To be honest, I never was the best at strategy and city building games, but I always enjoyed them nonetheless! Grand Ages: Rome is an awesome game, I love the narration which let's you get a feeling for the story and the atmosphere of the game. The game isn't the newest but visually it is still fantastic in my opinion! The user interface isn't hard to understand and the controls are pretty smooth as well, except for the path building which has a few flaws. The game aims to be very realistic, which is a double-edged sword, on one side it is truly amazing to watch your city flourish thanks to many factors you influence, but on the other hand, it is REALLY hard to master, especially for a beginner like me! My city burned down , got overrun by berserkers, went bankrupt and starved countless times until I knew how to properly start my city, phew! I don't want to lie, it was frustrating at first, but once you begin to understand, Grand Ages: Rome is a simply fantastic game!

Grand Ages Rome is a mostly a city builder and although there is some military warfare Grand Ages Rome is not like Total War. So if that's what you are looking for you may be disappointed. If you like city building then this is a good one. There is a tutorial but it leaves out some things that make playing a lot easier. First of all, you need to use the overlays feature. When you click on the top right more buttons appear that give a lot of useful information. You can see where crime is high, where religion is needed or where food is scarce ect. its all done quite well and uses color indicators which makes it really easy to see just where you need to focus your attention to keep your city running smooth. Red needs immediate attention, yellow is borderline and green means all is good in that part of the city. The game is actually well made and I liked that you can upgrade your character by purchasing different estates that give you starting bonuses or make certain industries more efficient. You can also upgrade during the mission. For example you can research new technologies after building a school and use points to upgrade your buildings and troops ect. There are some low reviews of this game out there but I think the main problem is that the tutorial should have gone into a lot more depth. I think what happened is that a lot of people didn't understand how to use the features in the game to help them manage the city and that hurt peoples opinion of it. They got frustrated trying to keep their citizens happy and got aggravated when they rebelled against them so they gave it a bad score. Although the tutorial does explain the basics quite well, I was struggling myself at first but I just kept clicking on everything and digging deeper into the interface and once I understood it I was able to enjoy playing the game. There is a helpful series of gameplay videos on youtube that I recommend checking out. As I mention before this game is not supposed to be like total war, it does have some similarities, and people who like those types of game may want to try this game. Just understand that it's not going to be a "Total War" style game because it focuses a lot more on managing the city and less of the warfare. In the end I found Grand Ages: Rome to be pretty good overall and I recommend it and the expansion, for those looking for a good city builder that has decent graphics, good depth and some light military warfare.

Grand Ages: Rome is a RTS set in the time of the First Triumvirate and its one of those games you will long for every now and then. The gameplay and story might be a bit shallow and the AI might be easy to fool from time to time but the nice graphics combined with the ability to build your own Roman city set this game apart from others in the same genre. Also, if you are into building grand cities without the hassle of gathering resources the game offers a Sandbox Mode. This is an option I wish more games had since you do not always have nearly as much time that is needed. All in all its a fun title which deserves more praise than now.

This game radiates history. While being interesting to any history buff, it provides Settlers-esque strategy for any city building fan. The campaign is lengthy and interesting, posing you as a city builder moving across the Roman Empire. The graphics are on a grand scale, and set on high, look very good. While a few screens, like the maps and selection screens are bland, the core gameplay screens are beautiful. This is paired with a historically accurate soundtrack. The game is easy-enough to learn, and the learning curve pertains mostly to gaining a firm understanding of commanding your army units and which buildings are necessary to run certain production lines. The gameplay is well executed, and fairly free of any noticeable bugs. Overall, the game is a good piece of Roman-age life and city simulation. It maintains being interesting while also being a game leaning more toward an RTS and City Building audience.