Lords of the Realm III
Lords of the Realm III
Game
Game2014
Praetorians
Developer Pyro Studios
Praetorians is a 3D real-time tactics video game developed by Pyro Studios and published by Eidos Interactive in 2003, based on Julius Caesar's historical campaigns in Gaul and Britain, Crassus' battles in Parthia, and the events of Caesar's Civil War during the 1st century BC. The player controls either the Roman Republic, the Ptolemaic Kingdom (inaccurately represented as the New Kingdom of Egypt), or a generic… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
164 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy) · newest Oct 18, 2026 · last updated Oct 20, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
80
LovedLoved
122 positive · 30 negative
95% range 73–86%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 122 | 30 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 2 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
233 of 304 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
81% recommend · 128 yes, 30 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 158 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (572 of 706 positive).
Many reviewers highlight compatibility issues, especially on Windows 10, causing crashes or black screens. [1][2][3] Some players find the game dated with rigid controls and difficulty spikes, but still enjoyable for nostalgia. [4][5]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
I brought this game a while ago on steam but it never worked. i would just get a black screen after selecting the tutorial/chapter. It seems to be a common problem that others have solved apparently, so over the years i've tried the fixes but still nothing ever worked. Then i started using GOG and noticed they have it and mostly older games work better there for me, so i thought i would ask steam for a refund for …
- [18]
8/10 (for its time) First game that I have ever played. Great rts game, ddespite its age, it’s still very enjoyable thanks to the unit variety, movement, deployment options, and overall maneuvering. the campaign is good, you can still enjoy it. Very impressive that it still runs on modern pcs unlike some other old games where you need patches
- [8]
!!!HUGE WARNING!!! This review was made out of pure nostalgia. We cool? Cool. This game defined a good year or two of my childhood and is what got me into RTS games. It always brings me back to the little kid coming home from school, finishing all the chores and homework immediately, just to play this game. I took many aspects of this game for granted: the map environments, the factions involved, the history, the …
- [19]
Praetorians is a decent combat-heavy strategy game. Playable factions are Romans, Egyptians and Barbarians. By building towers at villages and sending in a commander, you are able to recruit troops. The more enemies you kill the more points you earn to recruit special troops. There is a campaign in which you play as the Romans and you can play custom maps against human players and/or bots. This is all good however …
- [4]
Well, while it certainly wasn't as good as I remembered it it definetly hit that nostalgia spot. Its a relatively good game and I'd personally put it up there with the AoE series.
Summarised from 34 of the 170 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Praetorians sits at 80% positive across 152 opinionated reactions from 3 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
In the United Kingdom, Praetorians sold roughly 20,000 units during the first half of 2003. Kristan Reed of GamesIndustry.biz wrote that these were "not figures that spell H.I.T." The game ultimately received a "Silver" award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom. It also received a "Gold" award from the Asociación Española de Distribuidores y Editores de Software de Entretenimiento (aDeSe), for more than 40,000 sales in Spain during its first 12 months. In the German market, Praetorians debuted in third place for March 2003 on Media Control's sales charts for full-price computer games.…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 164 · most liked firstOne of the first ARG-style promotional games, for the movie The Net (1995). As a member of the antagonist Praetorians, use your mastery of laptops, floppies, pagers, email, and fax to track the heroine - but don't get caught! Win and you could win a REAL trip to the Krystal Ixtapa resort!
neutral · AI labelView post →Ages like a fine wine.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A montage of the Congressional Baseball Game, except it's intercut with shots of ICE behaving like savages, and Hegseth's Praetorians doing murder on the high seas, all set to the tune of "I'm Talkin' Baseball" by Terry Cashman
neutral · AI labelView post →10/10 my childhood along with Age of Empires 2
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →8/10 (for its time) First game that I have ever played. Great rts game, ddespite its age, it’s still very enjoyable thanks to the unit variety, movement, deployment options, and overall maneuvering. the campaign is good, you can still enjoy it. Very impressive that it still runs on modern pcs unlike some other old games where you need patches
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is my favorite childhood game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My favourite RTS game of my childhood!!! (along with Cossacks:Back to War)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Who cares about the graphics? This game is great dispite being so old. I still enjoy a lot ever since I was a kid and now I got another copy in steam. OMG I am so happy. Recconmend for people who love RTS games. :D
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought three because of the discount. Gifted two because I care. Played because of the fun. Stayed because of the nostalgia.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →you hear that a person died in real life after you saw him get executed in the game by Eternum's Praetorians (robocops), you determine to investigate, beginning to unravel a giant conspiracy that has world-shattering implications... The best part though? The main plot regularly takes a back seat to
neutral · AI labelView post →The game is a Real Time Strategy, with the most notable feature being that instead of training individual dudes, you train whole squads of dudes at a time. So instead of "oh no, those thirty guys look really tough" you get "oh no, those ten squads are terrifying." The other thing making it different is the lack of resources. You only have one resource: population. To be trained, the village you are trying to train them from needs to have enough citizens in it to become your new unit. They…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →you hear that a person died in real life after you saw him get executed in the game by Eternum's Praetorians (robocops), you determine to investigate, beginning to unravel a giant conspiracy that has world-shattering implications... The best part though? The main plot regularly takes a back seat to
