Sparta: Ancient Wars, which has been selling itself as a realistic approach to ancient warfare – unlike all those other games out there – has released new screenshots. This one, of a scythed chariot manned by a spearman, could undercut their whole realism angle.

Since the game is being set in the high point of Spartan power – the era around the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars – there shouldn’t be any scythed chariots. This was an Eastern weapon designed for the wide plains of Asia. They would of be little use in wooded, hilly Greece and were never used (so far as we know) by any Hellenes before the death of Alexander. The mainland Greeks probably never saw a scythed chariot until the failed attempt to put Cyrus on the throne of Persia (outlined in Xenophon’s Anabasis).

Is this that big a deal? Of course not. Pedantry is not my stock in trade. But if you claim that your game will be more realistic than, say, Rome: Total War, then you lose your high horse of history if you make game choices like this. Now the game will be judged as all games should be – am I entertained?

Computer Games Magazine has a brief summary of the turn-based strategy games to be unveiled at E3 2005. All sequels, though.

I guess this makes sense. The real-time strategy subgenre has been improved to the point that there are so many game design options out there that you would be swimming against a strong tide to release a turn-based strategy game (wargames excluded). The growing popularity of multiplayer games means that there is also little interest in developing games that require you to wait until all of your opponents have emailed their turns.

I’m most excited in Civ 4, but the announcement of a sequel to Galactic Civlizations is great news. The resurrection of the Jagged Alliance series is good news, as well.

But the ever slimmer pickings each year reveal how far the turn-based 4X game has fallen. Paradox has proven that 4X can be done in real-time and Black Seas’ Knights of Honor is a real-time 4X game that moves at the leisurely pace of turn-based games. So long as Civ is a cash cow for Firaxis, turn-based games will never die. But they may fade into irrelevance as a subgenre.

CDV and GSC have announced a sequel to their Cossacks companion series American Conquest. The sequel’s name – American Conquest: Divided Nation – makes the central subject matter pretty obvious. In this iteration of the series, the American Civil War looks to be the central conflict, though GSC also promises conflict based on the Texan War for Independence and the War of 1812.

The game will be premiered at next month’s E3.

With every preview and interview, I find myself wanting this game more and more. And the scary thing is that I am being impressed more by the game’s obvious beauty than by any obvious references to gameplay innovations.

Not that I want a lot of innovations from a studio as well situated to make a great gaming experience as Ensemble. The home city stuff sounds interesting, though the screenshot of a late 19th century locomotive in an Age of Discovery game makes me think that either the US will make an appearance somehow or the guys at Ensemble are taking their usual wide liberties with history. Fine with me in either case.

Positech has released a demo of its just released political sim, Democracy. You can find the demo at any major gaming site.

A friend was unimpressed by the demo’s apparent focus on current hot-button issues (stem-cell research and gay marriage) since he was more interested in a general government sim. “Those issues have always followed us through the decades,” he said sarcastically in reference to the “fad” topics.

Whether this concern for timeliness is carried over into the final product remains to be seen, but too strong a presence of the present was one of my criticisms of The Political Machine when I reviewed it. An emphasis on letting the players run their country/campaign in the here and now sacrifices the chance for the player to run their country/campaign into the past or future. Running abortion ads against Teddy Roosevelt just feels wrong, and having to revisit the running sores of this political moment time and time again has to get old fast.

Still, it’s great to have a political game that tries to move beyond the “win the election” part of politics. The election is the easy part, after all. Running a country that can talk back to you at any time is where all the work is. I’ll post my comments on the final version once I get my hands on it.

My review for Act of War: Direct Action has been posted at Game Method. Not much to add beyond what I said a couple of days ago.

Don’t let the final score fool you. Most of that is because of the game’s poor replay value. The campaign is first rate, but most gamers expect a RTS to be great in multiplayer and skirmish. When most developers are making multiplayer and random map replayability the entire point, Eugen Systems goes out and breaks the mold by making a campaign that is much better than the actual gameplay merits. It’s a game I recommend you pick up, just so you can see a campaign done properly. Movies and all.