Sequel to Spartan/Legion/Chariots of War?

anguille · Post by **anguille** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:02 pm

I do think that the Commanders games are fun. Legion Arena is great too. Still...my fav games by Slitherine are the combined TBS/Battles games from the beginning (the reason why i started to come here). So my crude and selfish question is: when will get a sequel to those (Spartan being already 4 years old)? Will we get a sequel at all seeing the multitude (too many?) of projects you currently have?

I don't want to sound too negative (i am looking forward to the Lordz game as well as Great battle of the MA) but my favourite genre is being neglected.

Cheers

maple155 · Post by **maple155** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:40 pm

Gotta say, huge fan of Spartan/GOT here, would love to see sequels.

anguille · Post by **anguille** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:29 am

I especially regret that the excellent engine of Spartan hasn't been used anymore (the map looks great).

scarfacetarraff · Post by **scarfacetarraff** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:03 pm

anguille wrote:I do think that the Commanders games are fun. Legion Arena is great too. Still...my fav games by Slitherine are the combined TBS/Battles games from the beginning (the reason why i started to come here). So my crude and selfish question is: when will get a sequel to those (Spartan being already 4 years old)? Will we get a sequel at all seeing the multitude (too many?) of projects you currently have?

I don't want to sound too negative (i am looking forward to the Lordz game as well as Great battle of the MA) but my favourite genre is being neglected.

Cheers

I'm here in support of anguille's cause, as it is my wish also.

anguille · Post by **anguille** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:31 am

I've just started playing Takeda 2 (same period as Shogun TW) which is quiet fun and very similar to the games by Slitherine and they have a Strengh and Honor 2 in the pipeline (Europe to China in the Antics) which could fix my need until Legion 2 comes...

http://www.ezgame.com/magitech/

Cheers

MrVegas · Post by **MrVegas** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:24 pm

I dont play any of the new Slitherine games, coz i'm not interested. 'Still play Spartan/Got and i liked Legion many years ago, but found CoW unplayable. GoT is the best strategy turn-based game made, hope they'll someday make a sequal.

lancerunolfsson · Post by **lancerunolfsson** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:44 pm

Funny Chariots of War is the one I like the best and actually still play. Spartan just managed to raise the level of complexity to the level where it ain't fun for me. At first I thought that the trade manipulation in Chariots kind of wrecked the game but after not to long I realized it was actually a pluss. It allows me to largely ignore city mangement and building in the game and play a WARGAME wich is what I really like. My Ideal (as far as a Slitherine game goes) would be strategic like COW in other word a work around for buildig all the freaking stuff to harvest resources and a tactical mode like Legion Arena.

Another point on Spartan and GOT I HATE the baseball card representaion of units in the army window. Showing the whole man as in COW works a lot better for me. I can actually tell what things are instead of trying to figure out what kind of freaking hat the guy has on.

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:19 am

The problem with these games is because they have the campaign and battle game they are really 2 games in one from a work point of view (Campaign system and battle system). If you compromise quality of either aspect you have problems of overall game quality. They are just so much work to create and the demand for them is not that high, especially as PC at retail is alomost dead so any PC only games need to be profitable from a download only point of view. Commerically they are pretty tough to justify in tee current environment

We still have plans for them on paper but we have to focus on the ones that will keep the company going and not bankrupt us

anguille · Post by **anguille** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:16 am

This is really very bad news...

Those games are the only ones i really look forward too...i belong to a dying breed!

Still, i look forward to Grand Battles of MA but i am suddenly very pessimist on the future....

kafka · Post by **kafka** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:13 pm

that's exactly what I've been feeling too. I own all previous slitherine games, legion, chariots of war, spartan and gates of troy, loved all them and was extremely disappointed when I happened to know that they are not going to develop these sort of games anymore. It's a shame and I cannot really believe that there is too little interest for these sort of games seeing the success of the total war series and considering that a lot of totalwar players would prefer a game focused on a better gameplay than on grafical splendor. Matrixgames and WCS seems to do rather well too with their games, crown of glory and forge of freedom, surely their engine doesn't reach totalwar standards but I consider gameplay superior - and that is the really what matters imho

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:17 pm

Gameplay is indeed king to most players, but the fortunes of a game tend to be decided by buyers from retail, reviewers, and so forth. And they want polish on all aspects of the game. Perhaps as the landscape for monetising games changes - with micro-transations, more people happy to buy online, etc - then the sums will make more sense for these kinds of games. We certainly love them too!

Cheers

Pip

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:12 pm

Pip,

Congratulations to you and Iain and all the lads & lasses at Slitherine.

The hard-headed, ruthlessly pragmatic attitude evinced by the reply above is no doubt what's kept Slitherine alive and prospering when dozens of other small games companies have fallen by the wayside.

Tilting at windmills if fine if one can afford to be romantic, but it won't put dinner on the table or keep the lights on. If a company is to remain in business, it must produce products people will buy, and do so at a profit.

In a recent email, I was discussing (briefly) with Iain an idea I had for an insurgency game. His response was that it sounded like a fun game, and a neat idea, but that he doubted many people would play it. And he's right. Cold reality murders a lot of cool ideas.

C'est la vie.

