More games like this?

[Rodrik Forrester]

I enjoyed A Legionary's Life immensely, but the simple truth is that after obtaining the achievements the game does not have much replay value. Are there any other experiences similar to this one?

[SpectatorBehold]

Well... Of the games I've played in my life so far, I feel that the game most similar to this one would have to be the old 'Sid Meier's Pirates!' - the 1987 version rather than the later 2004 version, that's it. At least in the sense that it's a game where you start out as a nobody embarking on a life of danger and risks with the hopes of obtaining fame and fortune - or at least make it to a safe retirement in your old age, all which can indeed be obtained with effort and a bit of luck. Not the same 'military life experience' as such though, if that's what you're looking for...

[flori2412]

Another classic I can recommend is Sword of the Samurai. You start out as the leader of a small band of samurai and you can rise up to become Shogun of Japan eventually. This progression system makes it somewhat similar to A Legionary's Life. The combat is not turn-based but takes place in real time and you can die very quickly if you're not careful (another similarity). Sometimes you have to fight yourself, sometimes you need to command your troops on the battlefield.

If you just want another (punishingly difficult) game from a common soldier's perspective, you might like Armoured Commander, which is a free downloadable game made by a fan of WW2 strategy games. Just use Google to find it online. It puts you into the shoes of an American or Canadian Sherman tank commander during the D-Day operation in 1944. If you survive long enough, the game can last until the end of WW2 in Europe. The combat is turn-based and the graphics are very simple. I consider it similar to A Legionary's Life because it puts emphasis on survival rather than being a superhero. For example, if you get ambushed by a German Tiger tank and just survive the encounter without being able to destroy it, then that already feels like a remarkable achievement.

There is also a second Armoured Commander game now, but I haven't checked that one out yet.

[Metellus]

Yes your Grace has a simmilar Gameplay

[Lordly Cinder]

I feel like any game like this would have to still have combat too. Without that this wouldnt be so good but together really cool.

[MoreEvilSquid]

There's a game on Steam released a few years ago called Shigatari: https://steamcommunity.com/app/486380

While you don't ever really fight in formations or belong to an army, the combat is performed in a similar turn-based manner. It's also semi-rogue-like in that you can use results of previous play throughs to power up your character for the next play through.

Think "A Legionary's Life" crossed with FTL but set in Feudal Japan, presented in the style of Japanese art from the period.

Features dismemberment aplenty! Also hilarious ideas of "honour" (which may or may not be authentic, but they're hilarious at any rate).

The only problem is that while it seems incredibly challenging at first, it doesn't take long to figure out how to cheese the AI almost all the time. This is possibly exacerbated by the ability to heal yourself during combat by eating sushi (IMO this is stupid, which is possibly why I didn't realise that was a thing until many games later...).

[flori2412]

I failed to remember this when I was writing my first post, but if you are looking for another really interesting RPG with a (sort of) Roman setting, I can also recommend The Age of Decadence. It's a very interesting game with lots of non-linear role-playing options. You can play it with different character backgrounds (e.g. assassin, mercenary, thief or merchant), focussing on different attributes and skills and joining factions with very different questlines.

It does not really simulate life in the Roman army, but there are a few questlines with a lot of combat (and some questlines without any forced combat at all). The combat in The Age of Decadence is also turn-based and rewards tactical thinking. However, avoiding a fight by using some of your non-combat skills (e.g. sneaking past an enemy or talking yourself out of a dangerous situation) can be just as cool as role-playing a fearsome warrior.

It's a fun RPG if you don't mind a challenge and can look past its rather mediocre presentation (the graphics and music are okay, but could be better). I've played through it many times.

[MoreEvilSquid]

Originally posted by flori2412:

I failed to remember this when I was writing my first post, but if you are looking for another really interesting RPG with a (sort of) Roman setting, I can also recommend The Age of Decadence. It's a very interesting game with lots of non-linear role-playing options. You can play it with different character backgrounds (e.g. assassin, mercenary, thief or merchant), focussing on different attributes and skills and joining factions with very different questlines.

It does not really simulate life in the Roman army, but there are a few questlines with a lot of combat (and some questlines without any forced combat at all). The combat in The Age of Decadence is also turn-based and rewards tactical thinking. However, avoiding a fight by using some of your non-combat skills (e.g. sneaking past an enemy or talking yourself out of a dangerous situation) can be just as cool as role-playing a fearsome warrior.

It's a fun RPG if you don't mind a challenge and can look past its rather mediocre presentation (the graphics and music are okay, but could be better). I've played through it many times.

Oh yes, I totally second that! AoD is IMO one of the best RPGs released in recent years, and despite not technically being "historical" appears to depict an alternate version of Earth shortly after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Except this Roman Empire was called something else, and was a tad more advanced in certain fields...

It's one of the few RPGs I have actually completed more than once or twice - I think I've run through with every character type at least once, but I still haven't seen all the variations possible.

Actually when I first found "A Legionary's Life", I actually thought that it would actually be kind of cool to have this plot modded into AoD - with AoD's combat, but adjusted a bit so that the idea of "stances" and "postures" are implemented similar to the way it's done here (which might actually be possible, given that there's reasonably extensive mod support). The engine would likely chug if combat were displayed at the proper scale for the large battles though...

[flori2412]

Originally posted by MoreEvilSquid:

Oh yes, I totally second that! AoD is IMO one of the best RPGs released in recent years, and despite not technically being "historical" appears to depict an alternate version of Earth shortly after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Except this Roman Empire was called something else, and was a tad more advanced in certain fields...

