Age of Empires-influenced real-time strategy game The Fertile Crescent 2: Collapse of the Bronze Age leaves early access today, publishers MicroProse have announced, with the 1.0 version adding the final chapters of the singleplayer story. You'll also get your grubby fingers on the very same map editor developers Wield Interactive used to design the campaign.
I'm new to The Fertile Crescent 2 myself. I do like the sound of a strategy sim in which you guide a fugitive community through the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The land has been thrown into turmoil by the arrival of the Sea People, this being a loose historical term for assorted ocean-going migrants who, I gather, are often blamed for the crumbling of the Hittites among other once-glorious Bronze Age powers. I don't have much scholarly insight to share - I thought the "Sea People" referred to expansionist mermaids, at first - but I do have a trailer.
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