Deal of the Week! Alea Jacta Est Birth of Rome is 50% off

[LiarFox]

"I am mindful of human weakness, and I reflect upon the might of Fortune and know that everything that we do is exposed to a thousand chances" (Scipio Africanus)

A new and exciting discount is here!

Set in the age of the first struggles between the Romans and their nearest most powerful enemies, Birth of Rome is a true simulation game that allows you to, build, manage, organize, maneuver, sustain and reinforce armies and fleets.
Lead your faction over 5 great historical scenarios and confront famous strategists such as Pyrrhus of Epirus or Hanibal Barca of Carthage through merciless battles and vicious diplomatic treaties. You will either find a way, or make one.

You can grab this fantastic game here for only $ 9.99!

IMPORTANT!
Birth of Rome is now available on Steam as a DLC of Alea Jacta Est! It means that contrary to the original version, it requires Alea Jacta Est on Steam to be launched.
You have to own Alea Jacta Est on Steam to play to Birth of Rome on this platform.

[Philippe]

It's great news that BOR is now available on Steam. Hopefully this means that something will be done about Parthian Wars and Hannibal in the near future.

The last two sentences of the previous post are misleading.

If you have the Steam version of AJE but not BOR can still play BOR (and Hannibal, and Parthian Wars for that matter) through Steam because of the way Pocus has set up the engine, provided that you already have these three games installed in their non-Steam versions. I know, and can tell the difference, because I have different music mods on my different installations. My Steam installation doesn't play the same intro music as my non-Steam installation. (I'm currently using the intro from HBO Rome that you can find on YouTube -- the only problem is that I need to shorten it by about twenty seconds, and haven't identified a good spot to make a cut. My current thinking is that the vanilla ambiance music works with the longest possible delay because it isn't intrusive. The vanilla intro music is intrusive because it's not a very good piece of music so having it play during the game is unfortunate.)

[Franciscus]

Hi

What the last sentences mean is that the version of BOR on sale on Steam is a DLC for the Steam version of AJE (contrary to other versions that are standalone)

Otherwise you are correct regarding cross compatibility of versions

Regards

[Egg Bub]

How many turns on average are the campaigns?

[Franciscus]

- 3rd Samnite War: 104 turns
- Ager Gallicus: 31 turns
- Pyrhic Victories: 70 turns
- First Punic war (full): 284 turns
- First Punic war (256 BC start): 183 turns
- Mercenary war: 48 turns


By the way, some reviews of BOR at launch (much improved with the patches ):

Review at Armchair General
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/birth-of-rome-pc-game-review.htm
"94% - The variety of nations, troop types, situations and options make Birth of Rome more interesting than Alea Jacta Est. With more add-ons coming, this series will have a long and fascinating run."

Review at Tacticular cancer
http://www.tacticularcancer.com/content.php?id=4007
"Birth of Rome adds some interesting new content for players of the original Alea Jacta Est and also serves as a perfectly good starting point for newcomers to the series."

Review at GrogHeads
http://grogheads.com/?p=1824
"The scenarios are full of period flavour, well designed, and reflect the circumstances of history".


Regards

[Cfant]

Maybe it's my bad english or my bad brain - but I don't understand
I bought AJE 2 years ago and I don't use Steam.
So, is this 50% offer ONLY for a steam-version? or can I buy a drm-free BoR? And if I don't need steam: Is it a standalone? Don't know, if I still find my AJE.

[Franciscus]

Hi

The 50% discount is valid for all versions: The standalone game you buy at Ageod or Matrix, or the steam-only DLC

Regards

[Cfant]

I was not sure, if there were different versions Thanks a lot for clarification.

[Ubercat]

I bought AJE at least 2 years ago and have the physical disk. Can I use my current version to get a Steam key? The game is installed but I can't find my serial anywhere. Is there a way to get it from running the game? I'd like to grab BoR from the sale and keep my AJE stuff "uniform" if that makes any sense.

