Become the world’s first superpower and command the most incredible and vast war machine of the Ancient world. Dominate the enemies of your glorious empire by military, economic and political means.
Pretty much what everyone else said. Game deserves about a four. Diplomacy is a joke and consists of you paying other countries so they won't attack you even though you're five times stronger than them. The bugs in siege are absolutely atrocious (they can't climb ladders for ****.) Turns take a year in-game time so there are no seasons and your generals die before they can go halfway across Europe. Slaves are stupid and just give you ridiculous negative modifiers. (You can't loot a city without taking them either.) The tactical map, while pretty to look at, is not practical because you can't zoom and place units how you want them.
This is the usual Creative Assembly hyping up one of their "Total War" games and having it fall flat on its face with no chance of recovery.