Imperium Romanum, or Roman Empire to us non Latin speaking folk, was originally released in February 2008 and was added to the long list of real time strategy and city building games. This Gold Edition of the game comes with plenty of new features and improvements to enhance the experience, there are enhanced graphics, 16 new campaign missions, 4 new scenarios, 5 more deities to affect the game and Religion is now influential. These all accompany the various additional unit types such as equites, siege machines, barbarians etc., with the original four options to play through the campaign, history, scenario, or learn the ropes in tutorials.
The main story comes in the form of a timeline, a spiralling course of history with many different directions for you to take with each of them featuring various influential cities and events in the history of the Roman Empire. Basic play is not a rigorous lesson to learn, the tutorial helps with this of course and during the early stages of the game your advisor gently eases you in to the way things work and what is required of you as a leader of the people, protector of land and provider of peace.
Aside from obviously building the city you are responsible for satisfying the needs of your people, a familiar concept for those of you that have experienced a game like this in the past in the form of Caesar or Zeus: Master of Olympus, and though it at first seems a simple task it does become a complex and rigorous routine that needs most of your attention.
Citizens begin as lower class families, their houses are first built as small shacks and their needs are minimal, each of the residential buildings needs to be maintained with the use of one of the maps resources. Small shacks require timber to remain standing and as you gradually improve the area around the neighbourhood and the tenants start earning some coin at one of the local farms or production buildings you will see the building upgrade, its upkeep will now require stone, and the wealth of the city improves. Humans, of course, need feeding and to be able to keep clean, there are various structures that create the provisions in this area as well as giving your people jobs, the wheat farms produce flour which in turn is taken to a bakery and voila your people are supplied with bread, take this to other areas such as wine, meat, clothing, and construction and it all follows the same pyramid structure of one building helps the other, clean water comes from one of the extendable reservoirs dotted around the map which you must pair up with a well for your people to collect or use water from.
