How many of you have ever heard of the First Punic War? Well, go and buy the game and find out.

In 264 BC Roman forces crossed into Sicily in their first attempt at expansion.

They were opposed by the strongest power in the western Mediterranean, the city of Carthage in North Africa, with its trading links and client cities in Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica.

Carthage was a naval power with more experience of sea warfare, but the Romans had more money to buy ships with, and after a bitter struggle won the war by capturing enough of the Carthaginian and neutral cities and establishing superiority at sea.

It was a hard-fought war which could have stopped the power of Rome before it had really begun to exist.

Sea warfare was as much a matter of economics as tactics. Tribute had to be collected and used to build war galleys.

These were mighty ramming vessels crewed by rowers, from the bireme with two banks of oars up to the quinquerme and even larger ships.

This can be a two-player game, or the player can take the Carthaginians against the computer with the Romans - who are aggressive.

Once built, ships are given orders and manoeuvred through the Mediterranean defending or attempting to capture ports.

If enemy ships are met, they must be outmanoeuvred by plotting courses for the attack, shown as a rather fine graphic display.

It's more difficult than it looks - I spent most of my first game trying to stop my own ships colliding with each other!

The player decides the victory conditions, in terms of gold accumulated in the capital, ports captured and enemy ships sunk.

The catch is that these conditions are the same for both sides, so can't be made too easy.

The game is driven by a set of icons which after a little practice become second-nature.

Legions Of Death takes a while to set up and starts slowly, but once first contact is made it becomes really engrossing.

Just one small point - why did they pick a title like that for a naval game without a single legion in it?