Matrix Weekly Deal is back

[Rayfer]

Both Spartan and Gates of Troy are on sales this week for $9.99 each.  I'm not familiar with either.  Anyone played them, comments?

[Anguille]

It's still one of my favorite turn-based game....i've just been playing a couple of campaigns and it's still excellent.

2 minuses:

- locked screen resolution
- battles look ehm...very old fashioned

Still...the game design is imho almost perfect and beats the Total War concept. From a graphical point of view its another story though i love the campaign map. And the AI is good.

[Nefaro]

Damn.. already have those.  I want Chariots Of War to be on sale.  >:(

[SgtRock]

I'm glad Matrix is having sales other than the end of the year but, it looks like it will be November before they have something on sale, I might buy!

[bobarossa]

Damn.. already have those.  I want Chariots Of War to be on sale.  >:(

Unless they have updated since it came out, Chariots of War had the absolute worst AI of any game I have ever played.  It put me off buying Slitherine games for years.  The enemy would send a stream of small armies towards my cities while I marched large city-killing armies into their territory without any reaction by them. 

update: it was so bad it even forced me to make my first post on Grogheads!

[Rayfer]

For those who have played them, are either of the two any better than the other?

[Bison]

Gates of Troy is an expansion for Spartan.

[Anguille]

gates of troy is the standalone addon to spartan.It's the better version. If you have both, you can play the scenarios e of the original game with the addon. Maybe you should check the list of scenarios. If there isn't a specific scenario that you want, go with gates of troy.

[Bison]

That's what I meant.  :D

[Tuna]

Damn.. already have those.  I want Chariots Of War to be on sale.  >:(

Unless they have updated since it came out, Chariots of War had the absolute worst AI of any game I have ever played.  It put me off buying Slitherine games for years.  The enemy would send a stream of small armies towards my cities while I marched large city-killing armies into their territory without any reaction by them. 

update: it was so bad it even forced me to make my first post on Grogheads!

LOL ... Welcome to Grogheads!

[Nefaro]

Damn.. already have those.  I want Chariots Of War to be on sale.  >:(

Unless they have updated since it came out, Chariots of War had the absolute worst AI of any game I have ever played.  It put me off buying Slitherine games for years.  The enemy would send a stream of small armies towards my cities while I marched large city-killing armies into their territory without any reaction by them. 

update: it was so bad it even forced me to make my first post on Grogheads!

Ouch. 

I suppose they must've fixed it, somewhat, in Spartan/GoT because I recall their armies being challenging.   At least you saved me the heartbreak of a suicide AI in Chariots.

[Anguille]

I've only played chariots with 1.3 and 1.4 and the AI was challenging...

[Martok]

It's still one of my favorite turn-based game....i've just been playing a couple of campaigns and it's still excellent.

2 minuses:

- locked screen resolution
- battles look ehm...very old fashioned

Still...the game design is imho almost perfect and beats the Total War concept. From a graphical point of view its another story though i love the campaign map. And the AI is good.

Hmm.  You tempt me. 

On the other hand, this is probably yet another game I won't have time for...  :-\ 

Damn.. already have those.  I want Chariots Of War to be on sale.  >:(

Unless they have updated since it came out, Chariots of War had the absolute worst AI of any game I have ever played.  It put me off buying Slitherine games for years.  The enemy would send a stream of small armies towards my cities while I marched large city-killing armies into their territory without any reaction by them. 

update: it was so bad it even forced me to make my first post on Grogheads!

Heh.  Welcome to Grogheads bobarossa!  :D 

[bobarossa]

I've only played chariots with 1.3 and 1.4 and the AI was challenging...

I bought it when it first came out (2003) and have beta patches up to 1.13 on my HDD (all from 2003).  I'm guessing they improved it somewhere along the line since then. 

[-budd-]

Well, in an effort to get away from my WW2 fetish and break new ground. I decided to purchase Spartan and Troy while they are the deal of the week. I really have very little experience with ancient games. I am really enjoying these games and wanted to pass on some info for those maybe on the fence.

Yes these games are older and the resolution is fixed at 1024x768. I simple created a graphic profile and stretched it to fill my laptop wide screen, the game fills my screen and i really can't notice any difference. Maybe i would if i looked harder, but it looks fine to me.
I have been aware of these games for years on the Slitherine and then the Matrix site, i gave them a look but didn't really give them a look if you know what i mean.

Full disclosure: I just started delving into the game. I've read the manual and played the tutorials twice and a small map and the skirmish map. Color me impressed.....these are well made games. As has been said earlier in this thread once both Spartan and GOT are installed you play them both thru GOT [the newer engine] and i had to drop the .DLL file in both main directories to get them to run on Win7 .....no big deal..the file is available in the slitherine & matrix forums.

