Empire Rush: Rome Wars

Rome is under siege, and you are on the wall of one of its forts as the barbarian hordes close in. There are no towers to build from a menu here. What you have is a deck of unit cards, and each card puts a single unit onto the defending line. Roman legionaries and praetorian guards hold the front while elite archers thin the horde behind them. Beyond those sit specialists, the imperial army among them, that only make sense against certain enemies.

Every card costs resources, and those resources refill on their own as the battle runs. A wave is therefore less about one grand plan than about pacing what you spend. Empty your hand early and there is nothing left when the heavy barbarians arrive. Hold everything back and the light ones reach the wall unopposed.

The cards themselves are collected a few at a time, so your hand is never complete at the start. The deck you bring to a stretch of frontier is what decides which wave feels heavy and which one simply passes. That is what stops a level from settling into one repeated answer.

The campaign moves along the Roman frontier with a boss waiting at the end of each stretch, and the castle you defend upgrades between battles. All of it makes Empire Rush a longer game than most tower defence. When a wave keeps breaking through, what usually needs changing is the deck rather than where you put the units.