Spartan/Gates of Troy/Chariots of War

I’ve been playing the demo of Gates of Troy, quite liked it and was thinking about buying it… went to their website and realised that these three games are basically the same product, with some minor differences. Anyone who’s played all three want to recommend a standout? Or another game from the same line that I might have missed? Or give an opinion in general about how they play overall?

Gates of Troy is the expansion pack for Spartan, which was the sequel to Chariots of War which was the sequel to Legion. All use a similar battle engine and a rudimentary strategy layer.

Of the three games (Legion/CoW/Spartan), Spartan is the best one and Chariots of War the worst. Spartan is the best looking game in the series, has the best city-management options, and has a stronger diplomatic model.

CoW has a novel setting but little else.

Troy

Thanks Troy, that helps a lot. :)

I like Legion Arena (the newest game; not Legion) quite a bit. It does away with the strategic game and just throws battle after battle at you. I don’t know why exactly, but the hands-off battle engine has a weird sort of appeal to me.

As Troy already mentioned, Spartan is the best of the bunch. Legion is good though, and can be found for as little as $5 in many bargain bins. It’s worth $5 easily. I skipped CoW, so I can’t comment on it’s quality, but it sounds like I didn’t miss anything…

I’m with you on the battle engine - Slitherine’s system is much deeper than it looks and it comes together nicely in Legion: Arena (now being repackaged as The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome.)

But the whole game is pretty weak, in my opinion, since so many of the battles have arbitrary victory requirements and the unit upgrade system isn’t that interesting.

The McNeil’s are world champion DBA wargamers and I think they’d be the perfect people to translate that pick-your-army system to the PC, but for some reason have moved into a more action/RPG direction. They were peddling a fantasy version of Arena at GDC.

Troy

Yeah, I’d have to agree with you on the weakness of the game as a whole, but I’m not really playing it like that. I just jump in and play a couple of battles every now and then, and then let it sit for awhile until I get my next Jones. Most of my enjoyment comes simply from watching things actually, once in a great while, work out on the battlefield like I wanted them to.

Yeah, that’s likely a good way to approach it. As a momentary distraction or sandbox where you try to make a perfect double envelopment, it can be interesting.

Troy