This review is based on the 1982 real time wargame from Chris Crawford for the Atari 800.
When I first read about the news of Chris Crawford’s newest game Legionnaire, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it as he was the designer of my two other favourite games being Scram (1980) and Eastern Front 1941 (1981). Chris’ games, known for creating outstanding simulations, this time reproduces the barbaric invasion against Caesar and the Romans. Using the classic Eastern Front engine, it has done a reasonable job recreating these wars as this is the first game that uses real time tactics (RTT). However the game’s engine is more designed for turn based and not for real time as the scrolling is a little too slow for comfort and issuing orders would benefit with a speedier approach.
So when starting out, you are greeted with the only map in the game so the layout will always be the same however each game, the troops layout are randomised on the map. So use this to your advantage as the moment you start the game, even though it may appear slow, there’s little room for error. For the Romans, there are ten legions to choose from and the barbarian sixteen tribes. Note that even though you can select which barbarian tribes to attack in the options, you cannot choose which legion to play. So the way the game was designed is that the first five legions are pretty much the toughest and then progressively gets weaker as you add on further legions (for the maximum of ten).
So what it all boils down to is that the more legions you have, the weaker the entire army as the barbarian tribes always start off with twice as much militias than your legions – that is, if you decided to have five legions then you will be facing ten barbarian tribes and so on. Also the barbarian tribes are split between infantry and cavalry of equal portions. So using the above example, five legions gives you five infantry / cavalry barbarian units. However you can choose which tribes to face off yet because of the split between cavalry / infantry, the maximum different tribes you’ll faceoff is two (one tribe for the cavalry and one for infantry).
Each of the sixteen tribes are described in detail in the manual and they all have their strength / weaknesses so it pays to analyse them to suit your playing style. The good news though, your main unit, Caesar is the toughest by far however he certainly cannot go on a solo rampage when up against the tougher barbarian tribes. So if you want the maximum difficulty, choose ten legions (as the latter four are really a joke) and play against the Huns / Helvetii. I have done this only twice and I got totally slaughtered to the nth degree. I feel that Chris Crawford added the Huns only for pure enjoyment knowing that anyone plays against them will get smashed. You need a lot of luck to defeat them and to the historical buffs out there, you are correct to say the Huns didn’t exist during Julius reign, or more to say, Attila.
As mentioned before, the game uses the Eastern Front engine however there are some changes made to ensure this game plays all in real time. The first is that now there are contour lines so height will play an advantage and also dictates the troop’s speed – that is, it will move slowly uphill. Also moving uphill will cause fatigue (dictated by the troop’s sword score) however can be replenished over time. Sadly there’s not much time to use as every second counts. The other troop’s score, men, is the total strength of the group so naturally the more, the better. Also there are no towns to trench into and you cannot pass through forests.
Yet there’s a downside as you don’t really know how fast your unit is or the rate of fatigue. Granted the manual tells you some troops are faster than others however that’s as far as it goes. It would be nice if you know, for instance, that the barbarian cavalry travels at, say one square per five seconds instead of constantly clicking on the icon to determine their fatigue rate. This is very important as because it plays upon real time, you need information quickly and this comes to the next gripe – scrolling the map is a little too slow for comfort as especially for the larger games (i.e. more than five legions). There’s a high chance that you will unable to protect your weaker legions in time due to scrolling. Again it will be nice if each legion has an allocated number so you can quickly get to them very quickly.
The game’s manual does an excellent job explaining the suggested tactics to employ in any given situation so it’s worth your time analysing it. However there are some other ‘tricks’ to assist winning the game yet to win the game is obviously to obliterate your enemy. However if the main legion, Caesar dies, the game ends, no matter what positive score you achieved. Yet, playing out tactics is certainly the fun part as the game utilises the vertical blank interrupt (VBI) scheme – meaning that during the ‘quiet’ time (e.g. waiting / scanning etc) the computer calculates its next move. To ‘fool’ the computer you can constantly submit movement orders then cancel them a moment later.
Thankfully the only tactics the barbarian uses is charging towards you – it’s as simple as that as they always superior in numbers. So my suggestion here is to scan the closest group, whether be the infantry or cavalry (as both starts off in separate areas) then attack that group as it will be an equal fight (unless you are up against the Huns). Knock off that group will prepare you for the next by simply waiting thus reducing fatigue. However not all scenarios are that simple as that as both groups could start off in close proximity of each other. If this is the case, park your units on top of a hill and form a massive wall. Set your fast units on either side of this wall aiming to flank the oncoming group.
Granted that this gives time for the barbarian units to gather their entire force (as the cavalry / infantry units always starts off in different positions) however there’s a good chance the cavalry will arrive first. Yet I have seen cases that the cavalry units will park about two squares short of your units so they can regain fatigue. Whether is this because of the VBI I’m not sure however that’s pretty damn clever in my eyes! If this is the case, just charge directly at them aiming for a quick victory. But when up against the Huns, I have no idea how to defeat them. I think luck plays an important role and I’m not lucky.
Graphically the game is quite nice to look at as all the icons are recognisable – i.e. the cavalry looks like a horse’s head, infantry portrays a sword and so on. Also they are all colour coded for easy reference like the pink contour lines depicts the highest point on the map. The sounds are pretty decent as you can hear the footsteps of marching units and a short ‘beep’ indicating an icon is one step closer to you so take note of that. Eventually you hear the clashing sounds of swords and lastly the heart-stopping squeal sound when a legion dies.
Legionnaire is one of the first real time tactics game ever arrived for the computer games market. Quite evolutionary on behalf of programmer Chris Crawford as his main idea was to mix arcade speed with systematically strategy. The net result was it didn’t quite hit the mark as granted, the Eastern Front engine was powerful especially when utilising VBI however it wasn’t really designed for real time. Scrolling was a little too slow and there’s not enough information about the units, especially when it comes to speed as this is what the game’s theme is all about. Nevertheless, it’s still enjoyable to say the least however I wouldn’t call it a tactical masterpiece like its older cousin, Eastern Front 1941 but still worthwhile playing it.