Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

4X Aggressors: Ancient Rome - 4X with "incredibly deep combat" and detailed management

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Apparently it's been developed by Czech indie developer for almost 10 years and published by Slitherine:

ss_a0057259fccc33a772a8fbd8bf34a47d7458cad1.jpg


ss_38f25123fa0d7f83e8ba41c80a753af792dc74d4.jpg


ss_c5d574b1d6c868770c73a6e47b02283071f91ba5.jpg






Aggressors: Ancient Rome is a turn-based 4X strategy game that brings you back to the ancient world.

A mix of deep gameplay and rich historical flavor, Aggressors lets you relive history as the ruler of one of the mighty civilizations of the Mediterranean world. Will you bring glory to Rome and conquer the Mare Nostrum? Will you build an immortal trading empire with Carthage? Will you bring the light of Athens to the world? Or maybe you will restore the rule of the Pharaoh? Choose one of twenty available factions and conquer the world.

You can manage all aspects of your empire: war, trade, internal politics, diplomacy, cultural development. Play on your strengths, beware of your weaknesses. The ancient world is brutal, for no mercy shall be given to the defeated. Vae victis!

Rich historical flavor

A lot of time and many sleepless nights were put into historical research in an attempt to give a real historical feeling to the game. The game’s systems are tailored towards a faithful representation of history.

A world which feels alive

Twenty factions, from migrating barbarian tribes to advanced empires which interact with each other through an extremely detailed diplomatic system. Make use of more than ten available diplomatic agreements, including the possibility of forming Federations and Confederations as well as affecting nations and provinces in your Sphere of Influence.

Real strategic decisions

Experience the incredibly deep combat system, with each unit having its abilities and traits, and terrain truly affecting the war outcome in a meaningful way. Army morale and the supply system are crucial and need to be taken into account. You will need all your guile and strategic mastery to triumph on the battlefield.

Detailed political & economical representation

Rule your empire by managing its internal politics and developing its economy. Establish trade routes to reap wealth, ensure the loyalty of your citizens, manage demography, technological research, internal reforms, laws… the tools at your disposal are endless and seamlessly integrated with each other. Citizens react to the current situation and they can move to other places when they are not happy.

Customize your own world

You have complete freedom: you can decide to start with an advanced nation surrounded by newer civilizations, or you can decide to start as a young tribe, ready to take on an older and decadent empire… or you can decide to completely randomize the map and play in a randomly generated world. The choice is yours!

Easy to learn

Aggressors is very easy to learn thanks to the extremely clear tutorial and tool tips. Dive in the game gradually and explore all the options available to you.

Coming in Q3.

You can join beta as usual for a Slitehirne game: http://www.slitherine.com/beta/cnda.asp?gid=723
 

Anthedon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
4,499
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I'll keep an eye on it since I'm a hopeless sucker for all things ancient Rome. This doesn't look too shabby at a quick glance.
 

Bocian

Arcane
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
1,912
I think I'll stick to Europa Barbarorum mod for the first Rome TW. This thing looks rather shallow in comparison.
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,075
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
This looks like a Civ4 ancient Rome scenario. Everything I've seen gives me good vibes, definitely keeping my eye on this.

I think I'll stick to Europa Barbarorum mod for the first Rome TW. This thing looks rather shallow in comparison.

The only thing that looks "shallow" is the combat and that's a highly subjective thing. I for one cannot stand the TW combat so for me the Civ-type combat is a huge plus.
 

Bocian

Arcane
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
1,912
The only thing that looks "shallow" is the combat and that's a highly subjective thing.
I was also thinking about historical information and descriptions. EB offers a lot of these: weapons, buildings, military tactics, even records of major events of every year; and not only of Rome, but other contemporary cultures as well. Obviously it's not the same as reading scientific works, but playing a game and reading what it has to offer is a fun way to learn something new.
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,075
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
The only thing that looks "shallow" is the combat and that's a highly subjective thing.
I was also thinking about historical information and descriptions. EB offers a lot of these: weapons, buildings, military tactics, even records of major events of every year; and not only of Rome, but other contemporary cultures as well. Obviously it's not the same as reading scientific works, but playing a game and reading what it has to offer is a fun way to learn something new.

