Imperium Romanum

[The Marcher Lord]

I gave the demo a go but without decent battles it seems a waste to me.

As this is primarily a citybuilder game i'm not surprised the battles are rubbish. They should really have left the battles out completely and beefed up the citybuilder aspects of the game eg. more building types and variation in layout, better trade and economy etc. The battle side of the game really looks like a sideshow novelty attraction thrown in for people who don't normally play citybuilder type games.

[frogbeastegg]

Caesar II was the only one I've played with decent battles. They were quite close to a primitive 2D version of TW battles. I was so annoyed when I learned Caesar III had dumbed that aspect down.

I have found an unexpected ... well, not exactly a problem. A gentle hiccough, I suppose. Because there is no linear campaign I'm finding it difficult to tell which of the missions are best tackled in what order. The lack of a difficulty rating for the timeline missions compounds this. I don't want to play the harder missions now, and I don't want to be left with the easier ones at the end. As some of the missions serve as semi-tutorials this leaves me with the secondary problem of not being sure how best to build my city. If I load up a mission which allows me to use a structure I haven't been introduced to yet it can be tricky to work out how best to use it.

At the same time I do wonder if I'm looking at the game from slightly the wrong angle. Housing needs and city evolution isn't quite the endless chain of giving a house access to a new resource or service and then watching it spring up to the next level, whereupon it will start demanding another resource or service.

You can supply all the sausages in the world to your citizens but if they don't have the money to buy them then they'll still starve. Or you can not supply them with sausages, and instead boost up the prestige of their area, and they'll upgrade their houses anyway if the boost is high enough. That's a risky proposition though; posher housing has more needs, and thus requires more family income to support. If your people aren't managing to buy sausages then they won't be able to afford wine and bread, and that will make then angry faster. Posher housing also requires more and different building materials for upkeep. Fail to provide those goods and you’ll be able to barbeque those sausages over your burning city.

For family finances to prosper both the man and the woman need to work in each household. Some jobs are male only, some female only, and the majority available to both. Certain jobs are better paid than others. A woodcutter's family will starve if the wife doesn't work; he earns just enough to buy plain meat. A prefect earns 3 1/2 times as much as that poor woodcutter.

Jobs which produce raw materials make money when the materials are sold on down the line. Jobs which produce finished goods make money when someone buys those goods. Support jobs, like security, appear to earn money from thin air. This means balance is all the more vital - build too many tailors and custom will be so spread around none make enough money. Too few and it looks like a permanent half price sale at Marks and Spenser’s.

So Imperium is more a case of placing the right jobs in range of your houses so your citizens can earn enough to keep themselves above water. Then you come back later and fill in any specific needs you haven't met if and when your citizens start asking about them. Putting them in too soon can lead to disaster; if no one needs wine no one will buy it, and those working in the wine production and distribution chain will make no money.

Or so I begin to think. Certainly I’m not having as much success when I attempt to do things the old fashioned way.