Slitherine

Seriously. This is one of the best games I have played in years. I think the last game that gave me so much pure enjoyment was the first Homeworld, and that was released in 1999.

For one thing, there's a lot of content here for your money. There are battles and battles and battles, and when you've finished the Roman campaign, there's the whole Celtic campaign to dive into.

For another, there's serious replay value here, as in over and over and over. There are just so many different ways you can go with so many different aspects of the game.

I really must take a moment here to specifically applaud the scenario design. Slitherine has obviously spent massive manhours on playtesting these scenarios.

I won't say the scenario design ever rises to the level of brilliance, but it is consistently very good. I was particularly impressed with the smooth, clever way that Slitherine handled the player's participation in what were historically losing battles. I was also very impressed with the resourceful way that an (of necessity) limited number of maps were used and re-used, so that you never said "oh, not this map again". Sometimes the map was the same, but rotated 90 degrees, and it made all the difference in the world. There was one point in the Roman campaign where you got the same map two scenarios in a row, but that's because you were fighting in the same location, as the storyline told you.

(to be continued, distractions beckon)

(continued)

I was also impressed with the overall level of historical scholarship. There were times when the intro to a battle made me go "Uhh, hold on, it wasn't that simple...". But then I'd ask myself if I could summarise it any better in such a short space, and the answer was always no.

I liked the point at which the Roman Campaign ended. The end of the Civil Wars was a good spot to stop. The Republic was thoroughly dead, although Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius would all make vague noises about restoring it. Imperial Rome had risen, and that's a good clean point at which to stop.

All in all, there was a very satisfying feel to ending the Roman campaign.

I've finished both campaigns now, and the end of the Celtic campaign was a bit less satisfying, but that's probably inherent in the nature of the source material. It was a splendid campaign, with several really classic battles, and also a few delightfully desperate situations. There was a very satisfying sense of symmetry in seeing the same campaigns from the other side, like the whole business of Brennus, for example.

A few suggestions -

Could not a few of Hannibal's battles in Italy be included, from the perspective of his Gallic contingent?

Perhaps a few more battles in Scotland or Ireland?

What about a Carthaginian campaign? You already have all the necessary units in the game, it'd just be a matter of building the campaign itself...