Glory of Rome

Glory of Rome

Cute little city builder. So far (scenario 6 complete) it has been pretty casual, a little slow at times. There are some speed adjustments, but everything still seems to go by very slowly. The quests that come along definitely help with cashflow for building and add a small amount of difficulty if you aren’t ready for what they throw at you.

The graphics are pretty cartoonish. The mechanics are straight-forward if you play a lot of these sort of sim games. (Banished, RimWorld, etc)

I dislike the one view camera. You can’t rotate at all. The play areas - even in sandbox - are prohibitively small. Buildings autoface pre-built roads with no option to change the orientation. However, the pips seem to walk through the walls anyhow so I guess it doesn’t matter a whole lot which way the building is facing.

Real player with 13.7 hrs in game


Read More: Best Rome Management Games.


A nice and straight forward sim with pleasant graphics and good gameplay.

The Developer is quite responsive towards suggestions and feedback and has already confirmed there will be big future content updates which I’m looking forward to.

If you like Sim City, here is a roman-era version you should definitely check out.

Real player with 7.4 hrs in game

Glory of Rome on Steam

Retaliation Path of Rome

Retaliation Path of Rome

Retaliation Path of Rome is a very complex game, with several unique features

MISSIONS

About 100 different missions, with either single or multiple objectives, like:

  • reach a population target (a minimum number of patricians and/or plebs)

  • reach a target happyness

  • earn a certain amount of money

  • complete the mission in a given time

  • win a certain number of battles

5 difficulty levels, from very easy to very hard: with different world resources, starting money, initial reputation…

Every mission is created parametrically to offer an ever changing challenge, each time a mission is re-played.

STRUCTURES

The player has the possibility to build more than 50 structures to complete the missions. Some example structures:

  • Slaves' quarters

  • Plebs' houses

  • Patrician villas

  • Wheat field

  • Olive grove

  • Vineyard

  • Farm

  • Fishing house

  • Market

  • Stables

  • Workshop

  • Dirt road

  • Paved street

  • Archers' barracks

  • Ballistaari' barracks

  • Equites' barracks

  • Legionary barracks

  • Velites' barracks

  • Defence tower

  • Signaling tower

  • Watch tower

  • Wooden wall

  • Wooden gate

  • Stone wall

  • Stone gate

  • Forum

  • Theatre

  • Amphitheatre (arena)

  • Gladiator ludus

  • Stadium (chariot races)

  • Gardens

  • Groves

  • Fountain

  • Well

  • Butcher

  • Olive maker

  • Wine maker

  • Lumber mill

  • Clay pit

  • Iron mine

  • Stone quarry

  • Marble quarry

  • Gold mine

  • Potter workshop

  • Blacksmith

  • Academy

  • Library

..

Each structure needs specific resources in order to be built.

And of course each structure has different function and features, and some structures have to be properly positioned in order to yield the desired result: for wine production it is necessary to create both vineyard (to get the grapes) and a winemaker (to get the wine).

CITY AI

In each city there will be some AI controlled competitors: other patricians whose goal is to increase their riches and extend their influence. They will be vying with the player, acquiring resources and building structures, trying to get to the best spots before the player.

The competitors appear in advanced levels, and each has a different strategy: some concentrate in the real estate market, others in trade or in resource production.

DESIRABILITY

When new structures get built, these can differ in desirability. Usually this depends on what is present (or built) around them. For example a patrician villa has higher desirability (and hence higher market value) if nearby there are gardens, fountains, other villas, theatres.. It instead loses value if nearby there are stables, farms, wheat fields… Residents will at first go to dwell or work in the structures with higher desirability, avoiding those of little value.

For production structures, for example a wheat field, the value depends on the amount of the produced resource is available in the nearby city and in the global market. If the market needs grains, the value of the field will rise. Conversely, the field would become less desirable and its value decrease.

DAMAGE

In time, structures deteriorate. Every week mainteance works are done to keep them operative and pleasant. If there are not enough money for the basic upkeep or if extraordinary work is needed, the player will need to acquire the necessary funds and repair it as soon as possible (or see its profitability vanish and possibly even arrive to the point when the whole structure eventually collapses).

