Glory of the Roman Empire Review

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(More customer reviews)While the game is indeed very simple and easy to get into, it is incredibly tedious, and will take a certain degree of micromanagement. In the first few campaign missions, the game is wowing. The graphics are better then any other Rome-based city builder I have seen, the interface is simple, and there is minimal micromanagement. The smaller your soon-to-be metropolis, less micromanagement. But, you simply have to use micromanagement, as the game forcibley makes you enlarge your city. As soon as your city gets too large for just a few administrative and distributive buildings, the citizens start complaining about how they need this, that, ect. So, you must provide this, that, ect. for them. Then, maybe they, for some random reason, will catch the plague. Well you have to fix that! Or maybe a house will be on fire. That needs to be fixed too! Thus, you must lay out many scaffolds at once before you even think about houses. I liked how they incorporated slaves into the game, as workers, and how if you worked them too hard they would revolt. However, if you get a notification that a house is on fire, then it's gone. You can try to get a prefacture up to stop it, but it's already gone unless you begin rebuilding it right away. Add this to the fact that the learning curve may be a bit flat for you, and the game gets fairly boring fast. If you get bored with the campaign and jump the gun to the free-build, then woah! What the heck is a Domus? So, simply, you must continue with the campaign, because you can't start the free-build given the fact that there are too many unexplained buildings.
One of my favorite features (probably because I love Latin) is the ability to change the entire game lettering and wording into Latin, the ancient Roman language. The grammer is a sketchy at times (using "ad" in something such as "there are too many"), but overall it really does well. I would have liked to see some slaves that the Romans might have considered "exotic" (such as african, german, british, ect. people) as maybe a trade item. The game gets a 3 for fun and 4 overall, it will entertain you garenteed for a few hours, but unless you take time to get through the repetitiveness, it will not continue to excite you.

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The glorious age of Rome - a time when the empire was at its peak, envied and feared by friend and foe alike. All across the provinces governors spared no expense to build cities of unparalleled splendor and magnificence and leave their mark in history. Enter this time of wonder and use your city building skills to create cities that would humble even Rome itself. In campaign mode, use careful planning to become the empire's most respected governor. Or go online in challenge mode to best players across the Internet and determine who can build an empire to stand the test of time.Glory of the Roman Empire is an accessible and easy to learn, yet difficult to master city building and management simulation that will challenge players in a historically authentic settings, while lush graphics immerse the player in the culture of the ancient Roman empire.

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The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome Review

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(More customer reviews)For those ancient wargamers who have played Slitherine's Legion & Spartan Legion Gold, SPARTAN, you will find the battle mode of THC's GBR game very familiar. The game plays very differently from its two predecessors, as there is no strategic play. You play a series of battles in chronologial sequence, starting as either a Roman or a Celtic leader. The time line follows the historical sequence of events and regardless of your victory or defeat, you don't change the fixed sequence. The Roman time line ends with the Civil Wars circa 40 BC. The Celtic time line ends with combat with Caesar's expedition to Britain. You can't advance to the next battle unless you win the scenario you are in. After each battle, you have the opportunity to purchase new units and/or upgrade your existing ones. Upgrades can be equipment for better leathality, protection, mobility, level of training, or formation drill. There are different types of units from militia to Praetorian heavy infantry, light/heavy cavalry, skirmishers/archers, with tribal/national characteristics. There is a leader unit, which over time and with upgrades, can command more units, extend range of command influence, and give more commands, and therefore very important. There are limited command options once a battle begins, which is a change from the earlier games, where you set your formation commands at the start, then just watched the action. Leaders can redirect units and there are more tactical options for the formations to start a battle. The battle graphics are improved from the earlier mentioned games and you can zoom into a unit-on-unit engagement. There is a historical narrative between the each battle that gives you the context of each scenario, which is a nice teaching tool. The graphics are not state-of-the art, but also don't make heavy demands on your computer either. You don't need much more than a basic laptop to play the game, a plus in my book. For the $[...] I paid, I found the game a great value - I only rate it 4-stars because, as far as I can tell, once you have played through the Roman and Celtic time lines, that's it. You can restart at the beginning, but you will go through the same sequence of battles.

