It's refreshing to see that small software houses can still produce good material for the Dragon, and Keydata has put a lot of effort into this strategy game which asks you not to rule the world, but merely try to run Britain between the years 410 and 590 AD.

It's a familiar theme, and one that's easy to do badly, but here you sit up from the stad when a suitably grand piece of music is played from the cassette through the TV speaker to get you into the mood for the game. It's a nice touch, but would have been nicer if we didn't then have to sit through the screeching data loading.

Never mind, once loaded you're given the option of resuming a saved game, and asked if you wish to make use of the high-speed poke. My machine won't cope with this, but even without it the responses were fast enough. The story is that the Roman legions have had to withdraw from the country, leaving 24 regions in England and Wales to fend for themselves against the marauding hordes of Saxons, Picts, Gauls and Scots. A numbered map is given for reference on the cassette insert, with a high-res display available to show you how you're faring against the enemy.

Each province is capable of carrying various numbers of infantry, cavalry, mercenaries and so on, and the strategy problems aren't of feeding the population or growing produce, but mainly mobilising troops to defend different areas under attack. You have to act quickly and hire troops in the various coastal provinces, as the Gauls in the south and the Scots in the north will start trying to make inroads at once, and if they seize a province you'll have to move troops from elsewhere to try to retake it.

The single-letter commands (also listed on the insert) allow you to send out scouts, attack and counter-attack, plead with Home for help and so on: 13 possible commands altogether. Apart from using troops, you can strengthen your provinces by putting up buildings, though naturally this eats into the old kitty.

There are one or two minor irritations, such as the amount of information you have to sit through and try to take in at the end of each year when the reckoning's done, but that's no great drawback and if, for instance, you enjoyed Dragon Data's Viking then you should give Britannia a try too.