CITY BUILDING

The city management part of the game depends chiefly on money, people’s satisfaction and resources available.

Dealing with these three amounts, the player needs to complete the missions.

Careful and efficient exploitation of the resources allows to save money and gain with the trade. A wheat field created in a fertile area will yield much more and hence cover its operation costs and bring profit.

It is best to plan the city growth in order to efficiently exploit the resources and reduce the expenses. It is important that cities be self-sufficient: for example a global event like a drought could push prices of imported goods to very high levels.

It is also fundamental to avoid discontent in the populace. If discontent is too high there could be revolts that would seriously compromise the possibility to successfully complete a given mission.

HAPPYNESS

To be happy, people needs to have their basic needs satisfied: food, dwelling, work, water, protection from enemies.

Increasing the people’s life conditions will also generate new needs. In particular the patricians will start to require luxury goods (good wine, gold, silk, refined pottery, statues…).

Entertainment is another fundamental need: populous cities will require stadiums and arenas (and famous people competing inside those structures..)

When happyness is low, the city structures become less productive and hence less profitable.

WORKERS

All structures need a certain amount of workers or worktime, even for the simple upkeep/maintenance.

All productive structures are tightly bound to the number of workers available in the city: with not enough available workers the production would decrease or even become null. Structures with the highest desirability will be the first ones to attract the workers, leaving the others without.

Different structures will require different amounts and different type of workers. For some jobs only slaves will be requested. Plebs are needed for crafts and trade.

Unemployment will cause collapse of happyness and increased risk of revolts.

PATRICIANS / PLEBS / SLAVES

Patricians are the wealthiest citizens, they have expensive needs and cannot accept to see their needs not satisfied. Their weight over city happyness is very relevant.

They also expect to be given high prestige jobs: army generals, high clerics, administrators, politicians, proprietors.

Plebs are mostly involved in crafts and trade. They are fundamental for the management of the city but they don’t have much political weight.

Their class gives the major turnout in tax income.

Slaves are the major work force. Satisfying their primary needs (food, lodging, water) is important as they deal with the production and resource gathering of the city. Correct management of the slaves is fundamental to make the city desirable to the other classes.

RESOURCES:

  • Gold

  • Wood

  • Stone

  • Marble

  • Iron

  • Clay

  • Wheat

  • Meat

  • Fish

  • Grape

  • Olive

  • Wine

  • Oil

  • Pottery

  • Jewelry

  • Leather

  • Cloth

These are the resources that can be traded, produced or transformed.

TRADE

To evolve the city it is mandatory to correctly manage the trade of all goods: selling the city production to obtain the resources needed for the evolution and improvement of the city.

Prices of resources are managed at two distinct levels: local and global.

Locally: they depend on the city demand and the amount of that type of good that has been bought or sold (selling a lot of wheat will make its price decrease).

Globally: the entire nation’s demand is evaluated and several other factors also influence the price (e.g. events like plagues, droughts, wars..). For example the global price of wheat could be much higher than the local one because of scarcity due to droughts in several areas of the nation.

So if there is a global crisis, even if your city sells a lot of wheat, its price could still be increasing instead of decreasing. But when the trend changes (for example the drought ends) its price could suddenly crash.

AUTOMATIC TRADE

To simplify the game and avoid micromanagement, it is possible to automate trade setting some “limit orders”.

E.g. “buy if there is less than .. %”

The automatic system won’t consider the price, but the quantity set as requirement.

STRUCTURES' MARKET

In Path of Rome it is possible to buy or sell the structures (with the exclusion of those like walls, streets, barracks) according to its market value.

Once the building of a structure is complete, the player has the possibility of selling it, to the value defined by its desirability and the kind of resources it produces.

Selling a structure gives an immediate income, but could be disadvantageous in the long term:

  • no money will be collected for rent of properties or sale of production

  • resources produced by sold structures will not be managed by the player

  • and hence those resources won’t be available to build other structures

Nevertheless a good sale would still benefit because of immediate cash flow…

DANGER AND ENTRENCH

Every structure you build makes your city more appealing to enemies who could invade or pillage it, according to the kind of structure: a patrician villa, a thriving market or a golden mine would increase the risk of enemy incursion much more than a new wheat field or a stone quarry.

