Well now, in my review of Predynastic Egypt I mentioned that I hoped GOG would get further games from these devs and here we are, just a few days later! Thank you, thank you! I loved the first game and am very impressed with the enhancements in this sequel. So many new features; there's more strategy and micromanagement, more ways to interact with other tribes and more options as you open up new territories; more wildlife and different ways to deal with them. Yes, deal with the dangerous ones in particular; I ignored the crocs and they gobbled my workers! I particularly like the new building structure, quite different from Predynastic, giving you more freedom of choice to build what you want and where. Replayability was evident from the start. Between setting your own rules and the starting prologue you can mix options and create different play styles in a variety of ways. There's even a sandbox and I love a sandbox! All in all, brilliant.
I became addicted to this Civ-style game within a few minutes. It’s lightweight compared to the “biggies”, yet incorporates many features of an empire-building game in a simplistic and novel way. The interface is easy and intuitive. Graphics are lovely, in line with the Egyptian theme. I thought the “hieroglyphic”, animated representation of workers and the drag and drop feature of moving them around to be quite unique and refreshing. Areas for production, food, etc were clearly displayed, as were the number of turns and effects. I was very satisfied with the level of strategy. There’s production, exploration, research, building, growth, conflict/relationships with other tribes and optional bonus goals to be considered, while factoring in best use of workers and the number of turns required for an action. It’s even more fun when the win goal itself has a limited number of turns. Thrown into the mix are random events/disasters to contend with. All of this, in a neat package. For me there is replay value. Apart from a sense of “I could have done that better”, there are different difficulty settings to sample. I do hope there'll be further games from these devs on GOG in the future.
