Spartan

I used to play this game a lot when it was first released. I was happy to find it on Steam and capable of running on a modern system after Microsoft rendered my factory disk inoperable when they changed the CD security protocols. It is a slow moving game like Civilization. You will spend time building buildings and researching technology. Watch your army sizes and production or you can face economic ruin. Place your units carefully on the field before starting the battle. Always try to lay siege to cities with fortifications or your invading army will be pummeled. A player can choose from a variety of nations in each scenario, each with its own victory conditions.

Leonidas: Earth and water. You'll find plenty of both down there. [indicates the well with his sword] Persian messenger: [nervous] No man, Persian or Greek, no man threatens a messenger! Leonidas: You bring the crowns and heads of conquered kings to my city's steps! You insult my queen. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully, Persian. Perhaps you should have done the same. Persian messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness! [Leonidas lowers his sword and looks toward Gorgo, who nods] Leonidas: [facing the Persian messenger] Madness? This is Sparta!!

The pinnacle of the series, third game in the entry. Same as before, you control a nation, where the main focus is to manage your cities and their resources in order to build forces and expand. Strategic map is turned base, while the battles are carried out in auto battle. The improvements include management of technology, vastly expanded diplomatic options and capabilities up to annexation of smaller states, increase of army size from 8 units to 16, slight redesign of resources with total being 9, and different units for different cultures, with more profound differences being between more distant cultures. There are also other smaller improvements and tweaks. The graphics have changed from a more drawn style to trying to imitate 3d, but I preferred the old ones. The balance of the map can also be a bit complicated, with there being what seems to be less viable regions or more difficult starting positions. Never the less, I still think its the best game in the series and wished they would have done more with it. 7.5/10

Fun little empire builder

Вот это я понимаю, вернулся в свой 2007, когда эта игра попала мне на диске от компании 1С. Стратежка про перекрась карту с очень хорошей проработкой экономики античного мира, а именно тебе не просто надо следить за налогами и настроениями в обществе, как в каком-нибудь тотал варе, надо следить за производством камня, чтобы построить самые базовые постройки, фарфора и мрамора, для чего-то посерьёзнее, для найма гоплитов - медь, для конницы - лошадей, для лучников и флота - дерево, ну и самое главное - еда, чтобы прокормить войско и страну, любой засушливый год может напрочь убить твои планы на экспансию. на ближайшие 12 ходов. Впрочем-то я считаю это основным плюсом данной игры, ну а также любимую мою античную тематику, своеобразную дипломатию, вставки исторических новостей и просто огромнейшую карту (правда это немного и минус, после половины завоёванной карты развиваться дальше становится душновато и однообразно) но поэтому и есть "условия победы" внутри игры, чтобы почувствовать достигнутой цели, не задушившись зачисткой карты. И это при том условии, что персы регулярно присылают свои армии кораблями, то есть победить их до конца невозможно, да и тяжело, когда они бесконечно прибывают из ниоткуда, что делает глобальную карту сложной. А так рецепт победы выработан такой: твоя экономика должны быть выстроена так, чтобы позволять тебе иметь фулл-стак армии тяжелых гоплитов, потому что они ничем не контрятся, никакая конница, лучники и застрельщики в данном случае не нужны, армия победы готова. Бои же тут ничего не стоят, управления в них нет кроме 3 кнопок.

