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The ancient world believed that every city had its gods watching over its fortunes, and surely no city ever had better gods than Rome. From 273 BC, when it had no more than shaky control of Italy, the Roman republic expanded into a mighty empire, the last vestige of which, the city of Constantinople, finally fell in 1453 AD, 1,726 years later.

The best way to describe the single player's role in this exciting and unusual game is overseeing its fortunes.

The known world of ancient times is shown as a map centred on the Mediterranean and split into 28 separate areas, each with its own population and possibly a ruling power controlling it.

Moves are of variable length, depending on how much is happenging, but average at about eight a century. The player must control the careers of the senators of Rome, deciding which to assign to which task of protecting and expanding the city's rule.

This is not a case of separate battles, but out of ten or twenty year struggles in which great leaders rise to prominence, grow old, and retire or die in battle.

New threats appear on the frontier or ambitious legates rise in revolt.

Books and epics could be written about this game. Over such a timespan individual effort shrinks to nothing, and it is the city itself which becomes the game's only hero.

This is an excellent game for the strategist, and could easily be used to teach the basics of political theory - but it is not fast.

The play of even three or four moves takes about two hours, with the computer cycling between provinces to determine the consequences of your decisions.

It is realistic in the sense that most rulers spent a lot of time looking at the map and worrying, but it can get very dull.

The game has no actual endpoint; the player decides when to stop if the empire has fallen and he sees no future in continuing.

The game also has two drawbacks when it comes to actual play. The instruction booklet, while giving a general outline of the game, does not actually explain which keys to press and what the symbols on the screen mean, and the player must work this out for himself.

Don't be put off by the artwork on the box, which shows the ugliest Roman I have ever seen!