Gods and Heroes Q&A: It’s all about the squads, baby

<You, you, and you. You're assigned to potato peeling tonight!>

Perpetual Entertainment‘s Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising‘s NPC squad-centric gameplay system should prove quite interesting. You know, like a Necro raising an army of anatomically-correct skeletons in Diablo II and making them do all the hard work. Anyway, back to topic: game lead design director Stieg Hedlund reveals to The Game Musketeers how this squad-centric approach shaped many aspects of the game.

With, first of all, story. Its Roman Republic setting was a conscious decision by the devs because of the squad-centricity. (a) Warfare in ancient Rome was centered on the Legion and, drilling down to the lowest levels, the squad. (b) Republic, partly because all that pre-Empire turmoil gave any landed citizen of Res Publica Romanorum (did I get the Latin right?) the reason – or excuse – to recruit a squad and bear arms.

Then there’s the MMORPG’s equivalent of housing and amenities. Or in this case, the Camp. Each player gets his own camp, says Stieg, where he can visit his NPC squad members (Stieg calls them “minions”), and outfit and setup his boys for war. Perpetual has plans for larger, guild-level (“tribe”) housing. On to the minions themselves.

Minions will act very reasonably on their own, and many commands are very easily done as well. We donÂ’t want players to have to micro manage their minions, but give them standing orders and then call special unit feats from time to time to get them out of tough situations.

Squad combat is a very important mechanic in GnH. You get a minion early on and your squad becomes larger as the game goes on, to a maximum of eight. When you form a group with other players, you can have five group members so that group with full squads is 45 characters, which is a small army. Epic battles are certainly one of the big payoffs of the system, and weÂ’re presenting some very cool scenarios that showcase that.

Rather interesting. Although, technically speaking, 45 Legionnaires of Ancient Rome wouldn’t compose a “small army,” but rather a very-small Century (something like the platoon of the Ancient Roman Army), but that’s just this writer’s historical nitpicking. It would be interesting to see massive PvP battles of rival armies or Legions, don’t you think, Perpetual? Wait a minute, this game’s not at the Roman Civil War yet…

<You, you, and you. You're assigned to potato peeling tonight!>

Perpetual Entertainment‘s Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising‘s NPC squad-centric gameplay system should prove quite interesting. You know, like a Necro raising an army of anatomically-correct skeletons in Diablo II and making them do all the hard work. Anyway, back to topic: game lead design director Stieg Hedlund reveals to The Game Musketeers how this squad-centric approach shaped many aspects of the game.

With, first of all, story. Its Roman Republic setting was a conscious decision by the devs because of the squad-centricity. (a) Warfare in ancient Rome was centered on the Legion and, drilling down to the lowest levels, the squad. (b) Republic, partly because all that pre-Empire turmoil gave any landed citizen of Res Publica Romanorum (did I get the Latin right?) the reason – or excuse – to recruit a squad and bear arms.

Then there’s the MMORPG’s equivalent of housing and amenities. Or in this case, the Camp. Each player gets his own camp, says Stieg, where he can visit his NPC squad members (Stieg calls them “minions”), and outfit and setup his boys for war. Perpetual has plans for larger, guild-level (“tribe”) housing. On to the minions themselves.

Minions will act very reasonably on their own, and many commands are very easily done as well. We donÂ’t want players to have to micro manage their minions, but give them standing orders and then call special unit feats from time to time to get them out of tough situations.

Squad combat is a very important mechanic in GnH. You get a minion early on and your squad becomes larger as the game goes on, to a maximum of eight. When you form a group with other players, you can have five group members so that group with full squads is 45 characters, which is a small army. Epic battles are certainly one of the big payoffs of the system, and weÂ’re presenting some very cool scenarios that showcase that.

Rather interesting. Although, technically speaking, 45 Legionnaires of Ancient Rome wouldn’t compose a “small army,” but rather a very-small Century (something like the platoon of the Ancient Roman Army), but that’s just this writer’s historical nitpicking. It would be interesting to see massive PvP battles of rival armies or Legions, don’t you think, Perpetual? Wait a minute, this game’s not at the Roman Civil War yet…

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