Played the demo of Spartan :(

[grumblefish]

I downloaded the demo of Spartan, and after doing the tutorials, I played a bit of the Peloponnesian War campaign, and then the Cretan one. Here are my problems:

1. Alliances: Okay, so am I to understand that there's basically no Delian League or Peloponnesian League? Even if you did get allies, it seems to be that they don't go to war when you're attacked or anything; you can't even hold a forum about war, or do anything described by Xenophon and Thucydides. The only way to expand seems to be by conquest and direct control; I can't enforce my political system or foreign policy on people while keeping them separate from me. I'm guessing Athens can't give allies orders to supply money or boats, or not to trade with certain parties, or any of that good stuff.

2. Internal Politics: Don't seem to exist. I mean, I can make Sparta a giant mass of barracks and armories, and every other city a farm or mining town, but that's about it. In the Peloponnesian War politics was a huge deal, but in this game everybody seems to be a mirror image of everybody else (reminds me of civilization).

2. Military: So... the Helots are revolting, but Sparta can't produce Spartiates? Is it just me, or does everybody start at the same level of development and technology? I realise the populations and amount of towns are different for each group, but otherwise it seems like loading up the Paradox game "Victoria", and having everybody start as an uncivilized nation with no technology researched. In my mind, this is horrible, and makes me feel like I'm playing civilization, or some other nonsense game.

3. Navy: So I can just move an army onto a port and suddenly I have a boat? What's to stop Sparta instantly becoming the maritime super-power by just making units and walking them to a port? Because a navy is not kept separate from the land forces, it makes me feel like there is no difference, it is just a matter of walking to a port before I can walk over land. When reading Thucydides, or any classical work for that matter, navies are clearly distinct and require totally different skill-sets to be successful. In this game, what's to stop Sparta from just making a giant navy right at the start by walking everybody onto a port, and then landing in the Piraeus?

4. Historical Events: An earthquake happened and the Helots revolted. That's great, I really enjoy little historical occurrences and tidbits. Too bad I can't ask anybody to help me, which is also what is supposed to have happened. Does the full game have plenty of historical updates and things? How do I have Cimon agree to come help me, and then anger Athens by telling him to bugger off?

5. Tactical Battles: All the units behave pretty much the same. I can't give basic orders like "throw a javelin and then run away"; instead, it's a matter of everybody marching forward at a given time, and the being punched in the face because there's no way of having skirmishers behave like skirmishers, cavalry behave like cavalry, etc. As far as I can tell, everybody tries to be a hoplite.

Look, I want to like this game, but the demo was just a big disappointment for me. If these problems have been fixed, or changed a little so they are fun, then I will seriously go buy this game. I like the time-period, I like the map, and there is literally no other game available for the time-period. I also played the Crete map (900bc), and I literally stampeded all over the island within a handful of turns. The AI didn't even come close to threatening me. I was not attacked once, and I didn't meet a single enemy army worth mentioning. It was a ridiculous, one-sided thrashing that made me feel like any single-player game will end in extreme boredom as a trounce stagnant AI after stagnant AI.

I'm not trying to offend the people who made this title, but for $40 I expect something much better than what I experienced in the demo.

[IainMcNeil]

I think you need to raise the difficulty level a bit and then try

I'll leave others to comment on your comments!

[grumblefish]

I played on "normal" because that seemed like the sensible thing to do. However, I will go try it on harder.

Yet, the difficulty of the AI is one of my lesser worries. The rest of my problems are still pretty major in terms of stopping me from enjoying the game. I mean, I can't recruit Spartan hoplites at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War? Come on, now.

[maple155]

I own a car. It's a great car, it allows me the freedom to drive to new places whenever I want. It has a radio, a sunroof, and many other great features.

But it doesn't fly. Waa waa waaaa...

[grumblefish]

I own a car. It's a great car, it allows me the freedom to drive to new places whenever I want. It has a radio, a sunroof, and many other great features.

But it doesn't fly. Waa waa waaaa...

Umm... okay?

I think a better analogy for this is that you actually did want a plane, but you only found a car. Therefore, you decide to ask some people who own the same model car whether or not there is a button which will turn the car into the aeroplane you originally desired.

[honvedseg]

Most of your concerns are real problems with this game, and with the whole "empire builder" genre in general. Unfortunately, there are no easy and pleasant answers, and I can't just tell you to "play whatever-it-is instead", because the other games I've seen for the timeframe are much worse.

One of the most glaring limitations is the near-absence of a political model, aside from an overall "disposition" rating, although I have yet to find another game that handles it any better. In many of the other "empire builders", your diplomatic choices are limited to the extremes: declare war, request a truce, or in some cases a third option to establish trade. With an experienced diplomat, your options in Spartan are somewhat better, but still somewhat lacking in subtlety.

