Annals of Rome

"Annals of Rome" is a game about ancient history which, with an original release date of 1986, has become ancient _computer_ history by itself now. In the game, you command ancient Rome from the beginnings of the Republic in 273 BC to its fall more than 1400 years later - though it's also possible to maintain an eternal Roman Empire if you're good at it. You conquer new provinces, maintain your army, defend against rebellions and invasions, and assign officers to provinces. Officers differ in their military prowess and loyalty to the current ruler, which makes for interesting decisions - e.g. you may want to put your strongest officer into a province that's about to be invaded, but if he's also disloyal, then he may just start a civil war and march his troops against Italy. The game spawns invaders at the times and places where they occurred in history. Once on the map, though, they will decide on invasion routes based on the strength of neighbouring areas. This means that the game creates a framework in which history often unfolds similarly to ours, but may also diverge radically - especially when your own decisions differ from those that Roman leaders took historically. For exa…

This is an old DOS game. Controls are very basic, and you view things from a very high perspective. The game will take some skill, learning, and luck. Worth it on discount, but if you aren't willing to deal with very old-school gaming methods, probably not for you.

As with others here, I played this intensively when it originally came out. Back then the interface was nothing particularly unusual, and even today it isn't difficult, just clumsy - it takes about 5 minutes to get used to it. There are certainly a few issues with it, primarily related to the display of information at appropriate times - it's hard to play without making any separate notes (you pretty much have to keep track of the loyalty values of your available commanders, as that is only visible on the screen before you make decisions about who to assign where). But that isn't anywhere near enough to outweigh the cleverness of the design and the fun value of trying to shepherd your Republic through dictatorship and the inevitable empire, trying to keep it alive through the ups and downs of barbarian migrations and rival nations waxing and waning. An amazing game considering the technical limitations it was created under.

An old school game with 80's era graphics, based on the old Fall of Rome boardgame. There is no final victory, you just play to see how big you can build the Roman Empire and how long you can stave of the fall. The challenge is that you have a limited number of commanders to run your provinces, and they are of varying loyalty. The more provinces you have, the more you will have to accept using commanders of dubious loyalty, increasing the chances of them deciding they would make a better emperor than you are and taking whatever legions you've given them and marching on Rome.

if you like text games whats to lose?

Great classic game!