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Virtual Programming has announced that they have released Legion, a strategy game based in ancient Rome. At the strategic level, the player controls vast armies and must carve an Empire from the assortment of tribes and city states that occupied ancient Italy, Britain and France. At the tactical level the player must position their armies to take advantage of terrain and make use of the best formations, to ensure victory.

Here's a set of Features from the official press release:

Features
Epic gameplay - there are large game areas, accurately mapping real world locations. All maps are based on real atlases of the ancient world. The size of the game world combined with the subtle interactions of the game model make for a truly epic game.

20+ sides - each game can have up to 20 AI sides to compete against, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, based on the nations that would have been present at the time of the scenario!

Diplomacy - with so many nations its impossible to win by conquest alone. Careful use of diplomacy will be required if you're going to succeed.

Huge realistic battles - choose how your troops deploy for battle, controlling their formations, making best use of the terrain available and allowing for their morale and experience. The combat model is being based on historical data to give a realistic look and feel. Hundreds of men will be displayed to give a really epic feel to the battles. All uniforms and weapons are based on historical data to make sure they are as accurate as possible.

3D battlefields - the battlefield terrain is made up of 3D rendered terrain. Height is modelled and will effect combat. Every location has its own unique battlefield meaning up to 16,000 per map!

Multiple resources - collect 4 different resources types, each with their
own specialist uses and methods of collection - Iron, Wood, Cloth and Food.

Detailed economics - control your cities, allocate workers to collect
resources, control city growth, train new regiments. Increase production by constructing new buildings or upgrade your city hall to expand the amount of land that can be worked. Build fortresses for protection and to train better your soldiers.

Replayability - play each map a number of times in completely different
setting. E.g. Initially fight over Italy to unify the tribes into the powerful nation of Rome. Later fight over the same map as the Romans when they are invaded by the fearsome Gauls.

Historical Accuracy - throughout the design of the game we have taken great care to ensure that the maps, the scenarios, the soldiers and the game engine capture the flavour of the ancient world and its warfare.

• MacOS 9.2, OS X 10.1.3 or later, OS X Jaguar 10.2.1, or later
  
• Apple PowerPC-based hardware, including G3 Blue and White, G3 iBook G4 Black and White, G4 PowerBook, G3 iMac. Recommend G3 800MHz or faster for best performance
  
• QuickTime 4 or later (installed by OS)
  
• QuickDraw 2.2 or later (installed by OS)
  
• Carbon 1.1.0 or later (installed by OS)
  
• 64MB system memory
  
• 8 MB video memory required - 16MB recommended.

If you're interested in preordering Legion, you can do so at the Freeverse Online Store. European gamers can also order it from the game's developer, Virtual Programming. For more information, check out the Legion for Mac official website, and for a hands on look at Legion, be sure to check out IMG's preview.

IMG Preview: Legion

Legion

Freeverse

Virtual Programming

Buy Legion

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