I recall reading designers notes when Caesar III came out stating that the team at Impressions was planning on bringing their city-building engine to the realm of science fiction, enabling players to build a city in outer space. Obviously they scratched that idea in favor of keeping with the historical simulations, and thus Pharaoh, Cleopatra, and now Zeus: Master of Olympus, was born. While I was a bit skeptical at first, because Zeus looked a bit childish, I am pleased to say that it is every bit as engrossing as its predecessors, and for some, it will be even more so.
In my review of Pharaoh I wrote that the use of the gods (having to please them by building temples to avoid incurring their wrath) took away from the realistic nature of the simulation. I mean, there you were building farms along the Nile and keeping track of a dozen different commodities when a section of your city
was destroyed because you didn't have enough tributes to a god, and I found it a little disconcerting. Obviously this didn't take away from the brilliance of the game, as I awarded it an Editor's Choice Award and mentioned the god thing as a minor quibble. But this is where my hesitation to play Zeus came in. I would be really upset if I didn't like the game, considering that my hesitance did not extinguish all my enthusiasm. The problem? Zeus is not very realistic. Instead, Impressions has blended real Greek city building with Greek mythology, and the result is a more light-hearted, simpler game that much to my surprise manages to hold on to, and in a way extend, the wide appeal of the other members of the series.
To those unfamiliar with the series, players have to build successful cities while completing certain goals specific to the missions. To do so you must first build housing to attract new settlers. In order to increase the level of housing, thus bolstering your city's population, appeal, and beauty, each home has to be supplied with certain goods. You will first have to supply them with water from fountains, and then food, in the form of fish, pork, cheese, wheat etc., by building farms and storing the food in a granary. Eventually your citizens' tastes will increase, and you must build agoras (markets) to distribute goods like fleece and wine. Of course, for each good there is an industry that needs to be established. For instance you must build fleecers' huts on grassy plains so that your sheep can graze. Also, to produce cheese one must have goatherders gather milk and bring it to a dairy. On the same note, one must make sure the city stays in tip-top shape by building watchposts for security and maintenance offices so that your buildings don't collapse. Entertainment and city culture are others factors, and are increased by building structures such as theaters and gymnasiums. Of course, each citizen pays taxes, the amount set by the player, that are collected by taxmen. You can also acquire funds or goods by trading with other cities. Last but not least, unemployment must be kept to a minimum. Each structure built employs a certain number of people, and if the case is reversed and you build too many structures, the job positions will not be filled and your city will suffer. This is just a cursory glance at the basic
gameplay. My intent is not to reproduce the manual, so let's continue.
The first task is for players to choose how to play. There are a few different sandbox modes which give the game tremendous replay value by letting you build till your heart's content. Also, there are seven campaigns that cover everything from the trials of Hercules to the Trojan War. These are set up differently than the other City Building games, but make for far superior campaign play. Instead of scenarios in which you have to rebuild a city every time, each campaign is divided up into episodes that let you keep developing your city throughout. For instance, the first campaign has you trying to bring the city of Thebes to glory, while the last campaign has you overseeing the construction of a great military city. Each episode, however, requires you to fulfill certain objectives. For instance, in the Thebes campaign the first episode requires that you increase your population to a certain amount, the second that you build a Hero's Hall for Hercules to defeat the evil Hydra blocking the supply of stones, and the third episode has you gathering that stone to build a statue. This system gives the campaigns a nice dynamic feel, because if your city's layout sucks so to speak and is not optimized for defense, in the fifth scenario you might be in trouble when some unfriendly city-state wants to march into your city for tribute money.