The "usual" need to re-invent the wheel (or some other basic technology that should be taken for granted by the time frame of the scenario) in almost every empire-building game (everything from Civ and RTW to Hearts of Iron) seems to be an ahistorical mechanism to delay serious confrontation until the player has had time to adjust a faction to his/her liking and style of play, but is otherwise absurd. Sadly, that means that 1000BC Mycenaean technology or less is all you get at the start of Persian War. Their earlier product, Chariots of War, had gradual and simultaneous technology advancement for all powers with no player input, and worked fairly well. I would have preferred some intermediate system, where the player's active research had a small effect as a local variation from the "norm", rather than having to voluntarily research every little detail, independently of every culture around you.

Slitherine decided not to tackle ship-to-ship combat in any way more involved than a quick auto-resolution mode between land armies at sea. It was not the primary focus of the game, and would have taken resources which a tiny company like that could not have afforded at the time. You are far from the first person to bemoan the lack of a naval element. On the other hand, it allows you to see what might have happened if Sparta had decided for some obscure reason to become a naval power.

The difficulty selection determines the aggressiveness of the AI, as well as its more obvious influence on resources and costs. If you were playing at "normal", the AI would probably (but not definitely) be dormant for quite some time. "Hard" is actually the "normal" setting, IIRC, but they appear to have been "adjusted" before final release. At easy or normal, the AI usually just parks for half of the game until it suddenly decides that it has enough resources to throw away, then begins cranking out insane amounts of troops, which the player is hard-pressed to deal with. At higher difficulty levels, the AI can make even a tiny faction crank out ridiculous numbers of troops, and appears able to support them all in the field indefinitely, whereas the player can barely support reasonable city garrisons, and quickly runs the risk of bankrupcy if he so much as sets foot out of town. The game can quickly go from "too easy" to "impossible" in a few dozen turns. Better handling of the economy by the AI, combined with similar support requirements to what the player pays, are needed to make the game a more "even" challenge, rather than the all-or-nothing situation as it is.

The combat engine does NOT make skirmishers and cavalry behave like Hoplites, all of the troops behave like "warbands". No respectable unit of Hoplites would swarm in a disorganized mob like that. Their more recent release, Legion Arena, handles combats in a much more credible manner, with a sort of "rubber band" effect to units, where the individual members tend to float back into formation unless "pulled" out of position by close proximity to an opposing unit or terrain feature. If you want to see a nicely-done combat mechanism for ancient warfare, check out the Legion Arena demo.

In spite of the flaws, this game still handles the period better than its competition. I keep pressing for improvements, but there's only so much a small development team can do. Pointing out the problems may seem like "bashing", but if nobody complains, it will probably never get fixed. At least Slitherine is open to suggestions and criticisms, and they've definitely been responsive to comments, unlike most software companies I've tried to deal with.

[Redpossum]

Great reponse, hound.

Now for my two cents worth.

Grumblefish, all your complaints have some merit. But find me another game on this level, of this era, that does any better.

Like any game, Spartan/GoT has some compromises with reality. This is the nature of games, and always has been.

Years ago, (I'm dating myself here), there was a famous commercial for the Peace Corps. It started with an empty glass. An off-camera hand filled half the volume of the glass with water. Then the narrator said, "Is the glass half empty, or is it half full? If you think it's half full, we have a place for you in the Peace Corps." My point here is that you can focus on what the game does do, and it does a lot of things very well, or you can focus on what it does not do. The choice is yours. But I'll tell you this, "half full" is a more enjoyable way to live life than "half empty"

I bought GoT over two and a half years ago, yet I honestly still play it, enjoy it, and mod it. Then I play my mods and enjoy those too.

In all candor GoT is one of the best game purchases I have ever made, and one of the best values I have ever received in a game, measured as hours played per dollar spent.

I'd suggest you buy Spartan, Gates of Troy, and Legion Arena. You'll enjoy all three.

Cult of Mithras we shall not mention. Grrrr!

[wryun]

I would not advise buying the game if you're that interested in realism. It's slightly better in that regard than something like Civ (mostly because of its narrower focus), but not by much. However, everyone has their own point of 'damn this is fake and completely breaks the immersion' - I remember getting in an argument on a forum many years ago about the 'historical realism' of Age of Empires 2. Hmm.

(And damn I hope Paradox do a good job with Rome... at least we'll be able to play the Diadochoi)

---

PS And for an alternative perspective on diplomatic options, I would say that unless they're done very well they're better left out, as it becomes too easy to simply pay-off the major AI players until you're ready to steam-roll them.

[Redpossum]

I would not advise buying the game if you're that interested in realism. It's slightly better in that regard than something like Civ (mostly because of its narrower focus), but not by much. However, everyone has their own point of 'damn this is fake and completely breaks the immersion' - I remember getting in an argument on a forum many years ago about the 'historical realism' of Age of Empires 2. Hmm.

