They say that Rome cannot be built in a day and even the most dedicated fan of this game will be hard pressed to achieve all the tasks you're set within 24 hours. Having said that, grasping the essentials takes very little time as there's considerable tutorial help, plus what becomes highly predictable gameplay.

In case you're wondering if this is another splinter offshoot of Civilization, the answer is essentially no, although it does have the same developer (Firaxis) and borrows some of the elements such as the creation of Wonders and a six-level research tree. The producers, Firefly, were responsible for the underrated Stronghold series of city-building games and what has emerged from this union is a surprisingly simplistic and unimaginative sim.

Most of the missions are geared towards producing superior levels of housing and certain volumes of crops that have to be transported to the Roman head office. Your granary and your storeroom are the vital basics and from then on the houses (ranging from shacks to grand palaces) have to be built close to amenities such as butchers, olive oil merchants, weavers and fishermen. Clicking on a dwelling shows you its 'catchment area' and if, say, your butcher is outside this limit, then your house won't be able to upgrade.

This leads to your city inevitably being designed as a series of bunched nuclei rather than having the true freedom that a city builder would like. It doesn't help that the graphics are seriously dated, the camera is fixed at a narrow angle (although it can be rotated) and large structures cannot be made transparent so it's hard to see and click accurately on buildings behind them.

The music, though, is highly evocative and if you zoom in on the individuals in your city you get witty wisecracks and a sense of what ordinary life may have been like. This is enhanced by a 'Civilopedia' which provides fairly school-level information on Roman customs, clothing, entertainment and history.

The interface is user friendly; simply click on the category you want to include on the left and then place it on the map. Research will gradually increase the efficiency of resource gathering and production but curiously the Wonders you acquire late in the game only increase your prestige rating.

Citizen happiness is the key to your prosperity and you can actively alter wages, leisure time and rations. One element that will drive you crazy is the pop-up voice that tells you repeatedly if your granary is emptying fast or your citizens are unhappy and leaving in droves.

There is a combat element to the game but this isn't Rome: Total War. You simply create a fort, choose up to three cohorts of legionaries or velites (javelin throwers) and then either send them out to attack other towns or use them to fight off barbarian invaders. Most of the time the actual outcome is out of your hands and as with most of this game, micromanagement is virtually invisible.

This is a big disappointment because of its simplistic structure, old-fashioned graphics and limited freedoms, but as an introduction to Roman living in general and city building in particular, it could be a good buy when it comes down to bargain price level.