Reviewed by Game Boy!
Please note, all PC Games reviewed in this series are played by both men and women, boys and girls.
Journey back in time to a land long ago, over 3,000 years BC. A land where mythological creatures – Medusa, Cerberus, Talos, the Kraken and Artemis’ Caledonian boar – roam at the behest of unfriendly Gods.
Enlist the help of renowned Greek warriors – Achilles, Jason, Perseus and Hercules – to help banish them and fight alongside your armies in times of war and strife.
Pray to friendly Gods, by first building breathtaking Sanctuaries, and they will lavish you with gifts (wine, olive oil and juicy oranges, to name just three), while in the Poseidon adventures you may find yourself having to construct the odd pyramid or three.
Immerse yourself in as many as 13 main adventures, including the Invasion of Troy, plus Odysseus’ return to his beloved wife, Penelope, along with 4 custom adventures and 6 free-play ones.
Each adventure has multiple episodes to it, as many as eight in some, along with at least two colony episodes. Choose wisely, though, and plan your parent city well in this amazing city building game from Sierra. The founders and leaders of city building games.
Of the five enjoyable and challenging Sierra City Buildings games, from Caesar III to Caesar IV, I decided to review the gold edition of Zeus: Master of Olympus first. My chief reason for doing so is the simple fact that it was the first of their games to solve the housing evolvement problem of the previous two (Caesar III & Pharaoh).
Zeus, which, as with Pharaoh, has an expansion in the form of Poseidon: God of Atlantis, has two types of housing; each one a solid building that evolves up from a solid 2x2 and 4x4.
In addition to that, as if to make it easier, they have likewise solved the trade problem, whereby, goods bought by traders were taken from any warehouse. In their place, you now have trading posts and docks relevant and related to each trading city with a maximum hold of 60 goods, almost twice that of a warehouse.
It is important that you purchase and play the Gold edition, as it solves several other problems: Sculpture studios holding 5 bars of bronze when they only need 4 while horse ranches, needed for your horsemen army and to summon a hero in the form of Jason, can now be rotated in all 4 directions along with Sanctuaries.
The other helpful and truly significant difference is, the game comes with 16 tutorials, none of which are directly related to an adventure, which I strongly advise you play. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have little problem playing and enjoying Zeus, or will you?
Note, this revue additionally covers numerous points of interest not mentioned in the Tutorials.
Delve into Greek Adventures is what you’ll find on these two games. Zeus has 7 Adventures + 3 free play ones with no ultimate goal + 4 custom Adventures while Poseidon has 6 Adventures + 4 free play ones.
Each Adventure is made up of several challenging episodes. You start each one with a fledgling parent city, one you will find yourself being moved to another part of the World map, there to colonize it and supply your parent city with goods you need. After each colony episode has been completed and its goals met, you return to your parent city where new goals are presented for you to achieve.
Be advised, there is more than one colony per adventure. Although you are given a hint as to what a colony has to offer by way of resources, it is prudent to save the game before setting aside the last of the items you need. That way, and this is most important, you can select an offered colony and judge for yourself, fully, if it’s the best one to play first. If you then have your doubts, you simply load the previous save and repeat the last part before making your decision. You also need to do that in Adventures where you only get to play all but 1 of the available colonies. That said, you can still play it by loading the game save prior to the last colony save.
Now comes the singular thing that affects where to place your housing etc.
As with Pharaoh, Zeus and Poseidon require you to build monuments.
In Zeus, they are Sanctuaries to ‘friendly’ gods. Hermes in this screenprint:
By contrast, in the Atlantis Adventures of Poseidon (1 to 4), you will also find yourself building a race track around Atlantis in the first adventure and as many as three pyramids in the third adventure:
Be advised, the construction of monument type buildings, especially if you need to import the necessary marble, takes time. Poseidon, though, provided it’s available, has Pillar of Atlas. Once constructed, the helpful God will, from time to time, help in building monuments – One at a time, though. Therefore, irrespective of how many you have to build, and this applies to both Zeus and Poseidon, complete one before starting the next.
Also note, the items that a pyramid of the same name requires, in order to build it, can differ from one episode to another.
Sanctuaries come in various sizes, from Dionysus to great God Zeus, while each has a benefit.
