I got as far as the Peloponnese with a 20 phalanx army. Suddenly it collapsed and was executed. I eventually worked out I had run out of money. This was the greatest military secret ever. There is an icon to show this, but with trees and excitement getting in the way, I didnt notice. You need to be one hell of an anal retentive to enjoy punishing yourself with this game. I play to relax, not get agitated.

Once you have taken several cities, it is the same thing ad nauseaum. It needs a different game play for the beginning, the middle game and the end rather than more and more tedious detail. If you are obsessed with detail and want to take 80 hrs to play one game, then it is for you. Personally I have had enough.

I had problems with the "retentive" part too, like leaving scouts in the field till they starve, mooring fleet on hostile beach without unloading troops etc, and I believe most players will experience the same thing, at least for once :)

You have to keep an eye on your income/expenses and be careful not to stretch yourself too thin. It definitely takes some practice, but it's such a refreshing change from the typical RTS 'snowball' game where you can just blitz everything...

If you are obsessed with detail and want to take 80 hrs to play one game...
yes please!

if you want to pay the same money for 20 hours of interactive movie go buy an xbox, or one of the games written for xbox and ported to pc.

Hegemony is a proper RTS written for real gamers. its a real shame if you dont enjoy it but imo its your loss. this is the best game ive played since the Stalker series, which was FPS not RTS, and the best RTS ive played since The Battle for Middle-Earth.

I'm with Kami -- I haven't played an RTS heavily since Age of Empires 2 -- lately they all seem too quick, too 'twitchy' for my tastes. Hegemony is the first one in years that has really grabbed my interest. It's a great combination of grand strategy (which troops do you need, where do you place them? which front will you campaign on this year?) and pure tactics. And it has the best logistical system I can recall in a wargame, forcing you to think about how you're going to feed your men, something most games completely ignore.

My Recommendations :

Prune the trees.
Have a pop-up that tells you when you are out of money and when a unit is starving.
Have a means of knowing if you will run out of food if you advance in a certain direction rather than guess.
Improve the map...I know it is cheap but it looks cheap and doesnt convey information clearly enough.
Change the plastic strategic models. Perhaps a city icon over them to show "nationality".
Have a central recruiting once you have a "national" army....going around to every city just isnt satisfying to me. At least the generals can recover in your capital rather than some backwater they call home.
Develop a game that has different requirements for the beginning, middle and end game play rather than the same thing but with huge numbers of repetitive tasks. At least add some sort of grouping so the same thing can be done on a bigger scale for the end game.
Allow the development of task forces to move in a general direction under the control of a general rather than a general controlling an unit.
Why do cities never surrender without a lengthy siege ?
Why cant I get annoyed and raze a city ?
Why does every state think I am the worst person in the world, even when I have just started out and clearly they have bigger enemies to deal with ?
What about the ability to increase a cities food storage capacity ?
Why would a city starve rather than go outside and collect the sheep in the hills ?
I would have liked to have seen more variation than just food and gold. Copper, wine, olive oil, wood and others were tradable commodities.
Why doesnt the population at least halve when it has been besieged and ran out of food ? It should take years to get it back up without worrying about it rebelling, let alone having the gold and manpower to raise armies straight away.
Possibly most importantly of all, allow the AI to do reasonable things for the player, so you don't have the situation where you return to a theatre to find units starved outside a city rather than go inside and eat, or they sat back and watched an allied unit get flogged.
Where are the cheats ?

If you want to sell to a small market than fine, the game is not too large and cumbersome....but if you wish to increase the market than it needs improving. As a game designer I do not like that the bigger your empire becomes the more you have to do the same thing many many times over. A fun game for minor levels, it becomes rather tedious for major levels. I will choose carefully before I buy any further games in this mould.

I should however, for balance, mention good points....it sets a new standard in realism for strategic warfare by dealing with supply through accurate mechanisms. The zooming in and out is rather well done and only has a problem of some difficulty sometimes in selecting a unit. Click and drag for movement is a good feature. The objectives driven style has been done before but it is rather well done in this game.

