Chariots of War

On the surface level you could argue that the graphics of the game have aged poorly. But something about the aesthetics of a game like this makes me feel that it is actually a work of art. When you look at art that was made long time ago we would rarely judge them by the standards of that time. Definitely this game could have looked differently for the year that it was made. As a matter of fact I think it has a more early 90s game look. For me this game always had a unique look and feel. When i compare it with the games this studio made shortly after i can say that they posses better QoL changes and are as such more playable. They lose some if its magic also. Which i can not explain why exactly. Many will agree that this is a nostalgic feel that hits that childhood spot and i cant argue with that. Games like this were the pioneers of the grand strategy genre. For a person who likes that period of time of history and likes to listen to history videos/podcasts i must say that i have really enjoyed playing the game while listening to the Fall of History podcast. It has a sort of enigmatic bliss when you are managing your kingdom and trying to visualize the people and events from the podcast.

I waited a long time for this to appear on either Steam or GOG. Played it a lot when I was younger and found it pretty cool. Its an improvement over their first game, Legion. You have bigger maps, more units, more buildings, more resources to manage. Combat remained pretty much the same with some tweaking of the commands you can do, but it still feels a bit vague and clunky sometimes. Diplomacy is actually kind of got a downgrade, as your agents only showed some data on the faction you were watching and you didnt have any diplomacy options. Its also a bit pointless as you or your enemy can eject other countries agents and the information they provide doesnt change much. Best thing they can do is lift the fog of war for a while. There also were random events, like raiders spawning, resources spawning and some events like fires that destroyed your wood supply. Not often, but still something. Visuals seem slightly better and the premise is still simple without any specific campaign, just map scenarios. There are a couple of gripes I do have here and that it kind of seems the AI, given the choice, likes to focus on you a bit too much, even while playing on normal. Also, Ive encountered a bug I think Ive seen even way back in the day and that at one point you no longer get tech progress. Ive played several campaigns as the Babylonians trying to get a good run and as I finally seemed to get a run I was happy with Ive stopped getting notifications about new discoveries. And this is a huge blow as I couldnt make anti cavalry spear units. I dont know if its a bug or I did something wrong, but it kind of forced me to drop my run. It also can be a bit to slow and tedious when it comes to movement. Price wise its the most expensive of the bunch, but I cant really say its the best or that it does anything special to warrant it. For a 20 year old game I think they could have been a bit more modest, considering the options available nowadays. That being said, despite there being thousands of games available, there really isnt anything else like this series out there. It has a pretty low barrier of entry, simple and complex at the same time and with a focus on planning with regards to economy and warfare, rather than spectacle. And it kind of puts into perspective how much of a niche audience we are, who play these games, and how unlikely we are to get anything similar or expanded on. Its still somewhat weaker than the third game of the series, Spartan, but provides enough possibilities for fun to warrant acquiring. 6/10

Спасибо, что могу купить билет в детство на площадке steam. Понастольгировать без танцов с бубном дорогого стоит ведь игра хорошо себя чувствует на современном железе. Возможно я дождусь и полноценного ремастера или ремейка.

This game will crash every time you try to move your troops. It's such a shame that this game was my childhood game. I wish I could play this game once again.

The troops are not moving. Without this, the game cannot function properly. For those who have not yet purchased the game - Be prepared that after pressing the “Make a move” button, your troops will forever remain in the download and this will happen every time you press the button. UPD: After a number of attempts to fix the error, the application simply began to endlessly restart the launcher. Think again before purchasing games.

I was excited to see this obscure game from my high school days appear in steam. It is a unique 4x strategy game that has a dynamic global economy for its resources that are based on events throughout the world such as food prices increasing if there is a drought. Once your economy hits a certain level, simply your consumption and production can drastically change the prices. The battles are a simplified real time affair where you only can issue basic orders to your troops before the battle starts, and then you simply watch what happens as your forces engage the enemy. This game is not a clone of total war or civ, but lies nicely between the two franchises. I highly recommend!

I think it's overpriced for what it is. Compared to Civ or Alpha Centauri, it's pretty clunky. But I have fun playing it, which is the important part.

Fine game. I had no crashes and errors. Noticed that some automechanics are introduced in the patch like: auto filling of employers when you have any and built a new level of building, or auto change of units after moving forward.

Partially I played it because of nostalgia, BUT this game has it's merits. It's easy to get into, turns can be pretty quick, doesn't suffer as much from turns becoming a long chore in late game as many turn-based strategies do, a pretty chill and fun game. Battles are fought automatically, you just set up your troops before. You can choose to start a short campaign on a smaller map or a much bigger one for a longer game. That said, I'm not sure how balanced I would consider this game, I actually think some troops are useless, but perhaps I didn't understand how to use them. For some mechanics (like which terrain counts as rough or what exactly happiness does) you should read the manual. But it is not exactly necessary to play if you want to just jump into the game and the manual is easy to read. Old games tend to rely on manuals for explaining details of the game, after all. I play it when I want a simple strategy game where I don't need to pay attention to a lot of things at once and plan ahead too much.

This remains one of the best and most replayable strategy games ever. Easy to play but hard to master. I only wish that there were some new maps or some way to mod the game. I have played it countless hours.