By Jim Rossignol on September 20th, 2012 at 11:00 am.
Piling in on the current overwhelming trend towards Latin game-titles, Alea Jacta Est is a grand strategy game by Ageod, to be published by Matrix games. They report in their reveal announcement that “An incredible amount of detail and historical accuracy has been packed into Alea Jacta Est from terrain to units to even the dilemmas and troubles the leaders of Rome actually faced hundreds of years ago. Using the successful and popular AGE engine, Alea Jacta Est will benefit from the ease of the team to create new mods, events, scenarios and more!”
Of course the game had already been announced back in April. I guess it’s just *really* announced now.
20/09/2012 at 11:16 eel says:
I don’t get it. Why is the title spelled with a ‘j’?
20/09/2012 at 11:26 Saiko Kila says:
For the same reason “Julius” is spelled “Julius”, not “Iulius”. It is alternative spelling.
20/09/2012 at 12:15 Carra says:
Yeah, it just feels wrong with a “J”.
20/09/2012 at 12:49 Scrooge says:
Yeah, you’d figure they would spell it with an i, what with the ‘incredible amount of detail and historical accuracy’ and all.
20/09/2012 at 15:19 Joshua Northey says:
I suspect they are doing it one or more of 3 reasons.
1) For marketing reasons you don’t want two pronunciations of your game floating around out there. Some people calling it “jack-ta” and some people calling it “eee-act-a” That is a marketing persons nightmare.
2) They may be attempting to help educate people on proper pronunciation of this famous phrase because you hear it wrong as often as you hear it right.
3) Also that is a French company and it is possible that the conventions regarding ancient Latin spelling in modern contexts are different there than they are here.
But I know comment threads are all about criticizing and looking like you are smart rather than trying to actually share information.
20/09/2012 at 12:52 Rosveen says:
Ancient Latin had no letter “J”, it was introduced in the Middle Ages to differentiate between vowel (as in “ira”) and consonantal (as in “maior”) sounds. For a game that prides itself in historical accuracy, they should use the original spelling (in my opinion anyway).
20/09/2012 at 13:17 RegisteredUser says:
I am glad this is the first comment.
WTF people.
20/09/2012 at 14:00 MrLebanon says:
you mean WJF
20/09/2012 at 15:09 seamoss says:
It’s spelled with a J because that’s how most people remember it from reading it in Asterix all their lives.
20/09/2012 at 15:35 son_of_montfort says:
The “J” is correct. As Rosveen stated, Latin had the J added to differentiate between I and J that were not part of classical Latin. The way one would have known the difference in classical Latin would have been pronunciation, and there was absolutely a difference between words like “Iustitia” and “Imperator,” for example.
I’m confused by this post. Alea Jacta Est released to people who pre-ordered it yesterday. In fact, it is sitting on my hard-drive even as I post.
20/09/2012 at 17:03 DaiMonPaul says:
I think the developers mentioned on their forum that “AJE” as an acronym works much better than “AIE.” Either spelling is correct, technically.
As for being announced again, this was coming from Matrix Games, which I believe just signed a distribution deal for the game. The game comes out in a few days (those who preordered can already play), and this is MG’s way of saying that they’ll be selling it (in addition to other places like GamersGate).
20/09/2012 at 11:34 Cytrom says:
This will bomb if it releases anywhere near rome 2 – total war, even if its decent…
20/09/2012 at 11:42 flowsnake says:
I don’t think Rome 2 is out in a week.
(This is more of a release announcement than an announcement of the game existing)
21/09/2012 at 00:42 pertusaria says:
> I don’t think Rome 2 is out in a week.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.
*gets coat*
20/09/2012 at 11:37 flowsnake says:
Not published by Paradox? I knew there had been certain changes in the AGEOD/Paradox relationship, but I wonder why that was necessary. I suppose this game does fit better into the Matrix/Slitherine niche.
20/09/2012 at 11:44 Fede says:
Yeah, it’s what I was wondering. I thought Paradox bought AGEOD.
20/09/2012 at 11:54 flowsnake says:
They did, but then this happened. I think they still technically own them, but I’m not sure.
20/09/2012 at 12:07 Fede says:
Oh, interesting. Thanks!
20/09/2012 at 15:24 Joshua Northey says:
I had heard a rumor regarding chronically missed scheduling by AGEOD and that the business side of Paradox is trying to clean that sort of thing up, especially after the SotSII fiasco.
Paradox took a lot of flak for the miscarriage that was SotSII. It might have been their best selling game of all-time, if it was at all finished, and was bringing them all kinds of new customers. Then those new customers got a game that was years from completion.
20/09/2012 at 15:47 andrewi31 says:
Revolution Under Siege (great game by the way) was also published by Matrix. As flowsnake said it’s more to do with being too niche of a product than anything other factor. Paradox gave it a go with Pride of Nations, but their customer base wasn’t interested by it in significant numbers.
20/09/2012 at 11:37 Zeewolf says:
I think Matrix announces every game they publish like this, even if it’s been announced by the devs before.
This is on Greenlight, BTW.
20/09/2012 at 11:44 Baldanders says:
It’s actually been released yesterday for preorders (I’m playing it right now) with official release coming in two days.
Matrix is just announcing that it will be available through their system.
20/09/2012 at 16:52 andrewi31 says:
Thanks for the informative comment. I’ll get it through Ageod Saturday because Matrix will probably take a few more days if history serves.
20/09/2012 at 12:12 Soulstrider says:
Announced? But it is already out for those who pre-ordered, hell I even played it a bit this morning. And by played I mean getting my ass handed by Pompeius.
20/09/2012 at 15:26 Joshua Northey says:
I have to say I am intrigued by this game as this is a great setting for a war game. SO many war game settings are forced and rely on a lot of unrealistic mechanics to make them “fun” (huge swaths of land changing hands in short periods of time). But that actually happened here.
Once I see some reviews I might pick it up.
20/09/2012 at 15:59 CalleX says:
Hundreds of years ago? More like thousands of years ago..
20/09/2012 at 16:52 MythArcana says:
Matrix Games, eh? So, this badboy wil retail at $60 when it comes out then? Distant Worlds complete requires bonds, a gold credit card, and a co-sign from Donald Trump. Great games, but insane prices.
20/09/2012 at 16:55 andrewi31 says:
$20.