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Game News Live the life of a Roman soldier in A Legionary's Life

Infinitron

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Tags: A Legionary's Life

Historical RPGs are a rare occurrence, especially those not set in the Middle Ages. A Legionary's Life is exactly what its title implies - a Roman soldier simulator set during the Second Punic War and beyond. Developed by an Italian gentleman named Alessandro Roberti, the game has been in development since 2017 and was released on Steam Early Access back in April, but it only appeared on our radar last month. A Legionary's Life looks like how'd you expect for a game created by a single individual, but our users have had a lot of fun with it. The game went out of Early Access today, which is a good opportunity to finally post about it. Here's its trailer and description:



A Legionary's Life lets you play as a Roman soldier during the years of the Second Punic War and beyond. Rise up through the ranks and win prestigious awards or just focus on making it home in one piece; it's up to you.

This is a unique single-player game with RPG elements, extensive usage of attribute and skill checks, a turn-based combat system involving many variables (including morale, reach, confined space and high ground) and a touch of roguelike features. Among them, permadeath. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it means you'll have to start over if your character dies; but don't worry: the game is designed to be replayable and you'll see only a fraction of it in each run. Also, you'll be able to spend points on your next legionary based on how well your most successful characters performed.

Try the demo

This game is unlike most RPGs. Your character won't be successful at everything. Challenges should be picked carefully based on your legionary's strengths and weaknesses. In general, the game is not designed to put you in a situation where the odds are against you unless you willingly step into it. At times, you may fail to perform a task and take a mild penalty in Morale and/or Opinions (a measure of your relationships with relevant entities within the game, like your superiors and your fellow soldiers). Don't get discouraged when this happens, it is nothing more than a minor setback you can easily recover from.
Most of all, I strongly recommend that you try the demo before you buy this game. It's here on Steam and it's free, there's no better way to make sure that A Legionary's Life suits your taste. The demo contains the first 3 parts out of 11.

You can grab A Legionary's Life on Steam for a mere $8. The demo is also available for download on the game's official website.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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Cool idea but boring and tedious combat. Later fights is all about stalling and using fatigue advantages, it's all winnable, but every fight takes like 10 minutes.
Literally complaining about the Fabian strategy working in a game about the Second Punic War. :D Poor, maligned Cunctator.
 

Flint

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Sep 17, 2016
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Cool, I like Roman aesthetics, I will check this game out.
 

oscar

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Cool idea but boring and tedious combat. Later fights is all about stalling and using fatigue advantages, it's all winnable, but every fight takes like 10 minutes.

I've done about six playthroughs (FINALLY got the Senator epilogue after an insanely lucky run) and this isn't true at all if you've built your legionary well (weapon skill is much more important than raising your physical stats). If anything you've got to be ruthless and constantly on the offensive to get the best outcomes.

But the above is correct that you can win all the mandatory historical battles just by not dying long enough since Rome wins those battles in the end anyway (and in your first playthrough when you don't know the mechanics well enough this is probably what you will end up doing). But you'll remain a lowly ignored legionary and not win any promotions, awards and thus the higher points needed to get good scores if you stick to a conservative cautious playstyle.

What's fairly realistic to me. Whether you want to be a guy who just holds his shield up all battle long or if you want to try be a hero is all up to you but the game does notice and reward you for things like dispatching enemies quickly and accepting duels.
 

oneself

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Cool idea but boring and tedious combat. Later fights is all about stalling and using fatigue advantages, it's all winnable, but every fight takes like 10 minutes.

I've done about six playthroughs (FINALLY got the Senator epilogue after an insanely lucky run) and this isn't true at all if you've built your legionary well (weapon skill is much more important than raising your physical stats). If anything you've got to be ruthless and constantly on the offensive to get the best outcomes.

But the above is correct that you can win all the mandatory historical battles just by not dying long enough since Rome wins those battles in the end anyway (and in your first playthrough when you don't know the mechanics well enough this is probably what you will end up doing). But you'll remain a lowly ignored legionary and not win any promotions, awards and thus the higher points needed to get good scores if you stick to a conservative cautious playstyle.

