Here's basically my experience with the game: I started it, did the tutorial and all, got a little disappointed it was yet another inaccurate romanticized vision of gladiators, as they're pictured as almost systemically fighting to the death with no other issues (in reality what they did was closer to nowadays' wrestling competition, with superstars, fame, and product endorsments); but I was like, fair enough, I already played fantasy games and other unrealistic stuff, and it didn't prevented me from enjoying it, let's see what the game has to offer.

So I built my team, trained some fine fighters, freed a lot of slaves to save space and training funds, I got some rising stars and victories got kinda common, then at some point, one oligarch invites me to a massive fight, all my team vs. all his, we wipe each other's (I know there was a surrendering option but at the time of playing, it was way too far on the skilltree to be ever reached at this point, another reason why I was a little disappointed cf: this review's intro), which meant I have to start over but with even less funds and a tighter deadline, so I ragequitted and kind of never picked it back up.

This may or may not have been balanced since, unfortunately, and this is the news that brought me to write this review, the developer has apparently been writing some unhinged, stupid, and inappropriate stuff in the patch notes (and not only in the patch notes from what I gathered) for approximately a whole year if not more. And thus I have absolutely no will to pick this game up again and give it a second chance.

My only regret would be regarding the OST, which was quite good at capturing the spirit of a decadent roman empire making huge partying events out of loss of life, unfortunately, decent music can't save broken gameplay and certainly won't save the cred of a dev who think that patch notes are the correct place to rant about wearing a mask at the grocery store, or how people would rather watch pornography online instead of reading the new testament or whatever.

Have fun staying at the bottom of my backlog.

Here's basically my experience with the game: I started it, did the tutorial and all, got a little disappointed it was yet another inaccurate romanticized vision of gladiators, as they're pictured as almost systemically fighting to the death with no other issues (in reality what they did was closer to nowadays' wrestling competition, with superstars, fame, and product endorsments); but I was like, fair enough, I already played fantasy games and other unrealistic stuff, and it didn't prevented me from enjoying it, let's see what the game has to offer. So I built my team, trained some fine fighters, freed a lot of slaves to save space and training funds, I got some rising stars and victories got kinda common, then at some point, one oligarch invites me to a massive fight, all my team vs. all his, we wipe each other's (I know there was a surrendering option but at the time of playing, it was way too far on the skilltree to be ever reached at this point, another reason why I was a little disappointed [i]cf: this review's intro[/i]), which meant I have to start over but with even less funds and a tighter deadline, so I ragequitted and kind of never picked it back up. This may or may not have been balanced since, unfortunately, and this is the news that brought me to write this review, the developer has apparently been writing some unhinged, stupid, and inappropriate stuff in the patch notes (and not only in the patch notes from what I gathered) for approximately a whole year if not more. And thus I have absolutely no will to pick this game up again and give it a second chance. My only regret would be regarding the OST, which was quite good at capturing the spirit of a decadent roman empire making huge partying events out of loss of life, unfortunately, decent music can't save broken gameplay and certainly won't save the cred of a dev who think that patch notes are the correct place to rant about wearing a mask at the grocery store, or how people would rather watch pornography online instead of reading the new testament or whatever. Have fun staying at the bottom of my backlog.