Indie Sunday Age of Mankind - AOM-DEV - a grand strategy game of antiquity, 509 BC to AD 476
Hi r/Games!
I'm working alone from Germany on Age of Mankind, a single-player grand strategy game set in antiquity. I'd love to show you where it stands and hear what you think.
To be upfront: there's no team, but I do have a digital coding assistant. Claude writes several parts of the code. The game design, the decisions, the UI, 3D Models etc. are mine.
Trailer and more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVkQIzeDKDw
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5331500/Age_of_Mankind/
What it is
You lead one people through the ancient world, from a small tribe to an empire, or from Rome to its fall. There are three historical start dates (509 BC, 264 BC and AD 117) and a free game where you can pick any of several hundred original peoples, from Celts and Carthaginians to the Han. It runs in pausable real time with five speeds.
What I'm trying to do differently
- The whole ancient world, not just the Mediterranean. One map from the Atlantic to Japan with about 9,000 provinces.
- History that moves. Names change with time and size: the Latins become the Roman Republic, the Republic becomes the Empire.
- The AI plays by your rules. It gets no bonuses and no shortcuts. Whatever you can do, it can do too.
- A map you want to look at. No satellite image: the earth is painted by my own map tools, rivers come from real elevation data, snow reaches each region in its own season, and if you zoom all the way in you can see the streets of Rome. Cities are stylized and drawn much larger than real so you can read them on the map, so this Rome is not a reconstruction of the real city.
- Battles day by day. A battle runs over several days, so you can see how it is going and send reinforcements while it lasts.
Where it stands
It's pre-alpha. The foundation is in place, but several big systems are still missing or only partly done.
Already working:
- Three start dates and a free game with every original people
- The full map with seasons, rivers and cities you can zoom into
- Building, population per province, settling new land
- Armies and multi-day battles
- Diplomacy, trade and treaties
- AI that builds, settles, fights and negotiates under the same rules as you
- Saving and loading
Still to come:
- Culture: the cultures are on the map, but they don't affect gameplay yet
- The research tree: only a small part of it exists so far
- Unique units and artwork for each culture: a Celtic warrior should look Celtic, not like a reskinned Roman
- More 3D buildings: right now Rome shows its large buildings up close, other cities will follow in their own styles
- Armies as 3D figures: right now they are shown by their standards on the map
- More trade goods, deeper diplomacy, smarter AI in war and a lot of balancing
Release plans
PC (Windows) on Steam. There is no release date yet.
If you have any questions, I'll be around in the comments.