Aggressors: Ancient Rome

Aggressors - Ancient Rome This obscure historical game is turn based strategy / tactics to dominate the world starting in 280 BC by default, but adustable from 1000 BC to 500 AD. It is single player and is my personal choice for game of the year. I have played it for over 480 hours in the past 60 days. It is published by Slitherine and available through them, on Steam and GOG. Where I am coming from ------------------------------------- I am the curator of Strategic Win https://store.steampowered.com/curator/9074928/ and have reviewed 142 games there in the past 2 years. I bought this game from Matrix games. I strongly suggest that readers take lightly any review of this game by a player that has not put in at least 50 hours whether the review is good or bad. There is just no way to pick up the subtle way things interconnect in this game with less playing time. People doing reviews wit

My first impressions of this game are positive. I know people like to ask for comparisons to other games as it's easier to relate to something that you're familiar with versus evaluating a game on it's own merit. So if I was pressed to make a comparison, I would say that it feels like an older civilization game that was focused on the Mediterranean World in 282 BC. However to leave it at that would be a discredit to the game's developers as there's a lot more to the game if you take the time to look. The unfortunate aspect is that I think some of the information is buried in the UI and it's easy to overlook. When playing this game for the first time it was easy to jump into and think that I've seen this all before. Build some units, move units around, have a settler create a new city, build a road, attack some enemy units, etc. Just like Civ, right? Nope. In addition to attack, defense,

Most Steam reviews are not reviews. They are more like a therapeutic emoting service for gamers. In the case of this game, it is downvoted for the most petty of reasons: like the game lacks some trivial feature that the player deems important, or the game is too difficult to learn. Or they even try to influence a small developer by witholding their upvote on condition that feature x, y or z is implemented. Then there are the upvoters who just want to gush about how great a game is and share their elation. Neither are really reviews, but most of Steam's therepeutic emoting (AKA reviews) is one type or the other. This gives games aggregate scores that are meaningless, like the "mixed" score or 60% that this game gets presently. I am one of the second group of course. I am not affiliated to the developers, I didn't beta test it and I didn't receive the game for free. I only heard about th

Who is this Review For? This review is written from the point of view of an experienced 4X gamer. One who owns most decent 4X games whether they be Civ-like, Fantasy, SciFi or others. The genre isn't important to me. Instead it's a games ability to give me a decent single player challenge and on how often it puts me in positions of having to make curly, interesting, decision, on which I judge them by. On that basis this is a stand out performer. If any of this resonants, read on. Why is it a good 4X Game? Rather than give a bunch of bland general comments I'll touch on a few areas where I think the game is unique and hits the spot. If you start to squint your eyes at my choice of topics and wonder whether you've come to the right review, don't worry, it's all good. I'll make it interesting. On today's menu we have 'Population and Cities', 'AI', 'Resources' and 'Plague'. I'll cover

Really enjoying this game so far. I know it hasn't been long but I dont get all the bad reviews. People, you have to read!!! After reading the very good manual, all of the concerns and questions are addressed that I have seen in the discussions and review section. This is a deep and rewarding game which I am just starting to appreciate. Yea, I would like different sprites for the different armies and yes, some of the interface is a bit different but if a 58 year old can figure it out in a couple hours it cant be that difficult. I find this game much more challenging and rewarding than Civ for instance. The deplomacy is far superior and I appreciate the fewer unit types. this game is about strategy and being prepared more than rock, paper, scissors kind of play. No archers, no catapolts, at least not yet. Think of your units as green, regular and elite legions of mixed troops. I dont know

I'll start with a small disclaimer, because the game support is awesome and developers actively answer in the forum or through the bug report system in the game. This game is an interesting take on 4X. It offers two game modes, one randomly creates a map to fight over, the other one is an historical start with quite a lot of nations centered around the Mediterranea. To explain quickly what this is about, I'll compare with Civilization. You don't take your civilization through ages, this only focus on the ancient world. There is still a research tree to progressively unlock various bonus, like advanced units, buildings or upgrades. Economy plays a bigger role, it's a very important part of the game. There are from the top of my head 8 ressources which are all important. Shortage in ressources is disastrous and can collapse nations. Small shortages should be avoided but can be overcom