mammoth
Grand Campaign, players will live through
Plato's journeys, the founding of the Academy, the invasion of Xerxes (the Persians),
the Peloponnesian War (Sparta and its allies against the Athenian Empire), the
expansion of Corinth, the completion of the Iliad, and even the invasion of the
Romans. The historical events aren't just there to earmark a certain time or introduce
interesting facts, but they also play a role in how the game is played out by
some of them affecting the particular city-state in which the historical event
took place; for example, the completion of the Academy will give Athens' citizens
a moral boost. With even the most obscure city-states playable, those interested
in this time period will have plenty to enjoy.
Those who aren't familiar
with the history can still enjoy the game by enjoying the basic empire-building
aspects of carefully planning resource allocation, trade, diplomacy, and overall
city management. Since each city has only so many lots of land to build on, it's
crucial to strike a balance between resources, education, and military. Research
points can be allotted to each of the main interests of the day, with each allowing
for specific benefits - studying bricks will lead to the ability to build walls,
while studying silver will allow armories to be built, giving troops stronger
armor - so those who are in a plains territory might want to focus on horses more
in the beginning. To keep research going, universities and its add-ons, libraries,
schools, guilds, need to be built, and each subsequent addition will offer additional
bonuses as well. For resources, homesteads (farms), copper, iron, marble, wood,
and bricks need to be maintained; the most crucial being farms and bricks, otherwise
buildings will collapse and troops starve, and later copper later for the training
of hoplites. There is an easy trade menu that is set up so goods can be shifted
around and excess sold for silver. It's a delicate balancing act, keeping all
of this together; most games have a breaking point where the player hits the sweet
spot and rolls resources in at near an unlimited rate, but not here. Natural disasters
and maintaining a military will constantly drain resources, making management
time-consuming and crucial. Thankfully, it's all handled very well.
The
administrative portions are played out in a large world map and in city-specific
portions. From the main map players can watch the movement of other armies, the
movement of their own armies (a red line with the green portions indicate how
far the army can travel in that move), check their resources (a handy feature:
putting the cursor over a resource indicates on the mini map which towns have
them), and manage their cities. The cities have a limited number of build-able
slots, with more becoming available as the town goes from a small to large village.
A list of buildings show what's available to build, those with enough resources
ready are in white and those without enough are written in gray, as well as population
information. The happiness of the people is directly tied to productivity and
the armed services. If citizens aren't happy, then they will refuse to fight,
leaving a would-be world conqueror impotent. If they are becoming disgruntled,
allocating workers from specific jobs to a reserve work force makes them happy
because they can rest. All information is given at the bottom of the screen, and
when sending a worker to a structure, the benefits of their participation is directly,
and handily, displayed. This portion is important in balancing military, research,
and resource harvesting.
Interestingly, gold and silver play lesser roles
in a city-state's economy - particularly gold - than one might imagine. Few projects
and some diplomatic assignments will require gold; but silver, on the other hand,
is crucial when balancing trade resources, paying armies in the field, and for
diplomatic maneuvering - though its importance can be slightly muted, depending
on the player's style. The diplomatic portion of the game is actually really fun.
Players start out with a set amount of diplomats to send off to any of the different
territories, with farther posts requiring longer periods of travel. The longer
a diplomat is in a territory, the better their skills become. By building embassies
and other foreign relations offices in the capital, they will have more options
at their disposal. They can do anything from offering state gifts of money (silver)
or donate statues to increase friendship, provoke an attack, or even plant rumors
and informers to create dissonance among another nation's people. It can be hard
to judge just how effective such actions are, but that's because the results are
subtle in most cases - despite the random friendly nation invading, I found paying
off nations by way of a respected diplomat a great way to seal up weak borders
over a few years. What's important to keep in mind is that the player has to be
shrewd; the computer-controller players are out for themselves as well, so don't
rely completely on the word of an ally, and make sure you have enough resources
to wage a war on your own because no one will jump at the chance to help - the
game is pretty rough, even with plenty of allies, so be prepared to take a few
on the chin. A heavily favored diplomat can go a long way, and even though the
player can't ask for a peace accord during hostilities, a skilled statesmen can
ease an enemy off, be it with his charm or the player's orders to create commotion
in their land - it's hard to tell if one is more effective than the other or if
it's a combination, which can make deciding which to focus on (as opening up more
advanced tactics like assassination and putting up a philosopher require a good
deal of time and money) tough.
