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by Kevin Kuphal Published: June 3, 2002
With a copy of Legion in my hand, I marveled first at the minimalistic size of the game and the meager requirements. Not expecting much in the way of graphics or eye candy, I was surprised by how much detail they packed into this tiny game. It's not that top of the line by any stretch, but certainly playable and pleasing to the eye. The game has obviously strived to differentiate itself from others by recreating historical situations with extensive accuracy. Using atlas information from the places represented (England, France, and Italy), you are given the choice of Historical or Alternate settings for each scenario. The historical settings are based on, as you would expect, historical situations where you are given the option of playing one of up to 20 different factions. With the alternate settings, you can customize certain aspects of the game so as not to get locked into replaying the same exact setup over and over again. First Contact I chose to jump right into the game with the Conquest of Britain and chose to be the Romans. After all, the game is called Legion and what is more popular than a Roman Legion? I started out with two minor towns in a corner of the island surrounded by 17 computer players. Very different from the vast expanse of uncharted territory that I'm used to finding in other turn based conquest games. Instead I'm obviously going to have to wage war to expand my territory. The game has what you would expect from a turn based empire manager. My city started with some structures already built such as a Village Hall, a Blacksmith, and a Mine. Your cities produce three resources in Legion: Food, Ore, and Wood. From these three, you must build your armies and your cities. One interesting building in my city was a Supply Dump. From the description, it is used to bring in men and supplies to assist in the invasion. My second city had a Farm, a Training Ground, and another Supply Dump.
City Management The city management screen is divided into sections. On the left are the people I can recruit to fight for me. This varies from city to city depending on the makeup of the town. In my first city, I could only recruit a unit known as the Auxilla while in the second I could recruit Peasants or a Legion. Each city has different starting resources which limited the choices of buildings I could add to improve them. Buildings ranged from the expected Farms, Lumber Yards, and Mines, to the typical Shrines and Training Grounds, to the unusual Bordellos (for attracting mercenaries). Each city had different options for buildings where one had Bordellos, the other had a Gladiator School. Buildings, other than costing supplies to build, had maintenance costs and production. A Farm, for example, cost Ore to build but produced 7 food per worker stationed there and had no maintenance costs. Certain buildings allowed you to put a number of your citizens to work in them to increase production of the product. An interesting aspect of the game is that certain building have negative maintenance and in essence naturally produce resources. Your village hall, for example, produces 5 of each resource while the supply dump produces 10. As such, the starting towns were not only well supplied with stores of each resource, but also had a positive flow of each resource coming from the buildings in them. Armies Each city started with a unit of three types: Velites which wielded spears, either Auxilla or Legion, and Equites which were calvary units. Each type of unit has a rating in four categories: Armor, Mobility, Organization, and Morale. These factors determine how a unit performs on the battle field and can determine how you send your troops into battle. Below is a table outlining some of the ratings of units in the game.
Recruiting armies isn't just buying them. The recruits come from your population and decrease the number of available workers in your city. As such, it is not a simple matter of "building" units as building your cities to have more people available for combat. The Campaign With ample resources and hostile neighbors, I decided to start my cities off on the right foot. I chose to construct a small fort in each town. This would give me an extra garrison squad for defense as well as the ability to recruit bigger units. I ended my first turn and nothing seemed to really happen. My cities grew a little but continued to work on their projects. I maxed out my workers in the one farm and the other mine. With one city having a good number of unused people, I decided to recruit some Auxilla and see about patrolling my borders. What's interesting is that each "turn" changed the season of the year, but it wasn't until the next year came that my unit was recruited and my forts built. City operations are done on a yearly basis while troop movement can occur in each "season". With my forts built, I noticed now that my cities lacked any open land to build more buildings on. Time to expand. I started construction on Town Hall to replace my meager Village Hall. But that was a serious expense that I did not have enough wood to build both at once. So instead I started it only in the larger town, letting the other recruit a Legion since I now had extra people in that city. And to pass the time, I marched my newly formed Auxilla across my holdings to meet up with the new Legion coming. At this time I noticed that I could upgrade my units (at a cost), probably due to my new forts. Feeling brass, I chose to do so for the units with the least cost since I was still low on wood. What I received was an increased capacity on the units. They were able to be larger now but appeared "hurt" on the screen. As the seasons passed, they "healed" those points and came to their full power. My second turn ended. I now had a Town Hall and more space to build on. I also had a bunch of new buildings to choose from such as a Bath House and a Watch Tower to increase my ability to see the enemy. Still with a wood supply problem, I chose instead the simple Lumber Yard. I noticed now also that my troop construction had dwindled my food supplies so I chose to expand my Farm to a Large Farm in my other city to compensate. Already the simple balance between food, ore, and wood was coming into play. I joined up my two armies and then noticed that my neighbors had units on the move as well although I could not tell what they were. As the turns progressed, I continued to build my cities and move my armies and noticed that my neighbors had started fighting each other. One of my closest even lost a city so I made up my mind to attack him and take his final city thinking he would be an easy target. Switching my Legion/Auxilla unit for the original city garrison with Equites, I advanced my unit across his borders and engaged his people. Combat Upon ordering the attack on his city, I was presented with the combat screen. Here I saw my three units vs. his single unit. I had some Equites, Velites, and Auxilla. For each unit I had a two sets of options: the formation and advancement options. The formation was pretty straightforward. For Equites and Velites I could choose one of two checkered patters. The Auxilla however had different options for lines, wedges, and other advanced formations. The advancement was the same for all units ranging from a normal advance, to a long hold and then advance to a rapid advance. I chose options I thought would work and let my men have at it. As it turns out I won and conquered his city. To my pleasure, I now had the option of recruiting archers for I had captured a Fletcher but now had an Ore production issue with the addition of the town to my empire. Summary While not overwhelming with advanced options and extraordinarily detailed management options, Legion excels in its simplicity. In representing historical scenarios, Legion also departs from the traditional exploration beginnings of most turn based simulation games and instead thrusts you immediately into managing your empire and constructing an army for defense and conquest. It is in this simple set of rules and the unusual implementation of combat resolution that makes this game worth playing. It is only the lack of a goal other than conquest that limits the scope and replayability of the game. But then, as a true combat turn based game, it is an excellent example. |
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