My Recommendations :

1. Prune the trees.
2. Have a pop-up that tells you when you are out of money and when a unit is starving.
3. Have a means of knowing if you will run out of food if you advance in a certain direction rather than guess.
4. Improve the map...I know it is cheap but it looks cheap and doesnt convey information clearly enough.
5. Change the plastic strategic models. Perhaps a city icon over them to show "nationality".
6. Have a central recruiting once you have a "national" army....going around to every city just isnt satisfying to me. At least the generals can recover in your capital rather than some backwater they call home.
7. Develop a game that has different requirements for the beginning, middle and end game play rather than the same thing but with huge numbers of repetitive tasks. At least add some sort of grouping so the same thing can be done on a bigger scale for the end game.
8. Allow the development of task forces to move in a general direction under the control of a general rather than a general controlling an unit.
9. Why do cities never surrender without a lengthy siege ?
10. Why cant I get annoyed and raze a city ?
11. Why does every state think I am the worst person in the world, even when I have just started out and clearly they have bigger enemies to deal with ?
12. What about the ability to increase a cities food storage capacity ?
13. Why would a city starve rather than go outside and collect the sheep in the hills ?
14. I would have liked to have seen more variation than just food and gold. Copper, wine, olive oil, wood and others were tradable commodities.
15. Why doesnt the population at least halve when it has been besieged and ran out of food ? It should take years to get it back up without worrying about it rebelling, let alone having the gold and manpower to raise armies straight away.
16. Possibly most importantly of all, allow the AI to do reasonable things for the player, so you don't have the situation where you return to a theatre to find units starved outside a city rather than go inside and eat, or they sat back and watched an allied unit get flogged.
17. Where are the cheats ?

If you want to sell to a small market than fine, the game is not too large and cumbersome....but if you wish to increase the market than it needs improving. As a game designer I do not like that the bigger your empire becomes the more you have to do the same thing many many times over. A fun game for minor levels, it becomes rather tedious for major levels. I will choose carefully before I buy any further games in this mould.

I should however, for balance, mention good points....it sets a new standard in realism for strategic warfare by dealing with supply through accurate mechanisms. The zooming in and out is rather well done and only has a problem of some difficulty sometimes in selecting a unit. Click and drag for movement is a good feature. The objectives driven style has been done before but it is rather well done in this game.

1. Aesthetic. I like the heavily forested regions and I think it's fairly accurate for the period.

2. A bunch of red text doesn't catch your eye? I think it also makes a sound effect too. Regardless, a player worth his salt should keep on top of his resources... though I would prefer a more dynamic gold system.

3. You can approximately calculate that yourself. Note it tells you how many weeks of supply you have. IIRC, a week is at least several minutes. I've never had units run out of food (unless I forgot about them). I just sent them back to the nearest city with food and rotated fresh troops in. Units also share food between each other. If you've got low food supplies during a siege, back off your troops to mooch off a nearby farm and let your catapults keep firing.

4. What information does it not display at a glance? It shows units, unit groups, enemy units, giant red Xs for battles, cities, and at a certain zoom level, supply lines. If you want detail, go for the local map. The strategic map displays exactly what it needs and no more.

5. I agree, unit figures could be better. You can also simply look at the color; you're not going to be engaging too many different factions at once in a single area, and I think you're doing it wrong if you're not paying attention to exactly who and where you're fighting.

6. We had a form of central recruiting back in PoM. Frankly, I wasn't too sure I'd like the new recruit pool system, but I actually prefer it over the old one. Also, you can change a general's home city.

7. Sounds interesting, but I don't know how it would be implemented.

8. You are the task force general. I like lack of AI control. If you've got too much going on to manage, then reduce your fronts.

9. Cities without walls. I hardly think you'd ever surrender if you were safe behind your gates and walls and towers, hoping on allied reinforcements to break the siege.

10. Why would you? That would be a waste of resources. Razing a city is a very drastic step. I don't think it would work very well with the game either.

11. Historical reasons?

12. I'd like that as well. Pay to upgrade it, just like supply lines.

13. You're the one in control. You send men out to find sheep and bring them back.

14. Now that sounds interesting. It could allow for more diplomatic and unit variety.

15. Because there are no non-Macedonian population points. It does take time for the recruit pool, which would be the people that besiegers actually care about, to regenerate.