You can literally see in the OP pictures there are descriptions and historical info too. And for me the length and depth is optimal. If I want to know more about something I go to Wikipedia.
 
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
3,535
All I want to know is how much of a role do the demographics play. I see there are some population numbers but no info on ethnicities, religions, professions, and, most importantly, citizenship. You can't make an ancient game without the concept of citizenship playing the key role, it just doesn't make any sense.

Victoria's POP system is probably the greatest contribution to the genre that Paradox has made. It's a pity not even they use it anywhere outside of Victoria and other developers don't seem to value it as much as they should. Supreme Ruler also has some neat ideas like the inclusion of GDP, but unfortunately that game is a bit of a mess.

In eight days Paradox will announce some new stuff. Let's hope it's not all DLCs for DLCs so you can DLC the DLC on DLC while you DLC.
 

Bocian

Arcane
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
1,912
You can literally see in the OP pictures there are descriptions and historical info too.
2Wp2tPM.jpg

QcwaMXw.jpg

5PYElYD.jpg

5jVQkso.jpg

PfFp5Dq.jpg

AbFEVCw.jpg
That looks a bit more detailed.

If I want to know more about something I go to Wikipedia.
At least make sure to compare what you read there to some real sources. Wikipedia is a site where literally anyone can add any nonsense to any page, sometimes deliberately, and with a plethora of pages it's hard to maintain quality.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
EB is a pretty impossibly high bar to set for historical accuracy and nerdiness. I would be fine with a good, fun, well built 4x game that gives us more options beyond the Paradox formula and the Civ formula.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Slitherine (can) mean(s) lots of DLC, almost as bad as PDX. Other than that, it looks interesting.
 

razvedchiki

Erudite
Joined
May 25, 2015
Messages
4,265
Location
on the back of a T34.
they just have to copy the unit names from EB and they are good in my book,when i see generic "anatolian archers" "super duper roman legionaires" i die a little inside,i dont have high hopes though.
even field of glory 2 (which is based on a tabletop made by osprey) has generic unit names,i mean wtf its like 5 min job to copy the names jesus.
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
4,352
Location
UK
Damn, was hoping for a stronghold type of game, not this Civ clone shit.
 
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
3,535
We had the chance to chat a bit with Pavel Kubat, developer of Aggressors, our epic upcoming 4x game set during Ancient Rome!

Matrix: First of all, thanks a lot for your time and congrats for the outsdanding job with this game so far. What moved you to adopt the Ancient Mediterranean during the period of the rise of Rome as setting?

Pavel Kubat: The Aggressors was initially supposed to be released as a multimod game, but I eventually realized that this was simply not possible. Not just because we had a very small development team, but also because the amount of testing required and likelihood of bugs would not let us finish it.

The Ancient Mediterranean was chosen to be the first mod to finish. Even in this phase I did not want to release just one campaign map. I wanted to give players hundreds of hours of fun straight away. Three different historical periods were attractive for me - the expansion of Rome, the conflicts between Sparta and Athens (and Greek city states in general) and the fall of the Roman Empire. Instead of parallel development of three mods, we started to work on three scenarios in parallel. Eventually we came to a crossroad where a very important question arose. Which is better? Is it three scenarios done well or one scenario polished into finest details? After a long discussion we decided to go for the second option. But not only that. We decided to extend the rules and historical feeling by introducing objectives tailored for each country and other features (which we will reveal soon in one of our upcoming dev diaries). This would simply not be possible to finish for all three scenarios. But don't worry. They were not cancelled, just suspended, waiting for the day when they come back to life.

So, we decided to go for one polished scenario but which one? Don't you think that the first release of Aggressors coincides nicely with the rise of Rome as a metaphor?

M. What is your favourite faction to use in Aggressors: Ancient Rome and why?

P.K. I have played all the factions, many times. Despite this fact I still enjoy playing it and keep forgetting that it is actually my job. Which is my favourite... Good question. I would probably say Epirus kingdom. I really love the initial setup. Epirus kingdom starts on three different parts of the Mediterranean. The biggest part is located in the Balkans almost in the same area as today's Albania. The second part of the kingdom is in the southern part of Italy called Calabria for which the Romans have their own plans. The third part is in the Eastern part of Sicily, which you share with the Carthaginians and they would really like to take over the whole of Sicily. It sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? Two powerful empires getting closer to each other and you are between them. I enjoy being caught between a rock and a hard place and I have to admit that saving all these parts is a heroic feat which I have accomplished just once. In all the other cases it was an exhausting set of diplomatic compromises and the art of war and at the end you are happy that you saved at least one of these parts.

