Realm of Levies
376 – 410 AD  ·  The Gothic War

Realm of Levies

A browser turn-based strategy of peasant hordes and rare, ransomed lords. Break their morale, surround their nobles, and lead a mistreated people from the banks of the Danube to the gates of Rome.

War as it actually was

Most strategy games hand every soldier a sword and a death animation. This one models the truth of late-antique war — a small core of elite, expensive fighters wrapped in a mass of brittle levies, where battles were won by broken nerve, not last men standing.

Quality, not hit points

Levies, regulars, elites and named heroes each carry their own cost, training, and morale. A handful of cataphracts can shatter a peasant horde — exactly as history records.

Capture, don't kill

Surround an enemy noble instead of deleting him: ransom him for gold, hold him to drain enemy morale, or conscript him. Tactics that disable beat tactics that destroy.

Morale wins fields

Armies routed long before they were annihilated. Flank, outnumber, and terrify, and a far larger host will break and flee the board before it's killed to the last.

Two hosts, one bloody road

The Goths

Refugees turned conquerors. Driven across the Danube by the Huns, starved and cheated by Rome, then forged in revolt under Fritigern and, a generation on, Alaric.

  • Spear-levies & bowmen — cheap, numerous, brittle
  • Gothic & Alan horsemen — the hammer of Adrianople
  • The wagon-fort (carrago) — a fortress that moves

Rome

The late Empire: disciplined, professional, overstretched, and complacent. From the corrupt officers of the frontier to an Emperor who threw away an army in the August heat.

  • Auxilia & sagittarii — the steady backbone
  • Roman cavalry — elite, expensive, capturable
  • Officers & emperors — named heroes worth a ransom

Seven authored battles, an unlockable history codex that cites its sources, and a single-player campaign that doesn't sanitise what was done to a desperate people.

Muster your host — it's free