Surtur · Post by **Surtur** » Thu May 07, 2009 8:54 pm

But should you not be making a name slow but steady? By making games with completely different names, people will not easely remember. While if you would annouce a Spartan 2, many people will say: Hey man heared about part 1 before, could be fun!" I have learned myself that having a recodnizable name is some publicity of it's own. I know that you are already doing it to some degree (Great Battles of Rome and the Middle Ages) But I do not think it is enough. If you do not have one larger franchise, costumers tend to forget the developper or even the name of the game completely. Of course I realise that I do not know much about running a gaming company, it's just an idea though. I also wrote a post on the "ideas forum" about what the future of Slitherine should be in my opinion, might be interesting to read and discuss, and I would like to have the opinion of some of the SLitherine guys about it. Cause what is your long time planning? On which front would you like to be a succesfull developper? I do not think that (even though they are not bad games) the RTS/RPG mix games will give you a steady bases. I'd reather see SLitherine become succesfull on realistic strategy games, more in Spartan style.

And about the 2 games in 1 thing:

Many people who play for realism care little about graphics (See Hearts of Iron for example), so an idea would be to still make a battle and campaign system, but to simplify the graphics of the battlesystem like a full size minimap where you can give orders before the battle starts.

honvedseg · Post by **honvedseg** » Fri May 08, 2009 12:42 pm

When Slitherine embarked on the Arena escapade, I was reasonably excited, because it had the potential for becoming the "perfect" battle component for the next "empire builder" game in the Legion/CoW/Spartan/GoT series, even though it meant the inevitable delay of the next "empire" game. Unfortunately, it appears that we may never see that ideal merger.

I suspect that the PC games situation is a self-fulfilling prophecy: everyone is saying that PC gaming is becoming outdated, so the developers are all concentrating on console titles, with (at best) a possible lacklustre "port" to the PC. Not surprisingly, with less PC titles available, and interfaces geared for console controllers rather than mouse and keyboard, more players are buying the console games instead of for the PC. I know a number of PC gamers who are bemoaning the lack of games available on PC (ones that aren't awkward on PC due to the console-based design of the game), and who would gladly buy a decent PC game if anyone actually made them anymore.

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Fri May 08, 2009 12:47 pm

The problem we have is that retail wont take PC games for whatever reason unless they are AAA. This was not true 5-10 years ago so PC is being forced online and to digital downloads, but only certain types of games can work this way.

Surtur · Post by **Surtur** » Fri May 08, 2009 1:13 pm

I can see that, but why would only certain types of games work with digital distribution? I myself for example have already got 30+ games of digital downloads. Spread from Braid to Total War, from Team Fortress to Sins of a Solar Empire. I believe digital retailing is a becomming a new standard, and making name here (offering games via Impulse/Gamersgate/Steam) could give you guys some great extra sales I think.
I for one love to see a smaller scaled empire game made by you guys. And if you would offer it at Gamersgate for a good price, you will have the potential to become a hit and make a huge name!

It still is a shame about the retailers though. I miss the times when I could just browse through pc games without knowing them all

anguille · Post by **anguille** » Fri May 08, 2009 2:15 pm

Surtur wrote:It still is a shame about the retailers though. I miss the times when I could just browse through pc games without knowing them all

I so much miss those times as well...now, despite not being downloads so far, i buy most of my games on the net (i've just completed my collection of Magitech's games which are impossible to find in stores (actually you can buy them only from them!). I still know one good computer shop and buy there regularly.

Cheers

Surtur · Post by **Surtur** » Sun May 10, 2009 9:07 am

There is one shop close to me which stills sells copies of SLitherines games. But apart from that, pretty much all retailers just want the the games whose names will sell themselves. THat is why I am asking Slitherine, to join GamersGate/Steam/Impulse/Direct2Drive. Look at Sins of a Solar Empire, a game produced with less then a million dollar of budget and yet it has sold like hell, with over half of them being sold via Impulse.

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Sun May 10, 2009 9:25 am

We've had bad experiences in the past where you give the game to one company and it appears everywhere and there are no reports of sales and definitely no money coming back to us. E.g. Legion on Yahoo games - we never allowed it and tracking back to who did it shows a company we never gave digital download rights and getting them to show us sales reports has been impossible and money has never been seen and they are bankrupt. Yet we're still expcted to provide tech support as games dont care about this - they paid their money. The same is true for other games we have released across numerous digital download sites.

scarfacetarraff · Post by **scarfacetarraff** » Sun May 10, 2009 12:02 pm

iainmcneil wrote:We've had bad experiences in the past where you give the game to one company and it appears everywhere and there are no reports of sales and definitely no money coming back to us. E.g. Legion on Yahoo games - we never allowed it and tracking back to who did it shows a company we never gave digital download rights and getting them to show us sales reports has been impossible and money has never been seen and they are bankrupt. Yet we're still expcted to provide tech support as games dont care about this - they paid their money. The same is true for other games we have released across numerous digital download sites.

Oh man, this truly is depressing. Is it that busy out there that companies (or individuals) can get away with this?

Sequel to Spartan/Legion/Chariots of War?

Sequel to Spartan/Legion/Chariots of War?

Re: Sequel to Spartan/Legion/Chariots of War?

Sequel