Strategos is marching under the MicroProse banner now

A lot of water has flowed under the Ponte Tally-Ho since I first swapped emails with Gabe, the AI specialist behind promising swords-and-sandals wargame, Strategos. Keen to catch-up, I recently quizzed him about a range of topics including project progress, publishing deals, and potential era shifts.

THC: Why did you decide to join forces with MicroProse?

Gabe: The reputational, financial, and developmental support are all crucial to getting Strategos finished and noticed.

THC: Which aspect of Strategos is dominating your thoughts and fingers at present?

Gabe: I’m currently integrating new maps and updating the Alexander campaign, and I’m also always making tweaks to the AI, quality of life improvements, performance improvements, and bug fixes.

THC: Since we last spoke, what’s been your most satisfying achievement coding-wise?

Gabe: Probably the main achievement has been systematically overhauling the code architecture for the movement and formation coordination of soldiers, unit pathfinding, and other optimizations that have nearly doubled the performance since July. The AI has also improved immensely, both in its deployment of different army types and its behavior, especially intelligent flanking, skirmishing, and the use of reserves. We’ve also added the first campaign since then.

THC: Wargame campaigns in the form of linear mission sequences can prove frustrating. Is there a danger less able/tenacious players won’t get to experience the end of your campaign?

Gabe: This is always a danger with any game campaign, but I think that a combination of practice and mastering mechanics from the player’s perspective, as well as difficulty settings, should let the average wargamer get there eventually. Difficulty can always be tweaked with feedback as well, of course.

THC: Right now which of your 120 factions is a) the hardest to play, and b) your personal favourite?

Gabe: Non-light infantry bowmen factions like Nabatea or Meroitic Kushite that are reliant on non-evading foot shooters, with weak melee infantry in support, can be the most difficult to get the hang of. You need to understand how to set up your units to maximize shooting effectiveness while protecting your bowmen with your spears in a way that does not block the firing of those bowmen too badly. However, once mastered, they can play very effectively.

My personal favourite faction? I tend to enjoy classic Hellenistic armies of pikemen and lancer cavalry, with a huge variety of support troops that differ greatly across them. Their ability to pin almost any force in the open, defeat most cavalry on the flanks (or at least hold them off with elephants), and have enough support troops to skirmish and occupy terrain, make them versatile and interesting. I also have a soft spot for the characteristic light cavalry of the army of Tarentum, using them to drive off enemy lights, and skirmish and cohesion drop enemy nonlight cav before diving in to flank and rout them, in support of an otherwise mediocre hoplite spear line, is always a fun and challenging combination.

THC: I don’t think I’ve seen any rain or chariots in your screenshots. Are weather and wheeled war machines on your To Do list?

Gabe: I’d love to get chariots in, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll be completed in time to make it into the base game of Strategos, or if they’ll have to wait for a later DLC that includes the likes of the Ancient British. For now, the time period and regions covered by the game aren’t in dire need of chariots, but they would be a nice-to-have.

As the concentration is on major pitched field battles, which were often met almost by mutual agreement in an open field on a clear day, inclement weather is not currently a focus of development. It would not be terribly difficult to add some weather effects (both visually and on unit capabilities), but for the moment, I don’t think it would benefit the core gameplay of Strategos much. But if it turns out to be highly desirable, I may move it up on the To Do list.

THC: Would you describe your approach to AI coding as orthodox?

Gabe: No, especially as orthodox video game AI coding is more focused on bots for action games that use behavior trees or some such code that is appropriate to the movement of an individual fighter. Men in a formation of hundreds, in armies of thousands, in ancient warfare move and make decisions in a qualitatively distinct way from individual soldiers in a modern FPS-type context. Here, the AI must focus on maintaining formation, orienting toward the player’s center of mass, wide flanking maneuvers, keeping reserves, protecting flanks, taking into account delayed orders and un-commandable states of units, and the morale of the army as a whole in a way that doesn’t have a parallel in most video game AI code.

THC: How flexible is your AI? Would it be relatively straightforward to adapt it for other eras such as the musket & pike, or Napoleonic?

Gabe: The AI is flexible enough to encompass different behaviors for hoplite, pike, horse archer, lancer, bowmen, warrior and warband, Hellenistic, Roman, and more army types, and I think could readily be extended to medieval, and even pike and shot, warfare. Napoleonic and US Civil War era combat though is more about the operational level of warfare, with longer distance maneuvers that are not on the same level of granularity as Strategos, which is more of a purely tactics game, so I don’t see Strategos: Napoleon coming out any time soon.

THC: Strategos is sure to be played by people new to Ancients wargaming. If you had to give these novices three sentences of tactical advice, what would those three sentences be?

Gabe: 1. This is not a high APM game, so take your time, use pause, understand how the courier delays and waypoint queuing work, and think about the orders you give.

2. You must take into account the un-commandable states and autonomous nature of charging, shooting, combat, pursuing, and evading, and be prepared with backup plans and reserves in case things go in an unpredicted direction.

3. The balance is orthogonal, historical balance, and not arbitrary, symmetrical multiplayer balance, so lean in to the strengths of your army, which may mean smashing your warband headlong into the front of the enemy, or it may mean trading space for time to maximize the effect of your horse archers, and so on.

THC: Solo wargame developers seldom seem to have much time for playing other PC wargames. What was the last computer wargame you played, and did you enjoy yourself?

Gabe: The last computer wargame I played was a few rounds of Field of Glory II: Medieval, and yes, I thoroughly enjoyed myself as I always do with FoG.

THC: Thank you for your time.