So Jon launched a new company and a Kickstarter campaign for a strategy game called At the Gates. “There have certainly been games about Rome and even its fall, but the barbarians who helped bring it about” he says, “have always been relegated to the role of antagonist rather than being the stars of the show” as they often were.
Jon Shafer, the smart-as-a-whip designer, best known for calculating martial law in the daddy of all empire-builders Civilization V, wants that to change. The empire-builder hasn’t let you reenact the savage raids by unkempt armies on decaying empires. And while empire-builder games let us toy with the past - to stroke our chins and speculate what if Rome had been defeated, say, in the War against Nabis in 195 BC - they’re typically a war of attrition among civilized states. The history of the West is a violent, teeth-gnashing, and unholy succession through the centuries.
