One of the best Ancients games ever

PC : AGEOD's series of Grand strategy games set during the Roman empire.

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grumblefish
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One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by grumblefish »

I noticed this forum is a tad empty, so I thought I better post a recommendation for people who aren't sure about the game.

Alea Jacta Est is a great game in a long line of great games from Ageod. There's an active forum on the Ageod webpage, and there's a lot of Ageod AARs on the paradox forums:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/forum.php

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/for ... 9dd0767b52

Basically, the game consists of a very well drawn map, and a bunch of markers that represent generals and units. You move the markers from province to province, trying to secure victory locations. Supply and maneuvering plays a big role in this game; by cutting off an army's supply, you can force them to attack you under difficult circumstances, or possibly just leave them to die out in the snow. During the game, you also make political decisions, such as whether to bribe a barbarian faction into helping for example.

There's a lot of history in the game; almost all the generals have a little biography that goes along with them, the map covers a large number of ancient regions, and there's a fair number of scenarios to play with. It's not too pricey, either, so if you're at all interested in this time period you should give it a go.
JayRaider
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by JayRaider »

I bought the game a few days ago.
Its very impressive.
Huge map.
Huge Depth.
Lots of options for realism and AI.
Lots of replayability.

Minor quibble; its abit slow to initiate the start of the game. :)
Ballacraine
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Ballacraine »

Tried the demo.

In all honesty, I wasn't that impressed. Sure, it has historical accuracy & depth, but it really felt like a game made in the 1990s.

I don't like eye candy for the sake of it, but the lack of battlefield tactical immersion left me a bit cold.

You can probably tell I am a fan of Rome Total War & its mods. ;0)

Balla. :0/
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Blathergut »

Got the demo to work. Played the tutorial but lost Caesar's battles. :( Weirdly, the messages kept talking about Caesar's great victory at Illerda! :( I'll try it again on the weekend hopefully.
grumblefish
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by grumblefish »

Apparently a patch is on the way, which will be good because I've reported a couple of bugs myself and I get the odd crash. Still having a lot of fun with the title, just tried to play as Otho and wound up ruining my northernmost armies by trying to have them cross the Alps during winter. :cry:

Also, are new customers missing out on the Spartacus scenario still? It was part of the pre-order, but apparently it is supposed to be available to everyone after a delay. It's actually one of my favourite scenarios when I just want a quick game.
Blathergut wrote:Got the demo to work. Played the tutorial but lost Caesar's battles. :( Weirdly, the messages kept talking about Caesar's great victory at Illerda! :( I'll try it again on the weekend hopefully.
I'm guessing that the tutorial has pre-written messages that just assume a certain outcome for each turn. I have played a number of Ageod games, though, so I never got around to playing the tutorial.
Ballacraine wrote:Tried the demo.

In all honesty, I wasn't that impressed. Sure, it has historical accuracy & depth, but it really felt like a game made in the 1990s.

I don't like eye candy for the sake of it, but the lack of battlefield tactical immersion left me a bit cold.

You can probably tell I am a fan of Rome Total War & its mods. ;0)

Balla. :0/
I understand, I used to be all about the Total War style perspective, too. I still do like the idea of being able to direct the battles, and I like the way Hegemony Gold put it all together (although that game become really repetitive, really quickly).

Yet, this game still has a lot of depth of historical details, and there's a lot of strategy to it. The supply model adds a lot to the game, for example. Keeping the massive Pontus armies going can be a real headache, and it's great when you can cut off an enemy army and force them to engage you or starve. There are a lot more political options in this title, too, compared to previous Ageod games.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Micha63 »

Ballacraine wrote:Tried the demo.

In all honesty, I wasn't that impressed. Sure, it has historical accuracy & depth, but it really felt like a game made in the 1990s.

I don't like eye candy for the sake of it, but the lack of battlefield tactical immersion left me a bit cold.

You can probably tell I am a fan of Rome Total War & its mods. ;0)

Balla. :0/
I agree . The "textfilebattles" in this games is a thing i will never understand. Its really 90s Niveau.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by bebro »

Tried the demo too.

To be honest, I don't like the presentation either. I don't need TW style 3d wonders. Sure it looks terrific, but I lost interest in most TW games quickly (didn't try mods though).

My prob with the graphics in AJE is not that they are simple or 2d. For example I still think Sliherine's "Spartan" has one of the nicest 2d maps I've ever seen. I could live with a map that is a whole lot simpler, anf with a generally simple presentation.

But I really dislike the way units or amies/fleets are shown in those "shield" thingies when travelling over the map. I don't want to bash the game, it has probably more "inner beauty" so to speak, but I belong to those crazy people who think great depth&gameplay and pleasant look&feel can (and should) go together these days...
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by alex0809 »

I find these army shields really stylish actually, and I think dragging & dropping armies across the map really feels like being Emperor of Rome :mrgreen: But I guess this is very subjective. I can only say that I personally think this is one of the most beautiful 2D war games ever, especially because it has very high contrasts so you can spot everything easily and still looks nice.
bebro
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by bebro »

I gave it another try, I'm actually starting to like the map, it reminds me a tad on the EU II map, but compared to it the AJE map looks certainly nicer. Also some parts of the UI are really nice, and the intro screen is absolutely cool. I'm still no fan of those shields though. But oh well, tastes differ...and gfx is not everything... ;)

Though game-wise it seems to have quite a learning curve...
grumblefish
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by grumblefish »

I picked up Birth of Rome, the Cantabrian Wars scenario, and the new patch.