neutral · AI labelView post →!!!HUGE WARNING!!! This review was made out of pure nostalgia. We cool? Cool. This game defined a good year or two of my childhood and is what got me into RTS games. It always brings me back to the little kid coming home from school, finishing all the chores and homework immediately, just to play this game. I took many aspects of this game for granted: the map environments, the factions involved, the history, the voice acting, and the music. It all culminates into an enjoyable experience,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've ac5ually got a 40k game today! I've got a couple of 1k lists of my Praetorians, and I'll be playing against Tau or DA. I've played about 3 games so far, so still don't know the mechanics very well, wish me luck! #nerdlings #40k #warhammer
neutral · AI labelView post →it's a simple, no-stress game where you can just have fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the best RTS games out there. I would rank it up there along with AoE. Love the sound track too.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First pc game i ever played
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I brought this game a while ago on steam but it never worked. i would just get a black screen after selecting the tutorial/chapter. It seems to be a common problem that others have solved apparently, so over the years i've tried the fixes but still nothing ever worked. Then i started using GOG and noticed they have it and mostly older games work better there for me, so i thought i would ask steam for a refund for selling me a broken game but they rejected the refund, multiple times. Moral of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just like they said "old, but gold" I was looking for this game before Steam, thanks, i could find here and play after like 10 years. I recommend this one to all old school strategy game fans.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nostalgia carries this tactical RTS a lot, but the rigid unit controls and punishing difficulty spikes can drain the fun fast. Positioning matters a ton, which is cool, but modern quality-of-life features are sorely missed. It’s okay for a quick tactical nostalgia trip, but it wears out its welcome quickly.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Loved this game. found it at a yard sale and played it on Microsoft xp ah the old days... Now I can play again. shame that there's no multiplayer support with steam.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →That hate us, because they ain't us! Don't listen to any haters, that game is really easy to learn and has awesome gameplay :] 10/10 would play again :]
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this game is, (in my opinion), an RTS classic, and I admire it!. if you love this type of games, then please give it a chance, It's extremely fun!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I remember playing this game years ago *childhood flashbacks*. An amazing game with great gameplay. If it crashes everytime you try to start it, it's because it can only run on WinXP. However there's a mod that allows you to run it on Win10.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Praetorians Who cares about the graphics? This game is great dispite being so old. I still enjoy a lot ever since I was a kid and now I got another copy in steam. OMG I am so happy. Recconmend for people who love RTS games. :D
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Praetorians is a decent combat-heavy strategy game. Playable factions are Romans, Egyptians and Barbarians. By building towers at villages and sending in a commander, you are able to recruit troops. The more enemies you kill the more points you earn to recruit special troops. There is a campaign in which you play as the Romans and you can play custom maps against human players and/or bots. This is all good however it comes with 3 weaknesses: 1. Most players aren't able to run the game on…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →PROS: + fun historical campaign + great strategic gameplay + nice selection of units + cool mods available CONS: - serious compatibility issues - graphical glitches - broken multiplayer Comment: This is an old RTS gem I remember fondly from years ago. Back then it had a somewhat unique approach to unit combat and strategy. The campaign consists of four tutorial levels and twenty campaign missions. It begins in 59BC, with Caesar fighting the Helvetii tribe, and it ends in 45BC with the final…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You love huge, epic battles involving hundreds of units but you hate dealing with economy? Then this is the game for you. This game is fenomenal, especially for its period. The low score cames from compatibility issues wuith Windows 7 and 8.1. I had no problems with my Windows 10 notebook, both with the HD530 and the Maxwell GPU, even without using the compatibility mode.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well, while it certainly wasn't as good as I remembered it it definetly hit that nostalgia spot. Its a relatively good game and I'd personally put it up there with the AoE series.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game make me remember my childhood. Very good game except the mouse cursor.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →my first game I played, and it's great
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Squad based RTS before any reviewer used the term "squad based RTS'. Hard counter rock-paper-scissors in a time when people mostly used soft counters. Absolutely no basebuilding, you capture villages, and use up their population, but you don't build anything that creates units by itself, sounds like something THQ would churn out? Obviously, yet it's not them. Am I lying, withholding something? Yes, if you held a gun to my head, I'd admit that you can build towers to be occupied by archers,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Praetorians is a 2003 classic RTS that forgoes traditional resource gathering, focusing instead on terrain usage and tactical unit management, making it still highly enjoyable for strategy fans today.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So I ended with with Praetorians vs Kroot, it took a while to relearn, or remember the rules, and we probably did things wrong, but we had a fun game, and Guard ended up pulling a win!! This is what I took. There 2as a lot of counts as! #40k #AstraMilitarum #nerdlings #warhammer #middlehammer
