Master of Olympus
Published by: Sierra Studios and Impressions
Reviewed by: KaCee
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Discussion Forum
First
Impressions:
This
latest addition to Impressions' City Building Series (Pharaoh and
Caesar) shifts the attention away from the detailed mechanics of
city construction and management to politics, empire management,
and adventure. A major change from the earlier games is that houses
need no longer be directly connected by unblocked roads to buildings
that require workers. You still need to have buildings that directly
affect houses connected by unblocked roads, such as markets (called
agoras), water services, etc. But industrial, religious, agricultural
and other buildings can be set a distance away so as not to lower
the desirability of the housing areas. Instead of these buildings
having walkers that look for employees, employment is managed city-wide
automatically. Some people may consider this a loss of a challenge,
since the other games required very adept planning to get everything
connected. Others will find this change liberating, as I did, to
allow more complicated cities that present other challenges, such
as making sure the goods produced in those other buildings are close
enough to be used by the houses or to be sold to trade partners.
Zeus expects the player to be less of a civil engineer and more
of a politician. Getting a city functioning in terms of providing
the necessities of life and generating some income is rarely difficult,
particularly in the easy game settings. Handling rivals who are
prone to attack your city, as well as vassals and allies who get
annoyed if you don't treat them right, is much more of a challenge.
Thus, the scenarios are a bit flexible in that, if you have the
right equipment and population, you can send your armies against
anyone you like. Players don't have to sit around waiting for other
cities to attack; Zeus allows you to be the big toughie stomping
all over everyone, if you so desire. As for religion, the gods are
not easily calmed as in the previous games, where building another
temple or throwing a festival did the trick. The gods in Zeus can't
always be pacified, and in fact, pleasing one god often means irritating
his or her rivals. The annoyed ones will send their pet monsters
after your city, such as Poseidon's Kraken or Ares' Dragon, or they
may come to curse and destroy your buildings themselves. You defeat
monsters by summoning heroes specific to each monster, and keep
angry gods at bay by invoking their rivals through the building
of sanctuaries. Gods will also ask you to find things for them,
which requires you to summon a hero and send him on a quest.
Sanctuary building is similar to monument building in Pharaoh, but
with considerably less hassle. There is still a challenge in getting
the required materials, but not the ridiculous waiting periods,
and there's often more flexibility in how many sanctuaries you build
and to which gods.
The adventures themselves are slightly different in structure to
Caesar and Pharaoh as well. While those earlier games took the player
on a journey through history, Zeus doesn't even attempt to be historically
accurate. The adventures are ordered from easiest to hardest, but
players can try any adventure at any stage. Furthermore, each adventure
consists of several chapters, so unlike the older games, players
can't let the city be on the edge of falling apart just to satisfy
win requirements, because the next chapter requires that city to
be back in operation. Chapters frequently send the player off to
establish a colony, so it's not building one city the whole time,
but the game will return to the parent city for the finale. Thus,
a poorly constructed city might pass early requirements, but won't
allow the player to win the adventure. This requires more long-term
planning, adding a new challenge to city-building.
Keeping with the less educational theme, the game is quite silly
at times. There are many hidden jokes in the game, from the initial
loading to the names of the people walking around the city. Clicking
on the walkers to see their names is an amusing pastime during the
parts of the game where you're waiting for a hero to show up, a
sanctuary to be built, or some other event to occur. I won't spoil
the game by listing many of the names, but the market lady named
"Ungryungryippos" or the policeman named "Rhobocop" should give
you an idea of the silliness.
Graphics:
As
part of the comedic effect, Zeus' graphics are very cartoon-like.
The building styles are clearly based on period Greek architecture,
but feature exaggerated or contorted elements, like curved pillars
that widen at the top. The heroes and gods are also cartoon-like,
with exaggerated human structures, bulging muscles, and the like.
Some of the monsters have somewhat creepy faces in their character
close-ups, but no worse than any cartoon villain.
