StrategyFront Gaming

Hegemony III: The Eagle King expansion moves the setting forward a few hundred years to the time of the Pyrrhus of Epirus and his invasion of Italy. By this time Rome has become the dominant power on the Italian peninsula. 

In their expansion across the land, they’ve now come up against the borders of the Greek settlements of Magna Graecia (roughly southern Italy). Feeling the inevitable pressure of the Roman Legions the Greeks have called upon the young and energetic King Pyrrhus to push back Rome. 

It’s an exciting time period to cover, Rome is not yet the empire we know from the times of Julius Caesar but it is the biggest fish in this small pond. 

Pyrrhus, on the other hand, is best known for the term, Pyrrhic victory, which means someone who wins a victory but takes such a heavy toll doing so that it defeats any long-term benefits. Yikes, not a great look for him.

Pyrrhus’ invasion is the first time that an Alexandrian army of heavy sarissa pikemen faced off against the vaunted Roman Legionnaires. 

Much has this specific clash of arms as many see it as a changing of the guard from the tightly packed Phalangite spearmen, with which Alexander conquered Persia, to the more flexible Manipular system used by the Roman Legionaries.

The Eagle King also adds quality of life improvements and extra scenarios for you to play around with. 

There is now a new Invasion campaign mode where you play as a wandering tribe ravaging your way through Italy before deciding to settle down and build an empire. 

There is a new limited map scenario, which only covers the island of Sicily. This is a great learning scenario and allows you to focus on the new map areas added with the DLC, much like the previous Etruria scenario. 

You can now choose different time periods to start your sandbox campaign. Either the early, middle or late periods. This changes the size of the empires and technology you begin with. It’s a great way to change up the sandbox experience and skip the initial phase of expansion for those who want it. 

Finally, there is the Pyrrhus Campaign itself which details Pyrrhus’ conquests in Italy and Sicily. This narrative campaign takes the same form as the earlier games in the series: Hegemony Gold and Hegemony Rome: Rise of Caesar, both of which had structured narrative campaigns.

The Eagle King Himself

There is also something vaguely poetic about Longbow’s first game detailing the Rise of Alexander the Great’s father, while this campaign showcases Pyrrhus, who was consciously trying to emulate Alexander’s conquests, and was arguably his most worthy successor. These two campaigns bookmark Alexander’s direct military legacy.

There are a ton of new units that have been added to the game to represent the sheer diversity of the army which Pyrrhus brought with him to Italy. You’ll now have control of Elite Thessalian cavalry, Macedonian phalangites, Royal Companions, and dreaded War Elephants. 

Rome, for their part, already controls large portions of the Italian Peninsula and has huge resources of gold and manpower to draw upon. Their hold on Italy is still new however and the subject tribes of Italy still remember their old heritages. They resent Roman rule but are looking to you to soften the Romans up before they throw off their shackles. 

The main focus of The Eagle King campaign then is to pry these reluctant subjects away from Rome, depriving them of their manpower. 

Rome will already field their advanced legionnaire units like Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, which are often more than a match for Pyrrhus’ forces. 

This compels you to change up your tactics and look to preserve your forces, since you can’t reinforce your most elite units like War Elephants, so far from home. 

You can no longer just throw your troops at the AI in a war of attrition, you now have to lay traps, flank, and starve the Romans into submission.  

One thing to note about Pyrrhus is that while he tries to emulate Alexander the Great, he has a serious case of being pulled in multiple directions. Which is part of the reason he’s not as famous as he should be, Hannibal, for instance, ranked Pyrrhus as the second greatest commander in history, just behind Alexander, is because none of his conquests were lasting. 

He was constantly moving on to new battles and new conquests before his last victories were ever secured. You will definitely feel this pressure in the campaign.

Sicilian Expedition

Romans will attack you in multiple places, and you’ll need to defend the Greek City-States to keep your support. You’ll also be asked to intervene in Sicily where the Greeks there are being pressed by Carthage.

