Good videogames set in the Ancient World suggestions

[Dalisclock]

So some of you may remember a year or so ago when I did a couple of long-ass discussions on Assassins Creed Origins and Odyssey(oh man, Odyssey was a long one) on the old forums. I said it at the time and still feel that my affinity for those games had a lot to do with their setting 2000 and 2500 years ago respectively, settings that don't get a lot of love in general. Especially the idea of just wandering around and exploring a world that no longer exists(yes, in some ways it's the theme park version of said world but still remarkably detailed despite it's flaws).

With the world feeling like it's constantly on fire right now, the idea of diving into a long lost, Simpler(though not without it's own significant problems) era has some appeal and I've been searching around to try to find something that looks engaging or perhaps even fun.

I remember Rome: Total War from years and years ago but that doesn't seem to go back earlier then Rome on any notable scale(I know there were scenario battles for earlier civs) and I'm not sure if that's what I was looking for. I've noticed there are a number of games about Ancient Egypt on GOG (Old kingdom, pre-dynastic) but I'm not sure if those are what I'm looking for either. Dawn of Man and Ancestors: Humankind might hit the spot but that's WAY on the other end of the Ancient spectrum.

Games like Titans Quests aren't really what I'm looking for being Mythological-based Diablo-likes. I've heard Age of Empires might be along the lines I'm seeking but I played the first one way back in the day(not very much, mind you) and it didn't grab me.

CIvilization comes to mind but it suffers from not really being balanced for the entire swah of human recorded history it's trying to simulate(Broadly, It tries to use the same set of rules for Ancient world through the modern world which causes issues on both ends). I almost want a paradox type game but apparently Imperator needs another couple years of DLC before its worth it, and it's still focused on Rome(which isn't terrible but I'm looking a little earlier than that). Like the Greeks, Egyptians, Maybe the Sumerian/Babylonian/Near East Civs is probably what I'm looking for, but not exclusively. I'm not ruling out the Far East/India/the Americas/Oceania either but those seem to be even more niche then the Near East/Mediterranean Basin as a setting.

I know this isn't terribly helpful, because I'm not sure what I'm really looking for, so I guess I'm asking for some suggestions of what games might be worth trying out. I realize the inherent issues involved in this request, because the ancient world tended to develop at a MUCH slower pace and was at a much smaller scale compared to later eras and trying to make this engaging/fun isn't nearly as easy as other, later time periods.

 

[Chimpzy]

Since you've already visited GOG this might not be new to you, but one thing that comes to mind are city builders, giving you a few options:

• CivCity: Rome
• Caesar I-IV
• Pharaoh (+ Cleopatra)
• Zeus (+ Poseidon)
• Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
• Childen of the Nile

 

[meiam]

Age of decadence is an Roman theme RPG (but with fantasy and not set in rome).

Grand age rome is a city builder (think Tropico).

At the gate is a 4x set during the fall of rome.

Egypt: old kingdom is sorta of a 4x set in egypt.

That's all I can think of.

 

[SupahEwok]

How ancient do you want to go?

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Rock of...ages? 1 2 annnnd 3? Eh? Aye??

 

[gorfias]

Far Cry Primal

 

[Dalisclock]

How ancient do you want to go?

I did mention that in my OP but that's one of the ones I'm looking at(it was kinda buried in there) I haven't seen much on if they've fixed the launch issues and/or worth a go. I know Superbunnyhop did a fairly positive discussion of it a few months ago but not much beyond that.

Oh, and it's getting a steam release in a couple weeks. Admittedly I'm not super fond of the EGS UI, they're still way behind where Steam is considering how long they've been operating and it's putting me off buying stuff from them.

Far Cry Primal

Not really interested. It sounds like it's more like a Far Cry game with a Dawn of Man skin on it(I kinda lost interest in FC after 3). Also, Ubisoft is currently on my shit list due to the whole "Sexual Assault/Harassment being systermic all over the company" reports coming out lately, so I won't be buying anything more from them for quite a while.

Rock of...ages? 1 2 annnnd 3? Eh? Aye??

I have 1 and I like it well enough, but not quite what I'm looking for. Honestly, I like the Monty Pythonesque Aesthetic more than the actual gameplay.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I have 1 and I like it well enough, but not quite what I'm looking for. Honestly, I like the Monty Pythonesque Aesthetic more than the actual gameplay.

Admittedly, I did get the impression that was the case, but kinda hoped the quirky "fast-food" approach to history in the game might've work as a mild band aid to the real desire of proper historical game

 

[Samtemdo8]

Don't let the reputation deceive you, Rome II Total War is now a great game, it is now far removed from its horrendously buggy launch state.

 

[Dalisclock]

Don't let the reputation deceive you, Rome II Total War is now a great game, it is now far removed from its horrendously buggy launch state.