On the other hand, I really enjoy all the factions – the Spartans trying to reestablish themselves as a military superpower, post-Alexander empires like Seleucid or Ptolemaic fighting between each other or one of the nomadic tribes struggling to find a fertile land and establish their own kingdom.

M. What is the aspect of the game you’re most proud of?

P.K. In general - logic. Everything in the game makes sense and is based on the similar aspects of real life and history. Every rule was added only after we found a similar concept in history with a similar impact. Every decision matters and the number of options between which you need to choose is quite high.
If you ask about one specific feature, I would probably say simulation of crowd behavior. Starting from recruiting units in cities, which depopulate when men are recruited, through to migration where people tend to leave unhappy or dangerous places, to people's attitude which can lead to revolts or even civil wars.

M. Is there any feature or piece of content you definitely want to add in the future to Aggressors?

P.K. There are a number of features that we already have in our "wishlist". Some of them were added to this list in the early stages of development but it was simply impossible to implement them all for the first release. I don't really want to reveal stuff which could arrive in possible extensions of the game. You will see!
icon_smile.gif


Apart from features themselves I would like to have the game as open as possible. Starting from sharing custom scenarios created by players through modding support, where players can change the rules of the game, to fully featured scripting. Of course, the last one would be only for advance modders.
icon_smile.gif


M. Is it possible to “play tall”, meaning that you don’t have to expand to a very large empire and that you can still play as a very competitive and strong smaller country, if played well?

P.K. We definitely shoot for that. There are a number of winning conditions, starting from the typical conquest and victory points (different for each player) to cultural and technological ones where the size of cities and their level of development, as well as technological dominance and amount of "influence", play the most important role. We tried to create winning conditions which would be in sync with similar historical situation of Constantinople. At the end of ancient history and basically for the whole Middle Ages this city was the centre of the cultural world, despite the fact that the empire itself had been shrinking since the seventh century. We have been trying to implement a similar approach.

M. What do you think of the current situation in the 4x genre? Do you think Aggressors could be a breath of fresh air?

P.K. I think that the 4X genre is on a difficult path. It is true that 4X strategy games are basically the most difficult ones to implement and that is also the reason why not many companies try to go this way. When you compare the number of FPSs or RPGs, the number of 4X strategies is very small. That is also the reason why we hope we can contribute in this domain.

I don't know if I can generally answer the second question in an unbiased way!
icon_smile.gif
I definitely think, and hope, that players will find some new features in Aggressors that they’ve not seen anywhere else and also some renewed ones which make much more sense than in other strategy games. I don't want to hide that I am a big fan of other strategy games like Civilization (especially Civ I, II and IV), Colonization and other classics. That's actually the reason why I always wanted to bring my own 4X strategy game to life. A 4X strategy game which would really make sense and where all what is going on can be explained through historic examples. I hope that we achieved that and Aggressors is a living dream came to life.
 
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
3,535
Dev Diary #2 – Military Command said:
I am a huge fan of 4X strategy games. I love the whole idea behind it: you start as a small nation which slowly gains the respect of others, you see your economy grow, you advance in technology, build an army… You watch your empire rise and you develop an attachment to your own people. You care about them. If your country is invaded you literally feel betrayed and in danger because you know your people suffer.

On the other hand, I have always liked tactical games like Panzer General where you don't command small units but have a full control of your army. You are in charge of all the important aspects of a military campaign from a macro level.

95463343a879cbb4124bd02ae52f3d0ca2442d75.jpg


Being an emperor and a general at the same time - that was what I wanted to achieve when I started the development of Aggressors. In my mind, Aggressors should be a simulation of a real military campaign with the need to balance realistic aspects like supply management, loyalty, army morale, soldiers attitude and other threats like starvation or desertion. Overall, there are many different factors you need to take into account when planning your military campaigns in Aggressors. Remember, winning battles is important but, in the end, you need to win the war.

2bf7e9ff338a29ed6e09be37cf019f1dd2118261.jpg


Army morale was one of the concepts that has been there since the very first design document as one of the main factors determining the outcome of battles.

