There is only one thing that concerns me, and has stopped me from already purchasing. Free-form play? Or is every time through the campaign/reign of Philip? I'll likely purchase if such a thing is not in the game, but I'd like to know ahead of time.

Not quite sure what you are asking. The game becomes freeform once you complete the initial conquest of Macedonia (the demo), however you still have quests that you can act on or not act on, at your choosing. These quests continue to story of Philip, but they can be done in (almost) any order. There are some quests you will definitely want to do (such as learning Trireme tech and Catapult tech) while others are not so important (gaining a small bonus to gold or such).

But the game imposes no requirement to complete any of these quests, and allows for your to choose any direction of expansion, not necessarily following what Philip actually did historically. Some events are flagged with the hegemony symbol, indicating that they are important to Philip's core story, but again, there is no requirement to complete them.

Hope this answers your question!

What I meant by 'free-form' was more; Can I grab any country on the map and play as them, or am I stuck with the Macedons the entire time.

I purchased it anyway, and continue to love the game. I'll just have to do different things when/if I start a new game.

I found this game a few months ago via a link on the wargamer.com website and applied to be part of the next beta (which didn't arrive in the end). I came back here yesterday to try the demo and after being addicted to the game for about three hours (only quitting when my laptop power ran out and closed the laptop down) I decided to purchase the full game. I have to say I'm very impressed with the game taking into account it's an Indie title. There are maybe a few issues with enemy AI and the quality of troops it produces but other than that I've been very impressed with a very addictive game.

Since we're an indie team and can't afford a marketing team, right now we're just spending some time pushing the game.

Have you guys considered contacting Paradox Interactive? They're a small Publisher from Sweden who also produce a line of Grand Strategy games, like Europa Universalis 3 and Hearts of Iron 3.

They've been publishing a lot of new indie titles from other small companies lately. They also distribute a large portion of their games through the GamersGate digital download site.

Just a thought on helping you spread the name of your game.(The only way I heard about it was it was mentioned on the Europa Barbarorum(for RTW) mod's forum.)

I loved the Demo, I'll be buying it soon, hopefully.

Good luck!

loved the demo, just bought the game, thank you for developing this game :-)

[Paradox] distribute a large portion of their games through the GamersGate digital download site.
Actually, they own GamersGate. I shouldn't talk about contracts, but rest assured, we're talking to a lot of people right now.

Actually, their parent company owns GG and Paradox both. They have tried to keep the two seperate. But GG did start as a Paradox download service. (can't remember the name though) They did split so that GG could deal with other publishers without favouring Paradox too much. Of course they still do have a close relationship, being in the same building and all. lol

I really hope you guys find a good publisher/distributer. You guys deserve a lot of success for making such a great game.