Indie gaming is a strange scene at times, it can be exciting but also predictable. When an indie developer finds a secure niche for itself, they will fight rabidly by releasing a new game every so often. The horror genre has been occupied by Frictional & Scott Cawnhỏ, the latter releasing a new Five sầu Night"s game roughly every twenty minutes (ok, not that often). Here in Grvà Strategy land, I would argue that Longbow reigns supreme with Hegemony. Sadly, its reign is starting khổng lồ look a little dull.
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This is the third Hegemony game by Longbow Games & the key issue is that, besides the maps, a little streamlining và the graphics, there is very little that can be used khổng lồ tell them apart. I won"t deny that I am a fan of the series & the studio, I originally bought Hegemony: Phillip of Macedon from the studio itself bachồng in 2011 and have found myself playing, và enjoying, both Hegemony Gold, which is the expanded version of the original, & Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar after that.
Hegemony as a series is a curious set of real time and grand strategy, giving you control over everything from your units, diplomacy, finances, cities, industry và even detailed choices such as how khổng lồ set up your supply routes. This has always been done in a simple but very effective sầu manner, which allows for tactical planning & strategic thinking & lets you plan in the long term, creating economical & military powerhouses out of different cities.
As much as there is a lot of variety & choice on offer, with so much to take control of, nothing ever becomes too overwhelming. As it stands there are two campaigns, one mix in a localized region around Rome & the other across the whole of mainlvà Italy, both offering a place for you to build, exp& and conquer.
The first of the two campaigns could be described as a tutorial of sorts, though in reality the objectives on offer are identical lớn that of the larger campaign. You start by gaining control over nearby cities that are of the same race as you have selected, move sầu onto controlling all of the territory that belongs lớn other factions & it expands from there. It all moves quite fluidly and anything you don"t know how to vày is found at the push of a button.
This initial streamlined approach is almost immediately lost by having very generic objectives after that. A nearby faction will ask you lớn pillage a few farms of their enemies. Maybe the other faction will ask you to lớn defeat five sầu units of another. At one time I had two identical sets of quests, one phối where the Lucani asked me khổng lồ defeat five sầu units of the Kroton faction, the other where the Kroton faction asked me to lớn pillage five farms of the Lucani. It"s quite slipshod considering the previous games all seemed to lớn offer logical progression, or at least they never had duplicating objectives running concurrently.
Not only that, even having completed a number of the objectives & having received the rewards, they would all stay on my screen until I personally cancelled it. Small niggling bugs lượt thích this are abound & while they can be irritating, are not game breaking. What could be game breaking for some, however, is the game"s tendency lớn use in excess of 2.5GB of RAM which throws the minimum requirements right out of the door. In addition, there"s the game"s insistence of crashing whenever I had the utter gall khổng lồ expect it khổng lồ open multiple menus at once.
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Bugs aside, I have spent seventeen hours across two separate campaigns in Hegemony III. The first campaign was lost as a result of a save-breaking bug that has since been fixed, & my current campaign is expanding from the south of Italy as the Rhegion faction. It"s incredibly satisfying to see your slow expansion as your faction"s color spreads across the larger map, slowly but surely, made all the more challenging by a brilliant AI that will happily counter your moves and exploit any visible weaknesses.
It"s this ability lớn zoom out lớn see everything on a grand scale, lớn then zoom in to the đô thị màn chơi & see your unit of hoplites march towards your next objective. Positioning your units into formation, slingers in the rear, winning a battle lớn then move sầu right on to lớn siege and capture an enemy city. The joy of seeing a hard fought battle won by superior tactics, flanking enemies while you have a smaller force hold them at a bridge.
The Feeling of ControlThe feeling of total control is only enhanced when you take into lớn tài khoản that in Hegemony III all of your cities are lớn be managed, the buildings selected và built. The two resources that are gathered, Wood & Gold, are found in Mines or Lumber Camps outside of the cities và are buildings that need to be upgraded và manned as their own entities. The final resource, Manpower, is used khổng lồ create your armies và generated automatically.
To add lớn this, everything has lớn be specifically linked via user-created supply lines that cost money lớn maintain, as roads would, and the longer they are the more of a supply is lost along the way. This encourages a interlinked network of smaller supply lines that are all interlinked in what is nothing short of an impressive network. How this works is only made more impressive when you look at how a protracted military chiến dịch has khổng lồ work, with supplies making their way from your homeland all the way to lớn the frontline which, if thin at parts, can be cut by enemy units.
Honestly, what disappoints me the most is that Clash of the Ancients is a brilliant strategy game. It has everything a veteran of the genre could want, from the small but essential choices in đô thị development, choice in skill developments through unit experience và faction points, tactical control over territory & even a tactical, albeit more basic than other established games, battle system. It"s a great game for newcomers to lớn jump in và learn, though the help options could be a little more accessible và visual, rather than basic text.
Longbow have touted this as having a host of new features but only three of them feel lượt thích true additions that have a notable benefit. Faction skills, trading và the ability to colonise captured cities. The improvement that would have sầu made this truly fresh is the dynamic campaign, sadly this is the same dynamic chiến dịch offering duplicate objectives.
In all, Hegemony III is certainly worth playing. It really is. Polish is required, lots of it, but there are few other places lớn go for both a tactical và strategic game that takes place over such a massive sầu scale và gives you so much lớn bởi vì.