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Finally.....a strategy game that's fun to play

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 24 / 27
Date: June 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'll admit right from the start that I'm partial to virtually all things Roman and was looking forward to this game coming out for quite a while. I was getting tired of traditional 'Real Time Simulations' as I find micro-managing to be a bit boring. That being said, Legion is a great deal of fun to play.

Legion has some great merits to it:
1) a short, easy to understand rule book and tutorial. There's nothing as frustrating as getting a new computer game only to have to wade through hundreds of pages of details before you can play it with any hope of success.
2) system requirements are so low that virtually any PC will be able to play it. It's nice not to have to upgrade your entire system just to play a new game.
3) There's a nice mix of game styles here. Enough 'RTS' to feel that you can actually incluence the course of your empire without making you feel like your a mid level paper pusher obsessing over insignificant details. At the same time there's enough tactical play to keep the game interesting overall.
4) Replayability of this game is high. In each campaign there are up to 20 competing nations and you have the ability to play every one.
5) The battlefield graphics. Some 'professional' reviewers are remarking that the graphics in Legion leave something to be desired. I, however, like them. The attention to detail on the battlefields is amazing and a great deal of fun to watch. Yes, the game may not have the latest in 3D technology but it really isn't needed here.

In short, Legion is a fun, solid game in a market that has lacked a good ancient world strategy game.

Lots of Strategy, fun.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: May 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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 recommend it.

"Diet" Age of Empires.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 06, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'm so used to having to take forever to learn the nuances of complicated strategy/war games. So, I was kinda like, "Huh? That's it?", when I started playing Legion. Yes, you have food, wood, and stone like most games, but you really don't manage them very much. Is that good or bad? I dunno, really.
Basically, all of the city managing stuff is done by the computer and you, the player, do the fighting. All of the few city managing decisions that you do make need to be focused on the primary importance of your army. This, I suppose, is pretty historically accurate. The MOST important thing is war.
The battles are laid out like this: You choose the city or army you want to fight. You then lay out in formation the positioning of your squads. Then choose your attacking advancement and hit 'GO!'. Then you just watch and hold your breath. It can get pretty nerving watching your armies advance. But, it's all over in a minute or so.
Pretty good game, but not enough in depth management for sim freaks like me.

A Great Beginning Strategy Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is the first strategy game I have played and I only bought it because I have been reading Colleen McCullough's historical novels about the Roman Republic. I got slaughtered in my first campaign (I should have read the short instruction manual first). After going back and reading the manual, I found the game just challenging enough to keep me and my victorious armies interested. It was also fascinating to compare the battle skills of the variuos Gallic tribes with those described in the historic novels. I highly recommend this game for a beginner, but it is easy to see that this game is far too simple for an experienced gamer.

Uncomplicated Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: August 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

One of my sentimental favorite strategy games is Lords of the Realm 2. Raise crops, build castles and armories, requistion armies, pay taxes, and annihilate the the baron in the next county. Like LOTR2, Legion is uncomplicated--and fun. UNLIKE Civ3, which is just way too much work and hassle (and too comlicated and time-consuming, but that's a different review), I have yet to tire of Legion. I enjoy Roman civilization, and have found Legion to be an accurate, interesting turn-based strategy game. You build armies, fight other tribes and nations and balance your economy. The troop types are very accurate (archers, Velite javelinmen, Celtic warhosts, German mercenaries, legions, praetorians, gladiators, etc.) and the opponents historically realistic. Legion doesn't have lots of layers (like Civ3 or AOK), but the layers it does have are a lot of fun. (Reading recommendation: check out Colleen McCullough's fiction series called "Masters of Rome." The first book is called 'The First Man in Rome.')

The Mediocre Legion

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: February 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I would recommend that you not buy this game for the following reasons:
1.There is really no attacking or defending. It seems like every battle is a meeting engagement.
2.Combat can get to be quite boring after a while. You usually know who will win when the battle opens and I was surprised to find that you can't control your units during the battle.
3.Cavarly units are very weak and their initial charge has no shock value.
4.In combat, units just march at each other and fight-there seems to be no tactical skill involved; the AI is exceedingly dumb,and the combat music can get very boring.

All this said, this title is an average game. You may like it if you are a history buff, and the patch 1.06 improves a little on the games original flaws.

Great Beer and Pretzels Game - High on Fun, Low on History

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: May 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When board wargaming was in its golden age, we called easy to learn, fun-to-play games good "Beer and Pretzel" games. Legion is a good game and poor simulation of ancient Roman warfare. If you want an accurate computer simulation of ancient warfare during the heyday of the Roman Empire, keep looking. If you want an easy to learn game with an ancient flavor, Legion works fine. I was put off by the basic graphics at first and limited strategic options, but once I learned how the game worked, I found the entertainment value worth the purchase. Buy this game for fun and entertainment, not for historical simulation.

Improved with latest patch (1.06b)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I was somewhat disappointed with the original version of Legion because I quickly mastered it and was no longer challenged by it. However, with the latest patch (1.06b), the authors have added additional challenge since it is now more important to manage resources wisely, and the combat has become a bit more balanced as well. There are two new campaigns, which helps add variety to the game. I found the game easy to learn right out of the box, and enjoyable. It still is not a highly challenging strategy game, and the tactical battles are still mostly beyond the player's ability to control, but it is fun, although still somewhat limited.

simple, but somewhat enjoyable

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 23, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The game is well implemented and mostly succeeds at accomplishing its modest objectives. As you can see by the other reviews, the non-interactive combat sequences are by far the most controversial aspect of the game. I personally like the way combat is handled: it does provide you with a fair amount of control over your armies without devolving into a frantic click-fest like so many other games. Indeed, I've been impressed by the level of intelligence exhibited by my AI soldiers -- it's a big improvement over standard RTS fare, where half of the time your troops are too dumb to defend themselves when attacked unless you click on them.

My main problem with the game lies in the way units and experience are handled. Each unit can contain up to about 80 soldiers (depending on the type and size of the unit) and up to 8 units are grouped together into an army. If at least one soldier from a unit survives a battle, the unit survives and retains all its experience. You can repopulate the unit pretty quickly just by having it positioned inside your borders. I find that this makes it just too easy to create powerful veteran armies. This system, along with the high frequency of battles in the game, means that very few battles have a make-or-break sense of excitement: even if your elite invading army gets wiped out, it can be replaced fairly easily.

I did get a few evenings of enjoyment out of this game, but it's certainly not one of those games that will take over your life and consume every moment of your free time.

(The earlier reviewer who said that the factions differ in name only is incorrect: different factions have different unit types available to them. Also, the faction's starting strength and position can dramatically alter the flavor of the game.)

Friends, Romans, Gamers...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: June 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Legion is a real-time/turn-based hybrid strategy game. The turn-based mode is where you play strategically: choosing areas to invade, deciding on what buildings to construct (buildings increase resources and allow recruiting and training of military units), you know "the big picture stuff."

The real-time mode begins when you invade (or are invaded) and confront enemy military. You have the ability to deploy your legionaries,archers,cavalry,etc. and give them their battleplans but once combat begins, the battle is on automatic pilot. So you would be Julius Caesars are out-of-luck if you were hoping to display your tactical prowess.

There is no skirmish mode, so you'd better like the 4 campaigns.You can play the campaigns from different nations/tribes but the non-Romans are different in name only.

The graphics are ordinary at best, the battle graphics disappointed me because of the small, out-dated blobby units.

The game left me unsatisfied since I could not command a legion in battle and there are no historical generals (like Julius Caesar)to lead my armies. The turn-based mode was very generic and limited to only about a dozen building types.

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