To compensate, it is better to spend some money and time on defending the city, creating walls, towers and military units.

Defensive structure will also contribute to raise the desirability and hence the values of the other structures of the cities, whose occupants will feel safer.

All choices in the game are two pronged, bringing both advantages and problems.

For example, continuing on the topic of city defense: if there are few or no defensive structures, there will be many enemy incursions, but very light (small bands of brigands mostly).

Conversely, excellent defensive structures won’t guarantee that the city becomes untouchable, will deter and block small offensives but will attract the organized war sieges of big enemy armies: a city so well defended MUST be rich and full of bounty!

BATTLES

Retaliation Path of Rome is a hybrid RTS/TBS, a combination which makes the game very tactical. You’ll need to plan how to move the troops, how to arrange them and expecially what kind of army units to train. Different movement ability (velites, with barely no armour, are much faster than full armoured princeps) and different attack types and attack speeds make unit types (and how you’ll use them in battle) very different.

Each battle is managed by a parametric AI system with almost endless combinations and possible states and developments.

COHORTS

Units are arranged in groups, which are commanded by officers, controlling the movement and formation of the groups.

Each group can have a different formation: for example you’ll probably be depolying the archers in a long line (or in two/three lines), rather than massed as a square.

The commanding officer will also decide the state for the group: defensive, aggressive, berserk…

Continuously changing the state, formation, movement or attack orders of a group when the battle is already started may seed confusion on some members of the group, which may then fail to follow some of the orders and in the worst cases a total confusion could even provoke the disbandment of the group.

GENERALS

The army general will give commands to the officers and these will command the groups under their command.

The closer a general is to a certain group, the faster the issued orders will be received and carried out correctly. If the general is far away, the group for which the order is meant will react more slowly to the new commands.

If your general dies during the battle you can still command the army, but in a much slower and less coordinated way, with a high risk of confusion and messy coordination. Furthermore, the loss of the general will take a huge toll on the army’s morale, and could cause the whole army to flee the battlefield.

COHORTS AI vs SINGLES AI

Control AI will be managing separately groups and single soldiers.

Each group is treated as a single autonomous entity and orders given to the group will take priority over orders and states of the single soldiers. Nevertheless if the group disbands, its officer dies or the army general dies, then single soldiers will not be bound by group cohesion and will follow a behaviour dictated by their last orders, mediated by their own particular demeanor, state and parameters (called " stats").

SOLDIERS

Each soldier has more than 20 “stats”, parameters defining the single unit, similarly to many RPGs (like strength, intelligence, agility, accuracy, movement speed, orientation ability, luck, tactical acumen, battle experience… ).

Every cohort will include units with very different characteristics, which will affect their performance on the battlefield.

For example: a very strong archer will shoot very fast and very far, possibly inflicting more damage when hitting… but the same archer could have a very bad aim and rarely hit the intended target.

Unit types:

  • General

  • Legionary (heavy infantry)

  • Velities (light infantry)

  • Ballistarii (siege and field artillery operators)

  • Sagittarii (archers)

  • Equites (cavalry)

TRAINING

All cohorts can undergo specific and additional training (up to 5 levels) to become more efficient and to improve the stats of the individual members of the cohort.

Training will improve things like speed of execution of orders, combat ability, manouvering, aim… but no amnount of training, obviously, will affect such things as individual soldiers' intelligence or natural agility.


Read More: Best Rome Politics Games.


Retaliation Path of Rome on Steam

Grand Ages: Rome

Grand Ages: Rome

I started playing this game again recently, and discovered how fun the Campaigns are to play. Previously I had only used the Free Build mode.

The Good

Campaign System

The campaign is simple. It has a simple reward system which gives you money and talents at the end of each task, which you can then use to buy estates or upgrade your city building skills, giving you resource advantges before you move on to the next task. Quite a simple mechanic, but one which adds just enough interest to make the game long lasting fun, and which fits in well with the overall gamepaly.

Real player with 206.2 hrs in game


Read More: Best Rome Simulation Games.


