Slitherine

Coming April 2008 - HISTORY Great Empires: Rome is the first in a series of classic turn based strategy games, but for the Nintendo DS! Finally handheld gamers will get the chance to play a real strategy game while on the move. The first game is set in ancient Rome, and the player can take control of the Romans or any of the numerous opposing tribes, empires and city-states they faced.

At the strategic level the player controls vast armies and must carve an Empire from the assortment of tribes and city-states that occupied ancient Italy and France. At the tactical level the player must position their armies to take advantage of terrain and make use of the best formations, to ensure victory.

In addition Great Empires: Rome includes a series of mini games and an encyclopaedia, so when you are all conquered out there is still plenty of fun to be had!

With its addictive gameplay and convenient handheld platform, Great Empires: Rome is the ideal entertainment for those long business trips! Do you have what it takes to become the next Emperor?

Features
* 20+ sides - gamers play against up to 20 unique opponents, each depicting the nations of the Roman Republican and early empire era.
* Detailed economy - players control their cities, allocate workers, increase production by constructing new buildings, build fortresses for protection and train new regiments.
* Historical accuracy - all maps, scenarios, soldiers’ uniforms and weapons are accurately modelled to capture the flavour of the ancient world and its warfare.
* Diplomacy - with so many nations, careful use of diplomacy will be required to succeed.
* 3D battlefields - the battlefield is made up of 3D rendered terrain and will affect the combat model.
* Huge realistic battles - based on historical data, the combat model gives the most realistic look and feel as hundreds of men are displayed in epic battles.
* 3 levels of difficulty - provide a challenge for all would be armchair generals.

Is this basically going to be a rework of Legion? If not why not make it playable on PC as well it sounds like fun?

Legion is the basis the game will start from but be modified to fit the handheld platform.

Stellar news Ian.

I consider Age of Empires: Age of Kings on the DS to be about the absolute best in DS games for an adult wanting a serious game (because it's why I got a DS).

Steel Horizon is again a solid game, and I was not even remotely bothered by a plain graphics screen view.

I plan to get Panzer Tactics shortly.

I will welcome any of Slitherine's efforts if they appear like the above.

But I will say this much, make sure the game doesn't require 3 hands worth of fingers to play. I have Tank Beat, but it's nearly impossible for an adult to enjoy it thanks to needing a teen console gamer's hand skills. And Brothers in Arms is so hard it is being traded in on my purchase of Panzer Tactics. It's a nice game, it's simply too hard to manipulate the controls.

To me a hand held is about portability, not a chance to experience excessive hand skills challenges.

As for time periods, I think from ancients all the way through to pre 1900 is full of opportunity.

Remember, we can't buy the games, if the companies refuse to make them.

Dont worry - the game is turn based so no rapid fingers required. The design also requires the game to be fully playable with the stylus so no awkward switching of control systems.

This is good news! I play Age of Kings on my son's DS Lite. I'm also looking forward to Firaxis's Civilization Revolution in Spring '08 for the DS, Xbox 360, and PS3. The Wii version is coming out in Fall of '08.

Because of CivRev, I placed a DS Lite on my Christmas list (crimson & black!). Now, w/ Pocket History: Rome, it looks like a good decision.

Your day just got even better triari

You will need your own DS so you can also play Panzer Tactics as well. This title is the sole reason I bought a DS a year earlier than the game's arrival.

If you like solid turn based military DS offerings you also need to look into getting Steel Horizon a very enjoyable naval warfare game.

And you MUST get Advance Wars Dual Strike. And I suspect you will enjoy Front Mission as well.

wow, i cant wait to see that on shelves!
btw, hopefully ill be back now, ive been very busy with football and everything

Hey there, my first post here, but as soon as I found out a serious strategy is coming on my ds, i just had to sign in. To be honest, I haven't yet played any of Slitherine games, but hope to make it on ds soon! In my opinion ds is a perfect platform for serious strategy games (sort of hex turn based) but as for now little is done. Yesterday I have just started playing Panzer tactics, which is great, but a little easy, and with a choice of Age of empires, Advance wars and some economy games I have never regret I bought ds, it's really born for strategy games!
Looking soon for more feedback on upcoming game!

Hope you enjoy it!

iainmcneil wrote:Hope you enjoy it!

Any news about it?

God I hope this game shows up soon. I follow a site the keeps me informed of ALL the DS games that come out daily (yes DS games appear daily). The trouble is, 9 of of 10 DS games should result in a clubbing for the wretch that made the software.

It seems like Nintendo is so devoted to whoring it's official seal, that it will market anything without regard to whether it ever should have seen the light of day.

For the love of god Ian, save us from yet another viewing of a DS "Pet" theme game

There's lots of room out there, for lots of wargame DS games. I don't want massive software efforts to rival TOAW3, I just want to be able to know we can play real wargames on a DS.

We're hoping to release somes screenshots soon and don't think you'll be disappointed!

iainmcneil wrote:We're hoping to release somes screenshots soon and don't think you'll be disappointed!

w00t!

I am so looking forward to playing anything similar to Sparta/GoT on my DS.

iainmcneil wrote:We're hoping to release somes screenshots soon and don't think you'll be disappointed!

Getting closer?

I'm leaving for a vacation cruise in June. Think this will be released by then? Here is to hoping!

Unfortunately not - it has to go through Nintendo approvals & manufacture which takes ~3 months. We're almost ready for that but as you can see it's already too late for June even if we submitted today.

iainmcneil wrote:Unfortunately not - it has to go through Nintendo approvals & manufacture which takes ~3 months. We're almost ready for that but as you can see it's already too late for June even if we submitted today.

Still great news just the same.

Any chance we'll be reading some previews soon? I've got lots of questions, like is the touch screen integrated and did you guys utilize the mic?

Wow, this is brilliant news! I bought a DS to play turn based strat games when I'm not in front of my PC. Panzer Tactics is great.

Anything from Slitherine gets my vote. Even so, I'd buy it purely because it's set in the Roman era.

How about oirting Spartan to the DS after this one !

Damn I want to play these games on my DS

Is it March yet, is it March yet

Will be glad to add this to my routine.