Sparta: War of Empires
Browser game set in ancient Greece - Ally yourself with the Spartan King Leonidas and defend your city from attack with Plarium’s Sparta: War of Empires.
Game overview
Developed by Plarium, Sparta: War of Empires offers enjoyable albeit rather typical browser game entertainment, which is a mixture of strategy and war, with a few characteristics that set it apart from its brethren.
In addition to the usual game processes and progression, Sparta: WOE gives you the added option of enlisting help from King Leonidas and his Spartan army, using a combination of strategy and diplomacy.
Graphically, the game is very well presented: the artworks are rather inspired and the environment and design of the buildings work well.
Finally, the fully voiced dialogues and immersive soundtrack add more points to the atmosphere.
Sparta: War of Empires is good title – even if ultimately it does not offer anything special, the setting in historical Greece brings a little novelty of its own, and all the traditional aspects of a browser game are implemented in a convincing manner.
➔ Main points:
- Classical war browser game set in ancient Greece.
- Continuous updates from the developers and special events.
- All the traditional elements of browser-based games are implemented in a thoughtful manner: dialogues are fully voiced and artworks extremely well made.
- Purists of the genre will love this, although it may disappoint people looking for something new.
Trailer
Full review
Plarium is clearly trying to up its game with Sparta: War of Empires. Although much of the gameplay remains classic to the style of browser games, warfare has been given an interesting twist with the added option of diplomacy.
The beginning of our Greek conquest
After registering on the site, or having gone through Facebook (Plarium games are all available on Facebook), you’re taken through a traditional tutorial.
The tutorial explains fairly rudimentary concepts, so if you already have experience with this kind of games, it shouldn’t take that long to figure things out and you might want to give it a miss.
As shown in your first quests – which are virtually identical to those in similar titles – the bulk of the game is devoted to the development of your realm, though a lot of focus is also given to war between players. Optimising the use of resources and buildings according to your kingdom’s needs is essential to ensuring you’ll have the troops and defences in place to do well in the game – plus the occasional help of King Leonidas.
Unfortunately, despite its focus on war, Plarium hasn’t done much to make battle graphically exciting. The outcome of combat is decided automatically based on several parameters, including your attack and defence stats and the kinds and number of troops on each side. You’ll get a very civilised (but hardly action-packed) message in your inbox afterwards letting you know the winner.
An economy of Drachmas
As in many browser games, team-play is an important factor.
You can create alliances with friends and make treaties of trades with various goods.
However, Plarium goes a little overboard with pop-up reminders and quests to add friends, which gets annoying fast.
We are reminded of the importance of cooperation among players also by to the real-time chat available in-game: a good feature for those who need to plan complex attacks or just want to kill some time while waiting for a building to finish.
Plarium's graphic team certainly deserves to be praised for the in-game artworks.
The game’s economy is based on Drachmas. Your pot raises surprisingly quickly, even if it also gets used up quickly. Drachmas are especially useful for accelerating improvements on buildings and troops, but can also be spent on premium items on the black market, or even to buy resources. Naturally, there’s also the option to buy more with real money.
If you do not want to shell out to buy Drachmas, but could still really use some more, you can complete various sponsor offers to earn some. However, the system is a little unreliable and some offer links may not always come through. If you’re going down this route, be sure to collect evidence of your execution of the offer so you can contact support.
Graphics and gameplay
Graphically, the game is very well presented, resembling a 90s interface. The environment and various buildings available are reproduced with a rather pleasant and richly detailed style. Sound effects are fairly good, though repetition doesn’t improve them.
The interface is well thought out and practical, if you can ignore the many pop-ups that open at the beginning of a quest, the end of a quest, when you get a new message or whenever the game feels you haven’t been adding enough friends.
Conclusion
Sparta: War of Empires is a browser game for strategic management and warfare with other players.
With decent graphics and gameplay and an interesting setting, it’s worth playing for fans of browser games, though it doesn’t bring much new to the table.
What We Liked..
New universe based in ancient Greece
Available directly via Facebook
.. and what we didn't
Pretty similar to games of the same genre
Review summary
What we liked..
.. and what we didn't
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I DON'T like this game, I want to
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