Mare Nostrvm

So after trying the tutorial battle, then reading the manual(takes about 15 mins) and then replaying the tutorial, here are my thoughts: This is a turn based(WEGO system, my favorite) "tabletop" style wargame, with utilitarian graphics. It is easy to get into but still feels challenging to play. I would highly recommend this game to anyone who likes this period of history, likes TB wargames and doesn't mind minimalist graphics. If you're an RTS kind of gamer who needs state of the art "bells & whistles", stay away from this one.

Finally a game about ancient sea battles. Mare Nostrvm is an amazing wagame, the interface is clear and intuitive while the simulation part is not very deep, but it’s just enough to get historic positive results when using the right tactical and strategic moves. The game has a lot of good mechanism, such as command and control, general traits, ships roles etc, most of those mechanisms are simple such as sails, winds, firing, ramming and grappling, they are explained well in the manual, you will need around 15 minutes to finish the manual, also they are some video tutorials in Matrix YouTube channel. There are good amounts of ships types and historic scenarios, as well as skirmish with most of sea power nations of the ancient period. Each ship has certain equipment that helps boarding or firing better with clear stats of the quality of the hull, troops or ramming ability. The game use traditional waragming hexes with WEGO turn based system (which is my favorite style). The graphics are simple yet they are very pleasing to look at in my opinion. The price of the game is spot on, if you are looking of sea battles of the ancient world I recommend this game its great complement to get it along with Field of Glory 2. I am looking forward to see what the developers will add in future DLCs.

Like many on the forums I want to like this game. This is a *great* subject matter for a game, the devs have clearly put in a lot of work, there are an excellent mix of scenarios. But because of the issues below buy only if you have serious subject matter interest and then be ready to get annoyed at the game: Using hexes can't go wrong, everybody does it. Except when you then invent half hexes, when a unit is in neither one hex nor the other. Makes no sense at all and is counter intuitive - if you're going to segment the board into spaces, use the spaces you create, don't then create 'mini spaces' which are invisible unless you know they are there, that have their own specific rules (like requiring you to reverse back out again to regain control). The stacking limit is (I think) one of each ship per hex, except when a ship is captured and then what? The rules of the game are unclear, particularly in regard to maneuver which when mixed with the awful half hexes above makes the game hard to love. Ramming is absolutely a random stroke of luck. Sure you can try to aim for the enemy, but they move 4-7 hexes and so do you. The turns are too long for that kind of guesswork. Half-length turns would have been a much better decision. The half speed effect of friendly ships trying to stack doesn't seem to work very well - often your entire formation crawls to a halt for some undeterminable reason. Shooting kills troops, but ships never strike - so what's the point? Do i have to then go and capture them? I don't know, the manual doesn't tell me. All in all, this is a good indie effort purely because of the subject matter but there are some pretty awful design decisions here that they will not be able to code themselves out of at this point..

