Slitherine Strategies pleases the fans once again with part three of the popular series, this time set in the world of ancient Greece. With many competitors such as Civilization and the Total War series that are designed for the power hungry mass, will Slitherine conquer the world with Spartan or will the game only remain popular in Europe?

Carve out an Empire

First let me warn you that Spartan is not a Real-Time Strategy game like the Total War series, as people would suspect from viewing the screenshots. Slitherine calls it a �Strategic Empire Builder� which is a lot more fitting as the game is turn based and war isn�t the primary thing to do in this game, although it will be unavoidable sooner or later. When you start up Spartan you can choose between over 100 nations to play as, each broken down into 8 different civilizations: the Spartans, Macedonians, Aeolians, Ionians, Pirates, Romans, the Eastern, and last but not least, the powerfull Persians.

I immediately noticed the similarities between Civilization and Spartan. Here too you start out with a number of cities in which you have to research technology, build structures to keep your people content and your armies healthy and large. Also, do not underestimate diplomacy. When you�re a tiny province that simply doesn�t have the resources to build armies to defend and extend your country, one diplomat can do more than a thousand troops. Diplomacy is a very important part of the game, maybe even more than your army itself. With diplomats you can propose alliances, spy on your enemies, insult the enemy, and even get to destroy your foe�s harvest, lowering the health of his troops and making him easier to attack. But of course, his diplomats can do the same to you, but you can quickly dispose of them by throwing them in your dungeon, gouge out his eyes, decapitate him or simply ask him to leave. But when you ruthlessly kill or maim your opponent�s diplomat, you can expect him to do the same thing or even worse to your diplomat, and it could ultimately result in an all out war. So harming your opponents� diplomat, especially when their country is mightier than yours, is generally not advised.

The learning curve is quite steep for the casual gamer, that�s why Slitherine has been so friendly to include a few very informative tutorial missions which explain most there is to know about governing your own Empire. The interface is very easy to get used to; you�ll quickly learn that you can sell goods you have in bulk and easily purchase goods your Empire is unable to produce. You don�t have to be a jack-of-all-trades like in Civilization or Medieval Total War for example, you can just focus on producing one type of goods, sell it, and easily purchase another type of goods without having to worry too much about it. The game isn�t a clickfest like Civilization or any comparable game because you can automate almost everything.


Addictive

When you�re done exploring which cities you have and who your neighbors are, you have to identify which cities have which qualities, and when you�re done with that you start building important buildings and appoint citizens to them. The more citizens you appoint to the buildings, the more they will produce. It is also your job to tell your researchers what to research, and then you�re done. Your neighbors usually don�t attack you the first few turns, so that you have enough time to build up your cities� defenses, send diplomats to negotiate with other countries, and build massive armies to conquer your enemies. Although this may sound very boring, it is actually the complete opposite because you�ll never know what you can expect next turn. This always gives me the �Just a few more turns and I�m quitting... I just want to see what happens next� feeling. And before you know it another hour has passed.

Eye candy! (Or not)

Spartan features two types of graphical modes for the battle mode, 2D and 3D, that are compatible with each other. Ironically, the 2D looks better than the 3D. In fact, the 3D mode gave me tired eyes and even a headache, and I�m not the only one that has been complaining about this. The units look tiny and undetailed in 3D mode, while you can at least see what�s happening in 2D. Simply said, the graphics of the battle mode look like crap when playing in 3D, and not what you expect from today�s games, both 2D and 3D. I know that graphics aren�t the most important thing in an Empire Builder, but it could have at least been something like Cossacks.

Church music

When I was playing Spartan, a friend of mine came up asking why I was listening to church music. While I was too busy ruling an Empire to actually notice, the music DOES sound a lot like church music now that he mentioned it. Of course, when ruling an Empire you wouldn�t expect music like Metallica in the background (Or maybe you do, at least I don�t) but at least keep it a bit �tense� when the enemy is lurking at your borders or when you�re in a huge, decisive battle. As much as I like the music in moments of peace, it does get horribly repetitive after a while. Although it�s great to hear your troops shouting when charging, but that get�s repetive aswell.

The multiplayer!

Two player multiplayer in this game is quite fun. In the beginning, turns go quite smooth though later on when the two players have a huge territory to control or a lot of armies to command, turns may take rather long. Multiplayer is the same as single player, so there are no new features or things that are left out in multiplayer. Although the multiplayer in this game is quite fun, it�s not recommended to play with total strangers, people that might just quit when things go wrong with their nation after a few hours of (then wasted) playing; I found this out the hard way. So unless you have a real life friend or a buddy you met online you can trust, multiplayer isn�t recommended. But when you do have a friend to play with, the multiplayer experience is a lot of fun and certainly recommended to anyone that wants to kill time for a couple of hours or even days, depending on which campaign you choose to play on.

Not for Joe-Average

This game is not for the casual gamer, instead it�s mostly for the people that love Greek or ancient history or truely love Civilization-type games. If you�re looking for a simple RTS like Command and Conquer, or perhaps a more �Arcade like� Empire Builder like the Total War series, I would not recommend this game to you. This game is not about action or brutal battlefields, although it can be a part of your strategy to conquer the map, it�s not as simple to build up massive armies as it is in Medieval: Total War. Armies in Spartan require not only silver, but also a wide range of different resources, and once armies are built, they require massive amounts of food so they won�t slowly, but steadily die of attrition. There�s a lot to think about when actively fighting wars with other civilizations, and it just might be way too complex for the average gamer whose single goal is to just conquer the map in an hour or less.

The final verdict...

Spartan is a fun game all around, especially for fans of the ancient times and those that like to �plan ahead� instead of just randomly conquering towns. Although this game may not be too good for the average gamer, it�s great fun if you�re a fan of Civilization that also likes big battles ala Total War, but does not want the battles to take more than 5 minutes or doesn�t want to command the battles themselves. This is also one of the first of its kind to go online, and although it may take a bit of time before a human player finishes his turn, it is most certainly worth the waiting, as he will use the same sly tactics as you do.