neutral · AI labelView post →[Game Bundle] Let's Get Tactical with Kalypso. $3: | Game Name | Steam Link | |------------------------------------------------|------------| | Sudden Strike 3 | https://store.steampowered.com/app/612540/Sudden_Strike_3 | | Sudden Strike 2 Gold | https://store.steampowered.com/app/612520/Sudden_Strike_2_Gold | | Sudden Strike Gold |…
neutral · AI labelView post →Childhood rts game, so nice
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Rediscovering Lost Legends: 22 Forgotten Real-Time Strategy Games. Woah, most are unknown to me. A lot of which I haven’t even played. The only one I did was probably the Warlords Battlecry 3 and Battle Realms. Praetorians Cossacks: Back to War Rise of Nations The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth The Settlers: Heritage of Kings Warrior Kings: Battles Submarine Titans ParaWorld Battle Realms Grey Goo Warlords Battlecry 3 Heroes of Annihilated Empires Age of Mythology: Extended…
neutral · AI labelView post →It's a shame, this game used to be so good. Doesn't work on WIndows 10, the game crashes whenever you start a match. Unplayable.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My childhood game,this is the first computer game I've ever played before I even had a computer (Played in CYBER CAFE whole year), After that I bought a computer and addicted to it until I finished all the stages and difficulties.I still play it before buying it from Steam. I bought it because it is half price ^^ and because it symbolizes something big emotional inside me,this is worth any price you pay for it. Technically from all sides the best game in the universe (Graphic,Sound,Ease of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Best game ever. Insane graphics and very deep and complex strategy elements. 5/5
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There should be more games like this
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game. You can still play online multiplayer using game ranger too. People still play
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →a vintage childhood gem :^)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →crazy old game,ideal for strategy gamers and lovers of roman empire,!!!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Praetorians is a game I've been playing a lot lately, going through the single player campaign on hard. While the story in the campaign isn't incredibly memorable (most of the missions are different points in roman history I believe) the gameplay itself as well as the challenge is just incredibly addicting and fun. The scenarios (especially the later ones) are challenging but fair, requiring you to think, take good positions, scout when possible. It's a very tactical squad based rts with no…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the best Rome-themed games and definitely the best soundtrack among them. It's a shame compatibility issues were never properly dealt with.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I played this on a win 7 laptop without a video card, since I was having problems with my main computer. I had to use a work around to play this game, so my playing time is probably around 30 hours. The campaign has 20 missions plus 4 tutorial missions. I played an archer/defense tower strategy instead of an attrition strategy, since I wanted all my men to live. If I didn't care about my men, it looks like you could finish most missions between 30 to 45 minutes. The one thing I didn't like…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Makes me really miss Fate of Hellas. If only that was on Steam too.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Praetorians is a historical real-time strategy game developed by Pyro Studios and published on Steam by Kalypso Media Digital that approaches warfare very differently from many strategy titles of its era. Rather than emphasizing large-scale resource collection, city building, or economic expansion, the game places nearly its entire focus on battlefield leadership and tactical decision-making. The result is a strategy experience that feels focused, demanding, and surprisingly refreshing even…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Used to play this as a child and brought back some serious nostalgia playing it again. Highly recommend if you're a fan of strategy games.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →too much memories and this game is absolutely amazing
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →+ Good atmosphere + Tactical use of formations like the Testudo " Turtle formation " Seen in Asterix & Obelix if not elsewhere :D + Maps with nice chokepoints + Epic mod to download from Moddatabase - A bit zoomed in on the map. I really feel it give you a close view how it was to be a roman commander with aggressive tribes around you trying to hinder civilization to spread through their land :) Games I love: Scourge of war waterloo/Gettysburg, Take command second mannassas,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is a pretty good game, I recommend it, this version sadly has no spanish audio, but still awesome. :D
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a very old, simplistic clone of the old Total War:Rome. At the time it was very popular, and while it's aged moderately well, the game only supports very low, 4:3 resolutions, and hasn't been updated by the publisher. If you're looking for a game to play in 2018, I can't recommend this one for the limitations that haven't been addressed.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An excellent historical game!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i cant run the game when i play its dosnt work .if eny one know how to run it please help me with it
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →what the ♥♥♥♥ even is this and why is it in my library
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the best strategy game ever. It's a bit old now but still playable and very fun. ^^
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I remember buying this game back in 2003 and playing it on an old Windows XP machine and it is better than I remember it. I still actually have the disk somewhere in the attic for it but bought it here for ease. Yeah, it has some issues with newer windows OS's but less than some games I have from 2003. The screen reseloution is a problem but can be fixed with a mod. The gameplay is superb and if you like these strategy games then its a must buy.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very entertaining game, Bring's back many memories from my childhood. Worth the money for sure.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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