¿Te gusta adornar tu coche con espolones de bronce? ¿Ves el dibujo de una galera y te dan ganas de bogar en un banco del parque? ¿A tu gata la llamas Salamina? No lo pienses más. Mare Nostrum es tu juego. Por fin un juego táctico sobre galeras de la antigüedad para los wargameros de hoy. No se había hecho nada parecido hasta ahora, si descontamos el Rome Total War 2, cuyas batallas navales son más Hollywood que realidad. Su creador es la empresa española Turnopia, ya famosa por su primer y original lanzamiento: Quadriga. Este segundo proyecto sobre la Antigüedad deja los circos romanos y se pasa al Mar Mediterráneo, para ofrecernos una amplia selección de batallas navales que van desde el siglo VI a.C. hasta Actium (31 a.C.). Aparte de un modo escaramuza, que nos permite crear nuestra propia flota para luchar contra la IA o un humano rival en un mapa a elegir. El aspecto es similar a los wargames de tablero por turnos, manejas una flota contra otra rival con figuras de barcos moviéndose en un tablero marino dividido en hexágonos. Pero los turnos son WEGO, o sea, simultáneos. Mueves tú y a la vez mueve la IA o tu rival humano. Luego verás el resultado de tus órdenes en el turno de resolución, que se puede acelerar o retardar a tu gusto. Por lo que debes predecir los movimientos del rival y confiar en tu intuición, como cualquier almirante de la antigüedad. Las flotas tienen almirantes y comandantes secundarios, con rango de alcance de sus órdenes, representados por barcos con estandartes. Fuera de rango, los barcos se mueven a su aire, ajenos al control del jugador, por lo que hay que estar atento a no dispersar la flota. Las órdenes que se pueden dar a los barcos pueden ser órdenes grupales o individuales, que son tres: bogar, usar el espolón e intentar amarrarse a otro barco. Desde estas premisas, los barcos pueden ser hundidos, capturados, crujidos, quemados, con los remos rotos por una borda (o las dos) o sufrir la muerte de la mayoría de los marineros por la artillería enemiga, que se dispara de forma automática al acercarse a un barco del bando contrario. La batalla puede convertirse en un infierno de abordajes, barcos ardiendo a la deriva, restos de naufragios y naves capturadas que huyen del desmadre. En los abordajes se ven soldados en forma de cilindros del color de tu bando ocupando el barco contrario. No es que sea un virtuosismo gráfico como la representación de los barcos, pero cumple. Los barcos son muy diversos, toda una amplia lista que abarca los cinco siglos del juego. Desde pequeños “lembi” y “pentecónteras” a los grandiosos “decares” ptolemaicos y romanos, sin olvidar los poderosos quinquerremes cartagineses. En total, 14 modelos de barcos. Además, en el modo escaramuza estos barcos son configurables, pudiendo añadirles velas, máquinas, más hombres y hasta el “corvus” romano. El juego incluye también rasgos de acentuado realismo, como la fatiga de la tripulación, la niebla, lluvia, viento y reglas especiales para buques de tesoros, barcos anclados y barcos de transporte. A primera vista, se divide en campañas, que son una sucesión de batallas en una determinada época (Guerras Médicas, I Guerra Púnica, etc…), que deben ir ganándose una a una. Todas están representadas con un realismo histórico notable y da gusto (y algo de cabreo) jugarlas. Pero donde más brilla Mare Nostrvm es en el modo escaramuza, ya sea en solitario o en el multiplayer. Este último, con el ya famoso sistema de Slitherine, es de una facilidad tremenda, que te permite jugar múltiples batallas históricas y de escaramuza a la vez, por lo que es un juego ideal para torneos y campeonatos entre jugadores. El único pero es la falta de un editor de escenarios, que le daría mucha vida extra. En fin, si te gustan las batallas navales o los juegos de táctica con una IA decente, Mare Nostrvm cumple las expectativas.

A good tactical wargame. Its from the makers of Qvadriga, and carries over much of the feel of that game. Relatively simple mechanics given depth by the interaction of lots of moving parts (well, moving triremes). It is a Wego format, so a decent part of the tactics is anticipating where the enemy triremes will move to and trying to aim to ram into their sides. There is a major focus on positioning, which makes it feel a little like Fields of Glory on the ocean.

