Hubris: Twilight of the Hellenistic World 220-165 BCE

Hubris: Twilight of the Hellenistic World places players in the shoes of the 2nd century BC Hellenistic kings, heirs to the famous Successors who fought over Alexander the Great's empire for more than 40 years, into their dotage. The world they are living in is different in many ways as, under the Macedonian kings, the Eastern Mediterranean has experienced a boost in urban life and an unprecedented sharing and cross-fertilization of culture, but the dominant theme remains major powers' rivalries and endemic warfare. In those years, even though the great kingdoms of the Lagids (Ptolemies), Seleucids and Antigonid Macedon have been established for 80 years or more, power remains a very personal endeavour, with everything revolving around the king, and he himself having to rely on his entourage of family members, childhood friends, and veteran advisers to conduct state affairs, whether leading armies, undertaking diplomatic missions, or governing provinces. Even though the great kings are fixated on their rivals, the world around them has been changing, both from within, where minor kingdoms such as Pergamon have been pushing for a space at the table, and leagues of Greek cities are offering a new challenge to century-old Macedonian hegemony, and from without where, beyond the ever present Barbarian incursions from the savage North, new powers have been flexing their muscles both in the Western Mediterranean and Central Asia... The times for a final push for final triumph, or descent into irrelevancy, are near... —description from the publisher