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 and I accomplished a pretty remarkable feat for someone as fussy as me – I loaded the game in DOSBox, played it to refresh my memory and grab some screens, and then wrote the column – all within a few hours.
Looking back, this was easier than it should have been mostly because Centurion is one of those games that has crept into my memory and lodged itself there well beyond my limited affection for the game. Part of it is undoubtedly the haze of college memories. In an age of piracy, we actually bought Centurion. But a large part of it is because once I realized the connections between Centurion and pretty much every other ancients game since, it was an essay that I had been destined to write. Maybe I’ll find a way to upload that column someday in the future. On with the show.
First the basics. In Centurion, the player took control of the Roman empire and tried to conquer the known world one province at a time. Like Annals of Rome, the territories were laid out to match the historical Roman provinces so Italy was as united as Sicily and Egypt a single province just like Cyprus. You could take provinces [Read more →]
