Spartan - by Slitherine

[child of Thor]

Ok Carolus's question in the Xmas games thread has promted me to start another gaming thread on another decent game

The main site is here:

http://www.slitherine.com/spartan/index.htm

one of the lower reviews i found is here:

http://www.strategyinformer.com/reviews/spartan.shtml

As mentioned i got this for Xmas and have been playing it for around 4-5 days quite solidly, and its holding up quite well overall.

I've been interested in Slitherine's games for a while now, but this is the first one i've played - the only other one i was interested in was 'Chariots of War', but never saw it in the shops to pick it up.

Anyway i'll leave this thread with a screen shot as i'm just reaching an interesting part of the game and want to see how it handles it before i write more.

Still if you like TBS you should probably give this a go. If you like historic TBS set in ancient greece, then your laughing

[Carolus Rex]

Re: Spartan - by Slitherine

Originally posted by child of Thor

Ok Carlos's question

Those poorly educated greek savages... Always sloppy with their latin!

Present day Internet site owners exempted, of course!

Game looks good and have nice reviews... Getting an itch in my purchasing finger...

Carolus

[hexagonian]

Well, I will throw out some questions and thoughts...

I played CoW a while back. I had decidely mixed opinions about it. As an aside, it was the game that got me off the habit of paying full-price for any game, as it was not worth the $45 I payed for it when it came out.

Beautiful map - probably one of the best 2-D isometric maps out there (next to AOW2)...and it did have some good ideas.

The AI was maniacal in attacking, so much so, that the game always boiled down to player vs everyone else. The ratio of player vs AI combat compared to AI vs AI combat was heavily slanted against the player. For a few times, it was fun, then it became dull and repetitive. No diplomacy whatsoever...

To top it off, the AI focused on city conquest at the expense of everything else. What happened was that a full AI stack would be stymied by a single unit parked at a river ford. It would bypass that ford and take the very long way around the map to get at its target.

Another trick was to park single units outside of a city to prevent the AI from attacking the city. The AI could have simply taken out one of those lone units and then attack the city, but it never did so.

Stupid...and what was galling about it was that the player could decide to not do the above in the game, but that handicapping flies in the face of sound strategy such as the use of choke points and small diversionary forces to merely delay an invader, not grind it to a halt.

Actual combat was also interesting for a little while, but it pales in comparison the the TW engine. I think my rate of success was around 95%, and there was little variation in the battles and the setup. The TW series also can suffer from this, but I consider the atmosphere created in the TW series to be much more interesting.

There was also a nasty trade exploit in the game that allowed the player to manipulate the market to get a snowballing truckload of cash (based on the rules of supply/demand). I did not do this one though, choosing to buy on an 'as-need' basis.

So, do you see the same mechanics appearing in Spartan? I actually looked into getting it, but was put off by the map (I consider CoW's map to be more visually pleasing), and after playing RTW and MTW, I consider the Slitherine combat model very shallow.

Still, I may get it if I can snag it VERY cheap from a bin dive because I am a sucker for ancient-themed games...

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Carolus Rex

Those poorly educated greek savages... Always sloppy with their latin!

edit....

Carolus

Ah yes - my spelling of my own language is bad enough corrected my mistake(i hate getting peoples names wrong )

Originally posted by Hexagon

edit.....(the main bit i'll get to in a minute)

Still, I may get it if I can snag it VERY cheap from a bin dive because I am a sucker for ancient-themed games...

I've got the mastertronic re-release(£7) so can't complain on that score.

As for the other things you mention:

1. Yes the combat doesn't have the tactical edge that TW has, you have to be able to produce generals(which takes a while) before you can actualy make any formation changes or directly control your troops on the battle field. Before that(i still dont have one!) you just set-up the army pre-battle formation, and then let them do the fighting.

Still i dont have a problem with it so far - bigger/better armies seem to win, so ok it doesn't give you much room for doing a Caesar - but the thing it does do quite well is the support costs for the armies.

The 'interesting' bit i was waiting for before posting more has been and gone. I had a message that the might of Persia was on its way. So i got freaked and rushed towards making my best army to defend my Lacedameon(that Spartan to you or me ) lands from this threat from the East.

So i had everything in place to churn out the hoplites and do what Spartans do best. In the process i wrecked my economy and led us to the brink of starvation. And the Persians never showed, choosing instead to concentrate taking over the peoples closer to their mainland.

This was fun, and caused me to spend much of today trying to fix my society(cue a rush for 'farm technolgies+getting rid of my most outdated units). I even had to use the trade screen to try to buy in the grain i needed - but sadly hadn't invested enough in my trade to have enough to fix the problem.

