Matrix Games Forums

Is this game the first in an envisioned series?

This i a quote from an interview with the programmer on the wargamer a few months back:

WG: What are your plans after Hannibal?

JW: I want to do a follow-up to Hannibal which would also be set in the ancient Mediterranean, and use a similar system of game play. I also have an idea for an RTS with fantasy elements in it. And I definitely want to do a serious system for tactical battles as an add-on for Hannibal.

Hopefully this game is a success so we can see more games like this in the future. The First Punic War or the Peloponnesian War would be cool.

Frank

My vote would be for the Persian Wars 480BC. One of the most important wars for western civilisation, but almost never gamed. This engine might work well with it: hordes of AI Persians against a Greek player. The Peloponesian War would get my second vote.

The Successor Wars would be ideally suited to this system too, I think. What a lot of fun that would be.

Tim

ORIGINAL: hondo1375

My vote would be for the Persian Wars 480BC. One of the most important wars for western civilisation, but almost never gamed. This engine might work well with it: hordes of AI Persians against a Greek player.

The reason why the Persian invasion of 480 is never gamed may be that it is difficult, if not impossible to implement. In nearly all other wars with asymmetric forces, you have one or two special qualities (superior units/leadership/terrain/manpower/...) against an overwhelming enemy, which makes mistakes.
If you look at the battle of Plataiai, you will find that the Persians did not only have superiority in numbers, but also in leadership and terrain. And they choose when and where to fight. To make things even worse, the Greek leadership was really really bad, not even able to hold their army together. The Persian attack was well timed, perfectly conducted, and hit a fragmented, unorganized, retreating Greek army. They made everything right. The only reason they lost nonetheless was that they were simply not able to kill the heavily armored hoplites, especially the Spartans.

That is fascinating, but very difficult to model in a game. A game where the AI makes no mistakes, has all advantages over the player but is simply unable to destroy his units does not sound very funny.
The Peloponnesian war or the wars of the Diadochi are much better suited for games.

Why not Alexander the Great's exploits?
It seems perfect for the singleplayer game mechanics.

Hi Brutus, thanks for your comments.

I agree it is difficult to game, but I'm not sure I agree with your analysis of the war. Any way, if the conflict was possible to fight, it must be possible to simulate! I could image a Greek player having to juggle limited resources, time, divisive politics, superior technology and favourable terrain that can offset numerical inferiority to secure victory. For example, "do I send troops forward to hold this point to buy time to get greater political agreement, or do I fall back to better terrain but lose some city states to the Persians?"

Also, hoplite formations were extremely inflexible: once their flanks were turned they fell apart. This was particularly a problem when they were outnumbered. The Persians were never able to exploit this effectively often enough.

I agree with the suggestions here about the next game. Alexander the Great would be an obvious choice, but the Peloponnesian War is something that has not been seen too many times in PC wargaming. Caesar vs. Pompeius would be another interesting option.

One other thing with the Persian Wars would be to broaden the strategic and geographical scope and include the Ionian coast and start the game from the middle of the 6th century when the city states along the coast where first threatened by Persia.

Great system. My vote would be for Alexander. Like the 2nd Punic War, it's a very interesting scenario with 2 very different, but potentially balanced foes. The Greek and Macedonian forces would be played by the player in a similar way to Carthage in 'Hannibal': Smaller elite forces forced onto the offensive against a much larger juggernaut. What fun!

Another possibility could be: Caesar's conquest of Gaul.

Good stuff.