Blocks! Julius Caesar

Review

Take control of Julius Caesar’s army as the Roman Civil War breaks out or lead Pompey against Caesar, the winner will take control of Rome and the Roman Empire.

Starting a New Game will offer you one of three choice to play: The Complete Roman Civil War, Second Phase of the Roman Civil War and the Last Phase of the Roman War. You can choose to play as Caesar or Pompey; whichever you choose, the AI will be the other. 

The Complete Roman Civil War plays out over five years with each year taking five turns. At the start of each year you’ll will receive six random cards. After looking at the cards you will need to throw one card away so that you only have five cards left. Next you will need to choose one of the cards in your hand and the AI will do the same. This will determine who goes first and it will be the card you play this turn. The player with the highest Move Points on their card will go first, unless you or the AI plays an Action Card, in which case the Action Card-holder goes first. This happens each turn of the game, and going first each time isn’t always the best strategy. 

On most of the cards you will have Move and Levy Points, so if a card has Two Moves and One levy, you will be able to move units (Blocks) two times and Levy one new unit to your ranks. You can move up to four units together and have it count as one Move Point. This will be determined by the type of road you want to move your units along. If it’s a Major road then you’re able to move up to four units, Minor roads only allow you to move up to two units together. When crossing a strait, you will be restricted to two units per move. However, if attacking, reinforcing or retreating across a strait then only one unit may cross per move.

Levy Points will allow you to recruit new units to your ranks from the unit pool. The units you can recruit are linked to different regions on the map. If you’re not in control of that region then you won’t be able to recruit that unit. Each unit you do recruit will have a strength of “One”.  Newly recruited units cannot move until the next turn.

Whether you play as Caeser or Pompey the goals are the same, to be victorious. You do this by earning Victory Points, which you get from taking control of Numbered Cities, such as Rome, Alexandria, Syracuse and Massilia. The other way to earn Victory Points is to defeat and eliminate your enemy leaders. The side with the most points at the end of the campaign is declared the winner, although should either side gain Ten Victory Points before the end of any year, then a sudden death victory will occur.

Battles will take place when both sides occupy the same region; the battle will take place at the end of both players’ turns. Therefore, as I said earlier, sometimes it’s not always best to go first as your enemy can instigate a battle leaving you no chance to help or bolster your unit under attack. When battles start you will find both yours and the enemy’s units on a board; the section they are placed in will depend on the type of units.  There are four sections: A, B, C and D. In each section there are four marks, representing the strength of the unit.  If a unit loses its strength then that unit is removed from the battlefield and is no longer able to do anything in the current year.

Along with controlling the Numbered Cities, you can control the seas by placing your naval ships in one of the sea regions. You will then be able to take advantage of the city ports making it faster and easier to move your land units around the map.

Selecting Multiplayer on the main menu screen will take you to a screen which shows any current multiplayer lobbies. If there are no lobbies, you can create your own, and choose the campaign and whether to play as Caesar or Pompey.

In the Options you will find Language (English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian and Chinese), Resolution, Full Screen, Music and Sound Effect volume sliders.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!