"Hegemony - Philip of Macedon" Game

[al Roumi]

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.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

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.

[al Roumi]

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]

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]

And everyone's favorite Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an 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]

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]

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).