A new campaign is in the works

A new set of campaigns is in the works now. While the first campaign was played from Roman perspective, this one is played as the Carthaginian commander Hannibal. Player gets to invade Iberian coast and then advance towards heartlands of Rome, fighting many historically significant battles along the way.

The first scenario from that campaign, "The Arrival", is preliminarily available in both the free and paid versions of the game (version number 1.2.0 - that's already available on Android Market, on Amazon Appstore the updates are pending Amazon approval so it won't be until next week or so).

Highlights of the new campaign: New units will be introduced! First unit, Longbowman, is already available for playing in "The Arrival". It's the first actual long-range unit in the game, having firing range of 2 hexes. Also, a couple of new terrain types are in mind. Village is a bit like a town (you can heal units there, and you get a couple of hexes visibility around the village), but you can't get income or create new units. Marshland is slow for moving and gives a slight defensive penalty.

So, the bottom line, brand new game content is definitely coming up :-) But it's just taking a little while to get it done properly. New units must not mess up the overall gameplay, but to blend in nicely.

Local Multiplayer added, plus misc fixes made

There is now a Local Multiplayer game mode available. Play the game with your friend, passing the device between players at the end of the turn. Currently first four scenarios have been adjusted to support multiplayer (for two players at the moment, with AI controlling minor factions), rest of the maps are also being converted to multiplayer-capable.

Also this release contains a fix for scenario 6 (Adriatic Coast) which had become extremely difficult to complete. Now scenario 6 can be played with about the same difficulty as other scenarios.

Please rate the game!

A plea to the people who downloaded the game and played it: Please rate the game on Android Market, it helps in getting the game to be noticed. Thanks in advance!

Update 1.0.2 available

Version 1.0.2 of Populus Romanus is now available for download (see download links in the previous post). Changes since version 1.0.1 include AI bugfixes. Changes since version 1.0 include fix to prevent game from crashing while using multitouch gestures on Android 3.1 (and above).

Game available for download

To download the game, click one of these links:

FULL version:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.populusromanus

FREE version (features one scenario from full game): 

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.populusromanus_free


NOTE: If you're browsing this page using an Android device, these links take you directly to Android Market application:

FULL version in Android Market


FREE version in Android Market


If you happen to encounter any bugs, or have any wishes for future improvements and additions, feel free to either add a comment in this blog, or send the suggestions via e-mail to poprominfo (AT) gmail.com.

Populus Romanus released

Hello, world.

This is the blog for "Populus Romanus", a turn-based strategy game with the main campaign set in the age of the early Roman republic. The game runs on Android platform, runs on Android versions 2.1 and later, and supports multitouch and hardware accelerated OpenGL ES graphics. All screen sizes and resolutions are supported.

The game will be available for download on Android Market shortly. Download links will be posted in the next blog post.

To give a glimpse of what the game is about, a few screenshots probably already explain more than a blogful of words. These first shots are from a phone with 3.5 inch 800x480 screen. Click on a thumbnail to enlarge.

Typical game view, zoomed in

Game view, zoomed out a bit

Game view, zoomed out more...

Game view, max zoom out

Building units in a town

Attacking enemy unit

Help feature within the game

Here is also one shot from a tablet with high resolution screen:

Game view on a tablet