I’ve often wondered why there hasn’t been more ancient Greece centred strategy games. Often relegated to the more hardcore ancient era war games, ancient Greece presents an interesting scenario with multiple factions, warfare and cunning diplomacy to warrant an awesome strategy game. The guys at Longbow Games have also wondered about this and they went ahead and made Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece. Hegemony Gold is an update(in truth this is like halfway to a sequel, there are many excellent improvements in this version) to Hegemony: Philip of Macedon, a game they released last year.
Hegemony Gold comes with three main campaigns. These campaigns have a story arc attached to them. There is of course the Philip of Macedon campaign that is from the original. The new additions are the Archimedean War; which follows the exploits of the Athenians at the start of the Peloponnesian war, and the Ionian war campaign; you play as the Spartans and wage war against the Athenians. These campaigns have chapters and objectives for you to complete to further the story. What’s particularly brilliant about these campaigns is that you are free to choose which objectives to pursue at any one time(they are just there on the map). There is also a sandbox mode that allows you to play the game as any faction without any storyline stuff.
 |
| Hegemony has a very pretty zoomed out board game like map. Gives you a good idea of the big picture |
Hegemony Gold has this really nifty graphical strategic zoom, similar to Supreme Commander(or even Elemental War of Magic). When you’ve pull the camera out, the map changes to a board game like parchment map of the region around Greece and Macedonia from a 3D world. It’s quite useful and your cities, supply lines(I’ll explain these soon), objectives are all clearly marked on the map. While the 3D graphics are rather weak(and dated), I do like the art style quite a bit. Now that that’s out of the way, on to more important stuff.
Supply…the name of the game
In Hegemony, you’d have to be mindful about your supply lines and food for your cities and soldiers. This is a rather novel idea for a real time strategy game as it makes you pause and think more about your offensive plans that a regular RTS doesn’t do. To bring in food for the cities, you’ll need to connect farms to them to create a new supply line(connecting them is a simple shift right click). As you gain more cities, you connect these cities with each other to create a supply line throughout your region.
 |
| Connect your cities with each other and your farms to build a supply line |
The games main mechanic is this supply line system and winning battles to reinforcing your fronts depends heavily on it. Each unit carries their food and once they are outside the range of cities, their food levels drop(they stay constant if you are in range of supply, unless of course the city is out of food). If a unit is all out of food, their morale drops and if attacked, they will route instantly. Essentially an army that cuts off the supplies of the enemy has a huge advantage as an army that is hungry will not be able to fight in battle well. If you need to march over long distances, you can use workers or slaves(yes you can capture enemy units and make them your slaves) to collect food from a farm and carry extra supplies for your army.
You can send your own forces over enemy farms or supply routes(roads on the map) to cut off entire regions or cities off supplies(and also resupply themselves on them). To add to the supply dynamic, there are seasons in Hegemony. Farms grow wheat and they get harvested during certain seasons. If you can deny the enemy a major portion of their supply during harvest season, you can get the upper hand in battle as the enemy army will be hard pressed to find food in seasons where food is scarce.
 |
| Troops in range of your cities get resupplied with food. Giving you a strong defensive advantage if you can maintain food supplies |
It’s really easy to set up these supply lines and looking out for cities that are out of supply(all the information are shown on the map). There is even advanced controls such as the ability to manage your food stockpiles in cities. Your cities will often need to keep stockpile of food to get through the winter seasons but if things get tough for your soldiers, you can help out a little but lowering the food stockpile in cities to allow your soldiers access to much needed food.
"We held a defensive position with our phalanxs just outside a narrow gap between a valley outside of Edessa. The enemy army had no chance! Tired from the long march south and out of food supplies they routed in battle. Glory for Macedon!"
Soldier in the Phalangite unit of Philip’s Army
Battles in Ancient Greece
There are a bunch of units in Hegemony(depending on the faction) but they are essentially based on these basic unit types such as a heavy infantry, light spearmen, ranged javelin thrower, scout cavalry, heavy cavalry and so on(the usual ancient Greece units). Combat happens on the same map and is not a matter of numbers. Since your game will be mostly about conquest and with a growing territory, your units will be stretched. You will find it a challenge to face an enemy with an overwhelming force unless you want to take the risk of lightly defending the other fronts.
