Slitherine Software are pleased to announce Legion Arena, their upcoming online strategy game. Legion Arena puts you the player in charge of a Roman army and takes you up against the enemies of Rome. You must recruit & train up your troops, choosing the skills they will develop in an effort to create the most powerful army. Games will be played entirely online & all results are passed back to the server and logged and the player's army ranked. And the best part is... it's free! Legion Arena uses a totally new engine, but we won't bore you with the details. It's enough to say that it allows fully 3D battles with thousands of guys. 3D engines are a dime a dozen, so we want to focus on the gameplay and not try and wow you with how many poly's we can push around the screen. You can judge that for yourselves when you see the screenshots. The player's army starts small...really small! In fact to start with it only includes the player's general character. The player also starts with a small treasury and can choose which units to recruit into their fledgling army. Initially you wont be able to afford too many troops & the higher quality units like Legionaries & Praetorians will be well out of reach. As the player fights and wins battles, their men gain experience & honours. These can be used to buy skills for the squad, ranging from improved weapons handling to the ability to hold a new formation. Players will be able to personalise their armies by changing the names of each unit, tweaking the colours and even changing the textures. Over time you'll become really attached to your men and they to you, as long as you reat them well! If your men suffer high casualties their loyalty may suffer and they may ask for more money before they will fight for you. Each battle will have specific criteria & conditions. For example, some scenarios will limit you to only 8 units, while others will let you bring your whole army along. To win one scenario you'll have to defeat the enemy, but for another the objective may be to survive until reinforcements arrive. Which units you bring to the battle are you to you, but each will have their strengths and weaknesses so it's important to have a balanced army where you can select the right tool for the job. Before a battle the player deploys their troops, but after much feedback we've decided this is not where the control should end. Players will be able to direct their troops once the battle has begun. The number of orders the player can issue is limited by the experience of the general in charge. The idea is to allow the player enough control so that they can swing the course of a battle, but without turning it into a frantic click fest. We think the order system we're developing does this perfectly. Just to clarify - you can select a unit during a battle and tell it where to march, as well as who to attack, but how often you can do this depends on the quality of your general. After each battle the results will be uploaded to a dedicated server and any cash awards added to you treasury. You will then be able to reviewing you ranking in a number of areas. Armies are ranked in all sorts of ways such as casualties inflicted, battles won & fastest victory, so you have a good chance of being the best at something - even if it's only the fastest defeat. On top of this you can view the ranking of each unit individually versus all other units, or only against units of the same type. There are more than enough stats to keep the hardcore players happy. Legion Arena is due to be completed in a couple of months. This week the live server was delivered and a fat pipe was installed into Slitherine's Canadian office. Although there is still a lot of tweaking to be done, one of the major remaining tasks is to get the remaining animations motion captured. The team will be at the motion capture studio next week to finish this off. Once that's in, the game will be entering a closed beta & soon afterwards we'll be ready to go live. About Slitherine: Created on the 4th of July 2000, Slitherine Software UK Ltd. is a privately funded limited company. Slitherine Software is an independent UK developer & publisher of PC strategy games including Spartan, Gates of Troy & Legion Arena.