Yeah i know hipsters loathe anything they find inferior being praised, but once again we should just do it anyway and enjoy their sweet succulent “not rage but really is rage they just don’t want to come out and admit because they wanna be the cool kids but not be a cool kid because it’s mainstream"should be enjoyed and feasted upon, and believe me that quote on quote CAN and SHOULD be longer but hipsters are to be mocked, not mentioned.

Now that we got that out of the way, lets continue. I find grand ages: rome highly underrated, to those who bought it and regret it, give it a chance, it’s a game you gotta break the mold with first to properly enjoy before passing judgement (and believe me, i understand not everyone has to like the same game, and it’s okay if you just simply dislike grand ages: rome, to each their own after all.)

Real player with 101.4 hrs in game

Grand Ages: Rome on Steam

Legion Gold

Legion Gold

Really cool - suits me down to the ground. I had never played this (or even really heard about it back when it was released) so it was a new experience entirely.

Battles are simple - you give your troops a placement, a formation and advance/hold orders. When battle begins, you have no direct control over your units, in what the manual describes as an accurate depiction of a large-scale battle where commanders could not adequately give orders in the heat of the fray. When setting up your regiments, however, you do have to take into account the terrain your soldiers will be fighting on, and it’s necessary to refer to the included manual on this.

Real player with 37.1 hrs in game

If you like this type of game, it is still fun to play.

Yes 8 hours is not much as yet. However i have played SPARTAN on retail version many hundreds of hours.

LEGION is what I expected it to be, similar to SPARTAN in gameplay, interface, and visuals. I has less depth than SPARTAN, as the latter has a more elaborate diplomacy, more and different types of resources, a trade option and a tech tree.

Buy it on sale though, scenarios are limited and there is no grand campaign feature to conquer the ancient world.

Real player with 20.4 hrs in game

Legion Gold on Steam

The Last Roman Village

The Last Roman Village

I got the chance to play the demo of this game as an early build thanks to the awesome guys over at the Twin Stone Studio, for letting me play and produce some game play footage it was a pleasure to play in such early game. The music of the game is beautiful and easy on the ears, The format of waves is very fun and will get harder, The artwork is outstanding colourful and amazing very easy on the eyes, This game is very family friendly and has easy to get to grips with controls, The game play is very smooth in all this game to me has got everything I could ask for.

Real player with 48.0 hrs in game

Penultimate final review updated early April 2020 (I’ve still got some updating to do as this review is based on the early ‘work in progress’ version, plus I’ve repeated myself in several places. I don’t know when I’ll be posting the final version, but it will be eventually.)

In Brief:

The Last Roman Village is a strategy defense game that gives freedom to develop a whole Roman city from scratch and to wisely choose the way to defend it. The game allows players to experience a variety of options and creativity. Side scrolling defense games are one of my favorite types of games (next to Breakouts, Shmups and top down TD games). You can see a few videos of game play HERE , HERE , HERE

Real player with 9.7 hrs in game

The Last Roman Village on Steam

Romopolis

Romopolis

I’m not going to recommend this game in general. It may be suitable in certain situations, though.

You should know what you’re going into. This is not a city builder game along the lines of SimCity or Caesar. It is more like a simple puzzle game with elements of time management.

There are 24 cities to build. In every city, the grid is 5x5 tiles - sometimes with a few tiles unaccessible to the player. In the beginning, only simple buildings are available. Later on, bigger and better buildings are available. Residential houses are the main buildings, as they provide you with an income. Other supporting buildings, like temples and hospitals, are available to increase happiness/income from the houses. Bigger houses need more supporting building types.

Real player with 26.3 hrs in game

What a cute wonderful little simulation game. I picked this gem up today for $0.59 today. And man this is a steal for such a fun rainy day game. It’s pretty basic in it’s control; click a square, pick what you want to build and if you have the proper resources you then wait out the timere and vwah lah your new building is built.

Definitely a resource balancing game at it’s very basic. Balancing Houses, with cultural, market, and religeous buidlings against the cost of new workers, new upgrades, and new resources. Some maps have certain blocks that you don’t want to build houses around or suffer pentalites, and some of the maps offer difficulty for the goals laid out to complete.