It's one of the few RPGs I have actually completed more than once or twice - I think I've run through with every character type at least once, but I still haven't seen all the variations possible.

What's your favourite faction/character background, Squid? I love role-playing an assassin and joining the Boatmen of Styx. When I first realized that I could take down heavily armoured soldiers just by relying on light armour, agility and well-aimed dagger attacks with the right character build, it was awe-inspiring to me.

Originally posted by MoreEvilSquid:

Actually when I first found "A Legionary's Life", I actually thought that it would actually be kind of cool to have this plot modded into AoD - with AoD's combat, but adjusted a bit so that the idea of "stances" and "postures" are implemented similar to the way it's done here (which might actually be possible, given that there's reasonably extensive mod support). The engine would likely chug if combat were displayed at the proper scale for the large battles though...

Does AoD really have that much mod support? So far, the only "mod" I have used is the Community Edition, which I believe adds some new items, a few more areas to explore and the option to lower or raise the difficulty level. Is there more than this?


On a side note related to my first post in this discussion, I have now also tried out Armoured Commander 2 and it's a fun game. Everything I said about the first game applies to the second one, too, but the gameplay is more polished, less punishing and now there are a lot more campaigns and units: In the second game you can not only command American or Canadian Sherman tanks, but also German, British, French, Soviet and even Polish and Finnish tanks of various types. The developer has announced that there will be a commercial Steam version of Armoured Commander 2 with even more content (the current version is still free). I might buy it.

[LuLu]

Hosted Games makes Choose Your Own Adventure apps for mobile. They published Gladiator and The Great Tournament on Google Play Store (not sure iOS) that are very similar to this and worth the couple bucks they charge.

There's also Domina here on Steam

[MoreEvilSquid]

Originally posted by flori2412:

What's your favourite faction/character background, Squid? I love role-playing an assassin and joining the Boatmen of Styx. When I first realized that I could take down heavily armoured soldiers just by relying on light armour, agility and well-aimed dagger attacks with the right character build, it was awe-inspiring to me.

Hey sorry it took so long to respond to this, real life and all that.

To answer your question: it's kind of difficult since they all have their moments; however one I've done multiple times now is a relatively smart (i.e. less stupid than the default) mercenary, who after failing to protect his charge ends up going after the thieves and killing them, then shows up at the Thieves Guild saying "Heard you need some new recruits". Or something to that effect.

Thieves guild is interesting, as instead of scheming you're just pilfering the fruits of other's scheming (and this kind of ties the other play throughs together). I like joining the thieves as a mercenary since apart from starting as a thief, the only way to join normally requires using the (mostly useless) "steal" skill - as a merc you can avoid that via death dealing instead.

The other option for the "smart merc" start I like is the obvious one: joining the Imperial Guards. Having an above-average INT opens up some interesting options - even more if combined with an above-average CHA. I think the first time I did really well, got promoted quickly, but never had a fantastic guards rep - so ultimately Paullus gave me a crap job in the end.

Another awesome option IMO is starting the game as a Praetor for Daratan. Then either jumping ship to Antidas early on , or possibly becoming a God (assuming stats are high enough) , or my favourite, managing to get Antidas into ultimate power. The best part of this is, after Gaelius is assassinated, convincing the morons squabbling for power that it would be in their best interests to assault the slums!

Originally posted by flori2412:

Originally posted by MoreEvilSquid:

Actually when I first found "A Legionary's Life", I actually thought that it would actually be kind of cool to have this plot modded into AoD - with AoD's combat, but adjusted a bit so that the idea of "stances" and "postures" are implemented similar to the way it's done here (which might actually be possible, given that there's reasonably extensive mod support). The engine would likely chug if combat were displayed at the proper scale for the large battles though...

Does AoD really have that much mod support? So far, the only "mod" I have used is the Community Edition, which I believe adds some new items, a few more areas to explore and the option to lower or raise the difficulty level. Is there more than this?

Well not sure how easy it would be to mod (or add) existing map files, but they're all in text format (using whatever freaky format the engine uses), so I'd say it's very moddable.

I know it's possible to adjust the combat a fair bit, as that's all implemented via scripts. I believe the community edition already makes some changes to the combat.

It's definitely possible to replace and/or rewrite your own scripts. I think the scripts themselves are quite simple, although I haven't tried (but again, I believe CE does this for combat).

As for the "plot", including texts etc., those are stored in XML files. They're not too hard to modify, although they get convoluted quite quickly due to AoD's many branches.

If one wanted to be really simple about the whole thing, it would be quite simple to implement the adventure segments of A Legionary's Life - provided we knew the rolls, branches etc. of those segments (which we don't of course, but we can make some assumptions). At its most basic level, one could do this with no graphics at all (so a step back from A Legionary's Life) - adding actual graphics representing the various scenes would definitely be possible (since most models etc. already exist, although they're probably too "late period" to be authentic) - but it would likely be a fair bit of work to create new scenes. Existing elements of scenes may be used, possibly...

[MoreEvilSquid]

Originally posted by flori2412:

On a side note related to my first post in this discussion, I have now also tried out Armoured Commander 2 and it's a fun game. Everything I said about the first game applies to the second one, too, but the gameplay is more polished, less punishing and now there are a lot more campaigns and units: In the second game you can not only command American or Canadian Sherman tanks, but also German, British, French, Soviet and even Polish and Finnish tanks of various types. The developer has announced that there will be a commercial Steam version of Armoured Commander 2 with even more content (the current version is still free). I might buy it.

I'll definitely have to look into Armoured Commander, sounds really interesting!