SPECULATORES

I am a big Roman history fan - was my degree in College and has always remained a passion for me.

Julius Caesar wrote seven books about the conquest of Gaul. This game assumes for ease of writing that he left out the pay chest, the burning wagons on the night road, the lady in the palisade pen, the courier who almost got through, the survey of a British beach in driving rain, the long walk out of the winter snow, the grain barges, the water-gate at Avaricum, the terrace at Gergovia, the silent grove, and ten turns in the gap at Alesia.

That was you.

SPECULATORES is a compact turn-based tactics campaign: you command a detachment of six Roman scouts across all six years of the Gallic War, 58–52 BC. Every mission has its own objective — steal, burn, rescue, intercept, survey, escape, infiltrate, hold — and your soldiers persist across the whole campaign: the four named leads return wounded and scarred, while your recruits, when they die, are dead, and the replacement depot sends someone new who has to earn their place in the ledger.

FEATURES

· 12-mission campaign across three acts — from the Helvetii to the surrender of Vercingetorix

· One move + one strike per soldier: five-minute rules, whole-campaign consequences

· Objectives that answer to a click: seize the chest, torch the wagon, open the gate, free the hostage

· Permadeath recruits, persistent scarred veterans, and Varro's ledger recording all of it

· 17 painted character portraits, pixel-art battlefields, day/night/rain/snow

· An original five-track soundtrack and an animated prologue

· Posted sentries, war chariots, druids, and a Commentaries pastiche after every mission

· Saves, autosaves, export codes — and a cheat menu whose crown jewel is MARCUS GINANDTONICUS

· Single HTML file. No install, no account, no tracking. Runs in your browser.

PLAYTEST NOTE

This is a community playtest build. The campaign is complete and the difficulty curve is Monte Carlo tested (yes, really — ask in the comments), but I want your war stories: where you got hurt, where you got bored, and what the ledger said when it was over. Comments are open. Desktop browser recommended; touch is untested.

Controls section (itch page or in the description)

CLICK a soldier to select · CLICK a highlighted tile to move · CLICK an enemy in range to strike

CLICK objectives directly: wagons, chests, barges, gates · ESC pauses · Everything else is in HOW TO PLAY on the title screen