Zeus + Poseidon (Acropolis)

This is the first city building game that I played and actually completed all missions! I do not like open game which I always find myself lost of what I should do. This game provide clear goal for each mission and nice Greek mythology touches (++bonus for me as I like Greek mythology a lot). Plan your road and building well, leave room for beauty enhancement, look at your allies and colony and make good use of trading to earn money. Oh...I want to play this game again. I bought Caesar 3 here in GOG and cannot find that playable because I played this game first ...

The Best. The BEST of the city building Sims. Zeus Master of Olympus is the reason I joined Gog.com a year ago, eagerly awaiting the day they'd release it once again. A great sense of humor, challenging campaigns, and a new and efficient employment system (No more building tents next to industrial sites.) Make this game one of my favorite of all time. A lackluster military combat system isn't a large enough part of the game for me to detract that fifth star, this game wholeheartedly deserves your purchase.

If you are a fan of impression city builder games then you must have played Zeus at some point in your life. If you have never tried any of them, in my humble opinion you should give Zeus a try. For me Zeus took the successful formula in Ceaser3 and Pharaoh and made it more fun. For me biggest improvement on Ceaser3 and Pharaoh are: 1) Road blocks (I have no idea why Ceaser3 has no road blocks) 2) At last worshiping gods is fun ( Instead of giving tribute for gods and hoping they grant you a reward, in Zeus gods when have a temple go around your city blessing your buildings, smite invading gods and even kill your enemies. 3) Missions are divided in campaigns so you keep improving your city instead of each mission just starting from scratch again( its gets tedious after a while). This also leads to better city planning. The main issue I have with Zeus compared to previous ones are: 1) Its no longer needed that workers homes are near where they work (which frankly doesn't make any sense that someone living at the far end of the map is working on the mines on the other end, they didn't have cars back then.) 2) gods slow animation issue which occurs on all new PCs and cuts alot from the fun of having gods around (I hope gog can find a fix for that soon)

As most of the reviews state, Zeus was a improvement on the earlier Caesar and Pharoah in terms of playability. And arguably better than its successor Emperor. But it also adds a level of "fun" unusual for this genre (and I've played a lot). An absolute must buy for anyone who likes city building games.