Ancient Wars: Sparta

List Price: $39.99 Discount Price: $9.97

Features:

• Gripping storyline based on realistic historical settings around 500 to 450 BC
• Play three different nations to conquer the ancient world
• Command armies with a huge variety of units, ships, chariots and siege weapons
• 27 challenging missions in beautifully rendered full 3D landscapes and environments
• Unique unit design: Arm your warriors yourself from a vast choice of weapons

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Fun Game, However, Do NOT buy this game unless you are willing to use a Trainer [Posted on 2007-04-27]
"Ancient Wars: Sparta" has great graphics and physics.
The units look great too, and they look even better then Age of Empires 3's units.

You can customize your units with all kind of weapons.
You can mount your units on horses, camels, elephants and war ships.
You can build defensive walls and place your units on top of the walls.
All this plus great graphics makes it a fun game.

However, the most annoying thing about "Ancient Wars: Sparta" is the economy system.
It's too unbalanced. Gold is the most important resources but it's also the lowest speed resources builders can gather.
There is only one gold mine next to your base, and the number of gold mine workers is limited.
In addition to that your units, your buildings, and upgrades are way too expensive.
That's why it leads to the consequences: low-paced game play, which is the worst thing an RTS game can have.

You can customize your units - choose the weapon and shield for the unit as you like. But, since units and weapons are too expensive even for the lowest level warrior you will have to wait for a long time before you can enjoy the fight.

If that is not problematic enough, there is also the problem that the AI cheats as it knows where additional gold mines can be found, while you the player have to scout for them.
As a result, even "Easy" AI will collect double the gold that you will unless you play aggressively by finding these additional AI's gold mines, destroy them and build your own in their place.
However, that is easier said than done.

I have tried to play several skirmish games against "Easy" AI, and after 20 minutes of game play I was crushed every time by many AI units before I was able to train even a few units.

I then used the aggressive strategy of using my heroes to find the AI's gold mines and destroy them.
Only then I was able to beat the "Easy" AI.

Campaigns that require resource collection have the same issues.

The BEST way to enjoy this game is to download a "Trainer" from cheathappens(dot)com
Such trainer can give you unlimited gold and will solve this economic problem.
However, please note that the Trainer is going to be released to the public only on May 8th 2007.

This game has been reviewed by GameSpot and got 6.3 score.

If you use the trainer, then you can probably even play against 2 or 3 AI's and the game can then be fun.

If you wait a little you can probably buy this game in a few months for $20.
It costs $40 at day of release.
In 6 months the price may even go down to $10 just like it did for "ParaWorld" and "Rise and Fall".

"Rise and Fall" is not such bad game but the price falls down fast due to bad reviews.

So my suggestion is to get the trainer, or wait for the price to fall and maybe a patch will solve the economic issue, although I doubt they will fix that.

HOW CAN YOU GIVE IT A 1 STAR [Posted on 2007-05-07]
OF COURSE YOUR GONNA HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE GAME, U HAVE WINDOWS VISTA, ITS A NEW OPERATING SYSTEM THERE FOR ITS NOT GONNA WORK PROPERLY WITH EVERYTHING... DO U KNOW ANYTHING BOUT COMPUTERS AND SOFTWARE...

I DONT HAVE THE GAME YET BUT IM GONNA GET IT... I PLAYED A SAMPLE OF IT...

IF YOU HAVE WINDOWS VISTA U DONT NEED TO B PUTTING COMMENTS HERE

Ancient Wars: Sparta Is A Great Game! [Posted on 2007-05-07]
This is one of those games that slipped under the radar screen. This game should get a lot higher reviews than what it has been getting. If you like the Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth, Rise of Nations, Empire Earth, or Age of Empires series of games you will end up loving this game. This game has got so much cool stuff. This game takes place during ancient times in the Mediterranean area.

In Single Player, there are three campaigns to play. You can play the Spartans campaign, the Eygptians campaign, or the Persians campaign. There are ten missions in each campaign.

The first thing I noticed was how great the graphics are in this game. The detail on everything is unbelievable. For instance, when I look at the different terrain in the game, you can actually see the shadows from the clouds overhead going across the surface of the land. Even when birds fly overhead, I can actually see the shadows of the birds on the ground while they fly by. The water looks just like real. When I look out at the water, I can actually see the reflection of the sun hitting the water.

There are all kind of animals in the game. You can see a cobra snake slide across the ground or see a rabbit hopping around. When you build sheep farms, you can actually see sheep wandering around. Same thing when you build stables. What is so cool is that you don't make horses with soldiers already mounted on the horses like you do in other games. You actually make the horses themselves and then you can mount any of your heroes or soldiers on top of the horses. I have never seen that in any game I have ever played before. When you build ships at your shipping docks, your ships are actually made with sailors actually working the oars of the ships. I have never seen that before in a game either.

The forts are so cool. You can build walls around your fort and then you can build gates so your units can come and go into your fort. You can put archers up on your walls to your fort so they can shoot down at the enemy down below on the ground. When you attack any enemy buildings, your units will use torches to burn the buildings down. If you have any enemy units try to burn down your buildings, you have laborers that actually use buckets of water to try to douse out the fires.

This game has a lot of replay value. If you like strategy games like I do, then I recommend for you to go out and buy this game. This is also a excellent way to learn about actual ancient history.

A Good Ancient Wars Game [Posted on 2007-06-08]
When I first tried the game I branded it as being little more than junk. However, after playing it a few times, I have since reconsidered and find the game to be a good ancient wars type of game. The graphics are really good, and will hold their own or surpass many games of this type. The game play is along the lines of AOE, Civilizations at war, etc., in that you gather resources, build your city and army up to a certain point, (If you last that long,) and wipe out the opposing side. The game is a bit lacking with only three civilizations to choose from, excluding India in the campaign scenarios and, you can become tired of playing the same three over and over again. Of course most of the fighting during that time was between the Persians and Greeks with some mixed minor clashes with the Egyptians so, this part is pretty much accurate. The maps could have been a bit larger as well and, even though the game does have an editor of sorts, if you know how to find it, it is difficult to use and was never intended for use by the general public to begin with. More maps and an easier to use streamlined editor and the addition of a few more civilizations in an upcoming patch or expansion package would do wonders for this game.

Sparta... [Posted on 2008-03-25]
According to my 7 year old son, this game is Awesome!!! We had trouble loading it into his dell, but I loaded it into my Gateway and it was perfect! It was a fast load and the graphics are better than I expected at such a low price!

And I must say, Wil @ Tragic Little PC was wonderful... He guided me through the steps I had to take to try & load it into our Dell and then let me know what the problem was and a solution all via email. I was very satisfied with this buy and the wonderful customer service @ Tragic Little PC. Thanks again Wil, from my son and I!

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