper incantations, and casts Minor Necromancy]

Longbow has announced (http://www.longbowgames.com/forums/topic/?id=2146#post21602body) their new expansion Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece. This is especially good news for existing owners, as it will be free for those who've already purchased the game. It looks like it's going to add a ton of new stuff, including the following features:

* Two New Scenarios Based on the Peloponnesian War (Coming Soon)

* Sandbox Mode: Play as any faction on the map without objectives. (More factions coming soon).

* Dynamic Diplomacy System: Make truces and alliances between factions in the new diplomacy window.

* Revolt Tweaks: Rather than being able to eliminate revolts by tearing down walls, it now just greatly reduces the garrison needed to prevent revolts. As before, the size of the garrison is also tied to the faction's hostility but now that hostility is dynamic don't be too hasty to break an alliance because it could mean you need more revolts.

* New Population System: The global population system has been replaced with a pool of recruits local to each city that are used to build units and replace troops that are killed in battle. Units no longer recruit in the field but draw recruits from their home city when they are in resupply range of a friendly building and there is an open supply route back to their home city.

* Cavalry Charge: Cavalry now receive a combat bonus against light infantry when they can run into combat.

* Flanking Bonus: Units now receive a significant morale penalty if simultaneously attacked from opposite directions.

* Camping/Foraging: Rather than reduce food consumption, camping now produces a small amount of food so that units with high logistics can potentially recharge their food supplies in the field.

* Close to Home Bonus: Units fighting within their home city's resupply range no longer receive morale penalties and can fight to the death.

* Supply Line Upgrades: Longer supply lines can now be upgraded at a cost to act like shorter supply lines and transfer more food per week.

* Unit Stat Adjustments: Unit siege strength has been reduced to make it harder to siege well supplied cities without catapults and phalangites have been made more defensive in order to hold enemies in combat while cavalry flank and charge.

For me, I think Hegemony just went from, "I might purchase it at some point" to, "OMG I need to get this into my grubby little paws ASAP!" The addition of diplomacy and sandbox mode address the two main things that were holding me back on getting this before; now, it's almost certainly a "must-buy". (Yeah, I still wish it was turn-based and not real-time, but hey, you can't have everything.) Unless the new diplomatic system turns out to be utter rubbish, this is definitely going on my "List". :jumping:

al Roumi

09-21-2010, 11:54

There has recently been an update too -although I've no idea what it specificaly updates (it's been available for the last few weeks on Impulse). Thanks for the scoop Martok, you are right that this should make the game much more attractive and replayable.

Meneldil

09-21-2010, 14:47

Yep, I can see how that'd greatly improve the original game. I might even pick it up on Impulse now.

Alexander the Pretty Good

09-22-2010, 05:33

I'm really excited about this since I'll get it for free! :smug: Might even be enough to drag me away from Civ V and Minecraft.

Beskar

09-22-2010, 20:51

I got $30 left, and this game is $31.25

Damn Stardock, use rounded figures!

Beskar

11-05-2010, 03:31

Game is now $16.26, but it comes out on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/90100/) tomorrow. I will go for the cheapest version.

Alexander the Pretty Good

11-06-2010, 00:12

At that price even the very first versions would be a must-buy and it's currently in a much better (and frequently improving) state.

Ibn-Khaldun

11-06-2010, 07:17

It's €17.95 in GamersGate currently.

Mouzafphaerre

11-08-2010, 02:49

.
Bought it. It's downloading as we speak.

Will let you folks know what I think about it.
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Beskar

11-09-2010, 01:30

al Roumi

11-09-2010, 14:43

I played a bit, but I am having a serious whack-a-mole problem.

Simply put, I don't have the population to maintain enough separate small forces to protect my border. This gets even more pressuring as the game keeps on saying "Invade this bit, invade this bit!"

I am not too far in the game, but Athens keep using Naval strike forces to keep dropping stuff off and attacking my capital. The country in the south (they are red), keep sending up forces to the North. Then there is teal (surrounding West, and North) who keep sending in units. There there is another in the North East, which keeps harassing my border.

What difficulty are you playing on? This was certainly a problem in the early versions of the game but was "fixed" in a patch if you played on normal difficulty. I haven't played the latest patched versiona t all, so my experiences and advice may be a bit dated.

The Athenians will bug you throughout, especially around your starting city, until you clear out their 3 cities (Methone I think is one), immediately to the to the south/South-east of your starting city. The Illyrians keep up the pressure too (on your west flank), although I remember them being green? The states to the East of the Macedonian capital didn't attack me unless I did them. My tactic with the Illyrians and northern tribes was to take their cities in phases, pushing the frontier out and enabling you to keep a pacified (non-walled, non-garrisoned core of cities.

