It should be no secret to regular readers that I am an ancient history nerd. I watch sword and sandal movies, I read scholarly monographs for fun and collect games with ancient themes. I have suggested naming my first born son Germanicus.<\/p>\n
And it is even less of a secret that I enjoy what Paradox does. They are far from perfect – Victoria<\/em> never really fulfilled its potential and Diplomacy<\/em> was terrible – but I am looking forward to next month. One my favorite developers married to my favorite topic?<\/p>\n So, in anticipation of the release of Paradox’s Europa Universalis: Rome<\/em>, I will be writing a series of articles about ten significant ancient themed strategy games. This will not be a “best” list; about fifty ancient strategy games have been made – most of them sequels – and once you get past the top six or seven, you’re really pushing it in any case. I may wrap up with some thoughts on the worst of the worst, though.<\/p>\n Sticking with the Roman theme of the upcoming title, the games I have chosen to write about are:<\/p>\n Legionnaire<\/em> (1982)<\/a> I admit that Roman legions are my own personal fetish, but I hope you all will forgive the indulgence. I hope to trace the genealogy and evolution of Roman games, how they reflect history, entertainment and the expectations of gamers. Like all evolutionary trees, there are some dead ends.<\/p>\n With about five weeks between now and then, I’ll try to do two retro reviews each week, with as much research as my schedule will allow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It should be no secret to regular readers that I am an ancient history nerd. I watch sword and sandal movies, I read scholarly monographs for fun and collect games with ancient themes. I have suggested naming my first born son Germanicus. And it is even less of a secret that I enjoy what Paradox […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,120,75,6],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-ek","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAnnals of Rome<\/a><\/em> (more here<\/a>) (1986)
\nEncyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles<\/a><\/em> (1988)
\nCenturion: Defender of Rome<\/a><\/em> (1990)
\nCaesar<\/a><\/em> (1993)
\nThe Great Battles<\/em> series<\/a> (1997-98)
\nAge of Empires<\/a><\/em> (1997)
\nLegion<\/a><\/em> (2002)
\nPraetorians<\/a><\/em> (2003)
\nRome: Total War<\/a><\/em> (2004)
\nEpilogue<\/a><\/p>\n