Details of Upcoming Tin Soldiers Revealed Product: Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is pioneering many new and exciting features. Favoring the grandeur and hand-crafted look of miniature figures, Matrix Games and Koios Works are hoping to eschew the game toward ultra realism. Artists have spent their time drawing hundreds of individually adorned soldiers, rather than countless hours animating clones of identically clad animations scratching their backsides. The game plays like a beautiful miniatures battle from the historical units down to the table terrain, but with the advantages of a computer opponent and a more dynamic turn structure. Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is a new war game with a classic style. Tin Soldiers places gamers in the role of Alexander the Great during his conquest of the known world. Guide Alexander through his grand campaign from inheriting his father?s legacy at the battle of Thebes, to his conquest of Darius III and the Persian Empire, through his last great battle at the Hydaspes, in the heart of Asia. Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is indeed turn based, but with a twist. Matrix has developed an engine for simultaneous turn based strategy. A player does not take turns with his opponents. Instead, each opponent plans out their strategy and issues orders to their units simultaneously, and then presses a play button. The battle rages as all the units execute their orders for that turn in unison - just like RTS, but for the twitch impaired. In addition, their unique "reaction" system enables mid-turn adjustments to battle strategy. The campaign unfolds with 3D panoramas of the different battlefields. The battle scenarios and troop placements are based on real historic events with entertaining, educational, and non-fiction cut-scene storytelling. More than just a set of separate battles, the campaign allows you to make decisions in between battles on which units to reinforce, whether to recruit new units, and how many of your resources to focus on training. Commanders can be replaced, and "battle cards," with a variety of game effects, can be stockpiled against future need. Fight as Alexander as you face off against Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, and the Indian Army with its Elephants. Battles can be won by breaking the enemy army, or by achieving a series of historical objectives. The alternate victory conditions combine, with the reaction system, the battle cards and the between battle campaign decisions, to create incredible replayability. Moreover, as each battle in the campaign is unlocked, it becomes available for single player skirmish play. For those seeking a living opponent, Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great includes support for multiplayer over the internet and local network (via TCP/IP). Any of the campaign battles can be selected, or players can choose one of the two special multi-player scenarios: Bactria and Elysium. Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great does not have a steep learning curve ? to the contrary, it?s easy to pick up, fun to play, and difficult to master. The producers believe that historical strategy gamers, miniatures gamers, and fans of Alexander will be interested in this title for its value as a game, and as a way to experience the campaigns of Alexander and test themselves against perhaps the highest of benchmarks in military history. Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is tentatively scheduled to be released in October 2004. -Red Dawg, GameVortex Communications AKA Alex Redmann Related Links: Matrix Games Koios Works