Grand Ages: Rome has a lot to do with the snowball principle: throw a snowball off a hill and it will reach the base as a boulder. Just as well, back in 2006 when a couple of producers threw some Latin inspired city builders on the market, it was expected for Caesar 4 to reach the base as a winner. Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, Glory of the Roman Empire, developed by Haemimont studios, ran away with the prizes and the promise of a sequel.

Two years later we were faced with Imperium Romanum, a game that didn’t live up to his predecessor. Because despite the better graphics, it didn’t really bring anything new to the table. In fact, the gameplay issues encountered in Glory of the Roman Empire were far from being solved. As a consequence, our southern neighbors pulled themselves together and came up with Grand Ages: Rome, a title that boasts not only a lot of improvements, but a frank sensitivity to the fan’s wishes.

Because Imperium Romanum didn’t feature a proper story, Grand Ages does. Thus, besides the usual individual scenarios or the sandbox mode, you can now take on a campaign meant to enlighten you upon all Latin culture. Don’t expect a true history lesson though, as the developers placed their bet on the fact that everybody has heard of Caesar or Spartacus, at least from the movies. The bizarre blend of history is obvious both at a storyline and gameplay level, as you will be able to recruit Celtic auxiliary troops many years before Rome became an Empire.

The campaign brings some welcomed elements too, giving you the opportunity to create an avatar representing one famous Latin family. You can then choose from a list of attributes in a RPG manner. These attributes will grant bonuses to your future cities and the offer is complex enough to generate various tactical decisions (military or economic oriented, for example). Your character will also earn money through completing missions, and these funds can be spent on city bonuses as well.

After you decide upon these aspects, the campaign throws different historical figures at you, all having more or less spectacular tasks for your character to accomplish. And there’s plenty to do for everyone. For instance, you’ll have to establish colonies, build a certain number of houses or quarries, reach a certain religiosity percentage or even defend your city and vanquish your foes.

Besides these main objectives you’ll also have secondary ones, which mainly offer more money and experience. Completing them is highly recommended if you want more diversity. They will also train you in the arts of building your city, with the help of a new overlay system that highlights the area of effect of a building.

Laying down buildings is as intuitive as in the first game of the series. The city is built upon three social classes, each with its predefined role: the plebes exploit and process raw materials (working on farms or mines), the equites (or the middle class) have more to do with culture, religion and security, while the patricians are used only in advanced buildings. The evolution from one social class to the next is progressive, as each class is based on the resources generated by the one inferior to it.

At the same time, you ought to know that each social class needs different kinds of goods to sustain themselves, and that need can be fulfilled only through quality, not quantity. For example, having five wheat farms is useless if you want to have a high food satisfaction level. You can only boost it by building a bakery (with its mill), a pig farm and a vineyard. This system is smart and it comes natural in a realistic economy.

Too bad the tutorial doesn’t do a good enough job of explaining the economy mechanics. As a consequence, the game has a pretty steep learning curve. You are explained just the basic concepts, while you have to discover important nuances by yourself. This will prove extremely frustrating at first, when you won’t understand why your village is on fire and you can’t build the fire station right away because you have no equites in around.

The fact that you can access your whole technological tree from the very beginning is surprising, so if you have the resources you can build Tribunals and Academies at any time. Unfortunately, starting off with everything that you need can also be confusing and it will also deny you the pleasure of feeling that your city evolves over time.