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Centurion Demo Quick Start Guide
Spend a few minutes here before jumping into your first game of Centurion. Once the game starts, you won’t have
time to look up rules! We won’t try to teach the whole game, just the main points and show you how to issue
commands. Let’s get started!
The Basics:
Game Length: Upon victory or at the end of the ninth turn, whichever occurs first.
Turn Length: Maximum time is shown in counter at bottom right of screen, perhaps 9 minutes, but this may be adjusted. Turn ends when all players indicate “ready” or when the counter reaches zero, whichever occurs first.
Turn Processing: Centurion may be different than what you have experienced before, because it is turn based strategy. All players use the time available in a turn to decide what to do and enter their commands. When the turn ends, the orders for all players are executed by Centurion software simultaneously in a sequence of events, for example, all battles are resolved for all kingdoms before any kingdoms legions move. The game map is then updated with all results in effect – this takes only seconds!
Accessing Command Menus on the Map: Right click on the piece under your control to bring up its command menu. If a hex is crowded with pieces on the Operational Map, switch to the tactical map by left clicking in the hex, then right click on the piece in the tactical map to get the command menu for that type of piece.
Victory: Goes to the player who controls two of the three cities on the map at the end of two consecutive turns, or at the end of turn nine if no one has won before then. Otherwise, victory goes to the player with the highest points accumulated during play.
Menu Bar: When the game begins, you’ll see the Fall of Rome Menu bar near the top of the screen, with fourteen icons. For Centurion, these six are the most important:
Click on any menu bar button to change the screen to display the button’s unique information.
The Operational Map is where you will spend most of your time. Here you will see all the villages, towns, cities, unusual sightings, legions, and leaders that are the playing pieces that comprise the demo version of Centurion. Some of these begin under your control, some under that of your rival players, and some are under no kingdom’s control – they are neutral. Your villages, towns, and cities fly your banner, meaning they are under your control and a part of your kingdom. You’ll want to protect these, and conquer more! They produce the gold and supplies you need to properly supply your brigades. One of the towns is your capital, and is designated with a gold border around the banner. The capital is where you receive your reinforcements. The hexes control movement and terrain type affects both movement and combat.
The Tactical Map is a zoomed in view of a single hex. In crowded hexes such as your capital hex, it is sometimes necessary to be in the tactical view to issue commands to characters. You may also issue commands to them in the operational view. From the operational map, left click on any hex to see it in the tactical map. In the tactical map the top half of the screen shows characters, brigades and buildings inside the PC. The bottom half shows legions that are outside of the PC.
The Forces Screen is a listing of all the legions that you know something about. You will know everything about the legions you control and those in the same hex as one of your legions (or the surrounding hexes of a legion that was Scouting). For all other active legions, you will know just some basic information about them. Brigades which are in garrison, i.e., inside a PC, do not show up on the Forces Screen. They are represented on the Operational Map by a shield icon displayed in the top left of the PC they are in.
The Plan stores information on the commands you have given in the current turn. The Plan will record these and list them in the sequence they will be executed (not the sequence in which you issue them) when the turn is run. It also shows the resources consumed so far by the commands you have issued, and your remaining resource balances. You may cancel this or any other command by returning to The Plan screen (the left most button in the Menu Bar), click on the row with the command you wish to cancel, and then click “cancel”.
Messages: Do use the game’s messaging system! You will have fun with your witty, barbed, or informative exchanges with future allies and enemies, but keep it clean. Frequently messages ask for non-aggression for a period of time, or for outright alliance. Beware, there is no guarantee of compliance with any agreements here, but most deals are honored because players value the reputation of their persona.
Kingdom Screen: This is where you will see your king’s portrait, the artifacts under your control, and can issue a trade order to exchange supplies and gold, or check the points accumulated by each kingdom so far in the game – high score often wins!
The Main Commands. Focus on the basics of these to get off to a decent start. Each player can issue a number of commands equal to his king’s Rulership each turn. The King’s Rulership is found on the Kingdom screen and is normally 7.
Attacks. Your legions may attack other legions, population centers, or the guardians of unusual sightings. Rules of thumb:
- Look in the Forces Screen for your legion’s value in terrain when attacking enemy legions. Have at least a 50% edge if considering an attack. If you don’t attack an enemy legion in your hex, it is critical you issue a defend order against it – defending legions receive a 20% defensive advantage from the position in terrain they assume.
