Legion: Chariots of War

Rating:
Summary: Excellent choice for strategy game fans!!!
Review: I'm glad to be the first one to write a review about this game after all the hard work developers, programmers, producers and betatesters (I was one of them!) put into it.

The game is located in the middle east at 2500 BC. A complex mosaic of tiny nations which recreate from the most known realms and empires (such as Egypt, Hitites, Assyria, Ur, etc) to the least known (Makkan, Dahae, etc). The game situates them all together at the same historical time to enable you to possibility to live the hypothetical clash between those different nations. Purists will complain about it, but it's fun to have the choice to see a battle between Sumer and Persia for instance. And I like to call them the "what if" possibility.

The game has a similar concept to Legion (it's made by the same designers, Slitherine) which will enable Legion fans to quickly be comfort with it, BUT it has many new features and a new front end:

New features

* You have a trade addition which will allow you to sell your surpluses of stuff and buy the items you do not produce or own.
* Happinesss is now a serious problem to deal with! Keeping your citizens happy is a must. Consider building a strong religious concept or your population will start revolting and halting production.
* Diplomacy now contemplates the ability to send diplomats to foreign nations and accept other nations representatives as well.
* Grand campaign scenario (to play the whole middle east from Egypt to Persia) or regional scenarios (Asia minor, Egypt, etc)

The graphics are really good, the music is nice and you do not a "super computer" to play it with lots of Ram MB or 3-D board.

Overall, the game will assure you lots of hours of action and entertainment with multiple nations to choose and scenarios to play at a reasonable price.

Rating:
Summary: Good Strategy Game
Review: This is not a deep, deep sim of ancient life, warfare and economics.

It is, however, a deeply engaging game that has a lot more complexity that first glance would make one think.

The game mechanisms include city management: handled by the usual mechamism of building and upgrading structures by city. The most compelling part of this is that at each level of development your city can only hold so many structures. Build too many farms and you can't build barracks for better troops. Same in reverse, build to many troop producers and you'll startve. Getting this balance right across your empire is critical.

Economics are handled by a simple trade interface that allows you get buy resources you need and sell goods you overproduce. The concept is simple but reasonably dynamic in terms of supply affecting demand.

Combat is handled a la Legion where you deploy your troops before a battle and then turn them loose and they are outside your command. This feature aggravates a lot of gamers but it is a very unique feel that keeps this game from being another same old, same old. I love it despite some nits about it. Troop types really matter and failure to balance an army is a fatal flaw.

Diplomacy keeps this from being a 5 star type game. Simply put, there is no diplomacy. The designers claim that treaties and such things meant nothing in this age (likely true) but it means you are, in effect, always at war. You have relationship levels with other countries but good or bad relations do not, to me, appear to mean anything.

Overall I liken this game to the old Conquest of the New World or maybe, on a more well known level, to Axis and Allies. Games that are not of the depth of a Civ or Europa Universalis but aremore accessible to all gamers but still really fun. in the end, that is what matters and this game is fun.