First off the music is period appropriate and pleasant, the manual and the tutorials are topnotch. I couldn't find any thing left out of the manual and playing the tutorials and maybe the skirmish map for battle practice is enough to get you up and playing. There are 18 choices of maps to play with different time frames and countries to chose from. They vary in size, the goal is the same control a  certain number of cities to win. I counted 3 grand campaigns on really large maps, the goal varies from control 4 cities to control 35 cities. I'm not really into RTS battles so i like the way the battles are done in this game. The game is alot deeper then i gave it credit for.

Now since i like pictures...i'll post some screens with some info.

Main Screen....no option choice only 2d/3d to chose from


This is one of the grand campaign maps, the second largest. You have to control 32 cities to win. You can see the difficulty settings vary from easy to impossible. You click the country you want to play on the map or hit the random button which allows you to play say Sparta with Roman units, so you can play any country with any of the 18 ethnic units of any other country.


This is the main map screen for the smallest map. There are a couple of things I found to be nice touches.  See the number 1 , when you mouse over a resource at the top of the screen it shows on the mini map [#2] what cities produce that resource by showing a white square. Very helpful in deciding what cities to target first to get resources you lack. If you can actually read the inset picture box, you'll notice that your city names are different color and the colors mean something. From showing you that your city is at max population to showing you that you have worker unassigned,again nice little touch. I labeled the buttons and will show screens of those....errrr  screens from left to right.


The trade screen. You see my starting trade limit is 6 trades, this adjust with the size of your empire. the spread discount is something your diplomat bargins while visiting other cities. Diplomacy income is income you get when you have embassy's in other cities.


Diplomacy screen... I was surprised at all the diplomatic choices in this game. Your choices grow as you build certain buildings and train better diplomats, later you get assassins....cool .....arrange marriages...cool and a ton more. I haven't played them all obviously just read them in the manual. Another nice touch..those colored square buttons, you mouse over them and the map changes to show you relevant information for that color, hope you can read it. If your like me, i like to connive and back stab in diplomatically sneaking ways :)
There's alot to chose from.



these are just a couple of starting options for diplomacy. Off'ing visiting diplomats in horrible ways......cool. Of course this was after they sent my diplomat back without his eyes.


Empire overview screen.



research screen.You can see the different tech level so to speak in the box below. You have to have certain buildings to get research points and people assigned to them to get the research points.


Game results screen. You can click the top arrows to arrange the order of results.



the message button is just to notify you of any messages you have, the number will reflect the messages you have. They come in the form of the diplomatic message boxes above.
will move on to the city screen.

1. the units you have available to train, better buildings and barracks ect. the more this box will be filled.
2.Shows the resources the cities has, if the number is zero the city will never have that resource. You'll have to conquer to get it.
3. Population growth and total research points.
4. City name , population and how many turns until you get another worker. Can also hit the arrows and go to all your cities....easy..peasy.
5.description of the current building selected, how long it will take and what it costs.
6.available things to build, only what you can build will show.
7.Shows city garrison and any visiting army. shows your people's happiness or unhappiness and what is causing it. Meter on the right rises and falls depending on their happiness level.
8.I call these the workers, there officially called something else. You can see i have 2 doing nothing and 2 working the farm.black is empty. When you have more buildings with more work slots then workers you have to prioritize your needs. the number in box 4 tells me when i get another worker[16 turns].
9. You have to have an empty building slot to build something. When you grow your city you get another slot. Can only build one thing at a time and when you don't have a slot you can upgrade buildings you have, if you have the tech.



Moving on too the battle stuff. here's a shot from the skirmish map where you just practice using the orders and formations. you can auto resolve the battle or fight it.



after you chose to fight the battle you go to this screen. You arrange your troops, pick formations and give orders. After you hit the start button your commanders take over and follow your orders, you only have a little input, explained next screenshot.


Buttons 1,2,,3 you can use only once during the battle.
1.charge button- anybody on a wait command will charge
2.Rally -timely rally can swing the battle.
3.retreat
4.fast forward
5. pause

you can use the mouse wheel to zoom in. The boxes with the troops on the bottom fill with red when there taking losses, the green arrow will change color as their morale starts to fail.



Battle results screen.



I'm pretty happy with this purchase, these are well made games. I forgot to mention but one thing i really like in a game is tooltips and practically everything has a tooltip in this game. I'm really looking forward to trying out all the diplomatic options. One thing i can't comment on and maybe someone who has played more can is the AI, if that holds up this is one nice package......in short...... get it while its on sale.

oops forgot one screen

the pedia screen. tech levels across the top and broken up by resource[see the resource symbol] and shows what units you get to build when you have that building. Move your mouse to the edges to scroll the pedia screen. That's all