Real-time tactics game Strategos aims to outflank Total War with over 120 factions at launch
MicroProse announced as publisher
MicroProse or whatever currently prospers under the decades-old MicroProse banner have announced that they're publishing Strategos, a real-time tactics wargame set in classical antiquity. I hadn't heard of the game before, and my first reaction to the above screenshot was "oh hey, Total War: Rome". Then I veni, vidi, vickied on over to the Steam page, and it turns out that might be a flawed comparison, not least because Strategos is the creation of a single designer and programmer with artists working on contract. Here's a trailer.
Strategos appears much more focussed on battle reenactments than Total War, with seemingly no overworld manoeuvring to worry about, though it does feature some kind of campaign element. It's also an absolute mess of factions and subfactions. There are 120 (!) armies to choose from, encompassing 250 individual units. I don't recognise most of them - Meroitic Kushites, anyone? Spanish Celtiberians? It's like watching somebody fashion shieldwalls from Haribo's back catalogue. There are five different flavours of Macedonian army alone, divvied up according to the lifespan and legacy of Alexander The Great.
The Steam progress notes are heavy on insights about the different playstyles cultivated by these factions, and the corresponding granularity of the AI. Here's a representative excerpt from a post earlier this year.
"The AI has undergone various improvements to behavior and deployment. They are able to pick auto drop flanks better, move and maintain their line better, deploy and use horse archer armies more intelligently, and I've added more and better bespoke AI for Lancer lines, overwhelmingly light foot armies, medium foot armies, and bowmen deployments (including some bespoke deployments for bowmen armies that mix staggered lines of bowmen and infantry to protect their shooters, and for certain medium foot armies that will post up in terrain and draw you in with light troops/shooters). There are fixes to pursuit to charge, pursuing and evading with intervening routed units, moving and attacking coherently in formation, using more reserves, having multiple units coordinate against single targets, more intelligent evades based on matchup, pursuers pursuing other pursuers, and fixes to pathing around combats."
Speaking as somebody who is weary of kiting AI generals in Twarhammer, I like the sound of these intricacies, though the proof will naturally be in the pudding. I also like the sound of the game's army control system, which requires you to place generals within bellowing distance of units you wish to command, or else send a courier on horseback with their marching orders.
You can't, in other words, just micromanage a frontline two miles wide from the sky, like in Total War. I'm definitely more PC strategy gamer than wargamer, but this gives me pleasant memories of the old Close Combat series, in which you had to worry about losing radio contact with troopers during straggly, unpredictable engagements.
Anyway, here's a rundown of bulletpoints for Strategos:
- Simulate Large-Scale Battles - Command thousands of soldiers on-screen in meticulously crafted historical and speculative engagements.
- Master A New Scale Of Tactics - Experience the depth of tabletop wargaming in thrilling moment-to-moment gameplay. Strategic unit formations, morale shocks, fog of war, terrain effects, flanking maneuvers, and an advanced command and control system inspired by classic wargaming.
- Lead Armies from Across the Ancient World - Choose from over 120 factions and 250+ unique unit types, spanning nearly a thousand years of history--from Greek hoplites and Persian Immortals to the legions of Rome and the rise of the Sasanian Empire.
- Customize Your Experience - Conquer alongside the great generals of history in the Campaign mode, reenact specific historical battles, or set up custom battles within the Historical Battle Simulator. Select your army list and allies, units, maps, difficulty levels and AI behavior, or relive historical clashes such as the Battles of Issos and Raphia, with more to come!
A quick chaser: Strategos is also the name of a military training simulator created by Charles A. L. Totten for the United States Army. Published in 1880, it was revived in the 20th century and has influenced a bunch of table-top games. I imagine you can trace its impact forward into video games as well.