The Hegemony Series is a series of Grand Strategy games made by Longbow Games. The games are:
- Hegemony: Philip of Macedon, set in Ancient Greece during the rise of Philip II of Macedon. First game of the series.
- Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece: set in Ancient Greece, as one might expect, including Philip's campaign as well as two new ones in The Peloponnesian War (one for Athens and one for Sparta), a sandbox mode, and a lot of reworked mechanics (most noticeably a diplomacy system and city-based recruit pools). Released in Feb 2011 as an Updated Re-release for the first game.
- Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar, released in May 2014. Covers Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul; that campaign is split into 4 chapters. The era covered corresponds to the end period of the The Roman Republic. Mechanics introduced include more types of stat upgrades for units (still limited to a maximum of 4), and allowing cities and forts to be upgraded beyond the addition of walls (along with a new resource to manage: wood). Cities now also have stances which can be chosen, and construction of bridges is allowed as well. The sandbox campaign for Rome also allowed more factors to be altered before the start of the scenario.
- Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients, released in Aug 2015. Covers the struggles between the Romans, Etruscans, Gallics, and Greeks before Rome's rise, in what is now modern Italy. A DLC, The Eagle King, was released in Feb 2017, with an expansion to the map and a campaign based on Pyrrhus of Epirus (the namesake for Pyrrhic Victory).
The series contains examples of
- The Alliance: Gold made this possible. Forming an alliance with a country turns all their units, cities, resources and income into yours, so long as you keep paying them the fees. You can declare the alliance null and keep their lands like you conquered them, i.e. for free, just don't expect other nations to be so trusting of you.
- Apathetic Citizens: Averted. If you want to hold onto the lands of your enemies, you'll need to leave a standing army and food in the cities or you'll face an uprising. The more the country hates you, the stronger the occupation must be.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Handled differently in Philip than in Gold. In Philip, each city you get would count towards a global limit (and there were separate counts for native Macedonian units and foreigners), but Gold changed it over so that each city has its own limit instead, and units recruit from pools in that city.
- Break Meter: All units have a morale stat, and if it hits zero from starvation or battle, whatever's left of the unit is on its way home.
- Easy Logistics: Averted on many levels.
- Your army needs food if you want it to fight, and to make sure it ends up on their plates, you'll need to have supply lines running to any city/camp/bridge (for Rome) in range. Helped by armies' ability to carry considerable amounts of food with them out of the city, and you can always have slaves or workers carry more nearby. Or have sheep be nearby.
- Camps and bridges cost gold as upkeep, and can only be built at certain locations such that you can't spam them.
- Supply lines can be cut. For some resources, transport over long distances also incurs losses.
- Troop sizes are only replenished if their home city has the required recruits.
- In general, players have to ensure that recruits, and supplies of wood and food, are available at the locations where they are needed.
- Enemy Exchange Program: Every city can only churn out units of its culture. Not your culture? You have to pay a little bit extra, but can fill out any holes in your native roster thanks to this trope.
- Evil Pays Better: Slaves don't need to be paid. Workers do.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The games are called Philip of Macedon, Wars of Ancient Greece, and Rome. They are about Philip of Macedon, wars in Ancient Greece, and Rome.
- Gunboat Diplomacy: Starting in Gold, if you have a big enough army, the enemy will be a lot more willing to make peace. If you have an especially big one, they'll pay you for it.
- Hegemonic Empire: Less possible in Philip's campaign, where you can't absorb nations peaceably, but if diplomacy's an option, enough alliances will lead you to this.
- Made a Slave: Enemy's hit their Break Meter? If you can catch them, you can keep them.
- Praetorian Guard: The Companion Cavalry in the first two. You start with them, can't build them anywhere, and the first thing you do in Philip's campaign is send him to join them.
- Realtime With Pause
- RPG Elements: All units gain experience through fighting, and if you have enough, you can level up one of four stats. Units also keep their stats even after routing.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: All units lose morale when losing a fight or starving. Out of morale? They run back to their home city, and the recruitment starts from scratch.
- Separate, but Identical: Individual factions are divided into groups that share rosters, but there are still multiple groups. Athens and Corinth share unit lists, but Athens and Persia do not.
- Shown Their Work: They have historical notes explaining almost everything in the encyclopedia and manual, not to mention this page
- Weather of War: The seasons determine farm output, sheep spawning, and whether or not the sea can be sailed.
- Worker Unit: An odd case, as every unit (except sheep) can build buildings. There are dedicated worker and slave units that are the only ones who can run the mines. They also don't consume food but can carry a lot of it, making them handy for supplies.
- You Call That a Wound?: The player's generals will go down for a while when "killed", but after a long enough time they'll have recovered in their home city. The enemy generals, on the other hand, stay down.