A nice addition is the colour-coding of trade routes on the world
map: orange for land and blue for water. This is important, because
placement of trade storage areas or piers relies on knowing which
route is coming in which manner.
Instead of having separate screens for the advisors, everything
is done in the toolbox to the right of the main window. The designers
did a good job of making everything more succinct to fit in the
tool area, including the fact that pop-up messages have been cut
in favour of a small window on the toolbar that tells you what
your mouse is currently over. This took me a minute to realize,
but once I did, I found it made for good, efficient game play.
I didn't have to keep pausing the game and leaving the main view
just to find out how things were going, which was nice.
Other than that, the graphics are fairly typical for a city-building
game. Good use of colour, good that the view can be rotated so
things don't get hidden behind large buildings, and good availability
of overlays to see hazards, roads, walker routes, etc. Another
nice improvement is that the spacebar turns off these overlays,
making it easy to check up on the city.
Sound/Music:
The
sounds in Zeus are largely incidental, but definitely add to the
enjoyment of the game. You could play with the sound turned very
low or even off if necessary, but one of the funniest parts of
the game is listening to the people. Clicking on walkers brings
up their information and lets them tell you what they think of
the city in its current state. Many of these comments are hilarious,
especially given that the game doesn't bother with accurate accents.
From the surfer-dude market boys to the Dirty Harry-esque policemen,
listening to your citizens is not just a good idea, it's fun!
You don't have to necessarily click on people to hear them, either.
Sounds come from the buildings, and if you have an actor's school
in view, you may hear the students complain about their current
role, or if you have a philosopher's college in view, you'll hear
witty theories. The music is pleasant enough, but I tend to play
with it turned off because I find it drowns out some of the comedy
I enjoy so much.
Gameplay:
As
mentioned in the first impressions, game play in Zeus is easier
than in Pharaoh or Caesar in terms of actually building the city.
The teaching method differs slightly, in that instead of having
a tutorial that tells you what to do via popup messages, the entire
lesson is given to you up front, and you are expected to read,
go do things, then return to the message when you've learned what
you need to know. The message keeps your place in the lesson,
which is good because scrolling around to find where you left
off would have been a hassle.
Because the city building itself is less complicated, the lessons
are more brief. This game is more about strategy and politics
than micromanagement, so most of the learning occurs during actual
game play. For example, heroes can't just be called; each one
has a specific list of items or other criteria that must be in
place before you can summon him. Having a god or monster constantly
attacking you can be quite a challenge to overcome while you gather
the resources necessary to summon a hero.
Housing is improved in Zeus compared to Pharaoh and Caesar. Aside
from the aforementioned benefit of not having to have all buildings
right near housing, you can build two types: regular and elite.
I found Pharaoh in particular very frustrating because as soon
as the generic housing in that game reached elite status, the
people inside stopped being available for employment, and my city
would suffer sudden massive worker shortages. Zeus eliminates
this problem by giving the player the power over housing types.
Both types still improve with better access to services and goods,
but regular housing always supplies workers, and elite housing
never does. This allows a more stable workforce. Some players
may consider this less of a challenge, but I found that it increased
enjoyment and let me focus on the more interesting aspects of
the game.
Another nice new feature is that your cityfolk won't just sit
around idly and let an enemy destroy the place just because you
don't have soldiers. As long as you have a city palace, which
is also required for taxation, your population provides rock-throwers.
You can set the game to dispatch defenders automatically, or have
it under your control. When your rock-throwers are gathered to
defend the city, they are removed from the regular employment
rolls because they are everyday people. You gain rock throwers
by virtue of your population size, and enough of them can turn
back a small invading force. Instead of building forts for more
specialized fighters, soldiers such as hoplites and horsemen come
from your wealthy homes when they are supplied with armour. This
is all more realistic and less frustrating than expensive and
limited training forts as in the other city building games.