The weakest part of the game is still
the combat. Unfortunately, not much has changed in regards to the player's role.
Cities can have walls with defense weapons - which come about with significant
time, research, and resources put into learning their proper implementations -
that attack in tandem with garrisoned units. But the player is still relegated
to the sidelines when it comes to troop-to-troop fights: merely telling the units
whether to outflank, short hold, long hold, envelope, seek units, march, charge,
or envelope. There are some additional features in combat, with the player being
able to rally and tell the men to charge, along with the ability to pause and
fast-forward, all set up in a pre-battle screen. It can take a while before decent
enough units can be trained that are able to keep any sort of formation, but I
rarely found that to help. Generals can are handy at enhancing soldiers that surround
them, but they are a mid-to-late game unit and often come about too late. The
problems the soldiers should have, like hoplites having problems on rough terrain,
aren't nearly as evident here as they are in Medieval: Total War. It can
be frustrating to gauge just what to do when it seems like there is so little
to do. Those who enjoy administering more than combat can choose to auto resolve
conflicts before going into the placement interface, but I found that to be a
poor choice as I was able to easily defeat enemies that my AI couldn't handle.
While I found this style novel in Legion, its slow advancement is making it something
I don't overly enjoy, which is particularly bothersome because they seem to be
on the edge of creating just the right combat style for this formula.
Slitherine has stepped up their game with Spartan. While it's true that
the core of the game is the same as their past released and those who didn't enjoy
them will most assuredly not enjoy this, the polished interface, making the rigors
of trade and opening up the excellence of the diplomatic mode, make it far easier
for new players to get into and will welcome veterans back with pizzazz. There
is also a 3D mode for battles, which isn't very attractive, so it's fortunate
that there is also an option to keep 2D which is handy for those with older machines
or who just don't like the third-dimensional counterpart - myself, I've always
had a soft spot for massive 2D sprite carnage. The music is good, and the historical
notes are excellent.
As mentioned, the game can get pretty tough. While
each people have their own objectives, it's possible to luck out on the first
venture out and win, but even those marked 'easy' will give people a run for their
money as it's completely possible to be invaded within 4 or 5 turns. There are
also some head-scratching moments, like when a one-city nation with no colonies
is able to field massive armies with no substantial means to do so. Once players
get their feet into the ground, though, the game really opens up. There is so
much there that it might be a while before some can actually play with all the
options, which is a shame because most starting in early ages will succeed or
fail reaching mid-level technology. The time issues also dampen some of the fun
playing as Sparta, because the player has to go from the basic units to Spartiates,
whenever the whole point of them being drug into the Peloponnesian war was because
of their status as elite fighters; and since the time of several campaigns take
place after they've established themselves, it isn't nearly as fun as it could've
been - then again, a single Spartiate company can crush most other units, but
that's the whole point of playing as them.
Overall:
6.5/10
Slitherine: The Historical Buff's Beer & Pretzel Game Maker. Managing
to increase its own depth while not really going for the jugular, Spartan
is a fun game that seems to be held back by the rigid design of the series. The
pacing is similar to that of Legion and Chariots of War, as is combat
and city management, so those turned off by their time with either will most likely
find this one to be boring and more of the same. I, however, found it an improvement
over Chariots of War and enjoyed my time with it. It's a little random
in spots, often making it frustrating, but it's worth sticking with. This isn't
for everyone, but its light empire-management style makes it worth trying. [
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