First of all I should state that I am not the kind of gamer that reads the manual unless I have to. So, this review is based on playing without reading much in the manual. The first thing that struck you when starting Imperium Romanum is the beauty in the landscape, the distant mountains, the surroundings and the buildings. A truly beautiful game. This add a lot to the Roman atmosphere in the game as such. Getting started is kind of confusing with a more or less logical use of symbols and grouping of functions and resources. It is not to bad when one gets use to it, but I believe it could have been made easier and more available. Anyway one have to act fearly quick to build up and be ready for any enemy action. Not that it is a problem, one should just have a reasanable progression so the armies are ready for any attack. It is like earlier games in the genre important to give the inhabitants what they need to be happy. Failing doing so will lead to riot and fire. It is important to read the messages that turns up so it is possible to act right when unpleasant things happens. It is not obvious what might be the problem. It seems one should consider a colony to be one town, even there is very likely that you build up several villages that eventually might grow into one city. The inhabitants needs are for the total area as such, and that is why you can build for instance a bakery anywhere you like. The goods are being distributed around by an "invisible" logistics organisation. At least that is how it seems for me. A good thing about this game is also the reward when managing to finish the tasks that turns up. This keeps you continue and steadily building up bigger colonies for the mighty Roman Empire. Fighting is not on the Total War level in any way, but it is rather understandable in the way that you can see the number of soldiers and their morale at any time during battle. It is possible to retreat and move during battle, and everything gets easier as soon as you understand that it is the legion banner that moves the troops, no use clicking on the soldiers themself. The music is rather special. Some places in the soundtrack there is a kind of easy listening shoppingcenter music. How this fits into the Roman era is beyond me! A lot of the music is fine thoug, but a more Ceasar like music would have add an even more Roman feeling to it all. To sum it up, this is a good game that gets better along the way. I can redomend it for anyone that likes the era and gets facinated by the beaty in a computer game. It is relaxing to play it too! 3.5 out of 5 would be my verdict after 15 hour play. It might be even higher after I have tried out the Britannic expansion.

Wow... What a terrible game. Features made it seem interesting.... There's absolutely no strategy involved in this game... It's like playing a game that is half finished. They put in a city builder, but with no tasks, no diplomacy, no reason to even build up your cities... It's basically a simulator because there's nothing else to the game. The missions are ridiculous. They consist of "build this there." --- and that's it.... History mode with time line, where missions are based on real events and locations.(pick your city out of a time line... Rather then picking it out of the normal scenario menu) Interactive mission mode: the players activate the goals when they choose(build this building on top of the sparkle.....) improved battle system where players commands their own armies (literally have 4 battle options... no strategy at all... The attack button is "attack the nearest barbarian settlement."... You don't have conflicts with anyone other then barbarians, already loaded on each map... Who ever has more units wins.) Player-constructible bridges, fortifications, walls, towers and gates (as does any other city builder.... You don't actually get to do anything other then place them.) Introduction of currency, crime, historically accurate buildings, natural disasters, and siege machines( Currency... There's money in the game.... No inflation, no anything other then it being there.... Crime... yeah there's crime... because no matter how well you build your city some how the people run out of money, even though they all have jobs... making them poor.... Then they decide to attack their own city.... There's like a total of 15 buildlings. Natural disaster is a fire... and the siege machines are needed by barbarians to take down your walls.... You can't build them.) New interface design, and improved economy and overview dialogues (poor interface... not new at all... New in comparison to what? Improved economy???? Honestly??? Overview dialogs ... If you like hearing that one of your citizens is poor over, and over, and over, and over, and over...... Great feature.) This game is absolutely terrible.... And if you are stupid enough to buy it like I was well.... I don't know what to say.... The games official website has a demo... I recommend you try it before you waste $40. 0/5----- Waste of hardrive. -Matthew Anderson Whittier, CA