Mare Nostrvm (Latin: “Our Sea”) is a turn-based hex grid naval battle wargame developed by Turnopia. Inspired by [url=https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1709/trireme]board[/url] [url=https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1894/war-galley]wargames[/url] and ancient Mediterranean history, it is one of those games where a minimalist interface and plain graphics are a misleading cover for complex mechanics and a steep learning curve in gameplay. Featuring a historically faithful single-player campaign and a robust skirmish generator in both single and multiplayer modes, Mare Nostrvm will appeal to either turn-based combat buffs or history buffs, but the former may not care much for the setting and the latter may be put off by the difficulty, which is non-negotiable. The single-player campaign has a total of 24 battles across nine chapters and five centuries, which is more than enough to keep players busy for dozens of hours, depending on how tenacious they are about achieving at least a Tactical Victory in each battle, which is much harder than it might seem at a first glance. The main interface features a beautiful map of the Mediterranean Sea styled as a ceramic mosaic, which fits in with the minimalist design and gives it a genuinely Roman aesthetic. The soundtrack is also obviously Roman martial music in brass tones. There is no in-game volume control, so be careful with loud headphones. The tutorial is very much necessary; nodding through it will leave the player lost and unable to take full advantage of the mechanics based on the stats of ships. Movement is fairly straightforward, but not taking the ship’s stats into account when trying to grapple or ram into another ship will sometimes result in sinking failure. And failure will be very, very common, probably even for experienced wargamers (which I’m not). It’s actually expected, as victory is not required to advance to the next battle of each chapter. In the first chapter I managed a tactical victory, a draw and a tactical defeat, which is not too shabby for the first 10 hours of playtime. There is an admirable elegance to the design of Mare Nostrvm: the core mechanics are based on the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turns,_rounds_and_time-keeping_systems_in_games#Simultaneously_executed_and_clock-based_turns]WEGO or We-Go system[/url], which executes turns simultaneously instead of the more traditional [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turns,_rounds_and_time-keeping_systems_in_games#Turn-based]IGOUGO or I-Go-You-Go[/url], which makes the game as realistic as it can get from a top-down perspective. As such, it is nearly impossible to predict what the AI will do with each ship, and so coordinated movements of three or more ships are required to either grapple, ram, or halve their movement. Manpower must be taken into account for each maneuver, as it can either cripple or sink the enemy ship depending on the direction of the assault. Turn movement execution could be a little faster; even when you fast-forward it is still very slow. The game could use more shortcuts and keyboard functionality; the Ctrl key with mouse selection would make movement less frustrating, at least when the ships are all facing the same direction and the flagship was lost. A “next unit” button to find every ship that is available to receive orders would be extremely helpful in large battles, which tend to be very chaotic, making it hard to pin down exactly which units are stuck or out of combat. Micromanagement of fleets and ship stats can turn gameplay into a bit of a chore. Mare Nostrvm was designed by Daniel López, a turn-based combat aficionado and Rome aficionado who also designed another Roman-themed game, [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/297760/Qvadriga/]Qvadriga[/url]. Daniel’s design style calls to mind Daniel Fedor, who developed [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/248860/NEO_Scavenger/]NEO Scavenger[/url], a turn-based hex grid post-apocalyptic roguelike RPG, also difficult and minimalist. It will offer dozens of hours of challenge to obstinate wargamers with the single-player campaign alone. Multiplayer skirmishes can be set up through Slitherine, the game’s publisher, but the servers are empty most of the time, so multiplayer-oriented wargamers should take that into account. As noted by RPS wargaming connoisseur [url=https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/06/09/the-flare-path-mare-nostrum/]Tim Stone[/url], it has been decades since the last ancient naval warfare game (a 1985 DOS game called [url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/ram]RAM![/url]), which makes Mare Nostrvm quite unique in the currently crowded indie games market. It’s a very niche game, certainly, but as such it has no direct competitors and no equals. Elegantly designed with complex mechanics and unpredictable AI behaviour; unembellished in interface and graphics, in Mare Nostrvm, gameplay is emperor, not king. It will be brutal for inexperienced wargamers, but challenging and rewarding for the seasoned admirals of simultaneous turn-based combat.

The game features twenty-four historic battles scattered across nine campaigns; victory is (thankfully) not required in order to advance to the next mission. Skirmish battles are also available against the AI, and online multiplayer utilizes Slitherine’s PBEM system. The interface badly needs a “next unit” button to find ships that can be issued orders in large, chaotic battles. Fourteen ship types can be equipped with a variety of weapons for firing upon and boarding the enemy. Ships must be near their commander to receive orders, requiring some organization during each conflict. Movement orders are placed on the map, along with choosing to ram or grapple and board the enemy ships (the decision of which should be based on the attributes and orientations of the ships involved). Ships will automatically fire on nearby enemies. The AI is skilled at the game, providing a competent opponent. Though repetitive and lacking some interface features, Mare Nostrvm is effective at displaying the chaos of ancient naval battles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDxXyWAQUEI

Disregard Steam play time. I own the Slitherine/Matrix version & activated my Steam Key for posting purposes. If you are, the least bit, interested in this time period & type of warfare...then you will like this game. I am a big fan of "ancients" game play & this game offers something very unique. The dev created a wonderful game called Qvadriga & this next entry appears to be another potential classic per this genre of gaming. Using Slitherene's PBEM+ system ( have not done so with this game yet ), multiplayer should be challenging & fun. Modding & the like will only enhance the potential for greatness per this game/sim.

Dear Turnopia Mare Nostrvm is a great game, I love it very much and in the current game market has no such subject matter.However, I have noticed that the game has stopped updating since 2017, and there is no further progress in the update content and total factor editing functions you promised before.I don't know what made you give up on this very promising game.I know a lot of players who feel the same way.I am writing this post to hope that you can continue to develop and improve this game or to know your current status.Best wishes to you.I look forward receiving your reply. Thank you!

After Qvadriga comes another nice little game from Turnopia! This time covering the ancient naval battles in the Mediterranean Sea (also called Mare Nostrum in latin). It's a simultaneous turns type of game, and feels very challenging to command the fleets with yout captains and admirals. It's not a game for everyone, but for an hardcore wargames player and history fans it's almost a musthave. Maybe the price is a little too high, but it's currently (timeof review autumn sales 2018) somthing like 6€, and it's worth every cent! The graphic is simple yet nice, but the core mechanics is where the game shine, a little gem.