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A Legionary's Life - historical Roman soldier simulator RPG

Binky

Cipher
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Messages
453
https://www.legionaryslife.com




https://af.gog.com/game/a_legionarys_life?as=1649904300

Been playing this over the weekend and having a jolly good time. Play as a grunt during the Second Punic War. It's still in Early Access, but should be complete by the end of the month. Worth checking out if you're into Rome. Has a demo.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Binky

Cipher
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Messages
453
Looks interesting.

Can you elaborate more on your experience?

Sure thing. At character creation, you roll for stats - with emphasis on physical, intellectual, or balanced. You spend your time in camp training, buying, socializing, patrolling, etc. But you really should hone your weapon skills as much as possible, along with training to increase your physical stats. All this takes time, so you must choose wisely. Then you go into battle, which consists of duels and various events. The combat is turn-based and a lot of things matter: your skills, your stance, your fatigue, your equipment. For example: you miss your opponent and thus weaken you stance. He can hit you more easily or feint you to reduce your stance even more. Or at the start you throw your javelin and destroy the enemy's shield - your task should be much easier.

You can attack various body parts, which is very useful since the arms and legs are usually without protection. You can also choose to perform risky deeds like challenging enemy champions, climbing walls (your stats matter a lot in events and your morale influences your chance to succeed), volunteering for spy missions, or facing elite troops guarding an important site. It's tough and if you don't know what you're doing you're dead before you know it. A single mistake can give your enemy an opening to gut you like a fish. After the battle is done, you're in camp again, healing your wounds, training, etc. If you're promoted, you can lead foraging parties and new events become available to you.

Currently, a successful playthrough takes me about two hours. Some of my favorite things so far: killing an enemy champion with a very lucky javelin throw, winning the mural crown decoration - which is a bitch to get, secretly disgracing a superior officer and then taking his place, killing several of Hannibal's veterans at the Battle of Zama.

In any case, I highly recommend you try the demo and decide for yourself if it's worth your time.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Awesome. It would be nice if it was a more ambitious project, but perhaps it's a one-man / small team on a budget. Looking forward to full release.
 

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
It's fun. Surviving the war isn't too difficult (made it on my second character but only reached the rank of Optio) but I think reaching a high rank, beating the optional missions etc will take quite a good build. Dev is going to release some more chapters for the Second Macedonian War in a few weeks but a full playthrough is very possible.

Combat is solid and requires you to pay attention (even regular foes like Libyan spearmen were dangerous to the end for me while I could barely hold my own against Hannibal's veterans). One thing is that you don't have to actually win most of the mandatory fights but merely survive until your unit can bail you out (not too difficult if you stick to a defensive stance and use feints). But you get less loot, morale, experience bonus and prestige for just holding the line vs actually inflicting kills and wounds.
 

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
The Second Macedonian War content has been added and the game already feels pretty complete (dev said he will just be balancing and polishing from this point onwards). Second (well fourth, my second and third characters bit the dust) time around I'm appreciating the game a lot more. Game has an excellent risk vs reward bait of letting you volunteer for shit, accept duels, try play the hero that will win you troop, centurion and proconsular respect (the most important resource as you need it for promotions and to access higher level training) but can also quickly end your playthrough. As I found out upon getting too comfortable and electing to single-handedly (what the game warned me was suicidal) rush out of formation to rescue some velites that were getting cut down by enemy cavalry.

The most important thing to be careful of is the foragining 'minigame'. Do not fuck around trying to scavenge from the squares but just bee-line for the villages (accepting the hunting and fishing skillchecks is okay though). The officer reputation loss of failing these missions is pretty nasty too.
 

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
The creator has a solid grasp of history and is an above-average writer too. I ended up feeling genuinely sorry for the helpless Macedonian pikemen we outflanked though thankfully he never gets too moralistic (neither the high virtue or low virtue path ever feels too cheesy or over-the-top). He gets lots of little details right too, even things like diet (barley and pork) and tension between Romans proper and the socii Italians.

While a full playthrough is only about two hours there's plenty of replayability (I never manged to rise past optio but it seems like a lot of missions change if you can make it to centurion).
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
How long till the full release? Especially given how small a game it is, I'd want to wait.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Sure thing. At character creation, you roll for stats - with emphasis on physical, intellectual, or balanced. You spend your time in camp training, buying, socializing, patrolling, etc. But you really should hone your weapon skills as much as possible, along with training to increase your physical stats. All this takes time, so you must choose wisely. Then you go into battle, which consists of duels and various events. The combat is turn-based and a lot of things matter: your skills, your stance, your fatigue, your equipment. For example: you miss your opponent and thus weaken you stance. He can hit you more easily or feint you to reduce your stance even more. Or at the start you throw your javelin and destroy the enemy's shield - your task should be much easier.