I remember it getting a ton of shit at release for being buggy and...a bunch of other things, though per TVTROPES apparently the game has been significantly improved from it's release state.

I've heard it also has a problem where corruption basically murders all your income after a certain point in the game. Is that an overstated issue or been patched(or is there a workaround for that)? Admittely this was years ago I heard this so maybe it's no longer an issue.

 

[Fieldy409]

Crusader Kings 2 might be worth a look. The base game is free but it can get expensive with all the dlc. You control your ruler and they live their whole life(or die as a child) you marry and commit adultery, you go to war for your kingdom, you have children and the heir inherits, you can raid as a pagan or tribal or you can be more 'civilised' as a feudal christian and ask the pope to give you the right to invade, you can be a mongolian. Your kingdom might be divided evenly between your sons when you die so you might play on as one of the sons trying to reunite a kingdom.

You can also go about being peaceful, building and taking care of your family. Or you can dedicate yourself to war. You can go crusading or you can reform your own pagan religion into something that can fight back against christianity or join up with it.With expansions you can even go further east and deal with islam and buddhism rather than christianity at all and try to get Chinas favour so that you might get chinese knowledge.

A lot of it is text based and you spend most of your time staring a big map of Europe so its not for everyone I think. But it's definitely the 'live in another age' game that springs to mind for me.

 

[happyninja42]

I remember it getting a ton of shit at release for being buggy and...a bunch of other things, though per TVTROPES apparently the game has been significantly improved from it's release state.

The same can be said about New Vegas, yet the overall gaming community thinks that game is liquid orgasms, dipped in chocolate. I don't agree (personally find the game boring as hell, but that's me), but if you're only reason for not trying the Total War game is "it was buggy as shit at release", and you like New Vegas, maybe give it a try?

 

[Dalisclock]

The same can be said about New Vegas, yet the overall gaming community thinks that game is liquid orgasms, dipped in chocolate. I don't agree (personally find the game boring as hell, but that's me), but if you're only reason for not trying the Total War game is "it was buggy as shit at release", and you like New Vegas, maybe give it a try?

I've played the first Rome: TW game, it was the 2nd one I skipped because it was apparently buggy as hell and had other significant sounding issues. I didn't realize until today that it was apparently patched up....like a lot.

Crusader Kings 2 might be worth a look. The base game is free but it can get expensive with all the dlc. You control your ruler and they live their whole life(or die as a child) you marry and commit adultery, you go to war for your kingdom, you have children and the heir inherits, you can raid as a pagan or tribal or you can be more 'civilised' as a feudal christian and ask the pope to give you the right to invade, you can be a mongolian. Your kingdom might be divided evenly between your sons when you die so you might play on as one of the sons trying to reunite a kingdom.

You can also go about being peaceful, building and taking care of your family. Or you can dedicate yourself to war. You can go crusading or you can reform your own pagan religion into something that can fight back against christianity or join up with it.With expansions you can even go further east and deal with islam and buddhism rather than christianity at all and try to get Chinas favour so that you might get chinese knowledge.

A lot of it is text based and you spend most of your time staring a big map of Europe so its not for everyone I think. But it's definitely the 'live in another age' game that springs to mind for me.

I've played CK2 and I agree it's good(if hard as hell to figure out), but it's also not the Ancient World, which is normally defined as being concurrent with the Roman Empire and earlier. Yeah, I know there's some discussion about the whole Eastern half off the Empire lasting another millennium until it was eventually whittle away to nothing in the 15th century, but for all intents and purposes, the ancient world ended and the medieval world started around the 5th century CE.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I remember it getting a ton of shit at release for being buggy and...a bunch of other things, though per TVTROPES apparently the game has been significantly improved from it's release state.

I've heard it also has a problem where corruption basically murders all your income after a certain point in the game. Is that an overstated issue or been patched(or is there a workaround for that)? Admittely this was years ago I heard this so maybe it's no longer an issue.

As others have noted, it got cleaned up a lot with the Imperator edition and refined further since. What gets the community's back up now is the (many) years post-release DLC's that screwed over faction unlock mods.

Re: Corruption, depends on which difficulty you play at. I play on H/H to VH/H (VH battle difficulty is a ballache) and it's not that bad.

If you play as the game was intended to be played and don't auto-resolve everything (regrettably, it will probably never shake its reputation as 'Total War: Auto-Resolve') with cheap, high MD unit spam, it can be pretty fun, though the sieges aren't great.

However, it's got a couple of expansions that may be of interest, Hannibal at the Gates (obvious setting is obvious) and the Peloponnesian Wars that go back as far or further. Gameplay for the latter can get a bit same-y as it's pretty much purely hoplites vs hoplites, until you pick a fight with the Persians, that is (the core four city states are the playable factions).

