Central to the game is the control of the villages found on the map.  Resources consist of food and gold, and these are gathered and generated automatically by your population.  Gold is used to buy units and upgrades, while food is used to feed your population and armies.  The more villages that you control, the more resources that you generate, the more units you can build, and, as mentioned above, big armies win games.

Capturing villages in Celtic Kings has got to be the oddest thing ever to appear in a strategy game.  To capture a village or structure away from an enemy, you need to position units around the village or structure and have them shout until it comes under your control.  Apparently the racket of a horde of screaming warriors is enough to make anyone change allegiances.

Celtic Kings is not really a bad game, it's just pretty basic.  Without the need to manage resources beyond controlling villages, the game's economy is about as simple as it comes.  The simple combat and lack of a tech tree and unit upgrades, makes unit management simple as well.  Strategy veterans will find not find enough strategic depth in the game, and will probably become bored with it once the novelty wears off.  On the other hand, novice or casual gamers will appreciate the fact that the game is not too complicated or overwhelming, and so should definitely give it a look.  The same thing applies to the game's campaign mode - there is not the depth and character development normally found in most RPGs, or even action RPGs like Diablo.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 69%.  Not a bad little game, just too simple and shallow for most gamers.

System Requirements:  Pentium II 400;  64 MB RAM;  16 MB Video RAM; 4x CD-ROM;  500 MB Hard Drive Space;  Mouse.

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