So i was losing about -30 grain per turn(which is a month in game), and that was as good as i could get it. I had about 118 grain left when i got lucky, or maybe the Goddess of the harvest smiled on me; and then i had a year of bumper crops that put me into the positive at +10 grain per turn and have the time to keep improving my farming capability.

So this was interesting - interesting that i had to employ all the tactics i could to fix my over expensive army, and in the end a bit of 'realistic' randomness proved key.
Interesting also that on the screen that tells you of a particular units details, apart from the initial building cost; it doesnt mention the upkeep - which for Hoplites is very high. Ok its in the PDF manual - but there is space in the UI for this

The AI difficulty thing rings a bell - and they(Slitherine) acknowleged this in the games patch. Funny thing is i've only played the patched version and was finding the game rather too easy on medium difficulty setting(in that in the grand campaign mode i could have probably completed the Spartan objectives and finished the game already).

Pre-patch it sounds like it behaved as you mentioned, with a very warlike AI bent on world domination - forcing the player to play likewise to keep up.

Now its a much more chill affair - which is great for someone like me who likes time to build his empire up. In that respect it reminds me of your Craddle Mod for CTP2 - it gives you space to be a builder if you want(normal CTP2 behaviour) and yet you will lose battles if you dont stack the numbers in your favour(what craddle added to CTP2 amongst the extra ancient stuff)

And the building thing is fun - a mix of guess work(you never know which village/town has the best potential(except the obvious ones like capital cities etc)) and quite a decent layer of depth(x building leads to x building or maybe y is you choose to use the space for it).

I suspect i'll pick up Chariots of War at some point to - to see what progress has been made etc and like you i find it hard to resist a ancient TBS

looking at the files in Spartan it looks pretty easy to mod - mostly txt or excel files? Not sure on the modding capability of it as i'm not a modder.

After i've had a big fight with the Persians i think i'll restart on a harder level and see how it goes

Oh yes and i feel cheated that as the Spartans i cant build city walls! (still i'm sure this is historicaly accurate - it rings a bell) I guess they were too proud to do it?

Overall its very enjoyable - looks nice etc and if you can find it cheap then its well worth owning.

Its not as demanding as either of my other running games(Port Royale or FM2005), so i'm quite enjoying its traditional tbs style. I should PM Markos - he might like the idea of bringing his historic tribal greek group to supremacy

[child of Thor]

Playing Spartan as the Spartans cont... (post patch)

Game setup: Grand Campaign
Difficulty: Medium

I got brave and decided to have a go at the Persians that had shown up on the Eastern part of the map. I'd built up my war machine to include some Hoplites with an added armour bonus from a smithy i'd built. Previous use of them had proven pretty devestating to my enemies.
Anyway it wasn't enough - my army of 16 were finally crushed by the better troops of the Persians('Immortals' being extra nasty!).

Still it should be noted that in the Grand Campaign you are given the outline of a scenario that will enable to finish the campaign without having to conquor every province. For the Spartans it seemed pretty easy, and having played as them for 5 days, i could have finished those scenario conditions on day 4 if i'd decided to.

Test game out the way

Now playing Spartan as the Macedonians

Gamesetup: GrandCampaign
Difficulty: Hard

This is more like it. Not only is combat harder(Fought 7 Lost 2), but the Macedonians scenario conditions look much harder to achieve. Most of the cities i must own are across the sea on the other side of the map!

To the north i'm surrounded by Barbarian tribes that are making me nervous - i just cant afford to support the amount of troops i'd like to at this early stage of the game. And interestingly i can see to the south on the game 'world map' that the Spartans seem to be losing out to the Cretans after being one of the early expanding nations - they have only 4 cities from their starting 6. So the AI do a good job of having a go at one another

Below is a screenshot of the world map. On this you move your armies around and to go to that city view(the screenshot on the first post) you just click on one of your cities.

That army of 8 at the top of the screen has a 'general' in it(the guy on the white horse). They are pretty expensive to make and keep, but will allow you to better control your troops on the battle field.

Overall i'm finding the resource/trade thing quite balanced, i dont seem to be able to run away with any exploits, but maybe late in the game when you have many resource types it will be possible to?

And the fluctuating harvest means you can not go troop crazy - you have to prioritise and balance your development.

[duke o' york]

You got this for a fiver?!!!!

Where? Where!

[edit]You got it for Christmas? I was sure you said in the other thread that you bought it for yourself for Christmas for a fiver.

[child of Thor]

i saw it and thought "ah by the guys who did Chariots of War(the only other game i was interested in by Slitherine - it being a tbs)", bought it and gave it to my GF who wrapped it for me and gave it to me for xmas.

I found the mastertronic re-release version in the Game high street store:

http://shop.game.net/ViewProduct.aspx?cat=10343&mid=323269

pretty certain it was £7 in my local one though.

