The bulk of the game involved real-time battles (of a nature that can be argued to foreshadow later real-time tactics and real-time strategy games) against various enemies of the Roman Empire, including barbarians, Carthaginians and Parthians. Centurion also featured other "side-show" activities, such as gladitorial combat, chariot racing in the "Circus Romana", and naval battles. It was also possible to seduce Cleopatra after forming an alliance with Egypt. It is possible to build navies consisting of triremes, quinqueremes, and galleons. The larger ships are more durable and can hold more troops, but are slower and more expensive.
Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".