As stated before, Zeus relies heavily on mythology to make the campaigns diverse. The more I played, the more I realized that they made a wise choice. If Zeus would have kept to the mostly realistic nature of the other City Building games, I think there would have been many fans upset that they were playing Pharaoh with a new tileset. The mythology aspect works like this. Like the temples in the previous games, you can build sanctuaries (basically large statues of each god) to gods like Poseidon, Hermes, Aphrodite, and Zeus himself. Each one has a unique effect, my favorite being when Ares gives you two legions of Spartan soldiers for your army. Or you can build a sanctuary to Aretmis and receive Amazon soldiers. If you are in need of food, Demeter's sanctuary will increase the fertility of your farms. But you must make sacrifices and pray to the Gods or else, like in the game's predecessors, they will hurt rather than help your city. So if you see everyone vanish from your streets,
it is probably because Hades was pissed off and brought them all to the underworld. But the coolest feature is when a mission requires you to defeat a monster, such as the Minotaur, Kraken, Hydra, or Medusa. For this, you mush call on a Hero such as Odysseus or Hercules to fight them for you. This is implemented wonderfully and adds real character to the game that was missing from the others a bit. Diplomacy has also been improved from the other games. You can set up trade routes, make demands or requests of other cities, or even send troops in to raid a city for certain goods. All in all, there is a much greater feeling that you are part of a larger world. Of course, Greek history lends itself to more dynamic diplomacy because ancient Greece was not a unified nation, but rather a collection of independent and sometimes warring city-states. Of course, that means that war will play a part. The combat in Zeus is just as simple as in Pharaoh. You can build a variety of troops and structures for defense, and also put them in various formations, but the combat is rather undetailed. Still, it is thrilling to see your soldiers march outside of your city walls to face the enemy. Combat has never been the focus of the City Building games, but I could just imagine how much more addictive Zeus would be if the battles were as detailed as the rest of the game.
If you're familiar with any of the other games you'll be pleased to know that the engine is the same solid one used for Pharaoh, but the interface is much improved. It is now possible to obtain all the vital information from the main screen, instead of flipping through multiple menus. On the interface bar situated to the right of the city screen there are a series of tabs that will let you choose what structures to build and also provide you with all the info you need. For instance, click on the Culture tab and you can see both the choice of cultural buildings and some of the cultural stats for your city. Veterans will appreciate the ease of use, and newcomers will find it very accessible. Of course, there are still a plethora of screens for every aspect of your city in case you need a more detailed rundown, such as the breakdown of finances.
The level of graphics has not increased, but Zeus is much more colorful. Beautification structures such as gardens contain swirling trees and bright colors, fish jump out of the fish ponds, and Ionic and Corinthian columns can flank your streets. In fact, every structure is much more colorful and brighter than those in the other City Building games, Caesar III included. But one must note that the game is much more cartoony overall. The citizens moving about your cities have always been caricatures, but the monsters, gods, and heroes in Zeus look like they were pulled from a Saturday morning cartoon. Luckily they work. Sound-wise the game is superb, with nice ambient effects and great sound clips when structures are clicked on. The citizens, however, spew out very corny lines akin to those in Disney's Hercules. The music is suitably dramatic at points, subdued at others. Those of you that are familiar with the phenomenal music of Lords Of Magic may recognize a snippet of the theme used in Zeus--nice touch.
I only have two complaints with the game. One, the simpler nature of the material means there is generally less to build than in Pharaoh or Caesar III. Don't get me wrong, there is still a good number of industries and structures to manage, but that number has been toned down. Two, mission goals are sometimes a bit hard to reach due to a lack of guidance. For instance, in one mission I had to obtain a certain quantity of goods. I could not produce them, so I had to depend on gifts. Little did I know I did not have enough storehouses and I lost the opportunity to receive those gifts. It took quite a bit of time to find the solution. I had to slowly build up my relationship with a neighbor (very, very slowly) who had that good and then request it. While you won't find yourself in a situation where the goal is impossible to reach, it may seem that way, and it can get a bit discouraging to have to start the episode over or reload a past saved game to figure out the solution.
I am pleased to say that Zeus kept my interest just as long and intensely as Pharaoh or Caesar III, and it secures Impression's reputation not only as a wonderfully diverse and talented team, but also as a team that has taking the city building genre leaps and bounds over Sim City. Play Zeus and excitedly await their next project, and most of all have fun.
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Reviewed by Anthony
Micari
Zeus
