My friend Kevin pointed me to this a couple of days ago and only now have I gotten to spend some time with the beta demo.
The first thing that strikes you about Hannibal is the art. It’s sort of a Bayeux Tapestry thing, I guess. Very stylized and not entirely clear all the time. But I can think of no other game that looks like this.
I’m still trying to figure out whether I like the demo. Forced March Games (great name, by the way) has made some odd interface decisions for activating units and the tutorial is one of those things that locks you out of certain actions in an infuriating way unless you do everything you are told in the right order. But movement and combat is straightforward and it captures Hannibal’s strategic genius and peril nicely.
Still in beta, and you know how I feel about playing those. But, hey, it’s Hannibal. It’s hard for me to say no.
Downloaded but not installed yet thanks to your twitter post the other day.
The name bothers me. This game doesn’t look like a computer version of the card-driven wargame Hannibal: Rome v. Carthage, so it seems a bit shady to use a name that sounds like something it isn’t.
There are only so many ways to name a Second Punic War game. And it’s better than Hannibal: Master of the Beast.
How about “Second Punic War”?
The most amusing thing about the name, I think, is that they claim a trademark on “Hannibal”. I’m pretty sure a lot of others got there first with that one, if it is even possible to trademark.
The interface is really in need of a do-over. I don’t care how niche a strategy game is; it should never, IMO, be necessary to go through a tutorial in order to figure out how to simply move your units.
I like the stylistic graphics, though; looks like they are trying for the look of an ancient Roman itinerarium; nice…
just wanted to get a post in here saying thanks to Troy for recommending Field of Glory, I just picked it up today and I really like it. I spent several hours reading through all the great wiki strategy pages related to the tabletop version. The great strategy elements they discussed combined with the high recommendation from Troy put me over the edge and I had to buy it. I was a bit worried because it’s been so long since I purchased a game without trying a demo first, I didn’t even know if the game would run on my laptop. Everything turned out fine though, and the game runs perfectly. The subtle strategies involved in playing the game are really immersive. I noticed a lot of interesting stuff just in my first game. I noticed my cavalry would breakaway from combat at certain times, also I recognized the value of disrupting and fragmenting, and how certain units can nicely evade away to safety, and how the unexpected route can cause drastic changes. I’m still plowing through the rulebook so I can understand everything about it, but I really love what I’ve so far, thanks :)
I won’t comment on the Hannibal demo, because I’ve only looked at the graphics so far.
I wouldn’t really call the name “shady” since that’s actually pretty common amongst wargames. Heck, two games on the invasion of Sicily were released in the same year and were both called “Bitter Victory” (which is also a title of a book on the subject–it should be noted that many wargames also take their names directly from books).
It appears the new game is a (pretty much direct) conversion of this boardgame.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10914/hannibal-rome-and-carthage-in-the-second-punic-war