Fate of Hellas[a] (released as Great War Nations: The Spartans in North America) is a 2007 real-time strategy video game for Windows.
Two more World Forge games using this engine and gameplay style would follow - The Golden Horde and Age of Alexander.
Fate of Hellas is a real-time strategy game, controlled via a point and click interface, in which the primary goal on most maps is to build a strong enough army to defeat the opponent or opponents by destroying their settlement, or, on occasion, killing a specific unit in their army.
To achieve this end, the player must engage in some basic economic micromanagement, such as gathering resources, constructing buildings, and researching new technologies, abilities, weapons, ships, and war machines.
[7] Whether playing in single-player or multiplayer mode, each game begins roughly the same way; the player is positioned at a set location on the map, usually with a prebuilt base building, and often with a certain number of soldiers and/or workers.
Workers can be directly controlled by the player and can be ordered to repair buildings, collect enemy weapons, hunt game, and, if necessary, fight.
[5] Initially, the player is restricted to the base unit's default equipment, but once research has begun, more weapons and armour become available.
[25] Having already taken control of Ephesus, and with his mind bent on Spartan hegemony over all of the Peloponnese, Agesilaus turns his attention to Elis.
Offering protection, friendship, and trade, in return for subservience, he is infuriated when the city resists Spartan rule.
[26] Accompanied by his senior-most general, Cleombrotus, Agesilaus defeats Elis and then focuses on Heraclea Trachinia, which also resists Spartan hegemony, much to his ongoing bewilderment.
[27] Upon successfully conquering Heraclea, Agesilaus heads to Asia Minor to begin liberating Greek states from Persian control.
Returning to Greece, Agesilaus is shocked to find the Athenians have allied with Thebes, Corinth, and Argos against the Spartans, with the alliance backed by the remnants of the Achaemenid Empire.
As Agesilaus rages, Cleombrotus points out that Sparta's time as the most dominant power in the Eastern Mediterranean may have reached its natural conclusion.
As Celombrotus predicted, Spartan dominance has waned, as has the influence of the Achaemenid Empire, which is now ruled by Darius III.
Two years before the game begins, King Philip II of Macedon invaded Greece and defeated an Athenian and Theban army at the Battle of Chaeronea.
[30] Compelling the majority of the Greek city-states to join the League of Corinth, Philip next invaded Persia, appointing his eighteen-year-old son Alexander as his senior-most general.
At the Battle of Issus, Alexander is again victorious and begins to move through Persian territory, capturing whatever cities don't surrender.
Unwilling to tolerate any resistance, Alexander defeats and kills Khabbabash, learning that the real organiser of the rebellion is Cambyses, the former Persian satrap of Egypt.
Traditionally a fractured tribalist region, with the arrival of Alexander, the various factions in Cathai unite under the leadership of Taxiles.
He was impressed with the graphics, writing "the units look great up close and from afar, and their animations are realistic and dynamic," but he concluded, "the pathing problems and the lack of excitement at the tactical level don't provide a strong enough framework for the good parts of the game to really shine through.
He too was critical of the AI and LAN-only multiplayer, calling the game "a paint-by-numbers production in every way", "formulaic", and "simplistic".
Of the lack of combat tactics, he wrote, "all you ever have to do on a map is churn out troops as quickly as possible and hurl them at the enemy base."
He was also unimpressed with the graphics, citing "flickering, artifacting, a shudder effect that makes the whole screen seem to shimmer, and no support for widescreen.
[35] GamingExcellence's Nicholas Bale scored it 4.6 out of 10, criticising the LAN-only multiplayer and finding it an "extremely basic, paint-by-the-numbers RTS that seems more like a title from a decade ago."