As with Pharaoh, they can be rotated, while the problem concerning the position of the entrance has been solved with the expansion. That said, you need a small amount of marble to lay the foundations. Get it wrong, however (all you see is a green ghost of the rectangle if there is space, while a red one, and this applies to all buildings, means there is something, a tree, rocks or other in the way), and if you delete the foundation you lose the marble. In that respect, save the game before deciding to place it, especially true of Athena, Dionyssus, Hephaestus, and, in particular, Hera. Hers is the only one where the entrance is at the long side while it’s worth mentioning that Sanctuaries rotate anti-clockwise.
There now follows a table of what each Sanctuary needs. The first indication of marble is for the foundation while the second is what you also need to complete it.
Note. Once built and provided there are no ‘at risk’ buildings along the same stretch of road as a completed sanctuary, you can delete the ‘Fire warden’.
Benefits. Dionysus: Wine and 8 x vines. Hermes: Speed of workers and traders. Ares: Soldiers and Dragon to help with invasions – home and away. Aphrodite: Charismatic, especially in dealing with her husband Hephaestus: Talos and bronze at 4 corners of Sanctuary. Artemis: Caledonian boar and Amazon warriors the same as Ares. Athena: Oil, olive groves and stronger soldiers. Apollo: Oracle and athletes blessed. Demeter: Meadowland around Sanctuary and food. Hades: Cerberus and silver at each front corner of Sanctuary. Poseidon: Kraken and fishery blessed. Atlas helps with construction of monuments. Zeus: Oracle and all others, though how you do that is something I have had no use to do, thankfully. Hera’s Sanctuary is only available in Poseidon. Its gift is an orange orchard.
While on the subject of orchards. Whereas the orange tenders lodge in Poseidon only collects oranges, a growers’ lodge collects both olives and grapes. Therefore, and as tempting as it is to place olive trees on one purple part of the map and grapes on another, especially at some distance, DON’T! Otherwise, you will see growers walking across the map from olives to grapes and back again (see below for more).
As mentioned, those benefits are for friendly Gods. In each episode there are both friendly and unfriendly Gods. If a God is unfriendly, either they or the Titan associated with them will visit your city: Talos, if Hephaestus is unfriendly while Athena will visit herself and blight wheat and your soldiers. Not something you want to happen if you’re about to conquer a rival city.
All monuments, save for the Hippodrome in the first Poseidon adventure, need artisans. Each artisan building requires 25 workers. (More on that later.)
Where to place them? Although there are walkthroughs for the adventures, the first time I found myself having to replay an adventure in my parent city after following the not so helpful advice of the walkthrough, I came up with the solution.
If you need to import any of marble, bronze (for:) statues or wood by sea, especially in your parent city, be mindful of the location for the pier(s). The best places are islands and sizable plateaus, raised land surrounded by white stones. (See next.)
Roads. Once you have run a road up a convenient gap in said rocks, it turns into steps.
Bridges. Available when needed, there are two types. A wooden bridge, which you place between a river or stream. They feature in all of the Zeus adventures etc plus Adventures 5 & 6 of Poseidon, while the first four Poseidon adventures have a solid bridge for all but a small stretch of water, when they are wooden.
Every so often, Sanctuaries will perform a sacrifice. In doing so, they will take one of the following: a sheep or goat. If neither one is available they will take food. A taken sheep and goat can be replaced, simply by placing them – explained in the tutorials.
Statues. Each statue requires 4 bars of bronze. In the stand alone version of Zeus a sculpture workshop holds 5 bars despite only needing 4. In Poseidon they take 4 bars.
Workers and settings. Some episodes require you to achieve a population goal. In some cases it can be more than you need, thereby creating unemployment. Your workforce can be changed in two ways to counteract unemployment. The initial one, moreover at the start of an Adventure and a colony episode where you will need the maximum amount of workers, especially if you have set aside goods in the previous episode, is to increase wages. Similarly, once you’ve placed a Palace along with a Tax collector, it makes sense to have tax and wages at the same level. It is also an advantage to set them both above normal when you have elite housing, as the elite dwellers pay taxes instead of contributing to your city’s workforce.