Expect to hold out fronts with 2 or 3 units(don’t expect huge Total War like battles here, not the same type of game). The map is quite well designed and there are chokepoints, defensive locations and even fortresses that you can use to help shore up defence in a section of your territory(you cant build structures other than walls for your cities). This will often be key as the AI is ruthless at taking advantage of lightly defended areas. I often found other parts of my territory being attacked as I focused my military campaign some where else. Damn those Athenians! This is where you could use diplomacy(new to this version) to declares truces and focus your military campaign on one front. The diplomacy system is fairly simplistic, you offer money for truce or an alliance. The cost depends on your hostility towards them. And since all of these happen in real time(the map is quite huge), you will need to pause the game often to manage your empire and armies.
 |
| Holding choke points is key. Use the features of the map to your advantage |
You’ll be able to upgrade your units skills as they gain experience. You can add points to 5 different skills such as, logistics(reduces food consumption), heroics(increases unit morale), engineering(increases damage during sieges), initiative(increases stamina and view distance). Which makes veteran units really effective and highly valued. On top of units, you get generals that you can assign to units(you can’t recruit them, you get them for completing objectives or conquering cities they are from). Generals add their statistics to the units they merge with.
"Parmenion was a great Macedonian general from the ancient city of Pella. A childhood friend of Philip, he was second in command in Philip’s and his son, Alexander’s army."
Anonymous Greek Historian
What’s even more interesting is the fact that your units and even generals have a home city. Which ever city you recruit a unit from will become their home city. Cities don’t have unlimited manpower so you can only recruit a certain amount of units. If a city is out of recruits, you wont even be able to replenish units(units that have lost men get automatically replenished when in range with a city) and recruits replenish depending on the size of the city. The bigger the city, the faster the recruit pool fills up.
 |
| All your units gain experience and can be upgraded. You want to hold on to your units and not throw them away unnecessarily |
Longbow Games has also added more tactical elements to combat by including bonuses for cavalry charges, flanking and surrounding the enemy. The combat now feels more rewarding now that it feels a lot more realistic. Anyone who has played a Total War game will be familiar with how tactics work out in Hegemony(although as I said, don’t expect huge armies).
Conclusion
Hegemony Gold is a significant update that adds elements that I felt were crucially missing from Hegemony to further solidify the game as one of the best indie strategy games made. It’s accessible and has a very intuitive user interface that makes it easy to get the big picture(as well getting the finer details). It may start off a little slow and you might not be sure exactly why a particular city is out of supply(the game does a good job of telling you that it is out of supply though), but give it time and the game will charm you.
If you’re a big fan of strategy games and the Total War series, you might want to give this a go. Its got a good strategic AI(although the tactical AI is not going to demolish you) that probes weak sections of your territory, a deep supply mechanic that makes the game more of a thinking mans RTS and a well told story(if you’re a history buff, you’ll love it). You can purchase Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece for USD$ 19.99. Those that own Philip of Macedon will get a 50% discount(yes even if it is a Steam version). You can download the demo here. If you like strategy games and ancient warfare, definitely check this one out.
Pros:
- A real time strategy game with depth, yet easy to pick up. A thinking man's RTS.
- The supply mechanic makes a lot of sense. It’s not too difficult to understand once you get the hang of it.
- An RTS game which has supply dynamics. I like this a lot.
- Hegemony Gold does address the criticisms aimed at its predecessor. Namely better tactical combat and the inclusion of diplomacy. It is complete now.
- I enjoyed the story bits in the campaign. Maybe I’m just a sucker for ancient era history.
Cons:
- The diplomacy is still a little simplistic(but quite adequate, so not such a big deal).
- The 3D map is too zoomed in. You only see a very limited amount of the map in 3D. I would have wished for the 3D map to be viewable much more further zoomed out
Verdict: Top notch ancient era real time strategy gaming
No comments:
Post a Comment