Slitherine

Today we are releasing our second batch of infographics depicting the units of Aggressors: Ancient Rome!

This time it's the turn of the real protagonists of the era: the Romans, as well as a mighty empire which was Rome's most dangerous antagonist for centuries, the Persians.

We are also showcasing the civilian support units as well as the ships you can build in the game.

We'll be back this Friday for our usual Aggressors' Friday with a new Dev diary.

They aren't historically representative at all

Legion is an upgrade over centurion? Immortal over Persian pikemen? Cataphracts with unarmored horses? I know abstraction is necessary, but that's a bit much for me.

Why not, for the Romans:

Hoplites
Principes
Legionary

Aristocrats
Equites
Auxiliary Cavalry

As for the Persians, what time period are we playing? It looks like we have Republican through Imperial Rome, but the units look vaguely like Achaemenid Persians. Yet for most of that time period they should be the Seleucid Empire, and later the Parthians. So why not;

Levy Phalangite
Phalangite
Foot Companions

Light Lancers
Companions
Cataphracts (you know, with armor)

All still totally abstracted, in the civ style, but at least sort of accurate. I hate to judge a game based on appearances, but that sort of thing, while not necessarily a dealbreaker to me, gives me very little confidence in the rest of the game...

I agree with the previous messages. The naming and appearance of units could easily be vastly improved to be more historically accurate.
The same remark applies to the units presented previously (Units infographics part I).

We will review the unit names and remove those which might seem incompatible with their look. However, there is no time or even budget to change the 3D models themselves.

For example the idea to rename Centurias to Principes is really good and we will change it.
Thank you SnuggleBunnies!

SnuggleBunnies wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:41 amAll still totally abstracted, in the civ style, but at least sort of accurate.

Yes that is true. It is abstracted but some sort of accuracy should be there.

The 3D models, names and pretty much everything is aslo very easy to mod so I am sure that history enthusiasts might create much more accurate (non-abstracted) units.

One thing that typically ruins the immersion for me in games is having huge icons that look like giants in comparison to towns and cities.

I know you guys have the initial graphics locked in - but at some time in the future, I'd like to see an option for infantry and cav more to scale - using a unit of soldiers with nice marching / riding animations rather than single giants.

https://www.hexwar.com/downloads/ancien ... rettyPhoto

^^ This would be a good example - see: "Re-enact historical battles" image. Look at the scale of the units to the camp structures.

Hope you can consider this for the future.