Haegemonia Gold Edition

Oddly, if you've ever played Imperium Galactica or Imperium Galactica II Alliances, then Haegemonia will seem a bit different yet, They are all 3 made by the same company (Digital Reality) yet all 3 play differently and have different races from each other and different gameplay aspects as well. This is probably part of the oddest 'trilogy' in gaming history. Haegemonia is the third installment of this trilogy. GT Interactive produced the two Imperium Galactica titles and the name change came about because GT Interactive did [sic]not[/sic] produce Haegemonia. I highly recommend all 3 titles by Digital Reality (but unfortunately I + II are available 'second hand' to most IF you can find them that is). So if you're old enough to remember and wondered "whatever happened to Imperium Galactica III ?" way back when, now you know...

I consider both this game and Conquest: Frontier Wars, as the best strategy games I’ve ever played. Very underrated games. In Haegemonia there is movement (and fighting) in a 3D plane so you have to be careful not to be surprisingly attacked by any direction (even from below!). Controlling and managing your units and buildings is undoubtedly a little more complex than in space strategy games with a 2D plane involved (i.e. Conquest: Frontier Wars), but for those of you who have the patience to try it, you are in for an otherwise excellent game. There isn’t a difficulty level choice, but the game never gets unfairly difficult. There is also some simple planetary management involved. The story is good enough, but unfortunately it ends with a promise of a sequel, which I guess we’ll never have.

First of all, I had little difficulty getting this game to run. It started just fine, but eventually, the known "Sound System Error" made an appearance, though could be fixed very easily with a patched .exe from Moddb. In addition, when playing Legions of Iron, eventually the research screen will become so crowded that new options won't be visible at higher resolutions, so one either needs to drop to a lower resolution or use the tech tree instead. In terms of gameplay, Haegemonia basically is a stripped-down version of Digital Reality's earlier Imperium Galactica II. You get to colonize planets, research new technologies, do some spying, and build armies, coupled with full fleet movement in a three-dimensional space. That said, don't expect any actual fleet tactics like in Homeworld. There are only four ship types (fighters, corvettes, cruisers, and battleships), and the bigger ones supersede the smaller ones almost entirely. Differences between units comes from the weapon systems, but this too comes down to very few choices. Hence, the gameplay loop is quite simple, and mostly boils down to pumping out ships and overwhelming the enemy. Experience levels and heroes shake things up a little, but ultimately, this is very much 4X light. Still, the narrative presented in the campaign of Legions of Iron is entertaining enough to keep one hooked throughout, and restrictions towards fleet size and research compel one to set priorities. In terms of graphics, Haegemonia still holds up, and the explosions in particular have yet to be surpassed until today. I've also grown fond of the music, which helps set the mood, despite being repetitive. The expansion improves on some of the weaker aspects of the main game, but is restricted to skirmish only, which gets rather old, fast. Still, on a discount, Haegemonia is well worth getting and playing.

I've spent a lot of time playing with the hungarian version of this fine space RTS, so I've decided to get ithe english one from here, and I must say this version is perfect too. This is a real classic to me, I think the story is very good, and The Solon Heritage is very well equipped with skirmis and multiplayer game modes, I can only recommend it for everyone who likes strategy games. I need more games like this although there isn't much, only the Homeworld and Imperrium Galactica series, but a sequel would be nice too ;-)

Haegemonia is a interesting take on a the space empire genre of games. It tends to be more focused on smaller missions involving a few planetary systems then a sweeping galactic conquest. It also has much stronger RTS elements through since you can pause the game at any time to issue orders fast reaction time becomes less important the over all strategy. The different branches of the technology tree are well balanced through it can be easy to become to generalized in weapons technology. Over all the games systems are very well designed with a zoomed out over all map for giving orders and a 3D zoomed in view for watching the action. There is a problem with placement in the 3D view however. It does not allow you to select the vertical plane to place units in so placement of space fortresses can be very frustrating when your enemy just fly under or over them by a large margin. Also the diplomacy system is very underdeveloped and there are almost no player controlled direct interactions with other races. Still the missions that are presented to be played are well designed resulting in a fun experience. I would recommend this to anybody who is a fan of conquering space.