Real player with 17.3 hrs in game

Romopolis on Steam

Empire Architect

Empire Architect

If you like city building strategy games this is a fun one. Currently (June 1st) there is a campaign with 11 levels and a sandbox game with many varieties of choices. But this game is still in development so there are ongoing improvements and additions, not just new buildings and the such, but also new levels to the campaign. It may be possible to get a new campaign if enough people asked for it. There seems to be only one developer but he has been very attentive on the Gameplay Feedback Thread. As far as I can tell he has answered every question and remarked to every suggestion given to him. So the game still being developed is actually a positive because of the developer’s attentiveness. Some of my suggestions have been built into the game by the developer, making me, in a minor way, a cocreator! This is fun in itself. One thing I do wish there was more of is achievements. But if enough people asked for them ….

Real player with 223.6 hrs in game

Hi, I typically don’t bother to write a review but I felt compelled to write one for this game. I have always loved the city building and resource management category and have been waiting for a game like this for a long time. I had really gotten into Banished but felt there was still a small part missing. As much as I liked playing, I really missed having a military component. Even just a minor one, I don’t mean Total War military stuff, just something to keep me on my toes. I’ve searched and searched and never was really able to scratch that itch…until now. Empire Architect is a perfect mix of resource control, city building and a touch of military necessity to make it exactly what I’ve been looking for!

Real player with 18.7 hrs in game

Empire Architect on Steam

Aggressors: Ancient Rome

Aggressors: Ancient Rome

This review is actually a Thank you letter to the developer for making this game.

For unbiased reviews skip this one.

I think it was 25 years ago that most of my school holiday time was used to do what I really like. Gaming. But I did not had my first PC yet, so gaming was spending one day in the city to collect all kind of painting materials and paperboards to create the ultimate game myself.

The Civilization boardgame, HeroQuest boardgame and some rare tabletop games I owned served as an example. But mine had a bigger boards, more options, more counters and features, more of everything actually.

Real player with 562.4 hrs in game

Aggressors - Ancient Rome

This obscure historical game is turn based strategy / tactics to dominate the world starting in 280 BC by default, but adustable from 1000 BC to 500 AD. It is single player and is my personal choice for game of the year. I have played it for over 480 hours in the past 60 days. It is published by Slitherine and available through them, on Steam and GOG.

Where I am coming from

–———————————–

I am the curator of Strategic Win https://store.steampowered.com/curator/9074928/ and have reviewed 142 games there in the past 2 years. I bought this game from Matrix games.

Real player with 521.5 hrs in game

Aggressors: Ancient Rome on Steam

Concordia: Digital Edition

Concordia: Digital Edition

Great electronic version of the game. There are options that make scoring easier to visualize during the game. The UI allows take-backs before finalizing an action, which is also very helpful. Realtime games would be a great update.

Real player with 43.6 hrs in game

It’s really addicting. I only play vs AI but it’s just a joy and with my novice experience every game feels close. I would recommend turning off visible scoring to mimic the board game and not make bad decisions looking at short vs long game.

UI could be improved a little bit for me to easily see what I have (housing resource count) at a glance, the various overlays don’t quite do it for me. Maybe there is a better way and I’m just too new.

Music is great though I wish there were some more varied tracks instead of what feels like the long “one” song built in.

Real player with 37.2 hrs in game

Concordia: Digital Edition on Steam

Roman Wars: Deck Building Game

Roman Wars: Deck Building Game

In “Roman Wars” we fused elements of deck building board game and strategy together. Build your deck, upgrade your cards, develop your base, and fight different enemies. Try various missions, use bonus cards, and don’t forget about cats!

Features

  • Ten different missions: Build your deck of cards and meet multiple criteria to complete the missions

  • Ten different enemies: Suppress a riot, make a sortie, fight the enemy stealing your gold and other enemies

  • Bonus Cards: Earn experience points and unlock special Bonus Cards which make the missions much easier

  • Themes: Choose between the classic Roman theme and Cats theme

Demo

Check out the demo and play first two missions of the game

Roman Wars: Deck Building Game on Steam