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Entries Tagged as 'Ancients'

No King But Caesar - An Epilogue

April 30th, 2008 · 20 Comments

I wish I had time to dwell on all the dud Roman themed games that have passed in front of me. The half finished Pax Romana and Great Invasions, the laughable Legions, the boring Hannibal: Master of the Beast, Haemimont’s Roman city builders, Haemimont’s RTSes. Most of these games aren’t very interesting as reflections on […]

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Tags: Ancients · Design · Feature:Anc

Rome: Total War (2004)

April 28th, 2008 · 14 Comments

It’s hard to believe that Rome: Total War is almost four years old, let alone that the Total War series is not new anymore. Shogun: Total War debuted in 2000, was an instant hit, and Creative Assembly has never really paused since. Aside from a couple of ill-advised forays into action gaming (Spartan: Total Warrior […]

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Tags: Ancients · Creative Assembly · Feature:Anc · Retro · Review

Europa Universalis: Rome review

April 25th, 2008 · 3 Comments

My Europa Universalis: Rome review is now up at Crispy Gamer. I did an interview with Johan Andersson that doesn’t seem to be up yet, but I’ll let you know when it goes live.
The review was based on a gold review build; the day one patch has fixed some of the issues. You can’t just […]

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Tags: Ancients · Crispy Gamer · Paradox · Review

Praetorians (2003)

April 20th, 2008 · 5 Comments

Though there is no rule that a discussion series should have ten parts, it felt odd to leave my list at nine. One spot came down to three titles: the HPS Ancient Warfare games, the Tin Soldiers games or Praetorians. All three took their turn on draft lists, and I will certainly get around to […]

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Tags: Ancients · Feature:Anc · RTS · Retro · Review

Legion (2002)

April 15th, 2008 · 6 Comments

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if champion gamers were given a chance to design their own game, then you should probably take a look at Slitherine’s games. Iain and J.D. McNeil are competitive DBA/DBM players, with Iain winning a world championship in 2001 and both regularly placing in the top ten. Slitherine is […]

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Tags: Ancients · Feature:Anc · Retro · Review

Age of Empires (1997)

April 11th, 2008 · 13 Comments

It’s now one of the most established brands in strategy gaming, but it’s easy to forget what an oddball title Age of Empires was at the time. Bruce Shelley, Sid Meier’s partner in design for many years, left Microprose to form his own studio, Ensemble. With real time strategy games quickly becoming the most popular […]

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Tags: Ancients · Ensemble · Feature:Anc · RTS · Retro · Review

Great Battles of History Series (1997-98)

April 8th, 2008 · 6 Comments

Given the long history of portraying ancient battles in board games, it’s surprising that it took so long for historically faithful interpretations of the battles of Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar to hit the computer. Avalon Hill’s Alexander the Great portrayed the battle of Gaugamela way back in 1971. The same year saw SPI do a […]

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Tags: Ancients · Feature:Anc · Retro · Review · Wargames

Caesar series (1993-2006)

April 4th, 2008 · 5 Comments

The Caesar series is easily the most successful ancient themed brand in the gaming world. 2006 saw the release of the fourth game under that title. It also spawned a legion of other Impressions developed city builders set in Greece, Egypt and China, a legacy that spawned two new studios - Tilted Mill and Firefly.
Like […]

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Tags: Ancients · City Builder · Feature:Anc · Retro · Review

Centurion: Defender of Rome (1990)

April 1st, 2008 · 6 Comments

Late in November 2006, I turned in my review of Medieval II: Total War to the editor of Computer Games Magazine. In his reply to that e-mail, he asked if I could quickly turn around a Revisionist History contribution (the magazine’s retro column) connected to the game. I suggested Centurion, the boss man didn’t argue […]

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Tags: Ancients · Feature:Anc · Retro · Review

Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles (1988)

March 20th, 2008 · 12 Comments

In 1988, Cases Computer Simulations and R.T. Smith released Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles, a game that was intended to be the first in a series of historical miniature games. The mid 80s was probably the high point of wargame dominance in the computer gaming market, and there were really no ancient wargames on the […]

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Tags: Ancients · Feature:Anc · Retro · Review · Wargames