Centurion: a turn based strategy that's still very playable, without the intimidating stats and options of the more hardcore strategies.
Centurion is a simple turn-based strategy, with enough extras thrown in to make it interesting and challenging enough to keep your attention for a while. The main part of the game consists of mustering, upgrading, and reinforcing legions, conquering neighboring provinces, and hopefully being a smooth enough talker to make it into Cleopatra's bedchamber (really!).
You start off as the primary army leader of Italia, with a small legion at your disposal. Each legion you command is allowed one action per turn: Moving, attacking, upgrading, strengthening, among others. Moving your legion into another nation's province triggers a conversation with it's leader. The description of the nation given will give you some clues to the fight ahead, like the size and ferocity of their army, and the wealth of their nation (which you can later plunder!). If your conversation goes poorly (and by poorly, I mean if you pick a fight, and let's face it, that's why this game is played.), you're thrown into the real-time battlefield mode.
Once you go to war with a nation, you're switched from the top-down view map of Europe and Northern Africa, to an isometric battlefield view. You can choose from a couple layouts for your troops, and preset battlefield maneuvers Once battle starts, you can choose individual groups of soldiers to move differently in reaction to your enemies. The game includes a simple morale system where troops will turn to run before they are completely destroyed (before you lose all of them), and will turn tail if their battlefield commander is killed. You can use this as a huge advantage by rushing some cavalry to their leader and dispatching him early. If you're victorious, the nation becomes yours to do as you will. If you die completely, or retreat, any troops you have left return to their origin and your turn continues.
In addition to continental conquest, there are some mini-games to keep your attention. Sometimes, the citizens of Italia grow restless and require amusement. You can build the Colosseum and put on gladiator fights which you control. Making the right choice of thumbs up or down will either anger or delight the crown. There are also chariot races, which are honestly really difficult. The game also includes fleet building and sea battles, which are a very small part of the game, but, there are two island nations that you'll need a pretty large fleet to move all your troops over for domination.
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