Take a step back in time and join the campaign of this historical war simulation and RPG combination. Set during the collapse of the socialist regime in Eastern Europe and on the verge of a bloody civil war A of E, offers the gamer the challenge of preventing disaster for the remains of the country. The pretense is a thinly veiled socialist Russian conflict.
As the bloody peacekeeper, you must build armies and supporting troops to attack, conquer and subdue other tribes in order to annex them to your cause and kingdom.
You will begin your campaign in a province bordering your home, a coastal region, and push outward in a classical expansion style campaign. You must use both diplomacy and might to negotiate with your neighbors and convince them of the need for unification. Sometimes that means forming friendly alliances, other times it is all out conquest. There is some degree of micromanagement, although not to the extent of the Chinese and Japanese based Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Nobunaga’s Ambition series. However, you do have to acquire and efficiently use resources in order to proved for your troops and build your dynasty. It also does not quite have the historical accuracies of the previously mentioned titles, but it does employ over 9000 locations and nearly three million
miles of territory to cover and conquer before war destroys the fragile stability of this area.
Even without the complexity some RPGamers have come to love, A of E still has a lot to offer. Under any extreme, the militant locals needed to be wooed, conquered or in some way pacified. There are a variety of ethnic groups that need to be cared for and dealt with. Primarily, the game is based on strategy…from ships, ground campaigns, etc…but the gamer will also find that Ashes of Empire also offers some hack and slash sequences for the fighter in you. In all, there is a sense of adventure that comes with the variety offered by A of E, but it is possibly not as well “fleshed out” as other single-player RPGs and war strategies of this nature. Still, it will require forethought and attention to detail in order to succeed, both in the mini battles and in the overall campaign. The degree of interaction will probably still be enough to keep you interested and keep you pushing forward for more territory, wealth and glory.
