Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears or something like that.

FULL DISCLOSURE - This game was my childhood jam on Windows 95 so expect a gleaming nostalgia filled review...

So this is a very solid Roman city builder that was really ahead of its time as far as gameplay and mechanics. You not only had to juggle your city and its economy but also the hapiness of your people, safety of your people, the gods and all of the surrounding settlements and populations. This is a city builder where everything is in your control and your priorities are all over the place depending on what is important at the time.

Graphically this game isn't great. Musically it's a masterpiece. For the time it was released the voice acting is superb and all of the character quotes are great. You can click on any person in your city at any time and hear what they have to say about your ruling. This helps massively when deciding on your focus for the most part.

The gods can make or break your game. You have 5 different gods to please and this means that you must appeal to all of them since they can have a variety of effects good or bad.

Ceries can effect your crops by killing or insta-growing.
Mercury can effect your stocks by destroying them or creating more items.
Mars can effect military by killing your troops or killing the enemy troops.
Venus can effect your cities overall mood by making people angry or happy.
Neptune can effect boats by destroying boats or making areas more bountiful to harvest.

You also have Caesar over in Rome who you also have to keep happy. As the game progresses your rank increases within Rome and each time it increases your personal payscale increases too. Throughout your in game time you can save up a lot of money. You can choose to either re-invest it back into your city, or send caesar a gift to buy his favor. Caesar will also periodically ask of your help fulfilling trade deals or even military help to drive back some enemies. Fail to help in time and he can become very angry. Help him however and you can win a lot of favour from him. If caesar is happy with you he will leave you alone for the most part, sometimes granting you extra funds or even resources. If you anger him however he can send his own military to crush you and this increases in power each time you anger him. Defeating his military however earns you a LOT of respect from him, even though it can be very overwealming.

For an older game despite the combat looking and for the most part feeling very basic the enemy movements are very co-ordinated and certain enemies and groups seem to target certain things. The Celts for example seem to beileve that targeting your food structures and stockrooms the best approach wheras the Egyptions tend to target water or financial buildings. This keeps you on your toes as you play and decide where you need the strongest fortification.

8/10 Stars for this game since it's a very solid game an dprovides me hours of enjoyment even to this day.

+ Romans + Childhood <3
+ Very dynamic gameplay.
+ In depth city building.
+ Good economy system.
+ Houses that evolve/devolve as more becomes availiable to them.

- Graphically poor.
- Higher gamespeeds really kill enjoyment since even the smallest of enemy groups can trash the place.