[Franciscus]

Hi

Yes, I think you can

To check your AJE SN, just open with Notepad the file "general.opt" located in the "Settings" subfolder of AJE. Your SN is written there, under "7. Serial numbers & passwords"

With that SN, you should be able to redeem a Steam key, directly from Slitherine. You must go to their site (slitherine.com) and must be registered there, and then, in you personal page you will have a link to register your SN and get a Steam key for AJE.

Regards

[ChuckB]

Hi,

There have been a couple of questions and postings around the following but unfortunately, I'm still not sure I completely understand it:

I have bought Alea Jacta Est and it's add-ons Parthian Wars and Cantabrian Wars from Matrixgames (and I still had the Spartacus Scenario from my AGEOD pre-order before the game came out).

I did buy Birth of Rome yesterday from Matrixgames.

I have Steam keys for AJE and BOR and ideally, I would like to use one Steam installation to play everything above. I understand that the Steam version of BOR is actually an add-on/DLC for AJE and that there are no Steam versions of Parthian Wars and Cantabrian Wars, correct?

If I install AJE and BOR through Steam (assuming it will create one folder within Steam with only one exe etc.), is there a way to also use Parthian Wars, Cantabrian Wars and the Spartacus Scenario with this version? Do I only need to copy the scenario files or do these add-one need more to work?

Thanks!

[Franciscus]

Hi

You only need the scenario files indeed.

Let's see if I can explain how to do it:

- If you want to have your steam installation as the "base", you should, currently:
1. Have Steam
2. Use your AJE steam key and install AJE via Steam
3. Use your BOR steam key and install the BOR DLC scenarios
4. There are Steam DLCs for Cantabrian and Spartacus. I believe you can easily retrieve your Cantabrian steam key the way you got the AJE and BOR steam keys and then simply install the Cantabrian Steam DLC. Not sure about the Spartacus preorder, though - you can try with your original AJE SN, but I am not sure it will work.
5. PAR scenarios are still not available in Steam. The way to have them working is to manually copy the PAR scn files (and, in your case, probably the Spartacus scn file too) from your current installation to the AJE-Steam installation (located usually in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Alea Jacta Est), to the Scens folder, of course.

In that way when you launch AJE via Steam the engine should see your AJE, BOR, and PAR, CAN and SPR scenarios, available to play.

I am no Steam expert, though, but I think that if you have the default Steam settings, Steam will detect the PAR and SPR "strange files" in your Steam folder and delete them. I think you have to manually disable something like auto-updates. But I am not sure if it is needed or not, sorry, maybe some Steam expert can give a hand.

Regards

(PS: check the date of your Spartacus scenario file. If the date is from 2012, it is outdated, you should have received back in 2013 an updated scenario file via email. If needed, PM me)

[ChuckB]

Franciscus,

Thanks for the fast response - you seem to be always online!

I'll try what you suggested (and you're right about Cantabrian, it's already in my Steam library). Since I have a full installation of the Parthian Wars on my machine, it should be easy to test (I also have the 2013 Spartacus scenario, it's the one with the Kirk Douglas pic, correct?).

If the scenarios load up properly, would that be enough to test that everything works as intended or should I check anything else?

I'll report back once this is done.

Thanks again!

[Franciscus]

Hi

If you have latest 1.04 AJE (and steam is 1.04, of course), all you need is the scenario files, yes.
Note that if you keep your regular AJE/PAR instalation and Copy PAR scens to Steam, you will see duplicate scenarios when you open the Steam game. That's because the current game engine checks for all installs. To avoid it, simply uninstall your non-steam game.

If on loading Spartacus you see Kirk, you are good there, too

Regards

(I am not always online, but have an iPhone that is )

[ChuckB]

Franciscus,

So I'm reporting back: Everything seems to have worked well. I copied the "scen" folder out of my existing (standard Matrixgames) AJE installation before uninstalling it and then installing the Steam version. I then copied the "missing" scenario files for PAR and Spartacus into the "scen" folder of the Steam installation (since I uninstalled the Matrixgames version first, there were no duplicate scenarios). I haven't played anything yet but loaded up two scenarios and everything seems to work well.

Thanks for your help - I appreciate it!

[SAS]

Thank you for this! I got the new DLC for my Steam game. Here is hoping the rest come to Steam