Centurion: Defender of Rome
Description official descriptions
Starting as a young Roman legionnaire in 275BC, your job is to conquer the known world through force or diplomacy, fighting on land and sea.
Centurion: Defender of Rome is a turn-based strategy game. You start with one province, Rome, and one legion. To complete the game, you have to conquer all the provinces on the map.
One part of the game is micro-managing your provinces. You set up tax rates and make people happy by organizing games. In Rome, you can organize a chariot race, a gladiatorial combat or even a simulated naval battle; this starts an action mini-game where you control the chariot rider, gladiator or ship.
Another part of the game is military conquest. You can raise legions or strengthen them in any province you control (let's just hope there are enough men in the province, or your legion will be incomplete and weaker). There are three types of legions, each of them has a different strength. You can also move a legion to a neighbouring province.
When you enter a province you don't yet control, you can speak with the ruler there. With luck, you can convince him to give you the province for free; but this isn't very likely, and you'll often have to fight.
When your legion attacks a province, or defends one of your provinces from an invader, the game switches to an isometric view of the battlefield. You can give orders to your legion (assuming they are within the range of their commander's voice) and watch as they duke it out with the enemy forces. Eventually, one of the sides will be completely wiped out or panic and retreat.
Finally, you can buy warships and have naval battles with the enemy fleet. This is represented as an action mini-game, depicting a duel of the flagships; however, the outcome of the battle actually depends on the strength of your fleet.
Spellings
- センチュリオン Defender of Rome - Japanese spelling
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Credits (DOS version)
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 70% (based on 26 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 75 ratings with 9 reviews)
Defend the empire in this classic game of strategy and guile.
The Good
Defend Rome from barbarian tribes and build armies to fight in real time battles.
Watch your forces crush potentially superior foes.
Expand the empire and pacify the world in this simple, yet engaging strategy game. Certainly not as difficult as Annals of Rome, much more simplistic and fun for the casual or new wargamer. Great war and superb yet simple land battles make this game made a decade before its time.
The Bad
Lack of depth. Action in the Colosseum can be very boring and chariot races, although very rewarding if you win, are also very boring. Naval battles tend to be boring as well and useless. This game has been called defender of boredom by some and in these cases, earns that remark.
The Bottom Line
A game made well before its time. I recommend it to all casual or new war gamers. Those who are interested in the history of the Roman Empire will find this title entertaining. Avoid naval battles as they are expensive and fruitless endeavors. Keep to the land battles as much as possible until its time to take Britain and Sardinia. A must download for any strategy game fan.
DOS · by bb bb (25) · 2005
The Good
This is one of my favorite games of all time. While old and primitive by today's standards, Centurion was years ahead of its time and offers hours of fun gameplay.
The centerpiece of the game is real-time land battles. It may take a while to figure out the quirks and strategies of the units but it is well worth it. The game takes into account factors like unit moral, the direction units are facing (and being attacked by) and the general's abilities. These factors, along with army formations and tactics form an eligent and challenging experience which was unmached in gaming until the likes of "Shogun: Total War" came out almost 10 years later.
The empire level is fun as well. It's a turn based system where you can move your legions around, invade provinces, fight off invaders etc. Its deep enough to have stategic depth without being complicated or requiring micomanagement. There is only 2 resouces: money (talents) and manpower - both of which are usually in short supply. Eventually you earn enough promotions to command up to 14 legions and once you conquor the world you become Ceasar and win.
I also liked the fine tuned difficulty settings, where you could change how difficult each part of the game was, rather than the game as a whole. You could even change difficulty levels mid-game if things were too easy or too rough.
The Bad
But there are many flaws in the game. Graphics were clunky, even for 1991.
The costs of some things don't make any sense. An infantry legion (4200 foot soldiers) costs 20 talents, the same as a single galeon (which can carry only 200 soldiers) and the same as a heavy chariot for racing. This makes sea battes overly expensive and dangerous since you can lose your whole fleet if the battle goes badly. Its often easier to simply go around the whole mediteranian to conquer north africa than to build a fleet to cross it.
While land battles are excellent, chariot races and fleet battles are boring and poorly made. Thankfully we don't have to fight gladiator battles in the genisis version - which are even worse.
There are other minor detals which are irksom. Like not being able to combine armies or transfer troops, not being able to dismiss bad generals (being forced to suicide them in battle to be rid of them) and the really bad savegame password system.
The Bottom Line
A well designed empire building game with real-time land battles. A game ten years ahead of its time.
Genesis · by Tony Maki (10) · 2003
Full of promise but never delivered
The Good
The basic "Cinemaware" style game mechanic was well executed (strategic map for troop movement and area control linked by mini-arcade games).
The land battles were interesting, once you understood the strategy, but could be very frustrating if you did not.
And who can beat the subject matter!
The Bad
The arcade games were horrible! The true Cinemaware games walked a fine line between simple and simplistic, but EA's attempt at the genre had a severe lack of control and depth.
Gladiator combat lacked any subtley (bang keys until you win/lose) and the chariot racing was equally disappointing.
Finally, the graphic look of the game was disappointing. This was released years after the original Cinemare games, yet hardly improved on their style.
The Bottom Line
Defender of The Crown meets Ben Hur. But in a bad way.
DOS · by Tony Van (2804) · 2000
Trivia
Awards
- Enchanted Realms
- September 1991 (Issue #8) – Distinctive Adventure Award
Music
The music used in the naval battles was taken from the movie Ben Hur. It was in the scene where Ben Hur was a galley slave.
Information also contributed by William Shawn McDonie
Related Sites +
-
The Homepage of Mark the Conqueror
screenshots, information, tips, & a tutorial for Centurion: Defender of Rome
Identifiers +
- MobyGames ID: 213
- Wikipedia (en)
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Raphael.
Genesis added by PCGamer77. FM Towns, PC-98 added by Terok Nor. Amiga added by MAT.
Additional contributors: MAT, Patrick Bregger, Narushima.
Game added August 14th, 1999. Last modified August 17th, 2023.