I will say that the game is fairly unique compared to many other game titles I've played and has a number of interesting concepts. Unfortuantely, many of the design choices tend to be more frustrating than fun. One is that you have limited number of buildings you can build in certain categories (up to 4 in the 1st level military buildings for example). This limits not only what you can build out of the variety of units available, but also limits what higher level units you can build that require the lower buildings. Given that resources such as iron that make the stronger 1st level units more affordable is hard to come by early on, you can either use the light (and weaker) units that don'l require resources, or pay much higher costs and hope to get iron later on. This might not be such a big deal if you can demolish buildings to build other ones later on when you have better resources, but that is not permitted, leaving you stuck with what you built for the remainder of the game. Another frustrating mechanic of the game is the enemies you will face off against. As you get further from the immediate radius of your starting city, the strength of the armies occupying the neutral territories goes up and can quickly leave you surrounded and unable to expand, especially when your leader can only build level 1 units and most of the neutrals have level 2 which can wipe you out with little effort. On the occasion that you encounter a computer-controlled hero, he is usually at least one to two levels higher than you with a bigger army. I've spent hours trying to learn the game without the manual and, after doing so, several hours more trying different combinations or heroes of units. In the end, the game is far more frustrating than fun and, unless you have a high tolerance for frustration and annoying game mechanics (and a ton of time to devote to it), I would recommend playing other titles.
In reference to the earlier review about not being able to run this game on Windows 7 64, I used to have the same problem with several games I bought on GOG.com (they would not run). I discovered that turning down the resolution solved the problem. Windows 7 defaults at 1920 x 1080, but changing it to 1600 x 900 solved the problem and my games run with now problems (I didn't even have to use compatability mode). As for the game itself, Pharoah was one of my all-time favorites and I've been waiting a long time to see it released on GOG. Caesar III was decent enough, but i like the additional features such as monuments and roadblocks (and the overall "feel" of the environment).
