The roman empire would be proud
lets start with the single player game, at the start you choose one of the 3 roman families, the Brutii the Julii and the scipii, then you get given a small amount of money to begin your seige on the world, the campaignes map is set up into turns, until you assualt a city or get attacked by a rival nation, basically you select a building and choose whether to focus on military or on economy, this takes careful planing to maintain a Civilisation.
the skirmish, instead of building a city and assualt you rivals, you get a budget to hire and upgrade units, then jump right into the action, this is a good idea if you just want to have a quick match.
all in all it is a great accomplishment