This is the year of the city-building games, seemingly. With Glory of the Roman Empire, players get a chance to build cities all the day long, without having to worry about fighting their neighbors. Long live Rome!

Glory of the Roman Empire begins with an easy tutorial mission that introduces players to the basic building and mission menus. The Campaign mission is much like most in this genre; the campaigns are presented in linear fashion and are divided into missions, which have to be completed before advancing. The beginning tutorial missions focus on single tasks like building a certain number of advanced houses, providing specific resources for the people, and meeting their needs for culture. After this initial campaign, the next campaigns focus on more complex requirements. These early missions are still pretty simple, though.

The main goal is to build a thriving city that meets the needs of the citizens and satisfies certain goals as set forward in the scenario. Buildings like houses, farms, mines, factories, clinics and religious edifices are all necessary to satisfy the needs of the citizens. These all require specific resources to be built, and also to be maintained. Most everything is automated; when a building is chosen and set in a location, the workers immediately begin building and once the unit is completed, workers are assigned and production begins.

Each resource building has a sphere of influence, but unlike some city-building games, the citizens are responsible for visiting the resource buildings and gathering their own requirements. There are no market workers, and the other buildings for health and religion don’t have workers who patrol their area of influence. Workers will spend their time traveling from their workplace to their home to rest, and to various buildings for supplies.

The menus are well designed and are simple to navigate and use. Right-clicking on the screen brings up the building menu, and the main overview menu is on the left of the screen for easy access. Clicking on any building or inhabitant brings up a menu that details a basic inventory of their current tasks and personal information. The information garnered through these menus is adequate, but could be more informative. For example, it would be helpful to know how many items each house had, or how many they needed.

The camera viewpoint allows players to zoom in and around the city in a free-style method with the mouse. The graphics are good, but there are a few instances where the inhabitants walk through the shrubbery. The trees sway in the wind, the water ripples and the children play with their toys while the old men stand around and watch. When buildings are beings constructed, little clouds of dust form. The workers are constantly walking around the town on their various errands, the farms have pigs running around, or have workers busy working in the fields as the harvest is growing.

All told, this is an easy city-building game set in real-time, which will please most casual gamers who aren’t looking for anything too challenging or time-consuming. While fun, it’s too easy for most. As there is minimal cost required for building, there’s no monetary incentive as players don’t really have to watch their money; there are no time constraints and no ratings as such for certain goals. Players won’t get fired. The pleasing graphics and Roman theme are charming, and when combined with the easy building and intuitive menus, provide a nice gaming experience for the non-demanding player.

Gameplay: 7.0
While fun to play, there just isn’t enough challenge to provide the ultimate gaming experience. This game will provide some hours of fun, but could become a little boring.

Graphics: 8.0
Good graphic detail and charming themes.

Sound: 6.0
The voices weren’t all that wonderful, and the accents are hokey. The music is fairly good, though.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Fairly easy to play.

Concept: 6.0
It’s all been done before.

Overall: 7.0
A pleasant game that will entertain, but ultimately won’t provide much challenge. It’s nice to have a streamlined, intuitive interface, but at the same time, part of the attraction for city-building games is the management aspect. There’s just not enough to do in Glory of the Roman Empire. Best for the casual gamer and younger members of the family.