Spartan focuses on one of the most influential civilizations – the Ancient Greeks and allows players to choose from 100 nations to lead to victory, including Sparta, renowned for its dedication to the art of war and for producing the ultimate fighting machine – the Spartan Hoplite - most famous for the courageous last stand of 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480BC.Spartan contains many improvements and enhancements over the previous two games and features:
- Over 100 historically researched nations, each with a varying number of settlements and cities
- Hundreds of buildings and city improvements, utilising nine different resources such as gold, marble, copper and grain
- Heroic leaders to inspire soldiers and lead armies in the field.
- Philosophers and scientists able to research dozens of different technologies.
- Over 40 different troop types across 10 ethnic and cultural groups
- The option to fight interactive battles on a 3D map.
- Cities that can be besieged to weaken them before an assault and catapults that hurl Greek Fire at the armies as they attack
- A fully rendered and authentically accurate campaign map of ancient Greece around 400BC
- A new multiplayer option which incorporates an unique AAM (always active multiplayer) feature for two players over LAN or GameSpy®
- Spies and diplomats that can broker trade deals, non-aggression pacts, alliances and undertake covert operations.
- Naval movement, battles and amphibious invasions.
- Roman, Persian or Barbarian invaders.
- A reactive stock market that allows players to trade resources.
Bob Malin Just Play's Brand Manager offered:
"Slitherine software have done a great job with Spartan, and achieved every milestone they were set on time, which is a real rarity in this industry. We now aim to capitalise on the increased interest in Ancient Greece generated by the various movies scheduled for release in 2004 that are set in the period, such as Troy and Gates of Fires which re-creates the battle of Thermopylae"
JD McNeil, Slitherine Strategies' Business Manager further stated:
"We are pleased to have delivered Spartan on time, and that we are launching at a good time of the year. The marketing is timed to coincide well with the release, with magazine previews, Full page advertisements in the specialist PC and tabletop wargaming magazines and a cover-mounted demo appearing just prior to the scheduled street date. Initial feedback has been good; indeed, Worthplaying.com, described Spartan as: "Civilisation with a 3D battle engine...", which is precisely what we are trying to achieve."
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