Romans: Age of Caesar is an upcoming co-operative city builder/strategy game for iOS and Android from FireFly Studios

Romans: Age of Caesar is an upcoming co-operative city building game from FireFly Studios, who you may know as the folks behind the Stronghold series. It's currently being alpha tested but is expected to launch for iOS and Android sometime in 2021, with a PC open beta expected before the end of the year.

FireFly has described Romans: Age of Caesar as being a spiritual successor to the Caesar series, with some of the people involved in that franchise now working on this title. It will use a similar art style to those games as well as gameplay mechanics that nod towards them too, for a dash of nostalgia but there will also be a grand strategy layer added on top.

The aim of the game is to build cities together with 15 other players, with each person taking on a different district to help the place flourish. You'll share different resources, build grand structures and work together to fend off barbarian invaders.

Outside of your own district, the map expands even further across the whole world. Here you'll team up with other districts across the globe and trade with them, plan out road networks and join forces to tackle barbarians together.

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On top of all this, there will also be a political layer to the game that will allow each player to try and barter or backstab – depending on their preference – their way to the top of the Senate, effectively becoming Caesar and taking on the role of Roman Emperor. Of course, if you gain that title, you'll have to remember there'll be a whole world of players out there that could do the same to you.

Crucially, the game will also be cross-platform, which means the community won't be split between the various different devices. It also means you can do all the daily type stuff, like harvesting resources quickly on your phone whilst carrying out the more involved stuff on your PC, or even the other way round if you'd prefer.

It's certainly an interesting idea, creating an MMO with such a strong focus on co-op and to operate the whole game on such a large scale. I'll certainly be keeping my eye on this one and we will, of course, update you all as we learn more in the coming months.

Romans: Age of Caesar will be available on the App Store and Google Play at some stage in 2021, with an open beta on PC planned to take place before the end of the year. It will be a free-to-play game with in-app purchases. Also, you can sign up on their official website to register your interest in taking part in the Alpha.