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Chariots of War

	Author: Christopher Budd Article Type: PC Game Review Publication Date: 7/31/2003 Developer: Slitherine Studios Publisher: Strategy First Related Categories: Ancient Egypt, Great Civilizations / Ancients, Turn-based, Strategic

The Play's the Thing (continued)

Resource management is the next most important task facing the player. There are nine different resources that must be managed in Chariots of War ranging from Food to Copper and Tin (for weapons), to wood and construction material (for buildings), to gems and horses. Managing resources effectively requires both prudent city management, to ensure that cities are producing enough of the important resources, and prudent trade management. With so many resources it is unlikely that the player will have cities that can effectively produce all of them: therefore, trade is crucial to keeping the empire supplied with the raw materials that it needs. Human resources need to be managed also. Each city has an overall happiness level for its citizens. If the citizens become too unhappy, it is impossible to recruit new troops, and in fact the citizens start fleeing the city, which in turn undermines the ability of the city to produce goods.

Finally, the player must manage diplomatic relations with other countries by sending ambassadors abroad and taking action in concert with foreign representatives. Unlike Legion, there are no differentiated states of war and peace. Therefore, managing diplomacy in Chariots of War is the act of managing ambassadors. Ambassadors sent to other countries provide intelligence about that country, so managing these ambassadors is also an exercise in intelligence management. The ambassadors from other countries represent that country, so managing those ambassadors really means using them to demonstrate your intentions to their home country. This, in particular, gives one of the more fun (and brutal) options, as the player can expel the ambassador in a number of dramatic ways, to say the least!

It's Important To Have a Good Enemy

The quality of the AI overall is strong. The game offers four regional scenarios and two Grand Campaign scenarios. In addition, there is an option with each game scenario to play with alternate settings that allows for customization of the opposing groups.

When selecting a game, the player can choose to play any of nations in the scenario, with over 50 to choose from in the Grand Campaign. Game difficulty ranges from Easy to Impossible. Even at the easy setting, however, the game presents a respectable opponent for the novice player.

As noted before, there are no options for multiple players or Internet gaming. Fortunately, the good quality of the AI means that this is not necessarily a fatal shortcoming for the game.

Also, the developers have been very open to facilitating the game's modification, going so far as to host a special forum on their web site. This support, plus the variety of options in the built-in scenarios, combines to give the game a strong replay value.

Finally, mention should be made about support from the developer in general. Slitherine hosts a number of forums devoted to Chariots of War on their web site. The staff of Slitherine is very responsive to posts, often answering questions and concerns within hours of their posting, including many answered by Iain McNeil, the game's designer.

Summary

For the right player, Chariots of War has much to recommend it. It combines keen attention to historical detail with a solid and respectable turn-based strategy game engine to produce a wargame with epic scope that has strong replay value and is both accessible and fun. While it does not have multiple player or Internet support and the graphics and sound may on first blush seem quite modest, it would be a mistake to discount this game. Wargamers who enjoy turn-based games, especially those with an interest in the ancient Near East, will want to give Chariots of War a look and see if its virtues speak to them.

System Specifications

Recommended Reading

The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character by Samuel Noah Kramer

History of the Persian Empire by A. T. Olmstead

The Kingdom of the Hittites by Trevor Bryce

Ancient Iraq by Georges Roux

About the Author

Christopher works in information security and as a writer on computer security in the Pacific Northwest. He has been involved in computer games since falling in love with Adventure on the Atari 2600 in the mid-70's and gaming since the first edition of AD&D (Queen of the Demonweb Pits is still the best). He has an interest in history, military history and strategy and tactics. In addition, he has an interest in philosophy, with a master's on Nietzsche and has written several articles for a London-based philosophy magazine.

Christopher regularly reads more books at once than he should and is currently reading Lawrence James' "The Rise and Fall of the British Empire", and B. H. Liddell Hart's "Sherman" (among others). He's partial to turn-based war-games such as Talonsoft's Napoleon and Divided Ground, but also enjoys Age of Empires and Age of Mythology. He also still dusts DOOM off from time to time.

All screenshots captured exclusively with HyperSnap-DX by Hyperionics.