Comments on: Legion Arena

By: Tea Leaves - Guns, Germans, and Steel

Tea Leaves - Guns, Germans, and Steel — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:29:25 +0000

[...] The developer of Commander also created Legion Arena. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Like Commander, Legion was in a genre that is nominally overpopulated and, to be frank, moribund. Like Commander, it managed to achieve a surprising degree of freshness through simple and approachable UI and putting playability before historical accuracy. These are tradeoffs that some might disagree with, but I think they made the right call. [...]

By: peterb

peterb — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:36:13 +0000

I think the essential difference between us may be that I view “battle is more like a puzzle than like combat” to be an unqualified advantage.

You’re right that the game is fairly forgiving. I’m OK with that, though.

By: Troy Goodfellow

Troy Goodfellow — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:44:46 +0000

You liked Legion Arena a lot more than I did. I found the battles more like puzzles than real combat. A lot of the scenario victory requirements mean that there are some things you *must* do, and until you figure this out, you’re stuck there.

It’s a very nice looking game, granted, and Slitherine’s battle engines have always been more sophisticated than they appear at first glance. There isn’t enough variety in the armies, though, and even with the customization you end up putting the same force on the field time after time.

By: Hans

Hans — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:54:12 +0000

That’s right it looks like Rome: Total War. And it’s true it’s a fascinating game, R:TW. I don’t think it beats Civ IV but it’s brilliant in it’s own respect. I love that it’s so balanced and well tested. What I love even more is the calm atmosphere (contradicting the title) and the very unsual British tone.
Cool game. I haven’t tried Medivial yet since I want to play through R:TW first. (I picked it up two weeks ago).
I happen to be a Rome fan and I have the idea that the RTS scenes are best suited for Romans so it might take a little while…

By: Andy P

Andy P — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:49:30 +0000

From the screenshots it looks exactly like Rome: Total War, though the gameplay sounds a little different. R:TW without the campaign map, actually. And I really do mean: it looks exactly like it. The gaul models, in particular, look identical.

There’s still never been a better strategy game than the Total War series.