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Caesar IV Review

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(More customer reviews)For me, there's nothing wrong with the game; it installed without a problem; the graphics are glorious and the play is fascinating.
Unfortunately, they did set the system requirements on the box lower than they should have. You need a better machine than they say you do to use all the features. I can get by with a solid playable version by turning off a couple of things, but the game is really, really good. The last game Tilted Mill did, 'Children of the Nile,' frankly had too much make-work in it that did not really apply to the projects you were completing. The game-play on this one is excellent; it's so excellent, in fact, that I'm seriously considering buying a bigger and better video card so I can use more of what's available.
I know that there is a temptation for manufacturers to put requirements on the box that will sell the maximum number of games, but I wish they would warn you that these requirements are not the optimum configuration; it would be even nicer if they would say what the optimum configuration is, so that there is no possibility of a nasty surprise.
It is a genuinely good game, though, and a work of art. If you have bought it and have been unable to play it properly, I would advise you to hang on to it; in the normal course of things, it'll probably play perfectly on your next computer, and it'll be worth the wait.

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Titan Quest Gold (Titan Quest and Titan Quest Immortal Throne) Review

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(More customer reviews)The game is billed as an action-RPG. The number of NPC's is limited, the game is relatively linear, save some sidequests that are optional but not exactly secret since every NPC with something important to say has an exclamation point above their head. You start the game as a single hero (or heroine as is my preference) with nothing but the tunic on your back. You only get to chose male or female, no races, classes, or even differing appearances (except your tunic color). The reason I gave it four stars for an above average game is the beautifully rendered ancient worlds. If you love ancient history this game is even more fun, but even if you don't, the graphics are great. Also they have a Mastery system that is innovative and allows you to choose two separate Masteries (second at level 8) to customize and diversify your character. You can use many different weapons and are not restricted based on your Mastery but rather your attributes, (a weakling will not be wearing heavy armor, etc.) This game is all action, there is no running errands around town for this guy to get that information etc. which happens often in RPGs (I love that kind too, don't get me wrong!). You go out, kill lots (lots, seriously) of enemies, build up nice and quickly, then talk to some guys, then go out and kill some more. You can find tons of items, some ordinary, some magical, some rare and some legendary. You also can make artifacts by collecting ingredients and recipes and taking them to an enchanter.
A few more pluses, some Mastery skills allow for summoned "pets" (wolves, elementals, etc.) to help you; skill points foolishly spent can be reclaimed and reallocated with the help of a mystic and some cash. If your inventory gets a little full and you don't want to sell certain items there is a helpful caravan driver where you can store stuff and buy more room if needed. I am a fan games like Baldurs' Gate, Neverwinter Nights, etc. so this game was a departure from that more in depth style of RPG, but I still found it fun and the price was right so I would definitely recommend it for some stress-relieving hacking action.

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Europa Universalis Rome Gold Review

