Legion (Mac)

Rating:
Summary: Solid, Stable, Strategic and Fun.
Review: First off, this game will not win game of the year awards or anything like that.

But it is a good game. Management of your economy, army, and diplomacy is simple and doesn't take very long to learn. The best thing about the game is that there is lots of strategy... Keeping it challenging and interesting.

One of my favorite things about the game is how battles are played out. You give your troops their orders BEFORE the battle, and then you have no control once it starts. It adds to the strategy as it is not a clickfest-- you can think about what your unit formations/orders should be, the position, and the terrain you want them to fight in.
It is also very realistic-- in Roman times, once a battle had begun, orders could not be efficiently relayed to the troops.

The economy interface is simple. There are 3 resources; food, lumber, and iron. You will need them to raise armies and build buildings. Some buildings provide the resources directly. Others improve your worker's productivity. And others add town defenses or military improvements. If you leave workers idle, the population will rise faster.

There are many types of soldiers you can buy. Different tribes can build different soldiers (Rome builds legions, and Celts can build fanatics), and there are building requirements to get certain units. Every unit has its own specialties. Some fight well in rough terrain, whereas others (such as legions), fight well in the open. Some fall easily to cavalry-- but hopilites will tear them up. In the back of the manual it lists the abilities of the units, and all this adds to the battle strategy.

The game is turn based. Each turn is a season, and each turn you can move your armies a certain number of spaces. In the spring, buildings you ordered are built and units produced.

The diplomacy is fine. You can declare war, offer tribute, offer an alliance, and check a tribe's standing with others. They can make you an offer, such as: "We will agree to the alliance if you give us 100 food and 200 lumber." Or they might beg for peace, and offer tribute if you will accept.

The graphics are NOT cutting edge. Rather, they are acceptable-- and this makes it so that the game will run on low-end computers. It runs perfectly on my G3 400 MHz iMac... And I am sure it would also work on even older computers.
There is no multiplayer either-- but as the game is turn based, multiplayer probably wouldn't work very well anyway.

This won't be the best game you buy, but I would definitely recommend it. And it is relatively cheap-- actually, the Mac version is half the price of the PC one! First time I've seen that happen.

...

Rating:
Summary: Fun but not obsessively so.
Review: I enjoyed playing Legion the first 20 or so hours, but then ran out of steam.

On the good side, I love that you can't control your troops in battle. You give them orders and hope for the best. A good strategy can give you a slight edge. A bad strategy can lose the battle. Not having enough troops will always lose you the battle -- not so true in real life

On the down side, it would be nice not to have to sit through the animation of the battles when you know the results before hand (someone didn't bring enough troops). The city interface is clear and clean but a bit tedious to manage. You can't, for example, establish a build queue.

As with other TBS games, at a certain point in the game you've either won or lost; it's all downhill from there.

Rating:
Summary: Fun but not obsessively so.
Review: I enjoyed playing Legion the first 20 or so hours, but then ran out of steam.

On the good side, I love that you can't control your troops in battle. You give them orders and hope for the best. A good strategy can give you a slight edge. A bad strategy can lose the battle. Not having enough troops will always lose you the battle -- not so true in real life

On the down side, it would be nice not to have to sit through the animation of the battles when you know the results before hand (someone didn't bring enough troops). The city interface is clear and clean but a bit tedious to manage. You can't, for example, establish a build queue.

As with other TBS games, at a certain point in the game you've either won or lost; it's all downhill from there.

Rating:
Summary: Legion
Review: Legion is a strategy based game modeled after the Roman Republic and Imperial Era. Of the 4 campaigns, they give you to choose from (Gual, Britain, Italy, Whales) your best choice would be to select Unification of Italy. In this detailed game, you can choose between many tribes that exhisted through these time periods. Be the Oscans, and scare away enemies with your fierce hill warriors, or choose the Etruscans, and run over cavalry with your heroic hoplites. It's all competition in Legion.
Other than training regiments and conquering hostile neighbors, you will be able to construct cities and set up alliances in Legion. Many times the real victory comes in the diplomacy, not the battlefield.
However, Legion has its downsides. At times it amazes you, while at others you really wish victory wouldn't come with excess ore, but however with a brilliant general. Other than this downside, there should be more campaigns in Legion. Was it not the wars with the might Carthaginians that placed Rome in their domination phase? Also, instead of just forming alliances with just your surroundants, why not have a map of the known-world and draw them from there. Would you not have the advantage over your Etruscan overlords if you had Sparta at your side?
Overall, Legion is a fun based strategy game which really "Cast's the Die!" But could need more improvement not only in the militarical department, but in the overall basis.

Rating:
Summary: Cheesy
Review: Someone should be shot for making this game. Prime example of a good idea gone awry. Graphics are pathetic. Do yourself a favor and save your money for something better, like Civilization 3 or Stronghold.

Rating:
Summary: Cheesy
Review: Someone should be shot for making this game. Prime example of a good idea gone awry. Graphics are pathetic. Do yourself a favor and save your money for something better, like Civilization 3 or Stronghold.

Rating:
Summary: Game loves to crash on my G4!
Review: The manual is POORLY conceived and written and the only way you gain any proficiency with the game is to play it for a while. The game is also very unstable on my G4 using system 9.2 (I have plenty of RAM so it is not that). It is particularly prone to crashing when it is showing a battle (will easily freeze someime during the battle). It can also become tedious after awhile.

This is a shame as I am generally interested in the period and would love to see more games centered around ancient Rome and other ancient civilizations.