Brian 5
Sami PetrosCiv City Rome
From the makers of Sid Meier’s Civilization, Civ City Rome puts you in control of building a Roman city, as if you had zoomed into one of your cities in Civilization 4.
Civ City Rome is a city building simulation couple with a very basic real time strategy element. The goal of the game varies depending on the game type, though it always involves making your city prosper. There is a long and involved campaign which offers divergent paths to pursue with both military and peaceful postings. In addition there are several single missions to complete and also a few ‘sandbox’ maps where you are free to build to your heart’s content.
During a game your main job will be to plan the layout of your city in order to maximize its profit, culture, happiness of citizens and its size. Income is garnered from two main sources; taxation of your citizens, which is centered on their dwellings, and trade. In order to receive more tax, your housed citizens need to have certain requirements met and their housing status will increase accordingly. Requirements include access to water or meat from a butcher, a nearby temple or form of entertainment. Trade takes the form of overland or sea routes to nearby cities and is as simple as selecting to buy or sell a certain commodity and waiting for the trade mission to be completed. Resources and commodities are provided by natural resources on the map which require a building such as a mine in order to exploit them, or provided by the structure itself, like a goat farm or vineyard. These resources are then in some cases used by a second structure (butcher, tunic maker, olive oil press) to create the required commodity.
Satisfying a cities civilization requires you to make sure there are many grand structures in the city. These take the form of temples, entertainment structures such as a circus or hippodrome, wonders as in Civilization, gardens and so forth and by also researching various technologies. Keeping your citizens happy is also linked to both civilization and the other needs already mentioned. Happiness takes into account other things such as unemployment levels, wages, free time, rations, housing, needs, civilization levels and outside events.
One complaint that I have with the game is how paralyzing a big city feels when you are trying to place new structure or in actually get food to your citizens, though I do realise that this could very well be an effort to realistically render a Roman city since not all the citizens would have access to every amenity.
Graphically the game is very pleasing to the eye though it never seems to be zoomed out enough. It is surprising how fast your settlement will begin to look like a vast metropolis; with parks, baths and temples nestled in-between large housing districts, farms, huge hippodromes, circuses and aqueducts.
To find out more (well, not much more since the site isn't all that good) here is a link to the official site.
Alskreek, out.