16. Units no longer starve outside cities. Keep on top of your units with that strategic map.

17. http://hegemonygold.wikia.com/wiki/Console_Commands (still a work in progress)


It seems to me a lot of your complaints have to do with not allowing AI automation. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I actually like games where you have to do exactly what you want to happen, but it does get tiring. I frequently abuse the pause button.

Prune the trees.It is not the historical inaccuracy of the trees, it is simply they get in the way.I also think they are too tall and restrict the view. Some games have a trees on/off toggle.

A bunch of red text doesn't catch your eye? No, it doesn't. It is in the top right hand corner of a large screen.

You can approximately calculate that yourself.Calculating is what I have a computer for....

What information does it {the strategic map} not display at a glance? It doesnt display map information. Valleys, hills, rivers, seas...people who print maps use different colours for a reason.

unit figures could be betterI would like to see them in natural colours.

I hardly think you'd ever surrender if you were safe behind your gates and walls and towers,But you would if the alternative was your city being razed and your population sold into slavery.

Razing a city is a very drastic step. But it is up to the player how drastic he wishes to be...I just would like to see it included.

Why does every state think I am the worst person in the world, even when I have just started out and clearly they have bigger enemies to deal with ? Macedon was the equivalent of country hillbillies scorned by the biggies of Greece. If you avoid conflict with the big names, then they shouldn't be worried if you are uniting Macedonians. It seems everyone is out to get you.

You send men out to find sheep and bring them back. This is mind numbing. I don't like having to do it just to feed peasants who are too stupid to stop themselves from starving.

Because there are no non-Macedonian population points.Sorry, you lost me....

Keep on top of your units with that strategic map.But I shouldnt be micro managing...it is a strategic game.

12. What about the ability to increase a cities food storage capacity ?

Build worker/ships and load them up with surplus food. This way you can also quickly transport food manually when needed.

Ionus,
some of the points you raise are good points, the model textures has been discussed before, as has the trees, and some of the others. but theyre mostly polish and minor details. none of them are game-breaking. LDA being a very small, indie developer, i think can be forgiven for the game not having the polish on the game that you might expect from a major name (expect but often not get).

However, you OP, your main problem and complaint, the fact that you ran out of gold and are blaming the game design defies belief. How can u not know your gold balance? In the real world do you not know how much money u have coming in each month and manage your expenditure accordingly? Do you just spend spend spend buying whatever you want until the bank calls you and tells you that youre in the red? And do you then complain to the bank that they didnt tell u sooner.. that its their fault?
When i'm playing Hegemony i am aware of my gold balance constantly, and i always leave a buffer zone, to allow for the temporary loss of a mine or two, or the mine supply lines being interupted. without even thinking about it i can tell u now that when i logged off yesterday i had an expenditure of around 8900 and an income of around 9500. Every time i create a new unit or capture a new city i glance at the gold balance to see the change.
The truth is you overstretched yourself and you sailed too close to the wind. but it wasnt your fault ofc. oh no. it was because the games badly designed and now you wont play anymore. You said youre a game designer but maybe u should consider a career in banking. i think you'd feel right at home there :)

But seriously: valid constructive criticism is one thing, blaming the game for your mistake is not only unhelpful, its also an insult to the devs. And its a matter of personal preference. Many ppl dont want to have their nose wiped and their hand held. If youre not free to get it wrong how can you get pleasure from getting it right?

I would contend with your statement that Hegemony is only a strategic game. It's also a tactical and logistical game. Calculating just how far a unit can travel before it runs out of food isn't something that the computer should tell you, in my opinion, it should be an uncertainty and a risk. Everyone attacks you because they can - and you'd do the same given the same chance. Isn't it up to you to defend yourself? If you want lots of friends, try becoming the biggest nation on the block, and maybe you'll get the advantage in negotiation. I've only ever played Hegemony Gold on Expert, and I've never had a serious problem with enemies attacking my border towns because I play cautiously and make sure I have a reserve to take care of invaders.

Different people have fun in different ways. If you don't enjoy managing your supply routes and all the little details, play a different game - don't blame something that isn't designed for a player like you. Hegemony has some grinding, but every game does. On the other hand, I enjoy the freedom the game gives you in achieving your objectives. I agree with most of your criticisms, but please realize that the Longbow team is VERY small and can only react to criticism so quickly.

