Bread and Circuses"
In this turn based strategy (like Advanced Civilization) , your main goal is to become Caesar mostly through conquest and warfare. You start the game in Ancient Rome in the year 275 BC as a simple Centurion in sandal shoes, leading a single legion and you have to make your way up to become the most powerful man in the known world by turn-based strategic planning and management on the world map and real-time battles. You fight the battles by giving standard simple orders for your troop and the battle plays itself out. But you don't get to just stand by and look - every now and then you have to issue a new set of orders for rearrangement of retreat, for example. You also figt naval battles, but the outcome of those kind of battles are evident - whoever has the bigger fleet wins. All of this can sound good for a while but after that you already know the outcome because of the predictability of the game system and the only thing left to do is to increase the difficulty level. But the game isn't only about battles, it's also about management of your colonies. You can have gladiator fights, chariot races, and you can even secude the fair Kleopatra in Egypt to form and alliance! The graphics are very good for such an old game, with great colors and much detail. The visuals are aesthetically very well done and the animations is also good, although not great. The sounds is very poor which is a shame since a good strategy should have good music. Overall, Defender of Rome is great and fun for a while, after which it becomes monotone and predictable. Good for one time playing, not so much for replaying.