The only really annoying thing I found in the game is some scenarios
allow you to accidentally block off the connection to the rest
of the world, but it doesn't really tell you what you've done
wrong. The landscapes are often rocky, with plateau hills forming
the area where you will build. The paths up to these plateaus
are often quite small and far between, so if you accidentally
build a structure that blocks all of the paths (easily done since
you can't always build a road on them), you'll get messages that
tell you that the city is severed from the empire, but not where.
It took me awhile to figure out that I'd placed a building in
front of the path, and meanwhile the city was dying from lack
of resources and immigrants. Other than that, I found Zeus to
be a well-made game that allows players to do plenty of building
with a few basic tools, keeping the challenge in the adventure
itself and not the nitty-gritty of precise building placement.
I really enjoyed the often challenging aspect of dealing with
gods, monsters, and heroes, although the fact that the heroes
always win was a bit disappointing. My gruesome sense of humour
wanted to see the monster occasionally kick some butt, even if
it would have meant more hassle for my city. Battles between gods
are less scripted and thus more interesting to watch.
Enjoyment:
The problem with Zeus is it ends too soon! I was able to increase
the challenge by increasing the difficulty level, but I still
found that I was so into the game and played it so much, that
the next thing I knew, I'd completed all the adventures. There
are "open play" adventures that allow the player to play more
freely without having to fulfill specific goals on a schedule,
but these are almost as scripted as the regular adventures. All
they do differently is let the player have a bit more freedom
in terms of when it's time to go to another chapter. I had thought
the "open play sandbox" would keep me entertained, assuming it
would be a randomized open game where I wouldn't know what god
would pop up and make a request or what monster would happen by
and require me to get a hero in to deal with it. Not so. I started
the sandbox adventure several separate times, and it looks as
though it too is scripted; players will know quickly what order
they're going to have to do things in.
I would have liked to have seen a real sandbox where anything
could happen at any time, leaving it open for extreme challenges,
such as needing a hero that the city can't easily attract. Perhaps
such a thing will come in an add-on pack, along with other adventures.
I am eagerly waiting such an expansion, and hope it doesn't cost
a fortune when it is released. Some people may wish to avoid buying
Zeus right now in the hopes of a bundled package in a year or
two because of this short nature of the game.
Multiplayer:
As
with all of these city-building games, there is no multiplayer
available. This one, however, has some minor potential for it,
given that the political relationships are more varied and important.
Still, it wouldn't be all that thrilling to have a multiplayer
city-building expedition, since players would be off on their
own doing their building more than they'd be dealing with each
other.
Overall
Impression:
This
is a silly but well-made city construction game. It emphasizes
humour and long term strategy over micromanagement, which I really
appreciated. Zeus takes the best of other city-building games
and improves on it, delivering an addictive, entertaining adventure.
If only there were more adventures, more open play possibilities,
or an adventure creator/editor, this game would have been one
to keep me addicted for years. As it is, I finished it in about
six weeks of intensive play.
Marketing
Efforts Towards Women:
Your
character can be either male or female, though there is no picture
of you, and your gender is incidental. I was a bit disappointed
that all of the heroes were male; do Greek legends and myths have
no female heroes? And on top of that, a significant number of
the monsters are female. Yes, this is based on Greek mythology
which, no doubt, was largely constructed by a mindset based on
fear of the mysteries of womanhood and all of that feminist theory
we all know too well. Still, the game takes enough license with
its comedic features that it would have been nice for the developers
to throw in one female hero.
Of course, Athena kicks serious butt. If you've got a sanctuary
to Athena, any god or enemy that attacks you is likely to be driven
away by this war goddess, including Ares, the god of war himself.
She also has blessings to bestow on certain buildings, lending
her a very good overall characterization in the game. So the game
isn't completely void of strong female presence; it just would
be nice if this was extended to the hero aspect as well.
Aphrodite has a rather large bosom, unrealistically so, but most
of the male immortals have unrealistic bulging muscles, so I don't
think this is a problem. It's just an aspect of the cartoon.
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