Introduction

While developer Tilted Mill and publisher VUGames are currently working on their own Roman Empire themed city sim Caesar IV, another such game is already well under way from developer Haemimont and co-publishers CDV and Enlight Software with a current release date of this June. The game is called Glory of the Roman Empire and recently FiringSquad got a beta build of the game in our hands to try out for ourselves.

The game has you in charge of building impressive cities in the Roman Empire as a governor. The game begins with a tutorial that gives you the basics on using the user interface and the various issues you will have to deal with while building your city.

In Glory of the Roman Empire you’ll start small with just a village, but as the game progresses you begin to create buildings and serve your ever-growing population. Your citizens will need to eat, so farms also need to be made to create the raw food, along with extra buildings to process the food. (Living quarters for your people are also needed in the game.) The game doesn't stray away from the real Roman Empire's use of slaves to do certain tasks like building the basic buildings in the game.


While wood is needed for building farms and basic houses, more elaborate structures will need stone and clay to support them. Of course you have to gain those resources by building structures that can fashion the stone and clay that is needed. The trick is that those building can only be built in certain locations. Stone makers have to be built near geographical locations that have stone in them, while clay making structures have to be built near a body of water. Those locations are found via special dots on a mini-map on the right hand portion of the game's user interface.


Your townspeople can also trade with neighbors and take part in over 50 different professions as your Roman town grows to a huge city, complete with statues, temples and, yes, a gladitorial arena.