Unless the logisitics/population mechanisms have changed, this allows you to focus your troops -which is what you'll need to do to beat anyone or take a city. It can definitely be a gamble timing the early offensives, but always strike raiding enemies when their morale falters (usually due to supplies), and try to keep your farms! I'd also try to avoid recruiting spearmen, they are not good for anything but supportive flank attacks or garrison duty. I had a bunch in my cities defending against the athenian naval raids and they had pretty bad results each time. Hoplites, or even better phalangites, are much much better at fighting

Alexander the Pretty Good

11-10-2010, 02:59

Exterminate the Illyrians and/or the Athenian cities immediately to your southeast. For the Illyrians, at least liberate all the Illyrian-held Macedonian cities and then do any missions that changes an Illyrian city to a Macedonian city culture-wise (I think there's just one). That should put the hurt on them, though they will probably occasionally still raid you. It might also be worth subduing the Paeonians (grey guys to the north) because their cavalry units that you can recruit as mercenaries are sick. Use them to garrison borders you want left alone, and occassionally use them to steamroll skirmisher raids.

If you haven't done so already deal with the nearest Athenians then head east to liberate Macedonian cities from the Chalcidean league (but put off finishing them off if you can; going beyond the non-Macedonian cities can quickly bog you down because they have few farms and an Athenian stronghold in the middle).

Blxz

11-23-2010, 15:45

Thought I would bump this thread. The game is good and getting better. The new 'Gold' version is currently in beta (totally workable though) and is free for anyone who has already bought the first one. Diplomacy is in, AI spam attacks are fixed, manpower is fixed, crushing a faction wthout wiping them out will mostly take care of them (which is good) and sandbox mode is useable so you can play as any faction you want.

The scale of the game is incredible. I had a game as Sparta and thought "wow my empire is huge" then I zoomed out and thought "bugger, only control half the peloponnese". My current Macedon game has been going for 12 hours and I've only got a thin empire stretching across from Epirus over east of Pella down the Chalcidice region.

Worthwhile for anyone who has played this before and got fed up with its old issues and for anyone into wargames.

Ca Putt

11-24-2010, 18:52

good that you remind me, I've gotta get that game as soon as my main PC is connected to the Internetz

Sdragon

11-25-2010, 20:10

Thanks for this! I watched this game during it's development but I lost track of it and couldn't remember it's name.

Blxz

11-26-2010, 07:54

Glad to be of service to you both =)

Unintended BM

11-26-2010, 20:44

Bought, about to play it.

antisocialmunky

11-28-2010, 05:00

Do not walk into Thrace.

Unintended BM

11-28-2010, 07:59

The game is really fun, and kind of difficult at times.

Parallel Pain

11-30-2010, 20:42

Bought and played. The original is quite hard because it seems there's no manpower limitation on the AI and no way of declaring peace (the latter is even said so in the game manual -_-|||). So you have to garrison every frontier with at least a good size force of two or three units, while the AI's city garrison could easily reach twice or even three times that. In fact it's so hard I gave up on both of my campaigns because Gold is out.

Game interface and command system could be improved I think. Slightly hard to place units where you want them.

The actual battle micro AI is left to be desired. If you get to form up in a standard battle formation and is not too heavily outnumbered it is usually easy victory. Though battles often become disorganized, so losses are still not a rare thing, which is a good break from TW.
The macro AI seems pretty good, attacking when you're weak, making it challenging.

Defiantly the best party is the logistics system and food supply. In the heat of a campaign it is quite easy to forget to watch your food supply and make detours for food, leading to depletion of morale. Twice I've lost my entire army besieging a city when the AI simply waited for me to run out of food and then attacked and instant routed my troops despite me having better and more experienced troops.

Just tried out Gold. The new cavalry charge and flanking systems are nice. Though I have yet found a reason to actually switch unit formation (probably because like TW formation effects are based on attrition battle and not psychology) It doesn't look like terrain effects battles other than chokepoints, though unlike TW chokes could be quite easily broken through by a much superior force (which is actually true). But still I wish there were hills and streams and woods that we could maneuver and use to our advantage.

The new city manpower instead of global manpower and replacement system via supply lines is a really nice touch that makes both logistics line and manpower even more important. Income easily supply an upper ceiling for troop numbers (and keeps the original version that you'd always be stretching your garrisons thin if you want to attack) and pro-longed combat can really have a devastating effect on your manpower. Now if only manpower also effected income it'd be great.

Though personally I think you shouldn't be able to change the home city of a unit to a city not of the home culture. IE Thessalonian Cavalry should not be able to draw replacement from Macedonian city, and Phalanx couldn't draw replacements from Illyrians.

However overall it is definitely a very fun game. Recommended.