Chariots of War

PC review by Anthony Karge - Saturday 28th June 2003

Thanks to various strategy games we have experienced many periods of time, both fiction and fantasy. We’ve defended Julius Caesar’s domination of the ancient world, we’ve stopped alien invasions and we have also saved the world from chaos in WWII. In Chariots of War we get to visit the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, in ancient times. Much like the area in modern days, in the past it was rife with conflict and Chariots of War tries to digitalize the conquest and defeat that was commonplace in that ancient time.



At first glance, the game appears to be very similar to Civilization III. Both titles are turn-based strategy games, but the similarities don't stop there. Your armies and towns are shown a huge map and in order to be successful you must conquer other towns and maintain resources in order to upgrade your towns into cities and keep the inhabitants happy. That's just the basic gist of the game, once you become accustomed to Chariots of War things get deeper and more unique.

The town management is one of CoW's strongest points. The happier the inhabitants are, the harder they'll work. Everyone wants to live in a good town, so the population will increase faster in jubilant settlements There are a variety of buildings to construct, ranking from barracks to forts to resource increasing farms, lumber yards and the like. The greater the population, the more people you have to assign to gather resources. Keeping your inhabitants satisfied is key. Managing the towns is simple, yet at the same time deep. Excuse my poor excuse at profoundness.



Creating an empire is impossible without bloodshed, so invading other nations is necessary to sustain a growing population. Judging from the screen shots of the game, the battles appear to be real time, sort of like Rise of Nations or Command and Conquer, but in actuality they are more akin to chess. Before each battle you assign each squad of units a position, formation and attack strategy. When you’re ready, the set-up screen switches to a battlefield. The units move solely based on how their formation was assigned in the previous screen. You have no control over what they do and all you can do is watch.

At first this is frustrating. “Why can’t I move my troops” is a question that constantly came into mind during the first few battles. Once you get over the fact you cannot control them mid-battle, the battles become more enjoyable. Relying on nothing but tactics and planning is delightful; something that is missing in more trigger-happy strategy games. There is a problem though- after playing for a few hours I began to dislike the battles again. Planning them was still fun, but each battle scene takes too long and quickly become repetitive. If there was an option for the computer to decide who won the battle without having to watch a drawn-out battle scene every time it would have been splendid. Too bad such a thing does not exist in Chariots of War.



War isn’t always the answer. Sometimes diplomacy is needed. The ambassador and trade screens are well designed. While in other games you can see what other nations think of you by just the touch of a button, in CoW you must send an ambassador to a nation and wait to see whether or not they tolerate you. It’s a bit more work than I’m accustomed to, but I enjoyed the enhanced realism. The trade screen is incredibly easy to use, you just pick how many of the nine resources you want to buy or sell. Simplicity at its finest.

There are many different plans of action to take since the campaign levels are simply enormous. While Civilization III had less than ten nations in a level, Chariots of War usually has at least twenty. You can play as one of 58 different nations, but each one doesn’t vary much from the other. With the exception of a couple distinctive units and their name, not much is unique. The campaigns are fairly challenging, even on the easiest settings. If you don’t conquer towns fast, it’s almost impossible to win. It does not help that nations usually attack you before they do anyone else. This is great for strategy fans that are looking for a challenge but casual strategy gamers and newbies will have a difficult time with this game.



Aside from the fairly high difficulty, there are a few other problems with CoW. First of all, there are no keyboard shortcuts. Having to constantly move the mouse around and clicking on different buttons is a hassle. Another thing holding this game is the lack of intimacy between the player and the nation they pick. If there was someway to see a picture of rulers of the nation or perhaps more information given about the nation then it would have been easier to connect with the nation’s struggle at dominance. A few facts are given at the beginning of the campaign, but the two short paragraphs barely provide anything. Another downer is that there is no multiplayer.

Fortunately,the game can run on the barest of computers with its humble requirement of only 64Mb of RAM. The world map looks average and a few more animations such as clouds, weather, etc. would have added much more life to it. The amount of units fighting in the battles is impressive. Usually hundreds of soldiers fight in a battle without out any slowdown. The units would have benefited visually with more variety, but considering the minimum specs required to run the game, the graphics are surprisingly serviceable.



Things are sparse sound-wise. There are a few different grunts and groans during battles, but once again more variety would have helped. However, the music is incredibly good. Each song has a worldly feel to it, and the battle music does a great job of increasing the tension. The only problem is that the transition from song to song usually sounds awkward and distracting.

Chariots of War is a solid game, but it cannot compete with the big games in the genre. Everything in the game is easy to learn, but the way the computer usually gangs up on you makes the game more challenging than it needs to be. As it stands, I’d recommend this game to strategy fans with a weak computer or to a hardcore strategy nut that is already bored with Rise of Nations and Civilization III.

Thunderbolt score: seven out of ten

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