Haegemonia: Legions of Iron - Building Your Own Space Empire

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Overview

Haegemonia (or Hegemonia if you’re in the US) is a fun space-based strategy game that offers an incredibly unique mix of 3D space combat and a working economy. It mixes a number of features to have a very expansive experience. It’s probably closest to the Homeworld series in terms of combat and economics.

Features (4 out of 5)

You will be able to build up a major war effort against various enemies as the game progresses. Your fleet is financed by colonizing planets and expanding your empire across several galaxies. You can research new technologies and build new facilities on your planets to make your ships stronger or increase production.

The ships themselves work on a unique rock-paper-scissors basis. You pick which fields of weaponry to advance at which times. The four main types each have their own strengths and weaknesses that will have to be accounted for based on your style. You can also choose the makeup of your fleets. Fighters are cheap and mobile while frigates and battleships offer more firepower while sacrificing mobility.

The research arc is also fairly unique. The research from one mission carries over to the next, which gives a nice sense of continuity to the campaign. You also have a real limit to growth in the form of limited research points. This makes your choices a bit more significant. It’s a simple, but nice addition.

There is also a nice buildup in the terms of your empire. You will steadily spread across the galaxy as time moves onward. This made the experience feel epic and it does a good job of making your efforts seem worthwhile.

Graphics (2 out of 5)

The graphics are a little bit lackluster. Ship models aren’t that great and the weapon animations aren’t anything special. A lot of care was taken to make the planets pretty, but that’s about it. It’s not bad, but it’s a little disappointing for a space-based game.

System Requirements (4 out of 5)

The system requirements aren’t too high. You need 128 MB of RAM and a 16 MB video card to play this. I was using an older machine with 1 GB of RAM and a Nvidia MX 420 graphics card, and I had no problems. Any fairly modern machine should be able to run it with ease.

Overall (4 out of 5)

Haegemonia is an interesting game. It offers a lot of fun in the way of empire building and space warfare. The research is fairly cool and it’s nice to have one eye on the battlefront and one eye on the home.

It’s not great though. The missions tend to drag a lot and the combat isn’t that enthralling. Battles usually become wars of attrition as your ships meet on the middle ground and blow each other up. The process usually just turns into a slow grind without any real benefit to good strategy. It’s not terrible, but it isn’t great.

If you are a fan of the genre and really like space-based strategy games, then you will like it. You might want to try out a demo if you aren’t familiar with the genre though.