There are many people out there that find even the tiniest thought of loading up a micromanaging sim builder somewhat daunting and intimidating. Games like Ages of Empires and Black and White have tutorials that take as long to play through as some action games and manuals included that are as fun to read as the Q section of the dictionary. Unfortunately this keeps gamers away from games like this which has the basic fundamentals of even the most complicated micromanaging sim, but isn’t overly convoluted in any way. Glory of the Roman Empire from Haemimont Games AD and CDV is a great title for those looking to dip their toes into the world of running a large populous and slimmed down version of all the details that goes along with it.

The campaign mode of Glory of the Roman Empire takes a slight different twist on most sim builders, where you don’t find yourself running just one town, but you will have control of ten overall. You are a glorious governor of the Roman Empire and you are given the charge over one town. As you successfully bring a prosperous reign to the first town, more and more ask for you assistance and you will then be in control of those as well. Each town has its special needs and idiosyncrasies and will need a different approach on how they are treated. Some towns are more susceptible to fires, some to sickness and some have poorly fertile land where alternate forms of food must be found. Also as you get to have more and more towns under you thumb, you will be able to set up trade route between them so that one town can profit from it products in abundance, while others will trade for their deficiencies. A tutorial will start you off in the game to give you the gist of how to create dwellings, workers and production buildings and gamers will be off and running in no time.

Much of the game play is about creating a large enough population to keep the towns running properly. Each building, such as bakeries, pig farms and mines, require a set number of employees, some male, some female, some both, to keep your town functioning correctly. Enough houses need to be built to shelter them and in turn create more people to bustle around the town. Citizens are only one part of the work force in each town, where slaves are the other part of the equation. Slaves can be bought at the town hall for gold and the more slaves your town has, the greater it’s stature among other towns. Although it might seem simple at first to build your town and have it running as a settlement should, there is a nifty little thing called the Area of Effect found in the game that puts a spin on things. Each time you create a building such as a butcher shop or a woodcutter’s lodge, there will be a lighted circle that spreads outwards surrounding it. Only buildings within the area of effect from that building will be directly affected by it and this can make building placement more strategic than at first thought. When you have buildings such as clay pits that need to be near water, or mines that can only be built on rock deposits, it can have you doing a bit of finagling with your settlement layouts to make them all work together.

There are plenty of buildings that can be created for your towns and all serve a purpose for the people. Aqueducts and wells can be placed near and around the city, most useful for the prefectures, the firemen of your towns. Altars allow citizens to pray and houses within the area of effect of them become upgraded. A Tavern gives the towns folk a place to go to blow off some steam and allows you to eavesdrop on their gossip to learn their wants so that you can keep them happy and composed easier. Warehouses allow you to keep resources in them so that goods can be transferred farther, herbalist shops cure the sick and so on for a good number of structures, leading up to more impressive constructions as the game goes on, bringing your towns to higher regard in the Roman Empire. Building structures isn’t all you can add however. A military force can be added to fend off invading barbarian armies, as well as adding roads, which are needed to keep the flow of your people moving from place to place. Esthetics such as trees, gardens and statues can also be added to help pretty things up a little around town and give it more of a restful feeling.

The camera system is simple to use; a push on each side of the screen to pan and a flick of the scroll wheel to zoom, as is the menu system that you will be using oh so often. A right click brings up the build menu and by selecting one of the graphic icons, you can choose what you want to build and may turn it in increments of 45 degrees to find just where you want to place it. There are also economy and settlement overview selections from the menu that gives you a detailed summary of how your town is doing in many different categories, including population and how much wares you have of each produce in your possession such as food, building materials and clothing. Since the game can feel tedious and slow at times when you are waiting for buildings to be constructed, there is a toggle on the menu that allows you to speed up time and watch the citizens go about their business at a faster speed while you half expect to hear the Benny Hill theme song kick in.

The visuals of the game are quite pleasing to the eye with their mixture of brightness and softness, with a somewhat cartoonish feel to them. They are smooth and lag free when spinning the camera around and scrolling in and out to keep everything moving as it should. Animations are fluid in not only the environments, constructions but also the townsfolk. Weather effects add a nice touch to the game as do all the little details you can find. Lights on buildings flickering on and off come night fall, mills cranking up when the workers make their way there and other little things like watching citizens go about their business as they putter about town; children playing, seniors complaining, each with seemingly, a personality of their own. Each person in town can also be clicked on to see their name, their status and what they are up to at that given time.

There are three modes of gameplay that Glory of the Roman Empire includes to help keep the game play fresh and add to its longevity. Campaign Mode will provide you with tasks that need to be accomplished through out missions involving each of the cities you come to rule over. Free Building mode allows you to create a city to your own design from scratch, and you will have to deal with whatever problems arise to keep your town running without any preset missions like the campaign mode. The final mode is Challenge Mode where you are given 4 random tasks and are tested to see how competently and how quickly you can complete them. Although you don’t get to compete against other opponents in a real time game over the net, the official site for the game does have a section that shows the top scores from other players around the world.

If you have been thinking about trying out a micro-managing sim game in the past but have been put off by the complexities of them, Glory of the Roman Empire is a good jumping off point to get yourself a start on. It’s not a “sim for dummies” by any means, but compared to some of the other games in the genre, it is a bit skimpy in the depth department. For some gamers it may be a turn off, but for many others, it will be a sigh of relief to not get bogged down in over analyzing everything and being able to actually enjoy playing a game that puts the fate of towns in your hands.