Slitherine Software

[Browning]

The Slitherine Software's titles like Spartan or Legion II look like an alternative to Rome:Total War, if one is not concentrated on pretty graphics.
It seems they support the software at leat - the Spartan was patched to the 17th version!

Could a more experienced forumite comment on those games concerning the gameplay and historic accuracy? SOmehow I do not feel convinced reading happy reviews anymore - it seems any bug-ladden product can get enthusiastic reviews nowadays.

[Voigtkampf]

To be honest, version 17th of Spartan (meaning patch 17 implemented, I suppose) doesn’t actually give cause for hope in my humble opinion. :no:

[Browning]

To be honest, version 17th of Spartan (meaning patch 17 implemented, I suppose) doesn’t actually give cause for hope in my humble opinion. :no:
It does, by contrast with the "2-patch-only" policy of other game developers, show that the enterprise feels responsible for the product.

Any comment as to the topic (the quality of the Slitherine products) by those who know it first-hand, please?

[Catiline]

I've got Spartan. The battles aree simple but interesting, you have very little control. i'm a fan of that for ancient battles, but this is abit extreme. You have some limited set up options and a rally command for the general - if you have one.

The campaign game, especially the grand strategy one is great, a lot of micro managing needed,, and it's a great challenge. It takes a long time, and is worthwhile, but i simply don't have the time to get the most out of it. there are loads of different factions to play, though, and the AI can be very agressive. Hugee amounts of diplomatic options.

I think LegionII is slightly different - more MP focused?

[nokhor]

i played the original legion. it was pretty simplistic. there wasn't much to do on the strategic level, and it was a lot of repetition. do steps a-b-c then a-b-c then a-b-c etc. and the tactical was like Cat described. you do the basic setup and then watch in realtime as the computer resolved the battle. it just wasn't my cup of tea.

in terms of support though, they were wonderful. one of the developers, ian, i believe would send out periodic emails to those on the forum with updates on what they were working on, and would answer specific questions.

[Leet Eriksson]

I played Spartan and Chariots of War (and also gates of troy). I'll be very honest, i liked the games, i might have crappy taste compared to others but they were really good, but as mentioned in the above posts it could get repetitive.

One thing i like about spartan is the voices, the greeks talk in modern greek (not bad considering they don't know about ancient greek), the Romans talk latin and the persians and easterns a mix of farci/arabic (i don't blame them, its hard to find languages related to the anatolians/easterns in that time frame). That isn't true about the music, its very generic.

On battles, well.. nothing here to talk about the battles, besides what the above posters said, i just want to add that you plan your battles in a pre-battle setup screen, where you deploy troops and give them commands (flank, outflank, charge..etc) they try to make it look like an ancient battle where you give commands before the battles, but its not executed very well.

The Ethnic groups in the game are varied you have Aeolian, Ionian, Dorian and Spartan (all Greek), Pirate and Illyrian(Cretans for example), Tribal(Thrake/Thracian), Macedonian, Roman, Eastern and Persian. All the groups mentioned up to Roman share alot of the same units but have unique units of their own, ie Spartans get Spartiates, Dorians and Ionians get Elite Hopelites and i think Aeolians get Theban Cavalry and in the expansion Theban Spearmen, Romans get Hastati and Triarii, Macedonians get Phalangites, Companions and Agryraspides, and Tribal have Nobles, Tribal Scouts, Tribal Swordsmen and get Thracians for cheap. Eastern has an entirely different unit set, they share the chunk of their units with the persians too, but the only difference is Persians have Immortals and Easterns get Cataphracts. Depending on the time period some ethnic groups may not exist, like Romans appear after 200 B.C (not sure when) and Persians earlier.

If you want to get the expansion it adds a slew of ethnic groups like the Epirotes, Hittites, Thracian(Tribal), Illyrian, Dardanian, Danaanian, Argive and Pelgesian. Though they have some units from the previous game, there are some new units to make the time period of 1400 BC unique at least.

Thats my 2 cents on Spartan. I think their upcoming titles sound promising, but i doubt they will beat Rome TW in scale or production, but the units look very historically correct compared to RTW.

[Browning]

Thank you for the replies, guys. Some more questions: are there any obvious bugs? How dumb is the AI? How moddable is the game?

[Satyr]

I just tried Gates of Troy last night. The stragegy map is very much like RTW but the battles are worthless if you enjoy that part of the CA games. Basically you place your troops on the battlefield and push the start button. They walk toward each other and fight. You have no control. Not my kind of game! It got uninstalled immediately.