What's fairly realistic to me. Whether you want to be a guy who just holds his shield up all battle long or if you want to try be a hero is all up to you but the game does notice and reward you for things like dispatching enemies quickly and accepting duels.

There isn't really such thing as building legionnaires well without having the perks that makes your starting combat attributes higher, because you simply don't get stat improvement reliably past 80 iirc. Also spear throwing is a pointless meme. So are any intelligence attributes. You a genius tactician that can't hold a sword property? Back on the frontlines soldier.

Realism isn't really the point. I'll grant you 100% correct on it being realistic, it is still very simple and pretty tedious, especially when comes to Phalanxes. God that was annoying.

Literally the don't be a hero, the game. The historical aspect is really cool though, not sure its worth 7 playthroughs. I'd give it 2, maybe 3 tops.
 

oscar

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There isn't really such thing as building legionnaires well without having the perks that makes your starting combat attributes higher, because you simply don't get stat improvement reliably past 80 iirc. Also spear throwing is a pointless meme. So are any intelligence attributes. You a genius tactician that can't hold a sword property? Back on the frontlines soldier.

Realism isn't really the point. I'll grant you 100% correct on it being realistic, it is still very simple and pretty tedious, especially when comes to Phalanxes. God that was annoying.

Breaking the phalanx is very rewarding though but I'll concede it's very unlikely you'll be able to pull it off without a few playthroughs and points under your belt.
 

Dayyālu

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Realism isn't really the point. I'll grant you 100% correct on it being realistic, it is still very simple and pretty tedious, especially when comes to Phalanxes. God that was annoying.

The horror. It's like fighting phalanxes head-on wasn't historically an awful grind that went on until the phalanx system failed to produce skilled enough troops, proper counters were developed, or the phalanx was outflanked. I completely disagree on your evaluation of the combat system, it has been significantly improved from the free demo version to reward quick thinking (arm and leg wounds tire the enemy, and overall hit percentages are higher). Simple yet rewarding.

Literally the don't be a hero, the game.

If you want to be a hero you gotta be a superhuman, I guess, and going around dueling enemies (despite being sometimes rewarded) wasn't that typical of the Roman way of war, particularly if the overall situation didn't require it. Titus Manlius docet. I far preferred the "scouting missions" or the attempt at saving a wounded comrade (the one when you get jumped by two Makedonian skirmishers), it felt far more "Roman" than chopping some Thracian.

Tastes, I guess.

I'm also one of the very few weirdoes that outright loved the supplies minigame: supply runs with skirmishing and dealing with the local population an' shit was a huge part of ancient warfare, and makes the game feel "proper".

I do wonder if there's space for extra expansion: the limit I guess is something with enough sources to mantain a cohesive overall narrative while giving you extra vignettes. Ironically enough, maybe Procopius? Or Peloponnesian warfare?

Is that the Aliens soundtrack?

All the soundtrack are free music or classical pieces.
 

oneself

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Realism isn't really the point. I'll grant you 100% correct on it being realistic, it is still very simple and pretty tedious, especially when comes to Phalanxes. God that was annoying.

The horror. It's like fighting phalanxes head-on wasn't historically an awful grind that went on until the phalanx system failed to produce skilled enough troops, proper counters were developed, or the phalanx was outflanked. I completely disagree on your evaluation of the combat system, it has been significantly improved from the free demo version to reward quick thinking (arm and leg wounds tire the enemy, and overall hit percentages are higher). Simple yet rewarding.

Indeed, the horror. But you know what they went through and that stuff so I didn't have to.

Just put your stance to 100% defense and recover endurance. When phanlanx reduce your stance recover it. Just stall for 20 turns because you are guaranteed to win the battle. Then find yourself on the frontline again for some inexplicable reason.

Unless there was some change in the past 3 weeks, pretty sure we are talking about the same version. Just slashes to arm or leg or groin or whatever body part that's exposed. Simple.

Oh also here is another tip in case some people want to play this. Don't kill enemies too fast. You just end up fighting another dude at a health penalty. Just kill whatever you can given the turns you've got. You are guaranteed to win if you survive all the campaigns. History wills it.
 
