Spartan is the third in a line of turn based strategy games began by the game Legion. Spartan ‘s predecessor was a game called Chariots of War. Spartan is similar in aspects to the popular Civilization series, but has several major differences which disqualify it being a clone of that game.
Spartan combines aspects of many gameplay styles, including turn based strategy, real time battle, resource management, city development, scientific research to improve your society, and diplomatic intrigue. Spartan is a game that is difficult to learn and difficult to master given the shear breadth of options and styles there are in playing this game. Ultimately, the game is a bit too cerebral and it’s devotion to historical accuracy may make this game too rigid for many gamers. However, a certain niche market that enjoys history, the game’s unique battle system, and the material will be satisfied with Spartan .
Setting
Spartan takes place entirely within the confines of the Greek peninsula and Asia Minor in the 5th to 3rd centuries BC. The map consists of over 100 playable nations (city states, really). Each has different goals and different paths to victory, and different difficulties. Each nation is categorized into 10 ethnic groups. The various Greek groups include Dorian, Ionian, Aeolian, Macedonian, Spartan, Tribal, and Illyrian. There’s also an Eastern group, as well as two non playable groups, Roman and Persian.
Gameplay
The main screen is the map screen, a pretty topographical map of the region showing yours and your opponent’s cities. From this screen, you can determine basic information about cities, like their size, resources, what they’re building, etc. You will also be moving your units and armies across from this screen as well. City management is done in a sub screen. From here you can manage each city and tell it what to produce, as well as see information regarding it, such as its citizen’s mood and its resources. Each city can produce some resources to some degree. Each city also has a limit to its size, the largest cities can support 8 buildings.
The economics of the game is the collecting of 9 resources. Each city can produce 1 to 4 resources (and only to a certain extent). These resources are fixed, and theoretically linked to the geography of the land. To get those you don’t have access to you, you’ll have to conquer more cities, or trade. Trade is done through another screen, and your nation’s power and diplomacy have some influence over how much you can trade - but building markets in your cities has even more.
Diplomacy is done by sending emissaries to other nations. While there, they can do some rather powerful things (and vice versa), especially if you’ve developed your foreign ministry building with its additions. Diplomacy represents a sneaky backdoor of accomplishing things that left unchecked can lead to great benefit or disaster.
Research is directly tied to the 9 resources. You can develop each category which will result in new units and buildings becoming available.
The game has an interesting battle system - one that some players will enjoy and others hate and will most likely be the determining factor of one’s experience with the game. Each army on the map can be a maximum of 16 units. Units consist of different types of infantry, cavalry, and ranged troops. The kind of units available and the types will depend on your ethnic group. The Spartans for example, have the strongest heavy infantry in the game, while the Persians on the other hand make extreme use of archers and cavalry. Different units have an advantage over others, and in certain terrain.
Points of Interest
The battle system is the litmus test for the game. When two armies do fight, or when you decide to attack a city, you are taken to the battle screen to deploy your army. Your troops occupy the left hand of the field, your opponent’s on the right. You can see the terrain of the battlefield. From here, you can arrange and line up your different units on the battlefield. There is an element of the unknown as both sides have a “scouting score” which determines how much of the enemy’s units are revealed. Terrain, types of units, and whether you are the attacker/defender influence this. Once you’ve arranged your units you can give them orders such as charge, or outflank, etc. Once you‘ve deployed your army as you like it, the battle starts. And once it starts, that’s it. It is out of your hands and you have to hope you’ve made the right decision. During the fight, you can see everything, as well as the morale of your troops. This is very important, when too many units start to loose morale, you can blow the rally horn, which will temporarily boost said morale and keep the soldiers fighting a bit longer. You can also sound the all charge horn, if you deem it appropriate for the whole army to belay your strategizing and simply charge the field. There is no second place on the ancient battlefield - a loss or a retreat will result in complete destruction of that army.
You can also fight battles by sea, although these are rare and quite stupid. In these battles, the only units that count are ranged units. Basically all the ranged troops have some kind of score - whosever’s score combines is greatest wins - the loser suffers total loss of that army.
This is actually extremely historically accurate. On the ancient battlefield, once the fighting started, it was almost impossible to give further orders. However, many people will be put off by this. Before battle starts, each side is given a raw battle score, the greater the difference, the more decisive the battle will be. Also on this screen is the option of having the computer auto-resolve the battle if you so desire.
Many people will also be put off by the extreme rigidity of the game map. Unlike other games, you cannot simply build new cities where you please. Again, this is historically accurate, but somewhat limiting, especially in the replay ability of the game, as all the cities will have fixed locations and fixed resource and size limits.
The research of the game is pretty much directly related to the resources, so once you’ve reached Bricks 2, you can build a better brick factory. Not much spice to the research, except in certain resources that access you better troops, or in Gold, for example, that lets you build many new buildings.
The diplomacy factor is probably the most interesting and furthest fleshed aspect of the game, and leaves you tremendous opportunity to affect the fate of almost any foreign nation.
As your empire grows, it will be increasingly difficult to keep track of all of your cities and to make sure that each as actually doing something useful or productive.
Technical
There is nothing ground breaking or earth shattering with the game’s graphics. The battle scenes are pretty, well, Spartan themselves, whether you are looking at the 2D or 3D versions. The game runs quite smoothly, but for being this simple it should. The game is devoid of cut scenes, and each scenario doesn’t really have much of a story. Once you begin, it is pretty much freeform, despite the larger possibilities and attempts to throw in the Persian invasions.
Multiplayer exists, but I have not played it.
The sounds are very simplistic and the music consists of a few tracks. The main music loops endlessly and can become tiring. The instruction manual, while detailed in certain aspects, is rather pieced together and lacks a certain sense of order and sequence. The in game tutorial explains some things at tedium, such as moving around the map, while neglects other important things, like city management and diplomacy.
In Conclusion
Spartan comes short of being a good game. There is quite a bit to the game, but there isn't any wow factor. There simply isn’t much in here that we haven’t seen in other turn based strategy games before. While it is methodically accurate in its history, it fails to motivate you in terms of any real story and once you do figure things out, the replay value isn’t really there. The rigidity of the game becomes overwhelming more often than not. While I appreciate the game on an intellectual level, it is not as enjoyable as others.
My recommendation, if you’re looking for warfare in ancient times, go with a real time strategy game like Rome: Total War or hold out for Ancient Wars: Sparta a RTS game coming next year which features a totally new game engine.
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