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.
Populus Romanus - A hex strategy game for Android tablets and phones
Played and won the first Barca scenario. Actually easier than you think... shocked to find no income from the villages! Hardly makes them worth plundering....
ReplyDeleteI liked the new unit type tactically but I am not keen on the name; the 'longbow' is typically a much later weapon used almost exclusively by the 'English'.
I think a better term would have been 'artillery'. Ballistas, onagers, scorpions etc... classic long range weapons of the period.
Many thanks for continuing to develop the game... i wonder what the new elements may be? I'd love to see Numidian light horse and libyan skirmishers who can skirmish easily but not cause damage. Seige equipment might help in taking towns.. may be engineers or Roman marines!
Hannabilis ad portas.
Happy new year too..
Si
Ballista, onager and scorpio will be available later in the game (ballista and onager varyingly on all sides, scorpio exclusively for romans except for a few captured scorpios perhaps). Ballista wasn't likely used in roman army until they had conquered Greece and acquired ballista from there, so I'm currently still undecided on whether I can make it available in Hannibal campaign.
ReplyDeleteBallista is a special unit: It will have low mobility but very high attack power, and when it attacks, the "battle roll" is thrown against defender's movement points instead of defense value. So, units that are very mobile such as the cavalry units and lightest foot units, will often evade the fire, but the slowest infantry suffers a lot.
Onagers will a bit similar as ballistas, but they will have some additional perks: They ignore town defense bonuses, hit always for 2 health points instead of 1, but have the handicap of being not allowed to move and fire on same turn.
Roman scorpio (the crossbow-based "machine gun" of the ancient times) will be a moderately powerful unit that can attack twice every turn (provided that there are more than 2 movement points left before the first attack is made).
Regarding longbow, you made a good observation there. I'm aware that it's most commonly understood to mean specifically the iconic English longbow. However, about it being a later weapon than the period, I found this when I did the research ... "The earliest longbow known from England, found at Ashcott Heath, Somerset, is dated to 2665 BC". So I interpreted this in a way, that the longbow could be included in game as a unit that was theoretically possible to exist during the ancient times, at least for armies that had relations to areas with bowmaking practices. As to why it is available on the carthaginian side, Hannibal actually gathered a rather international mishmash of warriors to his army, I took the little artistic liberty to include some celts there ;-) However, in reality I guess any units of celtic origin shouldn't be anyhow seen until Hannibal has reached southern France area (2nd scenario of the campaign: Battle of Rhone crossing, with Hannibal duking it out with Roman-allied celts ... coming up next).
About the Numidian light horse - I'm using the ordinary horseman unit to represent Hannibal's cavalry. The skirmisher idea was good, I must definitely add a unit (slinger or something) that has high attack value but can only make skirmishing actions.
Thanks a lot for the comments!
Carthage was well known for employing mercenaries but really should be Gauls not celts.
ReplyDeleteNew weapons sound cool.
The Punic campaign is very hard from the Roman perspective. i have never won the initial scenario yet...
Si
Well, the gauls were part of the celts! :-)
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts
The longbow is way too powerful behind a line of units that skirmish the enemy. Perhaps if the longbow misses, other units between the attacker and the defender should have a chance to be hit. Also, any unit non-ranged unit that engages the target of a longbow attack in the same round should have a chance to be hit.
ReplyDelete