- When attacking villages, towns or cities, have at least a 50% advantage in your legion’s value vs. PC. Two brigades is normally sufficient to take a village, while at least four for a town, six for a fortified town, nine or so for a city.
- In battles against guardians of unusual sightings, it is your total leadership that matters. Do not try to attack superior guardians (where the prismatic waterfalls are) until you have high ranking and many leaders – they are very deadly. Have at least four leaders averaging General rank to go after the excellent ones (caverns), take a chance with less leadership against fine artifact (ruins) guardians.
 Click on the Encounters button on the menu bar to read your detailed battle reports after your battle is concluded! Review the entire Tactics document in the Fall of Rome rules when you can.
Legion Movement. Each legion may issue one movement command per turn, subject to your overall Rulership limitation on commands. There are numerous kinds of movement orders for you to explore, as you will see when you find that menu. Experiment with these: Move is most common, Force march can exceed that movement allowance, Scout consumes movement points but gives more reconnaissance info, Pursue lets you chase a legion, Intercept can let you move into the hex of an enemy within range. You’ll see different interface graphics when you choose each movement command, and these will stay on your map during the rest of the turn to indicate what movement orders you have given.
Transfer Orders are important free commands – they cost no gold, supplies, and do not even count as a command given against your Rulership limitation. Transfers are how you shift characters, brigades, and artifacts from one base (PC or legion) to another. Transfers may be ordered to occur either before or after movement. Left click on the hex you wish to Transfer assets in to get to the tactical view. If your transfer is to occur after legion movement, click on the hex that your legion is moving to after you have issued the movement order. In the tactical map, right click in the lower half of the tactical screen in open terrain (not on a unit icon). A menu will come up, click Transfer before (or after) Movement. Then just drag the units you wish to transfer from one box to the next. Important: this is how you activate your inactive legions: they are available for you to create or activate by moving leaders and/or brigades into their “box” during transfer.
Reinforcements and Recruiting Mercenary Brigades are the two ways to augment your military.
Reinforcements arrive periodically at your capital, usually either one or two brigades on odd numbered turns. They will be in garrison at your capital until you transfer them. Mercenary brigades may be recruited at a PC that has the Tavern improvement. Recruiting Mercenary Brigades is a command for a leader in Good health: right click on the leader inside or outside the PC. Mercenaries can only be hired inside the PC if the PC also has the Barracks improvement. Choose from two kinds of mercenaries: Heruli (infantry, better for attacking PC’s) or Burgundians (mainly light cavalry, better for speed in marching and against legions in open terrain). Don’t forget you need an adequate economy to support your military: on average, one town and one village under your control can support about three brigades of yours. So you need to conquer some villages and towns quickly just to support your starting military!
Other Commands include Trade and Relocate Capital (from the Kingdom Screen), build Improvement (right click on the PC), and a few others you may discover, but are not critical to playing the demo version of Centurion.
How to Start Centurion: You do this from the page called “My Kingdoms”. You must have already signed
up for an account and had your email verified by clicking on the link in the email we send back to your
address. Then, if you are not already in the My Kingdoms web page Click the “Sign In” button and enter
your email and password. Now, in your personal My Kingdoms page, click on “Play Centurion”. Follow the
prompts to indicate a kingdom preference and to pick your in-game name, i.e., your persona (keep it clean).
When finished with these few steps, and the game loads, you will be in the Lobby for Centurion, a chat room.
(Note: the first time you load Centurion, the program may take several minutes to load – on dial-up connections
it may take around 20 minutes. After the first time, load times are much faster. If after allowing more than
twenty minutes and the game doesn’t load, visit the Support Page – a link to it is there in My Kingdoms where
you clicked to “Play Centurion”.) See your persona name on the right side of the screen, and a button to
indicate whether you are ready to play or not: when ready to start, turn it to ready. First, you might
take a minute to chat with the other players, maybe ask a question of them, or wait for your friends to show
up and play Centurion with them. As soon as three players have indicated they are ready, a short time is
allowed for additional players to join, and then the game will begin! Go back to My Kingdoms to begin play.
Use these other resources to augment your understanding of Centurion:
- The Tactics section of Fall of Rome Rules. This is the most critical to Centurion play;
- All sections of the Fall of Rome rules, available on the website;
- Use the forum to learn more from other players and moderators and to ask questions, seek advice, or state an opinion;
- Should you encounter technical problems, visit the Support page for help.
Log in to your My Kingdoms page
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