Strategos - Real Time Formation Tactics Ancients Wargame

[StrategosGames]

Strategos is an upcoming, real-time, formation tactics wargame set in classical antiquity:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3064810/Strategos/

Recent update:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3064810/view/4464851737096749094

Join the discord and ask about playing the pre-alpha:
https://discord.com/invite/Y98uqcydwe

This is a *Self Promotion* post, so feel free to ask me any questions about the game.

[Anguille]

Looking cool. My type of games.

I really like to play historical battles and hope to see a good amount of historical battles in the final product.

No campaigns planned i guess (sequel of battles)?

[Destraex]

Looks great. Any word on multiplayer or at least a way of context being added to each battle?
I'd hate for this to be a simple points based balance game. I'd like a scourge of war march to battle sort of game so battles were different every time.

I always found total war pure battles pretty passe without the campaign.

Will follow this game closely as it looks pretty good.

[Jarhead0331]

Thanks for posting. This looks great!

[Sir Slash]

Agreed. Looks good. On my, "To Follow" list.

[Toonces]

This looks pretty neat!

[StrategosGames]

Hello, thanks for the interest. To answer a few questions:

No plan on multiplayer. I do like multiplayer competitive games, but it would massively complicate development for a very small percentage of the player base (perhaps less than 5% of field of glory 2, total war, etc...players regularly play multiplayer). For now, it is a tactical battles simulation against the AI, with a huge amount of the dev focus being on the intelligence of the AI.

As for campaigns, I may add some ability to string battles together with compounding losses, veterancy, etc...at some point, but there's no plan to add a turn based strategic layer for the initial release, although that may come much later as it's a natural extension, and is not as technically challenging to make as the battles. However, for now, the focus is all on the battles (both historical recreations and custom battles).

[CJReich46]

This looks really cool! 

[Destraex]

Hello, thanks for the interest. To answer a few questions:

No plan on multiplayer. I do like multiplayer competitive games, but it would massively complicate development for a very small percentage of the player base (perhaps less than 5% of field of glory 2, total war, etc...players regularly play multiplayer). For now, it is a tactical battles simulation against the AI, with a huge amount of the dev focus being on the intelligence of the AI.

As for campaigns, I may add some ability to string battles together with compounding losses, veterancy, etc...at some point, but there's no plan to add a turn based strategic layer for the initial release, although that may come much later as it's a natural extension, and is not as technically challenging to make as the battles. However, for now, the focus is all on the battles (both historical recreations and custom battles).

If only you could partner with a game like imperator rome that has a strategic layer with a heavy focus on supply and army status. But is missing a proper 3d battle layer.

No multiplayer is a big deal for me because even if I do not play the multiplayer element that is what I aspire to. Did you ever play total war arena? A lot of people mourn the loss of that game.

Also have you played manor lords battles, the thing that intrigued me about manor lords battles is that because it is a town militia each and every individual townsperson is represented. You could lose your town blacksmith in battle or your baker for example ehich would have a huge effect on your town functioning. This is the kind of thing that makes me care about a battle, that gives the battles a point.

Even without a reason to keep my troops alive and thus not cause phyric victories knowing it does not matter, I am still super keen to see how your game works out.

I have always wanted total war battles back and this looks like it could turn out to be what i imagined total war evolving into way back before I stopped playing it when rome2 came out. Total War basically gave up on the historical battle side of things and instead focussed on gamey cheese mechanics that turned battles into soul less statistical affairs where flags were moved around and the troops never seen.

Have you considered an army painter for this game. Maybe that would appeal to the miniature tabletop guys.

Will their be siege battles? I know total war has never really got siege warfare right. They went backwards actually, missing siege features rome1 had.

Is the game physics based or chance based?

Will their be modding to make the men and horse models less squat?  I like 1/72 in real life because proportionally they tend to look less like sponge bob and more life like. However mediterranean types were fairly squat in this era so no problems here. Field of glory certainly has the same problem.

The video that inspired me to make this post.

[StrategosGames]

Hey! Thanks for the engagement. Longer term, perhaps for a DLC, perhaps for a sequel, perhaps in partnership with someone else, perhaps on my own, it would be cool to have a dedicated turn-based and grid/map-based strategic or operational level of war to accompany the battles, but for now the focus is on tactics, ie pitched battles, across many different maps and modes. There will be some "campaigns" in the sense of related battles strung together for context, like an Alexander campaign, and dedicated on off historical battle reenactments, as well as custom battles, a bit like field of glory 2 on steam if you know that.

I did play multiplayer tw and field of glory, and quite a lot of tw arena when it was out, although it is notable that that game failed and was abandoned by CA, which is a much larger studio than me. I talk a bit about why no multiplayer in this thread on the steam forums:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/3064810/discussions/0/4628107478025994478/

I have played manor lords! but, that's basically a different game genre with small scale town/city-building with a town militia of a few dozen men with low level granular details like you've discussed, whereas Strategos is about major pitched battles with thousands, or even over ten thousand, of men, in large formations of hundreds each, with a concentration on a more abstract level of warfare (ie combats are resolved on the formation level like a tabletop game, like DBA).

Yes, TW battles being a bit more arcadey and fantasy now is a big motivation for this game's existence, ie to fill that void for historical, large scale formation tactics, including line shifting and terrain disorder, multiple morale levels and wild pursuits etc...

No sieges for now, as that is also basically like a distinct genre of game mechanically speaking (like you mention TW sieges are basically just field battles with a wall between the two armies, because that's what the engine can do as it's built around pitched battles, and I'd rather not do sieges at all if I can't do them justice, rather than do that kind of pseudo siege battle).

It is chance/rng/unit stats/poa etc...based like a tabletop game, similar to mechanics from the likes of field of glory. It is not a physics based battle system like mount and blade or some such, it is on a more abstract level than that. It's more like tabletop games scaled up and come to life (including in the art style).

I'm not opposed to people modding, but I haven't made special efforts to add modding either. We'll see what people come up with if there's interest in that I guess...

thanks again for your interest! and feel free to ask any other questions.

[Destraex]

What an amazing answer. Thank you for the engagement. The game sounds awesome especially because you seem to have the background and experience of a seasoned veteran of the genre that cares a out what went wrong the current crop of wargames.
As for the tabletop look of the figures style. I don't mind the style, I just prefer a more realistic one, especially where horses are concerned. For me the idea is to bring tabletop to life and not to simply bring tabletop to the computer. Total war was doing that until they wete infiltrated by mad dungeons and dragons types that were not interested in realism. After that, everything realistic became too hard for them and any new battle features dried up. Not to mention any ability to see units and armies fight in a visually enjoyable manner.

[Skoop]

Game looks great, it'll be on my steam wish list for sure.  Imagine if field of glory empires could interface with this game instead of field of glory for tactical battles.   

[Jarhead0331]

Congrats on picking up Microprose as a publisher. 

[Destraex]

Holy crap that is cool!

[Destraex]

Rock paper scissors article on the announcement

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/real-time-tactics-game-strategos-aims-to-outflank-total-war-with-over-120-factions-at-launch

Launch trailer