Grand Ages: Rome

Other products by Viva Media

Product Features

• Grand Ages: Rome lets you gain power and influence over one of the greatest civilizations in history
• Advanced Battle System with detailed RTS combat with 18 military units
• Intense online multiplayer modes for competitive and cooperative play
• Non-linear storyline features over 40 missions
• Use flow resources to create an intricate economic system

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001Q55D5K
• Item model number: 507
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 14, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,158 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  #21 in	Software > Games > PC Games > Strategy > Real Time
  #26 in	Software > Games > PC Games > Strategy > Military & Historical
  #91 in	Software > Games > PC Games > Role-Playing

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Raise massive armies and embark on epic campaigns to expand the Empire and take control of the known world! Engage in grand-scale city building and create magnificent cities with creativity and control like never before. Intuitive controls make it easy to launch bone-crushing combat missions and manage every aspect of your thriving civilization.

The stage is set for you to gain power and influence over one of the greatest civilizations in history. Click to enlarge.

Journey to ancient Gaul, Britannia, Egypt, and more to colonize barbarians and establish new trade routes. Click to enlarge.

Help build the empire through military conquest and economic prowess. Click to enlarge.

Take command of 18 different military units, including naval command, elephant cavalry, and mercenary forces. Click to enlarge.

Raze barbarian villages for riches, labor, and property. Click to enlarge.

Build an Empire Worth Fighting For

After decades in exile, your family name has been all but forgotten in Rome. But the departure of the tyrant Sulla has changed everything, and Rome stands on the brink of a new era. Sides must be chosen as Caesar and Pompey battle for control of the Republic.

The stage is set for you to gain power and influence over one of the greatest civilizations in history.

Advanced Battle System
Take command of 18 different military units, including naval command, elephant cavalry, and mercenary forces. Recruit citizens of Rome, draft captured enemy forces, and pay foreign squads for their special skills. Defend and expand the Empire by land and sea with exciting RTS gameplay.

Intense Multiplayer
LAN and online multiplayer functionality with 6 different strategy modes Ð play competitively or cooperatively. Create buddy lists and challenge your friends to a battle, or use the matching system and take on an unknown foe with the same skill level. Advance your career and increase your rank from praetor to consul and beyond.

Epic Campaigns
Rub shoulders with Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra and more in a non-linear historical campaign featuring over 40 missions. Choose your own fate as you create and destroy alliances with more than 20 different historical figures. Celebrate your victories by erecting legendary monuments such as the Coliseum, Circus Maximus, the Pantheon, and more.

Complex Economy
Flow resources eliminate tedious micromanagement, giving you the freedom to create thriving cities with multi-leveled economic systems. Information overlays visualize the city economy and satisfaction of the people on every location on the map.

4X Real-Time Strategy

Explore
Journey to ancient Gaul, Britannia, Egypt, and more to colonize barbarians and establish new trade routes.

Expand
Stake your claim throughout the known world in the name of Rome! Help build the empire through military conquest and economic prowess.

Exploit
Natural resources are yours for the taking as you establish farming, mining, and logging operations. Raze barbarian villages for riches, labor, and property.

Exterminate
Destroy all who stand in the way of Rome's glory! Defend your territories by land and sea to secure peace and prosperity for the empire.

Military Units Archers Hastati Berber Raiders Gaul Berserkers Triarii Equestri Nubian Warriors Bow Maidens Highlanders Ballista Praetorian Guard Secutores Gladiators War Elephants Teutonic Raiders Catapults

Friends and Foes Julius Caesar Emperor Augustus Marcus Tullius Cicero Marcus Licinius Crassus Pompey Magnus Mark Antony Cleopatra Cato the Younger Marcus Junius Brutus Spartacus And more!

Product Description

Raise massive armies and embark on epic campaigns to expand the Empire and take control of the known world! Engage in grand-scale city building and create magnificent cities with creativity and control like never before. Intuitive controls make it easy to launch bone-crushing combat missions and manage every aspect of your thriving civilization. After decades in exile, your family name has been all but forgotten in Rome. But the departure of the tyrant Sulla has changed everything, and Rome stands on the brink of a new era. Sides must be chosen as Caesar and Pompey battle for control of the Republic.The stage is set for you to gain power and influence over one of the greatest civilizations in history. Build an Empire worth fighting for! Featuring 4X Real-Time Strategy: Explore - Journey to ancient Gaul, Britannia, Egypt, and more to colonize barbarians and establish new trade routes. Expand - Stake your claim throughout the known world in the name of Rome! Help build the empire through military conquest and economic prowess. Exploit - Natural resources are yours for the taking as you establish farming, mining, and logging operations. Raze barbarian villages for riches, labor, and property. Exterminate - Destroy all who stand in the way of Rome’s glory! Defend your territories by land and sea to secure peace and prosperity for the empire Set Your Sights on Domination!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing Premise, Workable Gameplay, April 3, 2009

By	Lisa Shea "LisaShea.com" - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

A Roman city-building sim in the vein of such classics as the Caesar series, Grand Ages: Rome has an intriguing premise and workable gameplay, but falls short in other areas.