Last edited:

thesecret1

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Just put your stance to 100% defense and recover endurance. When phanlanx reduce your stance recover it. Just stall for 20 turns because you are guaranteed to win the battle.
Or, you know, just defeat the phalanx, like I just did without too much effort. Slashing at legs and arms is better left to heavily armoured opponents, otherwise torso is the place to strike every time (better hit % and more damage dealt).

Don't kill enemies too fast.
Probably the most retarded thing you've said up until now. If you want to rise through the ranks and gain rewards and everything, you ought to kill as quickly as possible, precisely so that you get to potentially kill more opponents before you're pulled into backlines. You seem to not understand the point of the game, which is not "survive at any cost", but "survive and make a name for yourself". This and the fact that almost everything you said about the combat is completely wrong (fatigue advantages? Really? They should be dead long before their fatigue even comes into the equation) makes me think you might just be an idiot.
 

Dayyālu

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Unless there was some change in the past 3 weeks, pretty sure we are talking about the same version.

...... full release on the 25th with a good amount of balance changes....

.... it's the opening post of this thread.....


(fatigue advantages? Really? They should be dead long before their fatigue even comes into the equation)

You can survive at any cost, and you can even play "smartly". You won't become a a Epic Hero, but a good professional. On the matter of fatigue, there are some very specific fights where the fatigue system can be properly used: for example, during the supply runs it may happen that you get ambushed by Celtic mercs and the leader, if you get him early game, is a fairly difficult fight and exhausting him while keeping your cool can give you a good and easy victory thanks to no round limits.

Furthermore, the Fatigue system helps less .... "skilled" legionnaires to wound and even kill some of the heavy armoured opponents. If you are going for maximum kills it ain't optimal for sure, but it's an open option for you to use if you see fit.
 

oneself

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Just put your stance to 100% defense and recover endurance. When phanlanx reduce your stance recover it. Just stall for 20 turns because you are guaranteed to win the battle.
Or, you know, just defeat the phalanx, like I just did without too much effort. Slashing at legs and arms is better left to heavily armoured opponents, otherwise torso is the place to strike every time (better hit % and more damage dealt).

Don't kill enemies too fast.
Probably the most retarded thing you've said up until now. If you want to rise through the ranks and gain rewards and everything, you ought to kill as quickly as possible, precisely so that you get to potentially kill more opponents before you're pulled into backlines. You seem to not understand the point of the game, which is not "survive at any cost", but "survive and make a name for yourself". This and the fact that almost everything you said about the combat is completely wrong (fatigue advantages? Really? They should be dead long before their fatigue even comes into the equation) makes me think you might just be an idiot.

"Just click the head bro", the post.

I guarantee you either haven't play the game, or devs made the game easier. With full stance on both sides, you probably get 60% torso to-hit max. Missing means you take large stance penalty so the enemy can capitalize on it and with a few bad rolls, you are done. Now if you have 90+ combat skills things are different against fodders. Just shield charge to completely remove their and go for the neck. Even then against special fights like celt mercs, duel against Bulwark or Chiliarch, you are stalling for endurance.

But you probably haven't even seen Chiliarch, have you. Don't worry the weapon he drops is not as good as the named sword you get custom made by getting a piece of 1000x folded Japanese steel you find along the way. Oh sorry, you probably haven't seen this either.

Rewards :lol::lol:
Last I checked getting to a centurio prior means that I you get a penalty for not staying when the frontline rotates, which makes the slog of a combat even longer. No ty. Keep that civic crown / mural crown / grass crown. I just want to survive and go home like an average enlisted.
 
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thesecret1

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aZcB0hq.png

Yeah, I totally haven't seen the Chiliarch or gotten the Seric Sword. Maybe you should just stop whining and get better at the game instead of bitching about how the combat is oh so hard and slow. If your odds are too low, use feints, it's not hard.
 

baud

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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
I feel the smell of fucking incline!
Will play!

How to get thr demo?

You really need a quest compass for that, do you?

Click on the download link on the top of the page on the website, you'll land on that page: https://www.legionaryslife.com/download/, with a download demo button in the middle. I'll even copy it here for you: Demo v 1.0 Windows
 

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