I may be looking at the game with rose tinted glasses. Caesar II was the first city builder I ever played, it set the stage for how I look at all other city builder games. In laymen terms your objective is to take a backwater province build a city that caters to the needs of your citizens and also send tribute (money) back to Caesar and Rome… if you fail your avatar spends the rest of its life chained to an oar. You need to plan ahead right from the start, your people want food, water, education, healthcare, baths, entertainment, security and etc. etc. But you either don't have access or cant afford all of these things at the start. If you ever played Rinworld and thought Randy Random was unfair, well meet his many times great uncle. You’ll get to many points where everything seems to be smooth sailing and then boom half your city is on fire, barbarians are invading, your last tribute offended the emperor, all the stockpiles in the city are suddenly empty and just when you were about to spend your limited funds someone broke into the temples and made off with your money. And thats just on city only mode, Province mode is even more “FUN” I’ve played 3 and 4, they just seem to lack something that this one had.
Having now played this from start to current finish I am ready to review this. The good: -Interesting story and concept -"Cheap labor" -some automation in the mid to late game The bad: -Some stuff is spoon fed to you, and other stuff you basicaly need to go to the wiki unless you are crazy enough to bang you head againts the desk till you have a vision quest or divine intervention. -Early game seems to take a long time, and you can kind of get into a rut if you don't go and find something else to do. -No warning that going to town will cause the Zeus(god) to smite you with lightning bolts, so don't waste you coin on the permit -No warning that steping on a glowing grate in the basement will insinerat you (though you get better) -No warning that upgrading your church will prevent you from doing services till you can afford to pay for something, which sucks as early game thats the best way to make coin. -No indication that if your missing the ability to do something its probably because you are missing a Tech/Skill unlock If your into Stardew Valley or Moonlighter you will proably enjoy this but I would wait till it is on sale.