Difficulty settings are something else entirely. They can also be changed in-game and have both advantages and disadvantages. Increase the difficulty level to reduce your workforce; however, be advised, buildings etc cost that bit more than on a lower setting. To change the difficulty in-game, left click the word ‘Options’ at the top of the screen:
Now, is as good a time as any to look at the game options. Display should be set at 1024 X 768. At the start of an episode, Pause the game and change game speed to 10%. Note, the initial default is 90%. Next, save the game as episode number and A1 [Ep1 A1], that way, if you find yourself having to go back to a previous save, one several saves lower than the last save, you then make your next save the next number on from the one you loaded, only precede it with the letter ‘B’. [Load previous save of A9 when your last save was A12. Next save = B10].
Entry point. Unlike Caesar III, there is no indication as to which one of the two strips of road is the entry point for immigrants on most maps, other than the obvious ones. The entry point, along with adequate places for trading piers, may play a part in deciding where to place housing blocks in your parent city, more so than colonies. To establish which one is the EP, lay a road with 4 common houses on either side, then change the game speed to 90%. After that, pause the game, change the speed to 10% and re-load the A1 save.
Note, the problem arising from loading an early game save, will be addressed later.
Colonies. Each adventure includes at least 1 colony episode. They allow you to gain a supply of one or more items your parent city needs, while the colonies and any vassals send you tributes at the start of each year and may aid in a request for goods and military help. Make sure you have the necessary room for tributed goods, noting that, a storage yard with space for 10 items, only has space for 8 in respect of tributed and different goods while a statue takes up 4 units of space.
At the start of an adventure (episode 1), allied cities may offer gifts of a resource (in addition to Dr = money). Through a lack of workers, warehouse or granary space, you may miss out on the gift. Be advised, if you decide to load a game save, the gift might be something different altogether.
Military. Triremes & Frigates (naval warships). Frigates, in Poseidon adventures, can have their firepower increased with orichalc. To build and man them requires 100 workers. Once built or not needed, the workers can be sent home. Keep the Industry, difficulty and wages settings in mind for when they are required.
Towers. These need 15 workers each and must be placed over walls that are 2x2. The workers can also be sent home by clicking the manned button on the military tab of the control panel. Towers must have a road connected to them and that road has to connect to the palace. Ranches. These allow you to upgrade your hoplites (foot soldiers) to horsemen. In the stand alone version of Zeus the longest side of a ranch runs from NW to SE. They require wheat from a storage yard, not a granary.
Chariots. In the Atlantis Adventures of Poseidon they replace horsemen, and, as you’d expect, need wood to construct and a horse to pull one.
Invasions. In addition to being informed when an enemy city intends to invade your city or colony, via an on-screen message, you will also be given a notification as to how many months until the invasion. At the point of the first warning message, it is advisable to save the game, then save it again at the 3 months warning. Continue playing the game and establish where the invasion point is. Once you’ve done that, decide how long it will take to move your soldiers from the elite housing to the invasion point and load one of the previous game saves.
Mustering troops. Taking what you learnt from the military tutorials, pause the game and reduce the speed to 10%, this will give you the time you need to move the muster flags from the palace to the invasion point on the map, which you need to do first.
Auto defend: The default is off. By and large, it’s best left that way in order to avoid rabble in Zeus based Adventures and archers in Atlantis based ones being mustard (see tutorials).
Husbandry. Crops from farms, olive groves, vines and orchards, are produced yearly and at a set month of the year for each (see next). Wheat will be taken to any accepting storage yard first, then a trading post and finally a granary. Therefore, manage the wheat harvest with care and change any storage yard settings before it’s due.
Olives are harvested in January, Vines October, Oranges November (available in Poseidon), Carrots and Onions in April and Wheat in July. The aspect of these dates is, if you leave your parent city before a crop is due, although you return to your main city one month later than you left the colony, nothing has changed. Therefore, keep that in mind in deciding when to return.
Livestock. Some episodes have wolves, which will go after sheep and goats. Irrespective of that, and since wolves spawn, it is prudent, where possible and you have them, to use walls to coral your livestock, which includes cattle in Poseidon.
Mini-map view. By left clicking the angel tab, being the last tab at the bottom of the control panel, you can see all or a portion of the game map. If it’s a big map, you can use your keyboard’s cursor keys to peruse it.
