Zeus: Master of Olympus
Build and rule beautiful city states to help Hercules defeat the Hydra or help Odysseus win the Trojan War. Make powerful allies, get involved in the affairs of immortals of the Greek Pantheon and even meet Zeus, the Father of the Gods himself! You have the power to build cities, summon heroes, and complete mythological adventures in ancient Greece.
Zeus: Master of Olympus is the sixth game in the award-winning Impressions City Building Series, which has sold over two million copies worldwide. Zeus: Master of Olympus, set in a mythological ancient Greece, serves up a world filled with the likes of Hercules, Athena, Ares, Medusa, the Minotaur, and many others. Players build and rule Greek city-states while summoning heroes and gods to protect their land from monsters and other Greek cities. Easy to learn, and quick to get in and out of, Zeus promises to be one of the most fun city-building games of 2000.
Zeus: Master of Olympus Accessories
 Zeus Expansion: Poseidon
Pharaoh Gold
Pharaoh
Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
Caesar IV
Caesar 3
Pharaoh Official Expansion: Cleopatra
Immortal Cities: Children Of The Nile
Zeus: Master of Olympus (Jewel Case)
Caesar 3
Zeus: Master of Olympus Reviews
I really loved the Rome setting and the more matter-of-fact style of artwork in Caesar 3, but that's probably more a personal preference than anything. I'm really an action game guy at heart with a little RPG/MMORG and adventure game mixed in. But ever since I played Caesar 3, I've been hooked on this series of games (Caesar 3, Pharoahs, and now Zeus). Zeus is the most refined of the series and best overall although I didn't like the cartoon-y aspect of the artwork in this game. But overall, it's one of my favorite games, and really offers some intellectual stimulation and puzzle solving. I think the only tiny gripe I've had with this game and it's predecessors is that the levels still get kinda repetitive after awhile. It's a great game to play on a long airplane ride; it's a great "thinking man's game (or woman)".
My advice is to check this out w/ the seller before ordering to make sure you truely get what you order. You can even play in a "sandbox" or create a scenario. However, the new version I received was not the one advertised on this page. This is a fun game, especially if you like city building games. It was a UK version of the game that won't work with expansions made for US versions (such as Posidon). The interface is easy to understand, and the scenarios range from easy to challenging.
I got the game in 2 days. I had a friend who had this game a few years back , I found it on Amazon cheap and I had to get it. I still like playing it.
If you build their temple and get people to work there, they will serve you once in a while depending on their specialty (ie, Ares will give you six of his elite Sparti warriors to fight with your soldiers, and he will fight with you, Zeus provides an oracle and helps against invaders and monsters, Athena makes olive presses work faster and trees grow faster, Dionysus makes wine presses work faster, etc). I haven't yet played Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, but from the first mission, I can see it uses the same engine as this one with little changes save cosmetic changes. It bears more resemblence to Pharaoh than it does to Caesar III, but it's significantly different in that buildings now take up more space (four spaces for a single house rather than one space for one house) but this only serves to make cities much more manageable without making them drastically smaller.
From Caesar to Caesar II to Caesar III to Pharaoh and now to Zeus: Master of Olympus, so many changes have taken place, and yet the concept is always the same. You can also build Olive Presses or Grape Presses and place row after row of olive trees or grape vines which grow over time to be picked. From the Romans to the Egyptians, we now hit the Greeks, with a strong mythological twist, and it's the absolute best game in the franchise. All in all, this is absolutely the best ancient city-building game out there in the same stem as the likes of Pharaoh, Caesar III, etc. From the diplomacy page you can attempt to make alliances, attack and invade enemy cities, which become your client-kingdoms (forced allies) and from them you can ask for supplies of a certain commodity you do not have or simply want, or even request their military aid if you are under attack and have no army, or even request a military strike on an enemy so you aren't alone when invading. Where the game really shines is its new political system.
The Hall requires a certain amount of supplies in your warehouses to call upon a hero (like 1000 Drachmae, 32 tons of food, 64 bushels of grapes, etc). Attacking allies is not a good idea, and sometimes cities will randomly decide to go neutral with you, paving the way for expanded trade and allliance. The AI is strong and gathering resources is more fun than ever. Heroes are also an available option, only springing up when they're needed for tasks (such as killing a Minotaur, or retrieving an object for a God) and you build a Hero's Hall. The maps are more vivid and easier to comprehend. Great game. Must buy .
Temples now are also far bigger (so big that they aren't placed automaticallyyou need to gather up marble and wood and precious objects before construction can begin, and specially trained artisans to craft the building) and now serve a purpose other than the God's punishment.
The hero you send on his task, and he/she will also fight alongside your soldiers.
As Greece was never a unified nation, individual city-states constantly fought each other, and this is represented in the game in a great way.
Now they positively reinforce you.
While you keep your primary city, you are also able to build new ones in the form of colonies.
Rather than building a farm for everything from food to fabric, and a place near precious resources for people to go out and get, you can do things like make cheese by building a goat herder and literally placing individual goats (a limit of 10 per hearding shack), or build a sheep herder and place individual sheep so that they can graze on the grass (in special areas only) and grow thick furs for wool and such.
Hoplites don't need special training at a barracks where they stand around doing nothing and reducing surrounding areas' appeal, they are in fact noblemen from high-class housing who buy suits of armor and form up in companies when needed for war.
The campaign game is exciting and lets you keep your primary city and build upon it rather than having to build a new city with each mission, and you have tasks to do rather than just "Get to this population and produce this much food".
I also used the "Poseidon" expansion pack and it just makes it better. I've bought other "simulation" games and they all stink when comparing to Zeus. I truly hope that the makers of this game will do a 'Zeus 2' or something. I'd really love to see what they come up with.
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