More RTS games should do this:

[TehMac]

The game is called Hegemony and here's the release trailer

I've been following the development of this game for three years now, and in many ways, it's what I want more rts game developers to start doing.

The only other game that comes close to this is the knights of Honor game which did...fairly well (sold 500k copies I think?) The studio was then bought by none other than CryTek which put the studio to work on an MP-focused RTS game, Outlands I think, which didn't do very well.

Hegemony and Knights of Honor are very similar in that both are massive Real Time Strategy games with several tiers of playing field. Knights of Honor is a real time Total War game basically, with loading screens separating battle views and the Campaign map view.

Hegemony however, features a Supreme Commander like seemless zoom between battlefields, campaign maps, and possibly city building, but the city building part may be more of a "city view." Point is, you use your middle mouse button to zoom all around like Supreme Commander, which I find very appealing.

I'd definitely like to see that more, and Hegemony looks like a really cool game.

 

[TheStu]

When is it slated to come out?

 

[TehMac]

well hegemony is out right now. Knights of Honor has been out since 2006.

 

[schneiderguy]

I like the campaign view. The actual combat shown near the end looks a little strange. Is it realtime?

 

[TehMac]

I like the campaign view. The actual combat shown near the end looks a little strange. Is it realtime?

yea, it's all real time...from what I understand

 

[heat901]

I will admit I ended up pirating Knights of Honor a while back because no store carried it and steam didnt sell it at the time. I will have to say it is a good rts and I wish it got more PR because I think a sequel would have ruled!

 

[Barfo]

I don't want RTS games to do that.

 

[TehMac]

I don't want RTS games to do that.

care to explain or are you just trolling?

 

[dud]

Thanks OP for posting this. I love good RTS games and simulations. I am going to try these. I use RTS games (Homeworld is my all-time favorite) to keep my mind sharp.

 

[JD50]

Looks interesting, does anyone have this?

 

[TehMac]

So guys, you can get the Demo of Hegemony off their website here:

http://www.longbowgames.com/hegemony/
The website has some screenshots, intros to what the game is about
Demo link

I downloaded the demo, finished it in around an hour and a half because I wanted to explore the concepts and get a feel for the game. Here are my impressions:

I felt the camera controls were kinda awkward at times, my view of the map changed depending on how I was zoomed. I think it'd be better if they skipped the stylistic map and just let you zoom out more like Supreme Commander, but I think the engine these guys programmed would shit itself. That said, the engine is very smooth, I didn't encounter any bugs, and I think the concept itself is fascinating, if a little complicated right now.

However, I believe the AI was scripted in the demo to only attack at certain times, because it was more of a tutorial I think. Some of the concepts were unnecessarily complicated, like how you could only setup a trade network between two cities--there was no UI bar that let you manage trade with all your cities.

I did like how you could block off trade routes between cities, and routes between mines and the cities they're delivering their stuff to. The routes were traveled by self-controlled caravans reminiscent of Total War, but they could be physically halted by a battle or enemy troops. Once the threat was eliminated, they resumed their journey.

Some of it felt a little irritating. I felt like balancing the budget was annoying...I couldn't get my income to match my expenses.

A lot of it was very micromanagement, like sometimes a city would run out of food so you'd have to get some worker units to go to a farm, load up with food (click the option for them to Load Food) and then when they reached full capacity, you had to send them to Unload Food at the city

There isn't much city building. if you capture fleeing enemy troops, they become slaves. If left unattended, they may run away or even rebel! Workers are more reliable but cost food/population points. There isn't any city building, or at least none I could see. Cities are where you train troops, the only interaction your workers have with cities in regard to building anything is walls around the city which double the gold output and population points.

Workers only really serve for collecting food in farms and then distributing the food to a city that has run out of food (this is where a separate UI tab for macro'ing this kinda thing would be nice to ensure that cities avoid running out of food). Workers also can be assigned to work in mines.

Feelings
It's pretty realistic, but sometimes rather annoying, and more so, why couldn't I just set up a macro where each city automatically provides for another? Why can't I trade with cities outside of my empire? I mean the game is vastly ambitious considering only 4 people worked on it. Its the only game of its type out there, ever!

Final Thoughts
Considering 4 people worked on this, I am dead-smacked impressed. This is really well done, but it does not have the graphical forte of the Total War series.
Combat too is rather lackluster, there being a limited amount of units per civ/faction (hoplites/spearmen variants) and the formations are kind of irrelevant. That said, it is entertaining maunerving your troops around your land. Another thing is the scale of it all--the scale is rather abstract (formations of troops may be wider than an entire city as it appears all the way zoomed in).

If it had the budget, a slightly larger team this game would make me jizz. Right now, it just makes my mind race about the possibilities of future Real Time Strategy Games.

Verdict
I have seen the future, and it works, but needs polishing!

 

[DominionSeraph]

I don't want RTS games to do that.

Same.

Tactical combat and civilization simulation take place on two different time scales. You can't have them occur together without ruining the immersion with retardation like two squads standing there poking each other with sticks for hundreds of years or building a Wonder in one day.

If you're on a tactical level, realistically, the civilization economy is irrelevant. A battle is fought with what you can field at that time, not with what you could have in two years. Pulling back from combat to micromanage a single farm or set up a trade route doesn't make sense on a tactical timescale.