Praetorians

Praetorians is one of those ancient times, as we mentioned before, where some ancient tribe worshipped an ancient God: a warrior with the serpent skull for his head. In a highly strategic real-time strategy game, you must build your kingdom from scratch, building the military, protecting the world from a deadly empire, and protecting the precious honor of the gods. In the history of Praetorians, you can play as either the good or the evil. Your objective in the game is to manage your kingdom's diplomatic relations with its neighboring kingdoms, which include in-game diplomacy. You can also take your own strategy to certain victory conditions.

Vivendi Universal Games recently sent GameSpot an in-depth demonstration of Praetorians, an isometric action game that features real-time strategy elements, some of which are shown in the video. The game is set in ancient Egypt, and you take command of the Egyptians, who are using the powerful magic of the Gods to turn their people into heroes. The Egyptians in the game are based on religion and magic, as well as technologies that aid in your diplomacy with your neighbors. The game has all the trappings of an action game, with large, complex 3D battlefields that have you battling it out with your troops in real time. We saw a clash between the Egyptians and the German empire in a battle that took place during a transitional period between Egypt and Rome, and it seemed as though players might be able to control their military force in a full-scale strategy game.

After choosing a few units to take into battle, the game takes a dramatic turn. The battlefield we saw is divided into segments, which represent each portion of a large, complex battle. While there's a standard gameplay and control setup for each segment, the different aspects of the battle require strategy. If you're more concerned with capturing enemy cities than fighting for control of temples, for example, then you'll need to focus on either the Egyptian or German troops. Otherwise, though, you'll spend most of your time as a member of a larger group. Your personal computer-controlled troops are capable of performing a variety of actions--ranging from firing a shot with a spear to hunkering down to throwing dynamite with a charge from a bazooka--and you'll need to coordinate your attacks against AI-controlled foes as best you can. The setup works in a way that allows you to fine-tune your strategy to one aspect of your battle strategy:

One of the most intriguing elements of the game is the notion of war. You will control all of the units in a battle, and each unit in your squad will have a set of abilities that you can leverage in combat. Some units will specialize in one of three disciplines: archery, which increases your accuracy and firing rate; air support, which reduces the amount of damage that a soldier takes; and support, which gives your troops a greater chance to take out wounded enemies. You can also specialize in one of five different types of units: melee fighters, tanks, bikes, and scouts. The different types of units you can control in battle will be very different from those in other RTS games, though there's a new way to play with them.

In fact, a traditional RTS campaign will feature three single-player campaigns that tell the story of each of these groups. We'll be seeing the full English language campaign in each of the campaigns, and we'll be playing with the English language as well. To the surprise of anyone who's never played a strategy game before, the good news is that the campaign will feature several single-player missions that cover the first half of the war. You'll also get to see how the East African nations fought in World War II. In fact, we'll even get a good look at how each nation's campaign ends.

There are two campaign modes available in the single-player campaign. The first is a one-player mode that covers the basics of unit management in a game. This mode will let you set up units from all around the world, and you can choose which campaign events to play in and have them play from their perspective. You'll also be able to create your own campaign scenarios, which will include each of the four sides, as well as letting you design the game's difficulty levels for an even harder challenge.

The second mode is multiplayer, which will let you play a round of one of the game's four factions against up to four friends in six different maps, each of which features a few different multiplayer modes. The modes we saw seemed straightforward enough, although some of them were obviously designed to make things more interesting than playing them straight. The first game had a standard deathmatch mode where the goal was to destroy the opposing team's base, while the second game had players holding in place and holding flags in place to defend their own. The only mode we were able to play was one that allowed for team play, though it was available to us for a short time after.