ABOUT TIME! Used to have this on old system and have missed it for years. Been waiting for a long time for this game to get re-released and it's great. Everything is smooth and functions well without a hitch. This game is a perfect combo of half-"beer & pretzels" and half-grand strategy open world 4X. The game world is huge, fully of not just handful of kingdoms of a few dozen or so kingdoms, and each with multiple cities. It's just loaded with juicy ancient kingdoms and empires to conquer. It's overwhelming. And it's easy to play. This isn't some over-complicated game, it's a lot easier than it initially looks and has a multiple tutorials to help along the way. It has a simplicity very, very similar to the Total War series when it comes to building up your cities. It also includes research tree, statistics, basic diplomacy (you have characters who are your diplomats to send out), and a bit of history tidbits along the way - while receiving messages about a new unit or building constructed, it might include a report about the real-life So-crates doing himself in and Plato being sad about it. A nice touch. Or...invasions by powerful foreign powers! Don't be surprised if the Persian hordes and Roman legions descend upon poor, divided, city-states and nations of the vast region. The game has various difficulties levels, so if you play on Easy, that's recommended for the first time, but you might find your expansion slowing to manage your cities (or just ignore them, there is as stats screen that will tell you if they're unhappy or content, etc.) and keeping forces to protect all your holdings, and finding the enemy kingdoms still easily picked off one at a time. In time, it can become repetitive and then you realize that all your massive gains still only make up 1/8th of the entire world map (HEHEHEH - did I mention how very huge it is?) Simliar to Total War series, you send your units across the map to attack enemy armies and cities, and it goes into a tactical battle map. You place your units, set formations, give orders, and click OK. Then it switches to the actual battle map which you can opt to watch in 2D or 3D, and it plays out by itself. You can order your troops to charge, rally, or retreat (bad idea, it's more of a "surrender" button lol). That's it. The AI does the rest and you sit back and watch the bloodbath unfold. At the end, it will tell you the outcome, how many enemies you annihilated, how many you lost, from each army in the battle, and if your armies survived, were routed, or utterly destroyed and more, and the enemy's results show as well. Everything you do costs one of the many resources so don't go overboard and have your growing kingdom grow too fast and your people starve to death. You have to decide what the settlements will focus on as they grow to huge cities, and some are limited in resources, some might have natural resources like copper, wood, and others have food (farms), and iron or marble. There's a variety. But DON'T FORGET there's a "marketplace" to buy/sell goods which is easy to use. Units vary from ancient spearmen, to armored spartans, proto-hoplites, calvary, to peasants, you name it. Each has advantages/disadvantages and while most battles everyone rushes at each other, it does make a difference and you'll slowly realize it as you see the unexpected outcomes and learn how to deploy and give them orders better. As the game progresses, you research new things and cities grow, more units and buildings become available. What seemed a "simple" game as first becomes very involving and detailed. Additionally, more advanced units have more formation options. The battles are not as simple as they seem. You'll find yourself endlessly trying different strategies. The battles themselves as mentioned can be in 2D or 3D. Both are great. How can 2D be great you ask? First, in both, the graphics are colorful, units are well animated, the sounds are excellent. In 3D, it's isometric perspective, you can zoom in/out, pan around, and it's all incredibly smooth and feels great. IMO, the zoom-in should allow you to zoom in more, otherwise, the units will also seems a bit "small" but the 3D looks great in all the different terrain, seeing units perched on hills throwing javelins at enemies below, or calvary trying to gallop through forests, and all that. In contrast, 2D is top down, with a slight angled view (think Ultima VII/VIII games or Tzar: Burden of the Crown) so it's not just heads and shoulders, but you can see the fully body of the units. The 2D graphics look great for it's time and it's WAAAAAY bloodier than the 3D battles. In the 3D battles, there are mounds of corpses sprinkled with a bit of red pixels. In 2D, there's a ton of blood splatters all over the place. The trade-off is you can't zoom in/out, so you have to pan around and can't see everything when there's huge battles. I love both the 2D and 3D modes, but I actually like the 2D better. Why? I think seeing crimson-colored fields of blood from piles of bodies better conveys the gravity of ancient sword and sandals warfare. It's a real horror-show. And it 2D modes, it really shows. You didn't just watch 100 of your soldiers "get defeated"and crumple to the ground...rather, you just watched 100 of your soldiers enter a mosh pit of slaughtery-death and fertilize the earth with their blood. Lots of it. At times, the game reminds me of Superpower 2 in that you can just go on keeping on playing, growing/expanding, attacking or making peace with whoever you want. Everything works well with this re-release. It's an old game, some might not care for how it aged, for the resolution not fitting wide-screen, or the interface taking some getting used to (like the mouse left-click functions vs. what right-click does), but there's a lot of nice things with the UI and presentation. Additionally, the SFX are very immersive and detailed. There's a lot fine polish here/there and on the edges that makes a difference. Finally, the music is really good too, extremely tasteful and relaxing in fact. Great soundtrack. Finally, very important to mention, you can pick the scenarios but it's easily overlooked you can select which country. So you pick a time-period, and actually select one of the few dozen or so kingdoms and each has their own objectives but that doesn't matter, you can just do whatever you want and have fun. Simliar to Superpower 1 and 2, in there's no "plot" but an actual open world, and you can play as any nation/kingdom you prefer. FINALLY FINALLY - to say, from my experience, this game can definitely suck all the time in that it it's design evokes the "JUST ONE MORE TURN!" effect. Spartan is part of a series starting with Legion (2002) and later Legion Gold (2008), that includes Gates of Troy (2004) and Chariots of War (2007). Gates of Troy and Spartan share the same setting, Chariots of War focuses on the middle-east, and Legion has campaigns focused on ancient Rome and Britannia. Personally, I prefer Spartan, which shares similarities most with GOT and COW, but Legion seems cheaper/having less IMO; and Spartan just overall seems to have a better vibe.

Cool old strategy game. Mostly no bugs, except for some cosmetic.

Un jeu classique qui a bercé mon enfance! Mécaniques et graphismes datés (sans surprise), mais un charme indéniable dans ce beau titre de Slitherine. Merci à l'éditeur de l'avoir ramené des limbes!

Total War oyunlarının atası, babasıdır. Hoşçakal sevgilim çocukluğum.

One of the most entertaining strategies. The battles are somewhat simple (still satisfying) so the game is mostly about resource management and strategy on the grand scale. Contains historical information and references, you can tell the people behind this game are interested in history. The music is relaxing and somehow makes the time pass by fast. A perfect example of 2000s gamedev work ethic, this game deserves its second popularity and more than 11 reviews.