The pride, courage and readiness to fight and die for the nation and its leader was prized above all else and played equally decisive or even more important role in the battle outcomes of the period than quality of arms or sufficient supplies. Minor incidents that were out of the commander's control could have devastating effects on the morale of the armed units such as bad omens or a negative prophecy.

However, the army morale was also very much dependent on what enemy the units faced and the history of mutual conflicts. The Roman Empire conquered Greece relatively easy but Germania became Rome’s nemesis. And it can be argued that part of this desperate war against Germanic tribes and the inability to reach a decisive victory was also affected by very low army morale when standing against the feared barbarians. Romans felt themselves superior to Greeks and the army morale of units on Greek front was high but the same cannot be said about Germanic tribes.

9d57dd5f15ac208b205202b07afc0ba238f337a2.jpg


Army morale also changes depending on previous battle results against a specific opponent. Every new tile and territory taken, every mine or city conquered significantly impact armies on both sides. Defeated units will lose courage and willingness to fight which compromises their fighting abilities. The supreme commander has several tools at his disposal to boost the army morale of his units. He can employ an oracle to make a prophecy, hold a motivating speech, use propaganda tools or review enemy tactics and make new battle plans. And, in certain moments, State decisions also might come handy, but this is for one of the next dev diaries.

In history, stable and reliable supply lines played an extremely important role as traveling both over land and over sea was time-consuming and risky.

The success of any military campaign was dependent on how well supplied with food, armaments and other essentials the advancing units were. Incorrect supply planning could have been the proverbial Achilles heel of any successful offensive.

I wanted to translate this important part of military planning into the game and reflect in the design both the distance to which the supply lines have to stretch to reach the advancing units and their safety.

There are so called "suppliers" in the game such as cities, naval units or wagons that can store and carry supplies to units on the battlefront. The efficiency of supply lines depends on the terrain and the possibility to use roads. Based on these factors a so-called supply area map is calculated.

If a unit advances too far and gets outside of the reach of the suppliers or if the supply line has been broken, the army morale and strength of the unit deteriorates with every turn. If the situation does not change fast, the unit eventually starves to death, deserts or is disbanded of its own accord.

Desertion is a threat you always have to be careful about. Fighting men are under an extreme pressure and not enough supplies or fear of the enemy can have a serious effect on their willingness to fight, and then you might face massive desertions.

The idea for one of the features implemented later came from playing the game. It often happened that a player conquered an enemy city, repaired it in few turns and immediately used it as for recruitment of new units. But in reality, civilizations that inhabited the Mediterranean region were very different and it would be wrong to think that they did not feel any pride and loyalty towards their roots, culture and nation. It usually took decades to pacify conquered people and have the option to recruit them to your own army, and even more so to trust them that they will not run away in battle..

When Romans conquered Germanic or Celtic settlement, they could hardly hope to immediately start recruiting capable men, as tribal warriors would either refuse to fight under a Roman banner or desert at the first opportunity. Relying on them, even as mercenary forces, was very risky and it could jeopardize entire campaigns.

I wanted the historical reality to guide my thinking and so I came up with yet another concept - loyalty. It is an indicator as to how loyal the city or unit is to its new master and it is determined by the cultural similarity of the individual nations. If Romans took an Epirean city in the south of Italy, the loyalty of the city would be initially low (very few cities welcome conquerors) but relatively quickly the city would become fully integrated in the state structures and the people would put their resentment behind as they went on with their daily business. However, the situation would be much different in a Celtic city at the edge of Alps. It would take them decades to accept Roman customs and pledge their loyalties to the Empire.

Loyalty levels grow relatively slowly and it might take many years to reach 100%. Until then, the units recruited in cities with low loyalty are inferior to other units and it needs to be carefully considered if building such units is even worth it.

This concept brought the whole system of recruiting new units in the game much closer to the historical reality.

The features described here are just a part of those which have an impact on the battle itself. I wanted to describe first those which have an impact on the whole battlefront however there is another side of a coin – the tactical aspect of war. Starting from units’ own attitude and a long list of distinct improvements through the ability to defend or attack on particular terrains to special rules for defending military structures. But that would be a long story again so let's talk about it in one of our next dev diaries.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom