Review by: Troy Goodfellow

As talented and brilliant and amazing a general as Alexander the Great was, you could probably make a case that his father had done the really hard work that made Alexander's conquest of Persia possible. Philip built an army that combined arms and ingenuity in a way that no Hellenic army had before him. It was Philip who crushed all the Greek states that stood against him, making a long expedition into Asia even possible. The fact that there were few serious uprisings from the usually fractious Greeks while Alexander was traipsing across the Near and Middle East speaks to the effectiveness of Philip's Greek policy.

Philip doesn't have the glow of prodigy about him, so we've had to wait a long time to see a game devoted to his reign and campaigns. And Hegemony: Philip of Macedon comes from an unexpected quarter. Canadian developer Longbow Digital Arts made a small name for itself with light arcade fare before jumping whole hog into the historical RTS market with this thirty dollar treat. It is a highly flawed and dangerously simple game that still manages to capture the difficulty of Philip's achievement, the looming threat of Persia and the general spirit of 4th century BC warfare. Though not perfect, Hegemony is one of the most pleasant surprises in the 2010 strategy game catalog.

This is a fully three dimensional RTS that incorporates city management, economics, food supplies and combat on a huge map of the Aegean region. Zoom in closely and it looks like a cut rate (but certainly passable) Age of Empires game. The map is dotted with mines and forts and your units awkwardly trundle from point to point. Zoom out, and the map turns into a parchment document with plastic counters and landscape dotted with iconography. The zoom is so smooth and natural that you never notice the transition from one mode to the other until it is accomplished.

Unlike Supreme Commander's strategic/tactical zoom levels, however, each view point here is useful for something different. There are tactical choices you can make at the closer zooms that can really matter in a close battle, and the board game look gives you an instant understanding of where the best place to cut a supply line could be. There is no sense that these visual tricks are simply there to awe and impress; there is a purpose.

Sadly, one purpose is putting out fires from unexpected fronts. There is a bit of a whack-a-mole approach to the game where one region will erupt or one city will rebel with little more motive than the plot demands it (the game is organized as a series of objectives) or because you don't have an army loitering. In some ways this is the the Creative Assembly Total War approach to limiting the player; if things are going too well it may be time to stir some trouble behind the lines. It can be frustrating, especially since the rules for why and when a city rebels take a while to discover.

Hegemony otherwise does a good job of capturing the nature of war in this time period. Large scale phalanx on phalanx battles were rare at this point, but often decisive. More important on the strategic level was sapping an enemy's ability to fight. Armies march on their stomachs, so they need to have a secure line to a food supply or carry some food with them. If your army is besieging a large city without these supplies, you can see your troops fade away. Enemy raiders prefer burning farms to capturing them. You can force captured enemy soldiers to slave away on mines and fort construction teams, keeping your income stable and your supply lines secure.