You may be interested in TWSagas: Troy which is coming out in a few days time. Free on release day (only) on Epic (exclusive, blech, but whatever), releasing on Steam next year. Trojan Wars, as you'd expect, but it takes a lot of cues from TW:WH/TW:3K Romance mode for having single entity hero characters. Campaign looks pretty intriguing because of the resource management, though battles leave a fair bit to be desired (personal impression only).

 

[meiam]

As others have noted, it got cleaned up a lot with the Imperator edition and refined further since. What gets the community's back up now is the (many) years post-release DLC's that screwed over faction unlock mods.

Re: Corruption, depends on which difficulty you play at. I play on H/H to VH/H (VH battle difficulty is a ballache) and it's not that bad.

If you play as the game was intended to be played and don't auto-resolve everything (regrettably, it will probably never shake its reputation as 'Total War: Auto-Resolve') with cheap, high MD unit spam, it can be pretty fun, though the sieges aren't great.

However, it's got a couple of expansions that may be of interest, Hannibal at the Gates (obvious setting is obvious) and the Peloponnesian Wars that go back as far or further. Gameplay for the latter can get a bit same-y as it's pretty much purely hoplites vs hoplites, until you pick a fight with the Persians, that is (the core four city states are the playable factions).

You may be interested in TWSagas: Troy which is coming out in a few days time. Free on release day (only) on Epic (exclusive, blech, but whatever), releasing on Steam next year. Trojan Wars, as you'd expect, but it takes a lot of cues from TW:WH/TW:3K Romance mode for having single entity hero characters. Campaign looks pretty intriguing because of the resource management, though battles leave a fair bit to be desired (personal impression only).

Oh and if you haven't played 3 kingdom do so, its one of the best total war.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Oh and if you haven't played 3 kingdom do so, its one of the best total war.

Not played it personally (craptop isn't good enough, barely keeps up with TW:WH2) but I've heard it's pretty polished with a solid campaign, but on VH+ it's a struggle to go toe to toe with Yuan Shao because he confeds his neighbours like there's no tomorrow.

I do feel it suffers from the same issues of diversity as S2:TW because it's a single culture setting, every roster is the same with stat tweaks making the campaign experience more or less the same with only a couple outliers who buff their specialised unit more (like Ma Teng/Chao, can't remember which, for cavalry).

 

[Dalisclock]

You may be interested in TWSagas: Troy which is coming out in a few days time. Free on release day (only) on Epic (exclusive, blech, but whatever), releasing on Steam next year. Trojan Wars, as you'd expect, but it takes a lot of cues from TW:WH/TW:3K Romance mode for having single entity hero characters. Campaign looks pretty intriguing because of the resource management, though battles leave a fair bit to be desired (personal impression only).

For some reason I'd blanked on the TW: Troy and I am looking forward to that. I'm hoping it ends up being as good as it sounds like it could be.

 

[SckizoBoy]

For some reason I'd blanked on the TW: Troy and I am looking forward to that. I'm hoping it ends up being as good as it sounds like it could be.

Despite my initial reservations and kneejerk response to the Epic exclusive deal, it does look like it's shaping up pretty well, particularly on the campaign front. I will say that my disappointment with the battles remains, with single skin units, meh animations and rather last gen looking skins to begin with.

Though it would have required a lot more by way of resources to get the dual mode, they could have gone further with the Romance/Records mode and done full historical (characters within a small bodyguard unit, kill them, same Immortality deal as they would be as a single entity and completely grounded in archaeological knowledge of the era etc.) and full mythological (Age of Mythology, basically, blessings of patron gods with animations to match, change the unique units into what they're labelled as). From this the same hype would have gotten CA a bigger crowd for this game, IMO. But then, limit on available resources and all that...

 

[SckizoBoy]

Come to think about it, there was also Spartan: Total Warrior, from CA as well, though it had mixed reviews (not to mention, it's a damned old game now). A hack n slash hash up of Greek & Roman mythology, it's utterly a-historical tho, but that's not really the point given how hokey it is.

 

[meiam]

Not played it personally (craptop isn't good enough, barely keeps up with TW:WH2) but I've heard it's pretty polished with a solid campaign, but on VH+ it's a struggle to go toe to toe with Yuan Shao because he confeds his neighbours like there's no tomorrow.

I do feel it suffers from the same issues of diversity as S2:TW because it's a single culture setting, every roster is the same with stat tweaks making the campaign experience more or less the same with only a couple outliers who buff their specialised unit more (like Ma Teng/Chao, can't remember which, for cavalry).

I think they toned down Yuan Shao confederation madness since release, but year it was pretty crazy so I'd usually kill him pretty quick. Would really suck when he'd absord your ally or an enemy you were about to finish off.

The same roster for everyone is true when compared to warhammer, but if you compare to medieval/rome then it's not that different, everyone has a couple of unique units and the yellow turban rebellion has completely unique rooster.