Show Me The Games

RY: Yep. We originally planned for it to be a straight-forward expansion, with just a couple new campaigns, but we tend to be really bad at limiting our ambitions. After a while we added diplomacy, a sandbox mode, new tactical buffs, and rewrote the population system, in addition to improving some of the more overlooked aspects, like AI and ship combat. After a while it became clear that this was more than just an expansion, and that it was actually halfway to a true sequel. So even though the main campaign is still the same, it plays like a whole new game.

RY:It's kind of a mystery to me why ancient Greece is so overlooked. The Roman and the medieval periods are very popular ages in history, but when you talk about ancient Greece everybody seems to think of Greek myths rather than Greek history, despite the fact that they essentially invented the study of history. That's partly why we chose it as a setting: because nobody else was doing it.
I think another reason it hasn't been done is because the most famous figure of Greek history is Alexander the Great, and for the most part his campaign didn't actually happen in Greece. So about ten years ago, our lead designer was studying Alexander, when he realized that Alexander's father, Philip II, was actually a far more interesting figure, and that he had faced far more adversity, taking his tiny kingdom and eventually conquering all of ancient Greece. It seemed obvious that this should be the main campaign of the game.
So we're focused on an overlooked historical figure in an overlooked historical era, but it's really perfect fodder for a strategy wargame.

RY:Naivete, mostly. That, and lots and lots of work. Like I said earlier, we're really bad at limiting our ambitions. The game was originally going to be a 2D grid- and turn-based game, but after a while we convinced ourselves that we could do it in 3D, and in real-time, and that it would all take place on one giant map with no load screens between battles! For some reason it never occurred to us that this would be a lot of work.
At the time we were still only three developers: a designer, a programmer, and an artist. By the end we picked up one more programmer (me) and another artist, but looking back on it, it was still a crazy thing to do. The original game took us six years to complete, and given the size of our team, that wouldn't surprise any sane person. Luckily, we aren't entirely sane, otherwise we would have given up a long time ago.

RY:Well, it hasn't been a failure, but it might be a little early to call it a success. Our biggest weakness is marketing, and not many people know about us yet. People are starting to notice us, though, and we've had some critical success. We were chosen for the PAX10 at the Penny Arcade Expo, and I remember Tycho stopping by our booth and telling us how much he loved our game, and how "everything just makes sense." It really brightened our day!
So doors are starting to open, but we certainly haven't reached the point where people can claim that we've sold out.

RY:It's always a trade-off, for certain. When we started building the map, we began with NASA's satellite DEM data, and then we had to carve out the map to represent some of the geography that has changed in the last 2300 years. For instance, the North-Western corner of the Aegean sea used to end in a big gulf, but since that time it has largely been filled in, so we had to cross-reference the current-day data with historical maps.
Beyond that, we also had to tweak some of the geography to balance the gameplay. For instance, we decided that the soldiers in the game shouldn't be to scale, because otherwise it would either take a year for them to get anywhere, or they would look like they were speed-walking everywhere. That decision meant that we had to expand some mountain passes to fit their bigger-than-life stature.
So it's accurate enough that every single mountain that exists in the real world is in the game, and that's really cool, but we didn't let that get in the way if we had to make changes for historical accuracy or gameplay, which are obviously more important.