This event occurs probably just as you’re finishing up the Battle with Asculum, the specific event where the term Pyrrhic victory comes from, due to Pyrrhus’ losses during the battle. The end of this battle though will result in a ceasefire with Rome, allowing you some breathing room. 

You can then either decide to assist the Sicilians against the Carthaginians and weaken your position in Italy, allowing Rome to possibly strike back. 

In my first attempt as Pyrrhus, I took the bulk of my force to Sicily after an unsuccessful initial attempt to relieve the siege of Syracuse. I was able to fend off the Carthaginian offensive and conquer most of the island when the Romans struck in Italy. Leaving most of my forces stranded in Sicily while our position crumbled back in Magna Graecia. 

In my next campaign, I waited longer and further secured my position in Italy by liberating the region of Lucania before traveling with only part of my force to Sicily. 

By this time the Carthaginians had already captured Syracuse but with clever use of tactics, I was able to draw their forces out and annihilate them outside the city walls. 

When the Romans struck, I had my response force in Italy, ready to rebuff them. It was a clever use of translating historical reality into an interesting strategic scenario and giving the player the freedom to handle it how they wanted to.

The decision to send troops to Sicily is one core tension in the campaign, the other is how you’re going to deal with the veteran roman troops who greatly outnumber you throughout the campaign. 

To beat them you’ll need to keep your forces together and strike fast before the Romans can pool their massive army together in any one spot. 

This tension is a bit less interesting than the Sicily campaign since the AI is nothing to write home about. Though the Roman troops are good, the computer consistently fails to use any sort of combined arms tactics. This allows you to outflank them in every engagement. 

The strategic AI is also a bit lackluster. The AI doesn’t like to form large armies so the campaign scripts several Roman armies to try and simulate the large battles which occurred during this period.

This feels a bit silly, since at no other point does the AI seem to group more than four units together, meaning that if you focus all your effort on one point you’ll almost always succeed. 

As you progress throughout The Eagle King campaign, as you progress the campaign will slowly diverge into alternate history, allowing you to ultimately capture Rome itself (Pyrrhus instead returned to Epirus historically). 

The campaign is a good throwback to both previous Hegemony games. Though it is much, much shorter than either of those campaigns, which is a shame. Overall, I think it could have done with more missions overall to give more direction, and added to the feeling of participating in a great conflict of history.

What’s there now is great, and you’re rarely forced to do something you don’t want to if you just want to play it like a sandbox.

Invasion Mode in The Eagle King

Invasion mode is another addition to the game. You’ll now be roaming around Italy looking for a new home to settle in. You’ll start like the ancient migratory tribes with all your warriors, families, and food on the move. Your people have given up everything to carve out a new place for themselves in the rich lands of Italy. 

The game will give you a few different options of where to settle, and overall this campaign is more structured than the sandbox, although you can still do whatever you want.

You will have to settle down quickly though or you will run out of food. It’s too bad you can’t take more time to explore as a migratory tribe, as exploring Italy as a massive society would be extremely interesting. 

Conclusion

In some ways, The Eagle King is a return to form for the Hegemony series. A semi-structured narrative campaign was the core focus of the previous Hegemony games. The campaign covers an interesting and often neglected period of history. 

Hannibal considered Pyrrhus one of the greatest commanders in history but today he’s mostly forgotten beside the phrase coined on his name. Getting to play through his campaigns, and seeing just what he fought against is a rewarding experience. 

Any map of Epirus, Pyrrhus’ home Kingdom, will show you it’s a small mountainous backwater. The fact that Pyrrhus was able to challenge the might of Rome when he did is impressive enough, getting to play through that is even better.

My dream for Hegemony III is for them to release a similar campaign for Hannibal’s campaigns throughout Italy. Now that would be something!

If you’re wondering what I thought of the base game Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients, you can check out my review here.

There is also a new DLC coming out for Hegemony III called The Isle of the Giants adding Corsica and Sardinia to the map, hopefully, it will come with a narrative campaign like The Eagle King.