(And damn I hope Paradox do a good job with Rome... at least we'll be able to play the Diadochoi)

---

PS And for an alternative perspective on diplomatic options, I would say that unless they're done very well they're better left out, as it becomes too easy to simply pay-off the major AI players until you're ready to steam-roll them.

When you guys say the diplomatic options are too limited, do you say that after having fully developed both branches of the diplomatic buildings, and exploring all the new options revealed thereby? Or are you basing that on just the limited options available at the start, without the diplo buildings?

I actually have to defend the diplomacy in GoT as being far more detailed, with far more options, than any other game on this period I have ever seen.

[wryun]

It's not that the diplomatic options are limited in number (as you say, there's almost an overabundance), it's that they still don't allow complex alliances (let alone the ability for a number of nations to act together) and the AI doesn't appear to use them at all. In other words, they're just another way you can grind the AI into the dust with an unfair advantage

[vasikr]

What would stop Spartans to become a marine power number one ?
Great Pelloponesian War was ended with Spartan naval victory in battle of Aegospotami ,which led to Athene surrender and Spartan Hegemony in Greece for twenty years ,was won by Spartan Navy-so it is not very unusual thing to mention.
Second -Athenian like nations -Ionians count as two in sea-battle calculations.

[Redpossum]

Second -Athenian like nations -Ionians count as two in sea-battle calculations.

Oh really? Now you mention it, that does ring a bell, but I'd totally forgotten it.

Assuming that to be true, it seems a bit unbalancing. Certainly neither the Dorians (elite hoplites) nor the Aeolians (theban cavalry) get a 2-for-1 advantage, or anything to equal it.

Then again, the Ionian advantage is no help on land, where most of the action takes place, so what the hell

[vasikr]

Playing on Athens on impossible is very,very hard

[grumblefish]

So, I finally bought the game with Gates of Troy, and I'm enjoying it. There are tonnes of little things I don't appreciate, but I like the time period so much that I just over-look them and continue enjoying things. Besides what was mentioned in my original post (such as the complete lack of politics, and the strange research system), I have to mention one thing that really gets on my nerves:

The map.

Depending on the scenario, certain cities exist a thousand years before they were founded. Nothing like marching up north as pre-historic Sparta and hitting Megalopolis... and is that Trachis in Heraclea over there? Oh dear. Also, population levels are way off.

But anyway, I like the game, it's not all bad.

What would stop Spartans to become a marine power number one ?
Great Pelloponesian War was ended with Spartan naval victory in battle of Aegospotami ,which led to Athene surrender and Spartan Hegemony in Greece for twenty years ,was won by Spartan Navy-so it is not very unusual thing to mention.
Second -Athenian like nations -Ionians count as two in sea-battle calculations.

The Spartan economy and society would stop Spartans from becoming marine power number one. They did not pay for the navy that won at Aegespotami, it was created using foreign, mainly Persian, money. That sort of diplomatic matter is not modelled in this game, and that relationship with Persia and the subject states didn't exist in most of the scenarios given.

Anyway, here are some calculations:

A rower at the time cost 1+ drachma a day
A boat contained 200 people
Massive fleets topped out around 200~ boats (At Aegespotami, the Athenians showed up with around 170, dunno how many Lysander had).

So, one day's expense for a major fleet is 40,000 drachmae. Talents weigh 6,000 drachmae, so we are looking at 6.6 talents a day. It costs around 200 talents a month. That is enough to put strain on the Athenian economy, let alone the Spartan one, which ran on twisted, ruined spits of iron.

That also doesn't include the money involved in building and maintaining the boats, or the fact that both Sparta and Athens lost entire navies and had to rebuild them. At any rate, we are talking about a huge outlay of resources which Sparta simply didn't have.

Now, in the game Spartan, you can simply walk your people on to a pier and turn them into a boat. Suddenly, you have a massive fleet of triremes that is apparently staffed by altruistic sailors that row for free. As for Ionians dropping into the ocean and suddenly becoming 2-to-1 ninja-sailors, that is also wrong; the most important thing is to get experienced rowers, who were drawn by those who could offer higher wages and the likelihood of success. That meant maintaining a navy for a long time, with high wages, and not getting a reputation for letting your rowers drown.

Whinge over. Again, I like the game. Honestly.

[IainMcNeil]

One thing you need to bear in mind is that it is not a simulation, it is a game set in ancient Greece. To keep it playable we've simplified a lot of aspects and that means compromises of these sorts. We wanted all nations to be able to access all resources to some degree otherwise if you run out it could be game over - which might be realistic but no fun.

Thanks for playing and glad you enjoy it!