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Entries Tagged as 'Ancients'

Caesar series (1993-2006)

April 4th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Ancients, City Builder, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review

The Caesar series is easily the most successful ancient themed brand in the gaming world. 2006 saw the release of the fourth game under that title. It also spawned a legion of other Impressions developed city builders set in Greece, Egypt and China, a legacy that spawned two new studios – Tilted Mill and Firefly. […]

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Centurion: Defender of Rome (1990)

April 1st, 2008 · 10 Comments · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review

Late in November 2006, I turned in my review of Medieval II: Total War to the editor of Computer Games Magazine. In his reply to that e-mail, he asked if I could quickly turn around a Revisionist History contribution (the magazine’s retro column) connected to the game. I suggested Centurion, the boss man didn’t argue […]

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Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles (1988)

March 20th, 2008 · 14 Comments · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review, Wargames

In 1988, Cases Computer Simulations and R.T. Smith released Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles, a game that was intended to be the first in a series of historical miniature games. The mid 80s was probably the high point of wargame dominance in the computer gaming market, and there were really no ancient wargames on the […]

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Annals of Rome – The Designer’s Perspective

March 17th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Interview, Retro

As I noted in an edit to my Annals of Rome entry, I was delighted to get an email from the designer of the game, George Jaroszkiewicz. The fact that he was not credited in the original packaging (“When I created the game, it was inconvenient to publish my name, so I invented the name […]

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Annals of Rome (1986)

March 14th, 2008 · 7 Comments · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review

Annals of Rome is usually forgotten when people talk about classic strategy games of the period. It was one part of a PSS developed trilogy called the Wargamer Series (the other two were Fire Zone and Sorceror Lord), and PSS didn’t exactly have a reputation for creating brilliant titles. Its early titles were arcade ripoffs. […]

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Legionnaire (1982)

March 12th, 2008 · 6 Comments · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review

Any accounting of the development of ancient themes would be incomplete without Legionnaire. Though the theme was almost arbitrary, this was the first major computer game to be set in the classical world. And it was developed by Chris Crawford, once one of the most important game designers on the planet. And, fortunately for us, […]

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