I've played Zeus/Poseidon, Pharaoh/Cleopatra, and one of the early Caesars, and this was the city-builder I liked best. I even prefer it to 3D variants like Children of the Nile. I liked the choice of heroes to summon, which you can tailor to your goals, be they war or peace. Getting perfect feng shui via proper building placement is an interesting challenge once you master the basics (though not possible on every map). The walker gates give much better control than is possible with any of the others, though if you don't construct one of the standard loop configurations, you can run into the classic problem of an inspector going preferentially in one direction and missing some structure that's technically within reach. That, plus the need to placate the heroes periodically, makes it impossible to just let the game run to completion when you get everything set up the way you want. But this was a minor issue for me, since running at high speed and watching the workers build your monuments is often fun enough on its own. As with many strategy games, there is an active user community at heavengames that produces interesting scenarios once you finish the campaign, though most are aimed at the highest level of difficulty.
