Legendary Warrior Gets Miniaturized in “Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great”

by Louis Bedigian

“Surprisingly, ancient battles tended to be rather bloodless affairs with a small number of deaths relative to the size of the armies. Our battles are much bloodier!” 

Man your battle stations!  Man your battle stations! 

Ready your weapons! 

Send in the miniatures!

“Uhh, excuse me.  Did you just say miniatures?”

Yes actually I did.  Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great isn’t entirely based on reality.  While the story is true to its name, the graphics are clearly different.  The men you lead into battle don’t resemble real-life warriors – they look like tin miniatures!

GameZone Online wanted to know more about this.  We wanted to know about the gameplay, the story’s authenticity, and personally I was curious to know why they chose to use miniatures over something more realistic.

Koios Works, LLC. was ready with answers.  Kevin Albright (President – Koios Works, LLC.) and Russ Pearlman (CTO – Koios Works, LLC.) gave us the lowdown on the little soldiers that could. 

Questions for Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great:

Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is being touted as a game that's easy to learn but difficult to master.  What challenges await players who enter this war?

Koios Works: For starters, we think we have developed one of the best single player AI’s in the market, and it doesn’t cheat.  The AI will also change its tactics/behavior each time a battle is initiated and so replaying battles will give you a different challenge – which adds to replay.  Also, as described below, the simultaneous order/execution/reaction system is something that we believe is novel to our game and builds up that ‘just one more turn’ mania in the players.

Tin Soldiers has a Simultaneous Turn-Based Reaction system.  Could you explain what that is and how it improves the gameplay experience?

KW: In most turn-based games, players alternate moving their units or pieces – either by moving one piece at a time (like Chess) or all of their pieces at a time (like Civilization or Risk). Our system allows players to complete their planning at the same time and then executing the moves in real time. This has the advantage of allowing the player to take their time in thinking and planning their move, but it allows for the excitement and unpredictability of real-time strategy games. However, unlike most RTS games where the player who is able to click the fastest wins, Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great rewards the best tactician.

Our “reaction system” is a new concept in turn-based gaming that allows players to make adjustments to their orders during each turn’s execution. Reaction orders are given to individual units based on what happens during the execution of the turn. For example, an enemy cavalry starts to charge towards an archer. If the archer “reacts” to this charge and gets a reaction order, the player would have the opportunity to retreat the unit – or face the oncoming peril.

We believe that our game really merges the best attributes of turn based and real time strategy while removing many of the disadvantages of the two mechanisms. 

Nothing like having a war by the peaceful sound of a stream.

What other gameplay features does Tin Soldiers have?  What else sets it apart from the crowd?

KW: Our game play is fundamentally designed to simulate both the visual and gaming experience of table top miniature gaming, such as DBA or Warhammer.  While the trend has been for most tabletop games to eschew (or even completely abandon) their heritage and go full on RTS, we wanted players to experience the hobby they love.  So, our look & feel is of hand crafted miniatures and model-like terrain and features.

In addition, we support strategy cards such as health, defensive bonus, recover morale, etc. These cards allow the player to give themselves that special edge for an important attack. Judicious use of the cards can really turn the tide of battle to the player’s advantage.

Talk about how the campaign unfolds before players with cut-scenes and 3D panoramas of the battlefields.

KW: Alexander had six great battles from his rise to power after his father’s assassination to his death. Our campaign covers this entire period.  Each battle is a set-piece that plays on a rail to accurately follow the real history.  We use cut scenes before each battle to tell the story of what events preceded the battle and describe the upcoming battle.  The campaign portion of the game takes place between each battle.  This is a way of linking the battles and where the player can buy/refit troops, upgrade his training and buy special strategy cards that can be used for a one time advantage.  Since all our maps are fully 3D rendered – we use 3D Studio Max – we allow the user to zoom out to a birds-eye view or bring the camera down to see the individual sandals of his spearmen.

How involved are the cut scenes?  Are the developers looking to provide more of a cinematic experience than in other strategy games?

KW: We wanted to tell the story of Alexander, so we invested a lot of effort into cut-scenes that tell the story of Alexander as the player progresses through the campaign.  Tin Soldiers has eight full minutes (over 120 Megabytes) of cut-scenes voiced by professional actors.

When did you come to the conclusion that miniatures-oriented art was the way to go for this game?  Why not simply base it off the real thing?

KW: As a kid, I remember going to Origins and GenCon and seeing all these great Napoleonic and Ancient miniature battles laid out on vast exhibition hall floors.  I just thought it looked so majestic.  I also loved playing games like Axis and Allies and all the little tiny tanks and soldiers.  We really wanted to go for that look and game play and not try to be another RTS game. 

Die metallic adversary, die!

What was done to ensure historical accuracy?  Were there any particular resources that were used or significant research that was done?

KW: We used several source to ensure the historical accuracy of the game. Our main source included several books published by Osprey press, and we involved a number of testers/book authors who were able to provide feedback on the story and look of each unit. To help provide historical context, we have implemented a number of cool features such as a unit compendium that describes the troops and provides historical background on them.

However, to make the game fun to play, we did have to deviate from history a bit. Surprisingly, ancient battles tended to be rather bloodless affairs with a small number of deaths relative to the size of the armies. Our battles are much bloodier!

Regarding that, how much of Alexander's story is included?  When does the game quest begin – when does it end?

KW: The game covers Alexander from age 20 when his father was assassinated to his untimely death at age 32.  During this time he conquered the known civilized world.  The campaign starts with his crushing of the Greek rebellion led by the city state of Thebes and ends with his final great conquest of India led by King Porus.  In between he will cross into Persia and defeat his nemesis King Darius III in three battles while also claiming the lands of Egypt at the battle of Gaza.

We'd love to hear all about the two special multiplayer scenarios: Bactria and Elysium.

KW: The six single player campaign battles can be played as single player (as part of the campaign), as a set battle (using historical troop placements), or as multiplayer maps. Bactria and Elysium were designed specifically for multiplayer so they were not constrained by historical unit and terrain setups. Bactria is loosely based on Alexander’s battles in the Himalayas. Elysium takes the fight to the realm of Hades after Alexander’s death. As a reward to completing the campaign, these two maps are also unlocked for single player set battles.

Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is currently on sale through the Matrix Games Online Store.  Are there plans to sell the game through other retailers?

KW: First, we have really become fans of digital distribution. We believe that it is a win-win situation for both players and developers. From the player’s perspective, you are able to get the game immediately without having to take the time to find the game at a retailer or worry about getting to the store during business hours. In addition, players are assured of getting the latest version of the game without having to go through the immediate install and patch process that most boxed games require. From our perspective, digital distribution allows us to reach many customers that might not otherwise have access to our game. And, since distribution prices are much lower, we are able to realize more revenue for the game – meaning that we are able to bring more games to market quicker.

In the future, we would certainly like to see Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great in retail outlets. While we do not currently have specific plans, we have had retail discussions with Matrix.

Thank you for your time.