Reviewed: May 22, 2007
Reviewed by: John DeWeese
Publisher
Strategy First
Developer
Indie Games Productions
Released: March 16, 2007
Genre: Strategy
Players: 1-4
ESRB: Everyone
5
5
5
6
5.7
System Requirements
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Contrary to popular belief, The Dark Ages was not just a time of rampaging Vikings and absolute barbarism. It was also an era when small tribes would carve vast kingdoms out of the ancient Roman Empire and lay the groundwork for the Europe we know today.
Great Invasions: The Dark Ages "350-1066 AD" is one of the first computer games to take an incredibly detailed look at the 700 years between the fall of Rome and the Norman conquest of England. Sure, Age of Empires II and the Total War series broadly covered the Dark Ages by allowing gamers a chance to command the infamous Huns, Vikings, and Goths. But Great Invasions takes things one step further by allowing you to control the destiny of 80 different factions, including such little known tribes as the Jutes, Avars, and Gepids.
The good news about Great Invasions is the game’s incredible historical detail. You can experience 150 historically accurate events throughout a campaign and encounter over 3,700 key historical figures. The game mechanics are very similar to the Europa Universalis series, which is little surprise since Great Invasions’ designer is Philippe Thibaut, the man who designed the original Europa Universalis board game.
The bad news is gameplay can sometimes be as much fun as writing a 200-page research paper. Great Invasions suffers from a clunky user interface and a steep learning curve. The game also combines the worst elements of real-time and turn-based strategy as you try to grapple with heresies, invasions, and special events while the clock is ticking. Even the graphics seem dated, although in all fairness Great Invasions was released in Europe more than a year ago.
First of all, Great Invasions drops new players into the midst of things without so much as a proper tutorial. There is a beginning scenario where you can practice game concepts while conquering the British Isles, but you’ll still spend probably the first 4 or 5 hours just figuring out how to play the game. The game manual has some tips to get you started, but at a mere 24 pages it doesn’t begin to cover half of what you need to know.
Secondly, the user interface is horrible. Units are difficult to command and critical game controls are buried under several layers of sub-menus. For example, I spent a good 20 minutes just trying to get a stack of infantry to board a transport before finally realizing I had to click on the tiny “board ship” icon in the bottom left corner. My final complaint is the game timer, which I found myself constantly speeding up time to move troops halfway across the map only to frantically slow things down when those troops entered combat. This title really should have been turn-based instead of being a real-time strategy hybrid.
This is not to say that Great Invasions is a complete failure. The game offers interesting diplomacy and combat features, and the historical scenarios are well balanced. When you begin a new game, you start not just as one nation but as a “team” of factions. This reflects the fact that empires will rise and fall and that small tribes will often get annihilated. Some of the team match-ups make perfect sense (the Eastern and Western Roman Empires are one team) while others are just strange (the Persians and Scots are on the same team). You can even purchase new factions with the victory points you’ll earn through conquest, trade, and diplomacy.
Combat is pretty straightforward – everything is auto-resolved with the winner holding a territory and the loser forced to retreat. You’ll gain bonuses for having the most troops, terrain, and for having superiority in one or more areas. For example, if your troop stack contains a great general and more cavalry than the enemy’s stack, then you would get both the leadership and the cavalry superiority bonus. If a battle isn’t going your way, you can play a limited number of stratagems that give you mercenary reinforcements or a lucky assassination of an enemy general. While on campaign you also have to worry about attrition, especially if it’s winter time or your army is besieging a city. Barbarian factions seem to suffer less attrition, but more civilized nations have to maintain armies with logistic points.
Great Invasions really shines when it comes to the diplomacy and religious system. As your kingdom or empire grows, you can start embassy missions to rival factions. Not only can you sign straight alliances, but you can also enter into marriage treaties, demand tribute, or hire out a barbarian nation to work for your empire as mercenaries. You also have a number of options if you’re losing a war, including buying off attacking barbarians and agreeing to become a temporary vassal of a more powerful enemy.
Religion goes hand-in-hand with your diplomacy, as you’ll need to use churches or mosques to keep unrest down at home and missionaries to stir up trouble in neighboring regions. You can even use idle armies to “convert by the sword” or launch jihads if you’re playing a Muslim faction. Since this game is set during the golden age of Islam, the Sunnis and Shiites are often just as powerful as the Catholic or Orthodox churches.
The economic system seems to be the most simplified part of the game, although in all fairness the game is set in the Dark Ages. If you’re a civilized nation you can slowly build up city structures, farms and mines but if you’re a barbarian the most you can do is plunder. Trade is for the most part handled by the computer. Civilized areas receive more gold from AI-controlled caravans and ships, although any major city is just one barbarian attack away from being reduced back to wilderness.
Great Invasions looks dated even for a small budget strategy game. The one graphical high point is the map, which is beautifully decorated with medieval symbols and sketches. Army units look like they belong in Warcraft II or the original Age of Empires, not in a game being released in 2007. But my biggest complaint is how busy the screen can get if you have multiple units or events taking place in the same province. While there is a zoom function, keeping track of multiple battles can still be confusing at times.
Not much to say about the sound. The music is passable if a little repetitive. Sound effects can get annoying, especially the screech of seagulls whenever you click on a fleet. All in all, the game’s sound seems as old school as the graphics.
I will praise the developers for creating a game with so much historical accuracy. If you’re able to overcome the steep learning curve, Great Invasions offers quite a bit of replay value as you try different stratagems and lead different nations. You can also play LAN multiplayer games against four opponents if you tire of computer adversaries.
The problem is only the most hardcore strategy gamer will likely be willing to put in the considerable time and effort to learn this game. If you love the Europa Universalis series and are interested in the Dark Ages, you might consider picking up Great Invasions. I’d tell any other strategy lover to look elsewhere.
This title succeeds in its mission to be one of the most detailed and historically accurate recreations of the Dark Ages. But a clunky interface and lack of tutorial made an already complex game almost impossible for new players to pick up and enjoy. The mid-90s quality graphics puts Great Invasions further behind the power curve in a genre now dominated by visually stunning games like Medieval II, Age of Empires III, and Civilization IV.
In the end Great Invasions fails to live up to its name and may soon end up a footnote in gaming history.