Grand Ages is a game where you build an ancient Roman city and must keep it operational and successful against adversities and invaders. Providing citizens with food, entertainment, and religious fulfillment are as important as keeping your resources in order. Unlike Caesar, which relied on a road-based infrastructure (everyone has to walk on roads, things travel to and from buildings), Grand Ages uses areas of effect. In short, each building has a circle around it showing the buildings that it will influence. For example, if you put down an apartment complex, the inhabitants of that apartment will only staff a building within the circle. A food storehouse will only feed people within its area of effect, and so on. Some buildings produce global resources that are added to an overall stockpile that are then used by other buildings. A brickmaker produces 20 bricks, while the average house uses up one unit of bricks. Therefore, based on upkeep and the expanding size of your city, you have to maintain a balance between population and facilities.

The problem with these areas-of-effect is that it's remarkably easy, given their shape, for buildings to get stuck with partial coverage. The fact that you can only build a short distance away from your current settlement prevents you from pre-planning where you'll need entertainment buildings or temples before you start building houses - and the effects of not having entertainment are immediate once those houses are plopped down, as the many riots my cities went through can attest to. In fact, the development of the city is often the biggest hindrance to the city. The nature of the areas-of-effect encourages growth (by spreading resources around the map) but also demands close-in urbanization (by requiring you to cluster your houses around facilities). Because of the fact that you can only build near your established buildings, it's often the case that you have to stretch out your town to get in a position to reach the very resources you need to build your town up in the first place. It's not a bad system, per se, it's just frustrating at times.

The combat in the game is simple but effective. There are many units available - regular units like archers, cavalry, and infantry, as well as a wide variety of mercenaries. The middle class - the Equites - provides your regular soldiers, and when properly supplied with weapons and armor can be called into action. Mercenaries are hired for money and for certain other requirements (such as wine and entertainment). All units consist of roughly 30 soldiers. Units can gain experience through fighting, and can train when not engaged in combat to level themselves up. Some maps have barbarian villages spread around; subduing these (simply by engaging the guards they send out, then walking in once they're all dead) rewards you with additional resources provided by the conquered villagers. In addition to offense, you can also build walls and towers to defend your city from attack.

One of the game's main features is that your profiles are represented by characters. A character is a member of one of five families, each with different strengths (one family is better with military matters, one is better with mercantile affairs, and so on). By completing campaign missions and bonus objectives, you unlock new abilities and bonuses that affect all the games you play with that characters - campaign, free build, or multiplayer. For this reason, it feels that the entire game is interconnected - there's no way to just play. Even the free build mode, rather than providing you with open maps and settings, is only about 15 maps with predetermined start locations and resources. This means that it's difficult to just jump into the action and make a nice city.

The game's graphics are very good; the cities look beautiful, with paved stones and detailed buildings. Citizens walk around the city to their jobs, and always look busy if you ever care to zoom in and examine them. If it rains, citizens will cover their heads and run indoors. There are a lot of little touches that make it really feel like a city. The ability to put down plazas and fountains is nice in visual terms even though these things are also required for game reasons. There isn't a lot of sound, per se, but the music in each region varies and is generally nice without being distracting.

Overall, Grand Ages: Rome is a good game, but the biggest problem with it is the lack of free-play. Everything seems too objective based, and there's no way to really make your own fun. Once you've gone through the missions, there's not a whole lot to do. If the Free Build mode had been more free-form, it would've been much better. Until you run out of missions, though, it's still a fun game.

Rating: 7/10.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great game...Just different than we're used to, July 28, 2009

By	T. A. Widman "book-a-holic" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Grand Ages Rome is not your typical city-building game. It incorporates the building style of an RTS game, rather than the style seen in the classic Caesar/Pharaoh/Zeus style games. The graphics are beautiful and much truer to Roman architecture than many other games I've seen. As I've said, this game is a bit different...It takes some getting used to. The fires and crime etc that others have mentioned is a problem for those of us who are used to other styles of gameplay in this genre. However, the mechanics work a bit differently, and once understood, the game is actually quite easy and enjoyable.

First of all, each residence built only provides workers for one building within its radius. Secondly, in order to prevent crime and fires the people must be happy, quite frankly a very realistic idea...especially for the time period in question. Just make sure your people have food, entertainment and religion (in that order) and you'll be fine. In some ways it's much like a real city. If people have food they'll be content, but then they'll want some entertainment. Once they have that they'll want religion. Through it all they'll want at a fountain to provide water, thereby preventing illness. This does require a certain density, as the relation between home and service must be one to one. Any unemployed home or service will eventually light on fire. There are three work types, like in Caesar IV, Plebs, Equites and Patrician. Plebs do menial industrial work, Equites are more skilles and Patricians mainly work in temples and some more important buildings. But with each, as expected, the demand in each of the three qualities above increase to keep them happy.

The game makes for a good mix of more RTS style and City-Building. Military play isn't that great, though better than most with the ability to upgrade and use special skills. Everything is built based upon proximity, which makes for a dense city, and may cause difficulty if resources are far. But in the end, with a bit of practice you can make attractive cities, that will have you playing with the view to see the skyline and walk the streets.

18 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful graphics and improved military choices, March 25, 2009

By	Native Texan (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a nicely updated version of IMPERIUM ROMANUM with breathtaking vistas at ground level and greatly improved military choices. I'm running it on a 64 bit Gateway with the graphics choices at max. Part of the game is keeping your citizens happy (fed, entertained, y'know, the Roman masses stuff) so they don't turn to crime or burn down your city. That's the urban planning part and it can be a challenge. If you don't like city building you won't like this game. There are interesting people who pop up in the cities including a mime who will do the "invisible box" and "pulling an invisible rope" as well as a man with a tamed hyena. TIP: For excellent wallpaper screenshots spend some time building Alexandria and take shots from the ocean.