Time Commanders: The battle of Cannae - 1/3

Time Commanders is a series of programmes made by Lion TV for BBC Two that ran for two seasons from 2003 to 2005.
It uses an edited version of the game engine behind the real-time strategy game Rome: Total War by the Creative Assembly to recreate famous battles of the ancient world. The battles are replayed by 4-player teams from diverse backgrounds. The teams are unfamiliar with computer games, to make sure their gaming skills do not influence their success. After a brief introduction of the battle, including an overview of military units, terrain and available forces, the players have to develop a strategy and then deploy their forces. Two of the players are selected as generals, who will direct the battle and have access to a strategic map. The other two players are designated lieutenants, the units are indirectly controlled by the lieutenants, who issue commands to program assistants, who in turn use the game interface to control the units.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• time
• commanders
• battle
• cannae
• rome
• total
• war
• ancient
• famous
• battles
• hannibal
• creative
• assembly
• carthage

[SuperMadman48]

I used to watch this on bbc years ago they should have kept it going.

[ThisNameWasntUs3d]

State of the art technology... or a computer game :D i miss this show

[Robolord77]

@26wordy no, Barca

[guilemaster147]

@elliot18375 Pretty much, but this show was around before Rome Total War was released. The producers of the show paid the Creative Assembly to allow them to use a pre-released and modified version of RTW a year before it was released. BBC has laws against product advertisement in-shows (or at least, they did), so they couldn't just say that it was Rome Total War. But CA was in the credits. It was actually a pretty cool concept show.

[elliot18375]

.. its rome total war

[Kneecap22]

@ThisNameWasntUs3d But it is state of the art technology, it was the best historical combat sim available. Was a there a better battle simulation? If not then it is state of the art, if there was it would also be a video game. :)

[andresrojas22]

there's a facebook group, BRING BACK TIME COMMANDERS, for all of us orphaned strategy enthusiasts who want this show back, join in and spread the word, lets bring this back to television

[commanderAnzal]

Whish there could be another season on 2012

[Dbirkin1]

...They're making the novices be...the Carthaginians??? So Hannibal is regarded as one of the most eminent Generals in all time because of his genius at this battle...and they're asking the general public to re-create it??

[Dbirkin1]

@26wordy Barca ;)

[26wordy]

hannibal barker, was that his last name?

[flyingspagetti]

Rome and Medieval 2 Total War. Two of the best games of all time. Back then I purchased the most powerful pc just to play those 2 games.