Hegemony
In this game you play the part of Phillip of Macedon as you try to gain hegemony (strangely enough) over large parts of Greece. You start off in control of just one city and look to expand while being surrounded by enemies who want to destroy you but have no interest in fighting each other. This makes for a very difficult journey.
There are many differences between this and standard strategy games that you might want to compare it too. Firstly cities are not upgraded with different buildings. You can build a wall around them and occasionally send migrants into them to increase their population but that is it. Gold and food are the only 2 resources in the game. You get food from farms and this is used to feed your troops. Gold is obtained from cities and mines and is used for troop upkeep. It does not cost any gold to train new troops but replacing losses is made difficult instead by cities have a limited supply of recruits which refills slowly. This can make wars an interesting battle of attrition. Morale also plays a key part in battles so if your troops are hungry or unpaid they will quickly retreat. You can also cut the supply lines to enemy cities to starve them out. There are also forts and watchtowers which can be captured as well as shrines which give a bonus to heroism, decrease to food consumption, or help with recruitment in the area. The picture below shows my empire after a few hours of play.
Rather than being left to your own devices in terms of conquering the map, you are given a number of tasks to accomplish, which you unlock as you reach new areas. These vary from killing a certain general, capturing certain cities, or landmarks, turning a certain number of enemies intto slaves, demolishing the walls of traitorous cities to escorting important historical figures back to your capital. Rewards include increasing the size of certain units, gaining new technology (catapults and later triremes), increasing your budget, having new generals join, and changing your standing with other factions.
Battles take place in real time on the same map, you just have to zoom in further. As mentioned morale plays a major part, but units also have skills such as attack and defense as well as upgradeable ones which increase morale, sight and charging range, decreased food consumption, and improved building and sieging skills. Having Generals join units also improves these stats. There are not a great variety of units for each faction but I don't see this as a major weakness. You are far too busy with grand schemes to worry about each battle not being as varied as you'd like. Your cheap options are spearmen and peltasts (spear throwers), as well as having the option of hiring scout cavalry. Your main units are the Phalangite brigades, a phalanx of units with 15 foot spears. Your companion cavalry are also key in terms being able to flank enemies and chase stragglers. Capturing enemies is very useful as you can use slaves in mines to do the work of workers who would take money from your budget. Both can also build, demolish and carry food. You can recruit mercenaries and allied units when you take control of other faction's cities...so later you can have archers and tribal cavalry fighting alongside your earlier units.
As mentioned before you are constantly surrounded by enemies and it is not easy (or maybe even possible) to keep all at bay all the time. With the limits in your budget and food supply you can't have a number of large armies in each corner in case of attacks. Having a large army in one area will quickly deplete the food resources of the nearest city so a gathered army really needs to be out fighting and plundering opponents farms and cities. Diplomacy is fairly limited so it is difficult to placate a few while focusing on one or 2 enemies. Each faction is given a hostility score out of 100 as well as an intimidation one which goes between -100 to 100. Based on these you can offer a truce which will either cost you a certain amount (if they dislike you and are not afraid of you) or can gain you gold (if they fear you). At first i could not afford any but once my empire grew I could make money off a few truces of those I had left with only a few cities. At the moment I am in contact with 12 factions and have a truce with 3. As well as the difficulty of having so many factions fighting against you at any given time the size of the game world is also daunting. At the moment I am in control of around 40 cities but considering there are a total of 313- I still have a long way to go.
If this doesn't take you long enough then there are more campaigns for you to try. I've enjoyed the game so far, although I wish the diplomacy was more involved. It's definitely worth the $10 it's priced at on steam. I also look forward to the next installment which focusses on Rome.
Rating 7.5/10
Value 9/10
There are many differences between this and standard strategy games that you might want to compare it too. Firstly cities are not upgraded with different buildings. You can build a wall around them and occasionally send migrants into them to increase their population but that is it. Gold and food are the only 2 resources in the game. You get food from farms and this is used to feed your troops. Gold is obtained from cities and mines and is used for troop upkeep. It does not cost any gold to train new troops but replacing losses is made difficult instead by cities have a limited supply of recruits which refills slowly. This can make wars an interesting battle of attrition. Morale also plays a key part in battles so if your troops are hungry or unpaid they will quickly retreat. You can also cut the supply lines to enemy cities to starve them out. There are also forts and watchtowers which can be captured as well as shrines which give a bonus to heroism, decrease to food consumption, or help with recruitment in the area. The picture below shows my empire after a few hours of play.
Rather than being left to your own devices in terms of conquering the map, you are given a number of tasks to accomplish, which you unlock as you reach new areas. These vary from killing a certain general, capturing certain cities, or landmarks, turning a certain number of enemies intto slaves, demolishing the walls of traitorous cities to escorting important historical figures back to your capital. Rewards include increasing the size of certain units, gaining new technology (catapults and later triremes), increasing your budget, having new generals join, and changing your standing with other factions.
Battles take place in real time on the same map, you just have to zoom in further. As mentioned morale plays a major part, but units also have skills such as attack and defense as well as upgradeable ones which increase morale, sight and charging range, decreased food consumption, and improved building and sieging skills. Having Generals join units also improves these stats. There are not a great variety of units for each faction but I don't see this as a major weakness. You are far too busy with grand schemes to worry about each battle not being as varied as you'd like. Your cheap options are spearmen and peltasts (spear throwers), as well as having the option of hiring scout cavalry. Your main units are the Phalangite brigades, a phalanx of units with 15 foot spears. Your companion cavalry are also key in terms being able to flank enemies and chase stragglers. Capturing enemies is very useful as you can use slaves in mines to do the work of workers who would take money from your budget. Both can also build, demolish and carry food. You can recruit mercenaries and allied units when you take control of other faction's cities...so later you can have archers and tribal cavalry fighting alongside your earlier units.
As mentioned before you are constantly surrounded by enemies and it is not easy (or maybe even possible) to keep all at bay all the time. With the limits in your budget and food supply you can't have a number of large armies in each corner in case of attacks. Having a large army in one area will quickly deplete the food resources of the nearest city so a gathered army really needs to be out fighting and plundering opponents farms and cities. Diplomacy is fairly limited so it is difficult to placate a few while focusing on one or 2 enemies. Each faction is given a hostility score out of 100 as well as an intimidation one which goes between -100 to 100. Based on these you can offer a truce which will either cost you a certain amount (if they dislike you and are not afraid of you) or can gain you gold (if they fear you). At first i could not afford any but once my empire grew I could make money off a few truces of those I had left with only a few cities. At the moment I am in contact with 12 factions and have a truce with 3. As well as the difficulty of having so many factions fighting against you at any given time the size of the game world is also daunting. At the moment I am in control of around 40 cities but considering there are a total of 313- I still have a long way to go.
If this doesn't take you long enough then there are more campaigns for you to try. I've enjoyed the game so far, although I wish the diplomacy was more involved. It's definitely worth the $10 it's priced at on steam. I also look forward to the next installment which focusses on Rome.
Rating 7.5/10
Value 9/10
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