Real-time strategy (RTS) games, more than most genres, are rooted to one specific gaming platform: The personal computer. Most RTS games require a mouse, a keyboard, and a big powerful machine in order to manage the complexity of their gameplay, and accordingly, the genre has struggled to get a foothold on other devices. Civilizations Wars bucks that trend by delivering a deep, engaging RTS experience on the iPhone, but the game suffers from a few fatal flaws.

The first major difference between Civilizations Wars and a traditional RTS is that gamers don't need to build. You begin each battle with troops stationed in one or more strongholds that slowly regenerate units. Your men can then be sent all over the map in an effort to capture enemy castles, magic-generating areas or even guard towers. Similar to Galcon on the iPhone or a constantly moving, real-time version of Risk, gameplay becomes less about building an army and more about deploying one wisely.

At the start, Civilizations Wars appears exceedingly simple. You don't get to build different types of units, and your magical abilities are extremely limited. However, as you level your army up with light role-playing elements, you gain access to a bevy of spells and abilities that further deepen the strategic gameplay elements already on display.

The game's controls are intuitive and easy-to-grasp, as deploying troops is as simple as touching a stronghold in your possession, and dragging your finger to another location. To deploy troops from multiple locations simultaneously, simply continuing dragging your finger, allowing you to command your warriors to converge on a single position. Unfortunately, the touch-screen mechanic can be difficult to work with at times strictly because of the size of the castles and strongholds on the screen. On a screen as small as the iPhone's, it's far too easy to accidentally pull men from the wrong castle or be unable to aim magic spells properly.

Another major problem with Civilizations Wars is its difficulty, which ramps up extremely quickly. In order to continue progressing through the game's battle stages, one must either level up in a very precise, specific manner, or replay the same stages over and over again in an effort to earn more experience points. While the individual levels are fun and exciting once or twice in a row, they quickly grow tiresome when you are forced to repeat them ad nauseum.

The game's difficulty is also discouraging because though the game possesses multiple races to play with, only one is available at the start. To unlock the others, one must defeat a massive, powerful giant turtle. While the monsters included in Civilizations Wars are a fun way to spice up endless human-on-human battles, many of them are far too difficult for their stage in the game. The giant turtle in particular is so punishing that it acts as a pretty persuasive argument to give up on the game altogether.

Fortunately, the makers of Civilizations Wars must have been aware of the game's difficulty, because they include an option on the map screen to unlock all of the stages. This simply creates another problem, however, as it eliminates much of the incentive to continue playing the game. Additionally, the button to take advantage of this feature is not clearly labeled, making it far to easy to accidentally press it. Then, once all of the stages are unlocked, the only way you can re-lock them is by loading an older saved game or just simply starting over from the beginning.

Civilizations Wars has a lot going for it, with great character designs, humorous music and sound effects, and a lot of spells, abilities and upgrades to keep things interested in the long-run. However, the game is hindered by controls that can be difficult to use on the iPhone's small screen. Also, like many games that try to make use of roleplaying elements, Civilizations Wars hits a point where it becomes so difficult that it necessitates gamers grind through the same levels over and over again. The makers of Civilizations Wars were headed in the right direction, but unfortunately, two crucial problems prevent it from being a truly great RTS experience.

Final Score: C-