Map edge. As with Pharaoh and Emperor, and unlike Caesar III & IV, there is no distinguishable map edge. Furthermore, by rotating the map you can see more or less of the perimeter. As always, a red ghost means you cannot place a building, most notably when it’s at the edge and there is no obstruction.
Dangers. In addition to unfriendly gods and their titans, there are three dangers. Flood, lava and earthquakes. Of the last two, only earth cracks can be crossed and with a bridge. The crack, though, needs to be 3 tiles long.
Walkers. Your housing needs a certain amount of interior buildings while the staff that spawn from them need to remain within a given housing block. For that purpose you have:
Roadblocks. These were first introduced in Pharaoh in response to players using military gatehouses to control walkers in Caesar III.
There now follows a screenprint of two truncated common housing blocks with what they need contained by roadblocks at either end. Notice how 1 theatre provides coverage for both blocks. At full length, there are 12 housing plots on the short side and 13 on the long side.
Avenues. These form a type of beautification, one that boosts the appeal of the area. You will note from the above screenprint that I only placed just over half the avenues needed. To lay avenues and Boulevards (used only for elite housing where space is available), you simply click, press and drag.
As mentioned earlier, a problem can occur, whereby, having laid them on a road at the start of an adventure or colony episode, and then finding yourself having to load a game save at the point that you laid them, this happens and in both games, Zeus and Poseidon:
Commemorative monuments. These are best kept for beautifying your Elite housing. There now follows a truncated Elite housing layout. By placing the hippodrome at the end, Manors will upgrade to Estates. Then, with the addition of horse ranches, your hoplites will become powerful horsemen.
In the 1st and 3rd Zeus adventures you will find yourself needing 32 & 40 Estates, respectively. Rather than, as with the one above, have the agoras at the far, distant ends, the agoras come off a 13 X 7 circuit with a single commodity (fleece, oil, wine and armour, plus two more for wheat, situated below/above each granary) in each storage yard.
Note, the Gym has to go at the far end, balancing up the theatre (5 X 5) along with the podium, so that competitors from the Gym walk down each boulevard to the hippodrome, which is placed to the side of an agora and elite housing block:
There now follows two tables, each one indicating the types of housing, what they have and the maximum occupants.
The Atlantis based adventures (1 to 4) have four replacement culture buildings for the ones in Zeus: Bibliothere 2 x 2, Laboratory 4 x 4, Observatory 5 x 5 and Museum 6 x 6.
Oddly enough, although the last one replaces the Zeus hippodrome, Some of the Atlantis adventures have their own, larger hippodrome (see end for details).
Heroes. Although their primary need is to slay monsters and go on quests, they will happily assist with invasions. There now follows a list of what you need in order to summon each hero. Note, in the Poseidon adventures they may differ to those in Zeus. Where that is the case the difference appears in red directly after the Zeus requirement: Zeus/Poseidon.
Note. All resources, including horses, will be taken as payment for the Hero’s service, while the hall will disappear from your parent city when you come to play the next parent city episode.
Autosaves: The default for Autosaves is on, and I suggest that you leave it as such. There are, however, 2 different saves. ‘Replay’ loads the game from the very start of the current episode while ‘History’ loads the game from the previous January or July. The January one is helpful if you don’t have or forget to set aside space for tributes. Pause the game, though.
Bookmarking a location. Using the F1 to F4 function keys, you can bookmark 4 location views on the map. Simply find a point you want to jump to, then hold down one of the Ctrl keys on your keyboard and press one of the four function keys. To jump to one of the four locations, simply press the function key associated with it. Be advised, it only works properly if the map view is the same orientation. If you set the bookmarks with the top of the map pointing North and press the function key while the top of the map is pointing somewhere other than North you’ll find yourself somewhere else. Also, if you use a bookmark to move a flag associated with a company of soldiers, it won’t work.
Workers. There now follows a table showing how many workers each of the Zeus buildings not already mentioned need:
Finally, and to help with planning the layout of your parent cities, there now follows the ultimate goal list for the parent city of each of the 13 +1 adventures, including advice on two colonies.
To return to the 'Main ' contents page click 'Contents' below.
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