They had this one 'Spartan' for £6.99 and the smaller sequel 'gates of Troy' for £9.99(i think the Troy one came out around the same time as that film). I'm under the impression Spartan is the bigger/fuller featured game - Troy is more like a standalone scenario?

here's a review of Troy by the same site i used for Spartan:

http://www.strategyinformer.com/reviews/gatesoftroy.shtml

Still seems good - after i've played the death out of Spartan i'll pick it up as well - cant have too many tbs

Edit: i should just add that one of my earlier gripes about not being able to see the upkeep costs of your troops on the screen when you build them is wrong!
If you mouse over the picture of the troop above the description you get a little drop down menu that gives the details. sweet

[duke o' york]

Well I'll keep my eyes open, and pop into the EB tomorrow morning (if I get up in time after playing ogame ) to see how much they're asking for it. It seems to be pretty cool though.

[child of Thor]

well worth £10 i suggest - and if your lucky you might find your local does it cheaper

[duke o' york]

I saw Spartan in Game for £29.99.
Given that you can download the game (or buy a boxed version) for £19.99 from Slitherine's website, then I laughed out loud in the shop.

[Carolus Rex]

I saw it yesterday in a swedish shop... Down from 499 SEK to 149 SEK (1 Euro is at 9.30 SEK, so that's about 16 Euros)...

Carolus

[child of Thor]

Warning Long Post!

Originally posted by duke o' york
I saw Spartan in Game for £29.99.
Given that you can download the game (or buy a boxed version) for £19.99 from Slitherine's website, then I laughed out loud in the shop.

well dont get confused with the latest game from the guys who did the Total War games - thats still a full price release(and not this game).

All i can say is Wow! This game has been keeping me up till 5am over the weekend!

Macedonian Campaign cont.. Year 366bc - thats 408turns in + about +20hrs of playing

i'll give some quick details of the four top nations in the game+ some stats:

nation: battles Won/Lost: Kills/Casualties: Cities(geo location to me)

Persians 74/14 10941/13543 53(to the south+east)
Bithynians 45/10 5635/7601 25(to the east)
Romans 29/9 5075/5238 22(south-share a border!)
Macedonians 46/13 7091/7738 21

over two years on poly and i still cant do tables

The Spartans are no more – the Cretans continued to successfully push them back from the south, forcing them to move over-sea and settle an island of the east of their old coast, and the Persians followed the Cretans about 8years later(destroying them) and finally took the last Spartan owned city. Their story didn’t finish there as they had launched a ship with a medium sized army onboard, and tried to retake one of their old Towns on the mainland, which was now held by the Persians. It was sad to see this sorry band of soldiers and their last effort – they lost the battle and the Spartans were assigned to history.

The Romans arrived around 10 years ago(I think!), and settled on the west coast to the south of me. I decided to utilise my diplomats to try to build a decent relationship with them as I was having a bitter struggle with some of the nations to the north of me. As it turned out the work(and money!) I put into diplomacy has paid of(so far). I now have a very strong friendship with the Romans, which I’m hoping will keep them of my door until I’ve advanced my military more.

The Persians have not entered my area yet, but have been kicking the butt of many of the Greek Nations to the south. I hope they eventually meet up with the roman lands which will weaken both nations in the following war, maybe giving me my chance to rise to glory.

So far I’ve been embroiled in a costly war(see my casualty ratings above!) with the Dassarettes. They are a nation that started to the north west of my lands. It seems they moved in my direction and very early on were not friendly towards me(they even boiled alive one of my diplomats I’d sent early on in the game, when trying to get info on the relative strengths of the tribes around me!).

At first I mostly ignored them, thinking they wouldn’t amount to much. But as time went on and they started to move south on my western border, taking over a few smaller tribes as the went, I decided I needed to keep an eye on them.
Sadly at this point they had 4 huge rated armies in the field, and when it all came to a head those armies destroyed 3 of mine of equal size. Their troops(warrior class) were much better suited for combat in the woods and mountains that they chose to fight in – my best troops were spearmen and cavalry, and in the forests they couldn’t work effectively. I suspect that the Dassarettes had also invested in armour and training improvements, as they could cut my forces down with little losses on their side.

After 5 years of constant war between us, in which I lost 3 towns(2 of them my main horse breeding towns) to them, I eventually succeded at taking two Huge armies around their northern border and capturing a couple of their towns that seemed to be providing all their troops. Until a year ago they had just two remaining towns, both of them were the two nearest my capital they had taken years back. And after a few failed attempts I’d decided to let them keep them as it was costing me too many troops and the romans were now on one of my borders to the south.

And this was a cool moment. The Romans had been bringing 2 Huge armies of their own in my general direction. They moved towards one of these towns that had been mine and the Dassarettes had control of. A few turns later and 1 Roman army had been completely destroyed, and it looks like the second army tried but decided to retreat during battle. So there was now only 1 medium sized Roman Army near my south border.