I'm really impressed by the changes in the new patch. I'll just touch on three points that stand out to me the most:

First, the buildings on the map now have a little number next to them indicating the level of fort (at least, I think this is new, I don't remember seeing that before). This is very helpful because unless you have a commander with the assault ability, you can only attack level 1 forts without a siege. You could always find out the level of the fort by hovering your mouse over places, but this just makes it easier.

Second, the combat resolution has been improved a lot. I played Alae Jacta Est the day it came out, and because I don't care for the Romans all that much I always played as Pontus. Originally, the Romans would absolutely slaughter anyone who opposed them; it didn't matter if you threw 50,000 trained spearmen against a tiny little legionary army, you would lose. Then they released an earlier patch and improved things a fair bit, but I still wasn't satisfied. The game is now about right, in my opinion; I played the Cantabrian War scenario and felt like the Roman legions were stronger but could be defeated by a reasonably strong barbarian army. I also used a lot of maneuvering and supply-based strategy, which I've gotten the hang of lately, and it's great fun to punch Augustus in the face while he's hungry and shivering in the snow.

Third, I haven't experienced many crashes. Originally Alae Jacta Est had a problem with some modern video card drivers that would cause the game to crash if it loaded up too much of the map; something about filling up the memory and not clearing it out, as far as I can understand from the dev's explanation. I assume the patch is to thank for the change, although maybe it's because I haven't played any world-stretching scenarios lately.

Birth of Rome has some interesting scenarios and involves a time period that is more interesting to me. The Punic War is on an epic scale, of course, and I only took a brief look at it. The Pyrrhic War seems somewhat smaller, and I think I'll try that next as it looks interesting and has a lot of possibilities with all the different cities. I tried the Mercenary War as Carthage, which I think is the shortest scenario, and it did not go well; the Mercenaries start out hugely powerful, but I was able to contest the smaller, mainland cities with them. I eventually got my army trapped in Carthage, though, and that was the end of that; it was a stand off and my good general got replaced with an idiot, so I no longer had the ability to break out and without a large army outside I could no longer take any other cities back. I was destroyed on the islands, too, although that's historically what happened. At this point I think I will prefer Birth of Rome to Alae Jacta Est, if only because of the time period.

As for the Cantabrian Wars, it's an enjoyable scenario. The theatre of war is focused on the Iberian Peninsula, with the mountainous terrain playing a large role in the strategic possibilities. I played as the barbarians at first, and I basically formed two armies, a main one in the east and a small one in the west, and tried to slowly reduce the western cities while out-maneuvering the Romans in the west around my own forts until I could strike their under-supplied units. That strategy was so successful that as soon as I had secured my own lands, I struck down into the south-east and tried to block the pyrenees. Cue famine and military disaster and the total loss of my main force. In response, the Romans re-invaded my lands and I lost several forts and towns before I could muster up some sort of military response, and although I recovered most of my territory and I hadn't been conquered, the minor victory was a little hollow.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by edb1815 »

Tried the demo this weekend. I am coming from the TW perspective (with Mods) for Rome games. I like the strategy aspects of the game in particular the logistics and I can live without the 3d tactical maps. The downside is infomation overload all over the screen! I don't know if the tool tips and pop ups can be rendered any smaller. Not good for older games with bad eyesight! Maybe I'll alter the screen res and give it another go.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Igorputski »

Ageod games just don't have the draw of other more streamlined version of ancients games like Rome Total War or EU:Rome by Paradox. Ageod games are too complex and take too long to learn an understand (more than a minute lol) and thus just aren't as popular or ever will be until they make them a bit more simplified and more player involvement in the battles instead of just reading some text that x defeated x at the battle of x and lost x amount of soldiers to x's amout..... <------- boorrrring.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by IainMcNeil »

It all depends what you are looking for. You clearly like the simpler games and that's fine - but there are a huge number of fans of this more complex type of game who think games like RTW are just toys and not real games :) Everyone has their own preference and there is no game that suits everyone.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Leonidas048 »

Hello im thinking of buying this latest BoR game but someone here mentions a scenario called the Cantabrian Wars but i cant see it anywhere in the list of scenarios for this game? Is it under one of the other scenarios then? I want to know before i buy the game thanks.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by IainMcNeil »

Cantabrian Wars is only available via Ageod at the moment. It is a DLC for AJE. We're hoping to add it at some point but we havent had time yet. There is also a Spartacus DLC scenario available from Ageod.
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Leonidas048 »

Thank you for replying and see if i can find out how you get them!
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Toby42 »

I bought AJE from Matrix. If I buy the DLC's from Ageod, will they work with my copy of AJE?
Tony
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Leonidas048 »

Hello to the last post yes! Ive just bought my DLCs from AGEOD and i got my AJE Gamersgate and they seem to work. So theres no problems long you have the up to date patch alright!
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by Igorputski »

IainMcNeil wrote:It all depends what you are looking for. You clearly like the simpler games and that's fine - but there are a huge number of fans of this more complex type of game who think games like RTW are just toys and not real games :) Everyone has their own preference and there is no game that suits everyone.
True, but the Total War games and the Paradox games suit "100's of thousands" of fans.....how many fans does Ageod games suit?
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Re: One of the best Ancients games ever

Post by SSLConf_FranciscusX »

Hi

You might be interested to know that a quickfix beta patch has just been released on Ageod forums.

Aside from several improvements and fixes, this:

NEW FEATURE

BOR becomes AJE-aware!
Birth of Rome is now capable of using the AJE scenarios, if you installed it anywhere on your PC! Both games remain standalone, meaning you don't need to buy AJE to play BOR scenarios, but now, if you bought AJE, you only need to launch BOR to get the scenarios of both games!




Regards

(PS: a beta quickfix patch was also released for AJE )
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