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(More customer reviews)This game is great because of Vae Victis, the expansion pack. The $[...] you will pay for it are indubitably worth it. There was a time when I would have given this game a 3/5, but Vae Victis makes this an almost perfect game.
A perfect game, that is, if you come to it with the right type of expectations. I was a newcomer to the EU series, having purchased EU 3 but never really taking time to play past the tutorial before lending it to a friend who proceeded to lose it. O, misfortune!
Anyhow, back to this game, there are things that are a bit different from other strategy games:
* You are the commander in chief, not every general in the land:
This is very important. You assign general to armies and give them marching orders. You get to decide where they will attack and even to manage the composition of your armies, but you do not have the luxury of invading the mind of your generals, taking over, and dictating battle tactics. In the same way, you are not the governor of every province. You appoint people with different attributes to your various regions and the result of the governance will depend on their attributes. Will you appoint the superb administrator who has questionable loyalty or a very loyal but corrupt and inept family member?
* It's not a clickfest type of RTS game!!! I stopped playing RTS games a while ago, because I hate trying to play "Any way You Can Click I Can Click Faster." I thought I had permanently switched to turned-based strategy, but I must admit that I like this system very much. You can alter the speed. I think there are five speed levels and depending on what you're doing you can slow down or speed up. If you're at peace and nothing is happening, speed up. If you're at war, you'd better slow and and pause before giving your orders or you'll, well, you'll see why you should have slowed down.
* Governments: there are a lot of government types: different types of tribes, republics, monarchies, empire, et cetera. Different types of governments give you different bonuses on research, military organization, ruler popularity, et cetera. With republics, there is generally a rotating consulate, with two censors and a senate. Most government types come with 5 ministerial/secretarial positions whose primary job is research in the following five areas: land/army organization, naval organization, construction, civic improvements, and religious advances. Again, in your appointments, you must decided whether you want to gain loyalty and play politics or appoint the best qualified person. It's rarely feasible to do both. The senate consists of members from for factions/parties: military, mercantilist, civic, populist (whom you will learn to hate with religious fervor) and religious. Having a consul from different factions gives you different bonuses, of course. The problem with not playing politics is that you run the risk of having the Populists take over your senate and block everything. They are anti everything and are basically isolationists, so that you run the risk of being in a situation where you cannot declare war on a weaker enemy because of lack of senatorial support. Sometimes, they become so strong that your only way out of this is to become a tyrant and proclaim a dictatorship. That, of course, decreases loyalty and makes civil wars more likely.
* Research: it's pretty straightforward, you appoint magistrates to different offices (again you have to decide whether you want competence or political advantages) and depending on their finesse level your research will be faster or slower. You can also speed up research with the right policies: making citizenship easier, making slave emancipation faster, adopting a republic confederacy...
Research gives you new types of buildings and new bonuses, but not new types of troops, unfortunately.
* Trade: also very straightforward. Each province has a resource that it exports and provinces that have different resources can export goods with one another. Trade generates benefits (for instance the ability to recruit certain types of troops or to generate more money from taxes, etc.) and of course, pecuniary remuneration. Trade routes that have been stable for years without disruption yield more bonuses.
* Diplomacy. You can try to take over the world or to build a network of alliances. Of course, it will be easier to trade with friendly nations and they are less likely to attack you while you're at war with another enemy. Allies will also usually come to war with you if you attack an enemy. When going to war with allies, the largest or most powerful nation will be the senior partner and negotiating peace with them means a cessation of hostilities with all members of the alliance. Negotiating with one of the minor members of the alliance puts you at peace with them and them only. Now, in order to attack another nation, you need to have a casus belli, literally, a case of/for war. It is not obligatory to have a casus belli, but it is better for your stability. A casus belli exists in case of poor relations, refusal of war-time assistance on the part of an ally, assassination of one of your emissaries, et cetera.
*Stability. Stability goes from -3 to 3, with 3 being the best, of course. You increase stability by sacrificing to the gods and by having a superb leader. You decrease it by passing new laws and declaring war without a casus belli. You should not attack nations who pay you tribute (the idea being that they're bribing you to keep you from attacking them) or nations with whom you gave good relations. A low stability level will make it more likely for revolts and rebellions to occur. You will need to keep armies in every corner of your territory to quell revolts when they arise, thereby limiting the number of troops you can deploy abroad.
*Barbarians: they are very annoying. Sometimes, a swarm of them come from hell or Barbaria or from wherever they come from and invade. They pillage and you can either send an army to crush them or negotiate with them and create a client state or give them land on which to settle. If you crush a barbarian army, you enslave a number of them. Slaves generate wealth and so one way of increasing your income, especially when you play as a small nation is to go barbarian hunting - make sure you don't bite more than you can chew - and capturing a lot of slaves. But watch out when the bearded men go nation hunting.
Okay, this list is in no way exhaustive, but it's probably more than too long and should give an adequate picture of what the game is like. It's very addictive and I think it's a better game than M2TW.
Try it out and enjoy.

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