My capital was close to the City the Dassarettes still controlled, so out came my best army(Huge rated – the full 16 units allowed) to have a go at getting my city back. The Dassarette forces must have been weakend by the failed Roman attempt i reasoned. And it worked! Finally after about 8years of occupation my people were freed! :b

Another cool moment happened next. It seems after that defeat the remaining Roman army retreated back into its border to my south(remember we have good diplomatic relations still at this point). And while I had been moving my main army to re-take the city, they had been re-inforcing. I’d been watching a steady stream on roman troops move north to re-build their armies, which was worrying.
After I had taken this city I was pleasantly surprised to see the romans move their armies south to other areas! So they did actually value our friendship! It’s not often you witness a grand strategy game making a believable decision when it comes to diplomacy

So finally I’ve got the Dasarettes down to one city, and I’m watching the Romans re-adjustments down south, those armies have moved to join up with a new arrival of Roman troops from their mainland, and seem to be heading towards mopping up the remaining Greek tribes to south west, and heading in the direction of that last remaining Dasarette town. I hope the same thing happens and I can get my town back.

Overall I’ve seen none of the issues Hexagon mentioned from the Chariots of War game(the earlier game this is part based on), or if fairly similar, they have not seemed to be game breaking issue’s. Ok the combat model is more basic than the Total War games. But I don’t find it a problem – its like a much more detailed version of the combat model you get in Civ or the Call to Power games, and the main strategy element of Spartan is much deeper than Total War and is more along the lines of a civ game. Its not got the Political depth of EU2, but for those that maybe found EU maybe not the most accessible game – this is somewhere between all those games and has been providing me with possibly the best TBS historic game experience I’ve yet had.

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by child of Thor

It’s not often you witness a grand strategy game making a believable decision when it comes to diplomacy!

You mean their choosing not to throw themselves pointlessly at you when you had a huge army fresh from victory, and with an enormous morale?
A very sensible decision - there's no point taking a town if you can't hold it.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by duke o' york

Originally posted by child of Thor

It’s not often you witness a grand strategy game making a believable decision when it comes to diplomacy!

You mean their choosing not to throw themselves pointlessly at you when you had a huge army fresh from victory, and with an enormous morale?
A very sensible decision - there's no point taking a town if you can't hold it.

In this particular case its more like they could take the town if they wanted to - i dont think my armies are as compitant as the romans. And on the diplo screen it tells me they are more powerfull militarily speaking. Its just that as i've been very actively encouraging good relations - i think the AI felt it would not be right to destroy that relationship yet(i hope for a good while longer!). And it makes sense not to. I may not be as powerfull as the Romans(see the rating table at the top of this post), but i could definately weaken them, and they are probably aware of the Persians to their south.

I'v seen cross water invasions(e.g the Cretans into Sparta, follwed by the Persians), bitter fights between local groups, and also solid alliances. Barbarian armies come and take lightly defend towns due to wars etc.

And i've had to work really hard and smart to maintain my position in this world where both the Persians and Romans came to dominate.

I've not had such a reasonable battle on my hands before in a TBS game, in that it(the Game) is not slanting things massively in favour of anyone - like i mentioned i took the Dassaretes troop producing towns and that effectivily cut their teeth, but still left them with strong garrisons in the two towns they took of me; strong enough to see off a concerted Roman attack(and one i would currently fail to emmulate!).

And those two towns being my main horse breeding centres had a knock on effect on me - i started to have to buy in horses and adjust my trade accordingly, as Horse troops are some of my best!

It just all seems very well balanced and thought out.

Their is a cap on trade - you have to either build trade buldings in your cities or invest in trade research to increase your trade allowence. You can only ever buy/sell a certain ammount of items based on this number. So i cant just always buy myself out of a situation which is something you could always do in Call To Power for example.

The strategy side of the game is very impressive indeed. I would like to see more depth in the diplomacy model maybe, but what you have works perfectly well and doesnt seem as unbalanced as it often can in these games.

I'm definately going to be keeping an eye out on this series of games from now on. I think with Spartan, Slitherine have produced one of the best TBS games i've played. I imagine this current game is going to keep me busy for a long while to come, something fresh in a world of cheap '12hrs and its over' thrills that computer gaming is rapidly becomeing.

to Slitherine

Edit: Oh and Duke - it was in the budget game rack - its the re-release version(MAD label - the old mastertronic's new label). I have also seen the origonal copy in Game for more than the £7 i paid for it.

This version infact:

http://www.mastertronic.com/product_spartan.asp

I guess the £6.99 i paid was a promotion or something like that.

Still £10 is a steal if you can find it

[duke o' york]

Well my vast and extensive research has discovered that you can get it for under a tenner on eBray!
(including postage)