About this project
Thanks to everyone who joined us on twitch. If you missed the broadcasts live, both broadcasts are available over on youtube
Long before the conquests of Philip and Caesar, the untamed hills of ancient Italy were a battleground of cultures from the Celts and Etruscans in the north to the Greeks and Samnites in the south. Caught in the middle, a burgeoning young city-state called Rome - poised to become the next great power if it can fend off the ambitions of its powerful neighbours.
Hegemony III is a 3D Real Time Strategy (RTS) wargame for Windows PC set during the tumultuous period of Rome's birth where ancient civilizations battle to forge the next great empire.
Building further upon the features that make the series unique, Hegemony III is big maps and grand strategy, real history and battlefield tactics, supply lines and raiders. All playing out in a single seamless world where you can instantly jump from a naval blockade to an epic field battle all while directing your scouts to burn down enemy farms in paused or real-time.
Hegemony III uses our latest engine to bring back classic Greek hoplites to battle early Roman legions in a hybrid sandbox combining historical battles with open-world strategy. Building off almost a year's worth of updates to the Hegemony Engine, Clash of the Ancients includes further improvements to the AI and rendering system, an all new interface and a lot more.
Features
- All new map of the Italian mainland at 4x the scale of our previous games.
- Play as any of 25+ factions including the Celts, Etruscans, Romans, Latins, Samnites, Italics and Greeks.
- 20+ all new high-detailed units including Greek hoplites, Etruscan Axemen, pre-Marian Roman legions, Celtic longswordsmen and more.
- New gameplay mechanics to grow your cities and improve your faction over the centuries.
- Historic sandbox objectives allow you to sack Rome as the Celts or relive the Samnite wars.
- Map Editor Included! For the first time in the series you get all the tools to make your own maps, campaigns and more.
For more details and screenshots please visit our new web site and members of the press can access high-resolutions assets from our mediakit.
Compare the distance between the Cisalpine cities of Comum and Mediolanum from Hegemony Rome to Hegemony III. 4x the space means bigger battles and better tactics.
Longbow has been around a long time (our first game mailed out on floppy disks), and over the years we've tried a lot of different ways to fund our development. We've done both online and retail sales, Steam and Early Access, third-party distributors and traditional publishers. They all have their own advantages, but we want to get back to our roots. We want to get back to working with our players, we want to give you direct access, and more control over the game so you can get the game you want.
But of course that comes with a price: to make this game as awesome as we want it to be - to have the polish, and the features you've asked for and we want to give you - we're going to need your help. We've spent thousands of hours building this new map, upgrading the engine, creating hundreds of new assets. But even as the content comes together, we've still got one more mountain to climb: play-balancing hundreds of hours of gameplay, almost a million square kilometers of map, plus dozens of factions, units, upgrades, objectives and more.
And that's why we're turning to Kickstarter. We're asking for your support to help us make Hegemony III the game we, and you guys, want it to be. We've set our base goal to give us the couple months we need to polish and complete the core content, but if we can make that then we're leaving it up to you guys to see how far we take it from there:
Should we expand the sandbox with factions like Carthage or Epirus? How about a Punic War campaign following Hannibal's march south through Italy or we can expand the soundtrack, port to new platforms, or localize in more languages. And thinking big, how many times have you guys asked for multiplayer or a re-make of the Macedonian campaign? This is your chance to make it happen!
But before we get ahead of ourselves we've got to reach our main goal, so check out the perks on the right and see if anything catches your eye. And if there's something else you're looking for let us know and maybe we can add it.
And finally, check us out on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest news and if you know anybody else who may be interested in a little ancient conquest please pass on the word.
And besides helping to make an awesome historical wargame, what's in it for you guys? Of course we've got DRM-free digital copies of Hegemony III as well as limited Kickstarter edition boxed copies. Play early and give feedback on development with alpha and beta access, plus unique opportunities to help us design content and get your face in the game. And don't forget the goodies ... we've got signed postcards from the team, t-shirts, mini-buttons, posters and art books.
$30,000 Base Goal
Hitting our base goal will allow us to complete and polish the core content of Hegemony III. This includes an all new map of the Italian mainland, 25+ playable factions and 20+ new units, historical sandbox objectives and the map editor.
$60,000 Community Choice Content 1
Your choice between adding a set of new mercenary units, or adding Carthage or Epirus as playable factions in the sandbox, complete with their own territory and units. Make your choice in the comments and we'll keep a tally of the votes (ranked ballots supported).
$75,000 Expanded Soundtrack
If we hit $75k, we'll hire the Hegemony Rome composer to produce a soundtrack that's three times as long as the one in Hegemony Rome.
$100,000 Mac & Linux Versions
Don't like Windows? If we hit $100k, we will port Hegemony III to Mac and Linux.
$125,000 Translations
English not your first language? Rather play in Spanish, French or maybe German? At $125k we will localize the game into the top three languages chosen by the community.
$150,000 Hannibal the Great Campaign
A fully scripted campaign set during the Second Punic War where you take command of the Carthaginian army as Hannibal Barca, one of the greatest generals of the classical world. Lead your armies across the alps and straight into heart of Rome.
$200,000 Community Choice Content 2
Couldn't decide between the eclectic army of Carthage or the war elephants of Epirus, this is your chance to get both. If we reach this goal we'll do the community's top-two content choices.
$250,000 Multiplayer or Hegemony Gold Remake
This is where things really get interesting! Two of the most common requests from players have been multiplayer support, or a remake of Hegemony Gold with the new engine. Both of these are year-long projects, so they require a lot of funding, but if we can get enough support, we can it happen. Once Hegemony III is done, we'll start work on whatever the community votes for, and everybody at the digital download tier will get a free copy.
Risks and challenges
Game development is a difficult business and there are always going to be risks and unknowns when you combine the latest technology with ambitious artistic and creative goals. However, our team at Longbow has almost 40 years combined experience in the industry and we believe we've managed the risks as much as possible with Hegemony III.
In terms of technology, we've made notable improvements to the graphics and AI for Hegemony III, but the majority of its systems have been publicly available in Hegemony Rome for almost a year now. In that time, thanks to support from the community, we've been able to improve and refine the engine so that we're confident in its ability to deliver our vision for Hegemony III not only on our development systems but out in the real world as well.
But while the changes to the engine might be incremental, all of the content for Hegemony III is brand new. However, our art team has been working on Hegemony III for most of a year now and have already completed the majority of the map, buildings and units. Using this experience we can realistically schedule the remaining content and we're confident we can complete our base goal within the timeline given.
If we surpass our base goal and reach some of the higher stretch goals such as the Hannibal campaign or a multiplayer mode, our target is to complete them within a year of the launch of the core game. However, until we start work on those projects it's impossible to give a more accurate schedule for their release.
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Funding period
- (31 days)