You can attack various body parts, which is very useful since the arms and legs are usually without protection. You can also choose to perform risky deeds like challenging enemy champions, climbing walls (your stats matter a lot in events and your morale influences your chance to succeed), volunteering for spy missions, or facing elite troops guarding an important site. It's tough and if you don't know what you're doing you're dead before you know it. A single mistake can give your enemy an opening to gut you like a fish. After the battle is done, you're in camp again, healing your wounds, training, etc. If you're promoted, you can lead foraging parties and new events become available to you.

Currently, a successful playthrough takes me about two hours. Some of my favorite things so far: killing an enemy champion with a very lucky javelin throw, winning the mural crown decoration - which is a bitch to get, secretly disgracing a superior officer and then taking his place, killing several of Hannibal's veterans at the Battle of Zama.

In any case, I highly recommend you try the demo and decide for yourself if it's worth your time.

Sounds like a game I've dreamed about for some time. Thanks for posting about it.
 

AdolfSatan

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
Messages
1,871
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“It's my intention to release the full game within a few months.”

Current version is 0.19.3

And it's dirt-cheap. Will have to buy once it's released.
 

Binky

Cipher
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Messages
453
How long till the full release? Especially given how small a game it is, I'd want to wait.
Dev in the middle of August:
I have decided I don't want to rush the final release. I will use a little more time to gather feedback from you so I can polish and balance the game before it's really considered finished. I can't tell you how long this new stage will last: according to my current plans, the final release should happen in early October, but I have not yet taken a definitive decision; it depends on too many factors.
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
For the vast majority of legionnaires you probably got to spend 20 years in some backward province whoring and rolling dice with your mates and then were rewarded with some land in another backward province for your service. There were occasional skirmishes with barbarians and if you were unlucky enough to be around during any of the civil wars it might have been tough but for the most part it probably wasn't the worst life for the period.
 

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
Expansion of slavery meant there was a large surplus rural population what led into a feedback loop: Rome wins a war -> lots of slaves and consolidation of small family farms into large slave estates -> lots of unemployed/impoverished farmers -> lots of prime manpower to win more wars

Rome was so successful primarily because it could afford losses that would have crippled the Successor states (whose reliance on a small settler population of ethnic Greeks to man their phalanxes meant a single defeat could ruin them for a generation). Carthage's wealth allowed it to employ large numbers of mercenaries but even this proved inferior. Republican Rome was the USSR of its day, able to field huge numbers of well-equipped and patriotic soldiers that proved unstoppable under competent commanders and even under incompetent ones could still replace losses seemingly infinitely.
 

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
^I remember reading a great book that claimed exactly that.

https://www.amazon.com/Carnage-Culture-Landmark-Battles-Western/dp/0385720386

It essentially focuses on 9 famous battles from antiquity up till modern times (including the Roman defeat at Cannae) in order to determine the cultural values that have allowed the "western world" to militarily prevail until today.

Granted Western armies didn't have an especially good track record against Eastern ones from 600 to 1500 (possibly later if we include the Ottomans) where Islamic and Eurasian societies seem to have produced the most successful armies. Though Islamic states were much more centralised than Western feudal ones and arguably more closely adopted Roman imperial-style governance and standing armies.
 

CaesarCzech

Scholar
Joined
Aug 24, 2018
Messages
445
Okay Final Battle is epic, If you manage to beat phalanx to get into melee with them win and then do the whole stuff again you can open gap in phalanx line and if you can do that, You basically singlehandedly save entire left flank and become a fifth Roman in entirety of history of republic to receive award( i dont remember the name) The Award even literally Reads, For Saving The Left Flank in the battle of "Cynocephales". so you can actually alter the history there in minor way, in that in reality Roman legions held until reinforcements from Right flank arrived and dealt with it while in game you can have roman left punch throught the lines with reinforcements arriving to help. So in Final Battle you can literally change history in small way on your own.

The Game gets Really outlandish in Macedonian Wars if you pull out badassery. You can literally kill in duel Best Macedonian fighter and one game outright tells you is propably one of the best warriors in entire world. You can Get hit by catapult by glancing hit and lose your shield, And FIGHT without it, and after the battle pick replacement shield, In general Permadeath makes These moments feel awesome, i see if i can get screenshot here tomorrow because i managed 100% playthrought and you shouldl see the awards there.

In Epilogue its possible for you to get Promoted to First Centurion of the Entire Legion and if you have good stats you can be best fighter into your Mid 40s. And then go On to become senator thanks to the Award from Cynocephales, Oh and if you become Consul with High Virtue game hints that you take the role of Grachus brothers.

In general game really Motivates you to take those risks.
 

Bricker

Educated
Joined
Feb 25, 2019
Messages
88
Nice game, Thanks for sharing!
 

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