I think Onyx's main complaint about scalability -- the game becoming more difficult to manage as your empire grows -- is a valid one. I know the devs are working on better unit AI, so hopefully you'll be able to set units to 'stances' and let them take care of themselves. This should go a long ways towards solving the problem I would think...

Calculating just how far a unit can travel before it runs out of food isn't something that the computer should tell you, in my opinion, it should be an uncertainty and a risk.
This I agree with. I launched a campaign into the hills of Thrace and, halway through the summer, realized I had brought too many men and not enough food. I had to send half the army back and try to complete the campaign with the remainder. I was thrilled that the game challenged me in this way... something I'd never seen before. It's rare to have a strategy game present you with a new challenge these days -- particularly a challenge that feels totally organic to the game and historically accurate to boot!

When i'm playing Hegemony i am aware of my gold balance constantly, and i always leave a buffer zone, to allow for the temporary loss of a mine or two, or the mine supply lines being interupted.
This is something you learn pretty quickly -- that buffer is essential! Nothing sucks worse than having your income suddenly drop and having to find some units you can disband. Much better to keep a healthy margin so you can ride out a temporary loss of income...

I launched a campaign into the hills of Thrace and, halway through the summer, realized I had brought too many men and not enough food. I had to send half the army back and try to complete the campaign with the remainder. I was thrilled that the game challenged me in this way...

that says it all for me. this is what sets Hegemony apart. yes it would be even better with flashy graphics and combat animations, more polish and refinement. the next game from LDA will surely be more polished and more sophisticated, just as Gold is more so than PoM. But the underlying game, its mechanisms and basic principles, is awesome. Give me low budget developement of an awesome game, rather than big budget developement of a third rate game, any day of the week.

I really enjoyed this game and played probably close to 80 hours.

My opinion is the amount of micromanagement needs to be addressed for future installments of the game.

On a separate note, I would like to see the tactical elements of the game improved by tweaking the AI and making the land more accommodating for large armies. The AI always attacks in small groups and stays behind its walls too much giving few opportunities for epic open field battles.

I think Onyx's main complaint about scalability

But I'm not complaining. =\

I like the challenge it (the scale) presents. Micromanagement is not that bad in Hegemony.

And I still don't get your problem with the map. Most areas in the game are open fields, save the northern patches, so there's nothing to show there. Impassable hills and mountains are shown, as are the lightly forested areas around the Odrysian kingdoms. Rivers are shown, though they're not that important.

You say you're a game developer; what games have you helped develop? No hostility meant, just genuinely curious.

That is a good point what exactly have you helped develop?

lol im actually a cowboy, astronaut millionaire. And on weekends i help clone dinosaurs.... I think this is one of those cases.

On a separate note, I would like to see the tactical elements of the game improved by tweaking the AI and making the land more accommodating for large armies. The AI always attacks in small groups and stays behind its walls too much giving few opportunities for epic open field battles.
It depends, I think, on how many troops the AI faction has at hand and how much open space there is. For example I attacked Larissa recently with about four brigades of heavy infantry and plenty of support troops and catapults, thinking it wouldn't be too difficult (especially with my awesome barbarian javelineers pwning the laughable Greek peltasts...).

Next thing I knew armies were swarming out of every nearby Tyrant-controlled city -- easily three times as many men as I had brought. In the open spaces of Thessaly they quickly outflanked me and one by one my units routed. It was an absolute slaughter.

Perhaps it's different further south where there's less open space, but I've certainly seen some big battles!

One thing I would like though would be a slower pace to the combat, so there's more time to use tactics and it 'feels' less 'cartoony' and more realistic. However I wonder if that might slow the game too much since the whole 'world' runs on the same clock.

i once suggested a speed control for the gametime. there are periods of very little activity, especially in winter, when it would be nice to speed up the clock to x2 or x4. perhaps, if that is ever implemented, u could also slow it to x0.5, and conduct battles in a more leisurely and tactical manner, as opposed to the current method of - pause, issue orders, pause, issue orders - repeated constantly.

i dont recall LDA responding to that particular suggestion even tho several ppl expressed interest in the idea.