In terms of game play, Gates of Troy can be divided into two major categories: battles and town management. As the leader of your country's forces it is your task to expand your empire - and keep your own towns from being taken over. Setting up your armies in strategic locations where they can defend your border towns while expanding your borders is one of the most fun aspects in the game. Sadly, the actual battles are unexciting, and once you've fought one, you've fought them all. Battles start out with you setting up your troops to counter your enemy's. The downside is that Scouting is generally unsuccessful, meaning you have no idea where or how your enemy is set up. Setting up your troops is about as luck based as it can get, and the only real reason to fight a battle instead of letting it auto-complete is to put your heroes - units that boost the morale of surrounding units - in the middle of your troops. Once your troops are set up, you have no control over your units save three commands: rally, charge, and retreat. It's better just to fast forward through the fight.

Town management is even more frustrating than battles. Each town requires constant babysitting to assign new villagers to tasks and manage building projects. At the beginning of campaigns, when you only have one or two towns, it is easy and enjoyable to manage your town and population. But when you start getting multiple towns, the managing process gets quite annoying. Cycling through 20-something towns every turn is not an exciting activity.

Gates of Troy's UI and controls are somewhat redeeming. Once you have played the three quick and easy tutorial scenarios, you are good to go for the rest of the game. It is easy to cycle through active armies and order them to progress on previously given orders. It is easy to manage diplomacy, trade, and research. It is even easy to manage the towns, if repetitive and boring.

If only the game's AI was as good as its UI, it might be a bit more enjoyable. During battle, your units will march right by the enemy if they are too far away, not noticing their comrades getting beaten up until they have passed the entire enemy army. This can be useful if you want to perform a flanking maneuver, but annoying if you just want to get the fight over with. Villagers will sit idle in towns until you assign them to a task. The AI of the storyline is nothing to cheer about, either; in one campaign I took over a town, and then two turns later got a message that said town was revolting and coming to my side.

The technical aspects of the game are mediocre - neither really good nor really bad. The graphics are mundane and ordinary, not quite eyesores but nothing to cheer about, either. The battles can be fought in 3D or 2D mode, which is a nice feature for people with older computers. Music is enjoyable for the first few hours, but it is repetitive and gets old as quickly as the game play.

Gates of Troy provides a few hours of fun, but all in all, I would not recommend it for purchase. I do, however, believe that the game has potential; with an improved AI and less mundane town-sitting, it could be well worth playing. I, for one, will be watching out for sequels or updates to the game, and praying that the developers figure out how to extend those few hours into a few months. Sadly, Gates of Troy did not succeed in holding my attention for more then the aforementioned time period. The game is repetitive and holds no depth or enjoyment; even the campaigns seem to just be repeats of their successors, with one being "take over 25 cities including Athens" and the next being "take over 30 cities including Thebes." It simply was not engaging enough to keep my attention.