Regardless of what your personal beliefs are, there is no denying that the Greeks had the right idea about the concept of God — if for no other reason than simple practicality. Let’s think about it for just a moment: It is widely believed that a long omnipotent being (regardless of what you call said being) is controlling every single act on the planet Earth. Now I don’t care how all-seeing or all-knowing you say this guy is, between bringing life to the Earth, summoning Earthquakes and Floods to smite his foes, controlling the microbiology of microscopic amoeba and answering all of our selfish prayers about sports franchises, the amigo is going to be swamped.

The Greeks, realizing this, decided to subcontract many Godly responsibilities to several different deities. Hades was the God of Death, Ares the God of War, Aphrodite the Goddess of Bow-Chica-Bow-Wow, and the top dog, Zeus, the Lumberg of Gods… or… something. Either way, the Olympian Gods more or less handled all the big things in the universe while leaving the small stuff (i.e. growing crops, building houses, etc., etc.) in the hands of the people.

It is for this reason that I officially proclaim Zeus: Master of Olympus to be the most historically accurate video game in the history of ever! … okay, not really, but it’s still pretty awesome.

Zeus: Master of Olympus was the fifth in a long series of city-building games from the (sadly) defunct Impressions Games. Some of the other games in the series include the always under-appreciated Caesar series and Pharaoh*. Like those other games, Zeus tasks you with building and maintaining a city by strategically utilizing the fertile farmlands, importing and exporting goods and ensuring that you have enough “cultural venues” (stadiums, theatres, colleges, etc.) to propel you from being a shanty town to the most famed and respected city in all of Greece.

Sounds simple, right?

Trying to maintain an empirical state when a Maenad keeps blowing up your storage sheds is a real pain in the ass! Thankfully, in Zeus you can summon one of the great Olympian heroes to slay this ugly bitch and any other monsters that the angry Gods send to smite you. Before you can summon these famed Olympians, however, you have to build their corresponding Heroes Hall. Once the Hall is built, you then have to meet the requirements listed in the hall before your Hero will come and save you, proving once and for all that Achilles really was a diva. These goals, for the most part, are simple to meet and, if you’re any good at the game, you’ll have already met them by the time you need to call on your Hero.

Heroes also serve another purpose: fulfilling the wishes and demands of the Gods. Certain scenarios in the game will have you being tasked with a conquering a neighboring city or retrieving a mythical Greek artifact from a faraway land.

Building Greece

On the surface, Zeus: Master of Olympus looks like SimCity with more fountains and, to a degree, the two share similarities. After all, both games have you building and maintaining bustling metropolises. However, unlike SimCity where you (ironically) have a more benevolent, hands-off view of your city, Zeus throws you right into the heat of things as you have to place, strategically, every single building in your city. Structure location plays a vital role in Zeus, as land value and general appeal can have an effect on what buildings you can construct. Certain Heroes Halls and housing can only be built in areas considered “high appeal”. Basically this means that you have to place these buildings in areas with lots of gardens and “cultural venues” (Drama Schools, Theatres, Gymnasiums, etc.) and away from the farms and storage sheds.

Having High Appeal areas does more than make your city look pretty, though. The housing you build in High Appeal areas can provide you with offensive military units once they’re provided with armor and horses. You can then use these units, along with your heroes and any navy that you’ve built up, to attack neighboring cities to bring them under your rule.

When was the last time SimCity let you annex a neighboring municipality?

Of course you won’t have to invade your neighbors if you are held in high enough esteem. You can build and improve your reputation through simple actions like having the smartest philosophers or strongest athletes (by building gymnasiums and colleges), or by having a mightier military than anyone else in Greece. Hell, you can even earn their respect and admiration by simply outproducing them with essentials like food and precious metals. If nothing else, you can simply buy affection by giving gifts to your neighbors — especially if it’s something they desperately need.

Praise Be To Zeus!

If you couldn’t figure it out by the name of the game, showing your unquestioning love to the Greek Gods plays a vital role. By completing quests given to you by the Gods and by building temples to their awesome might, you can appease the Gods just enough that they won’t crush you under their giant, Godly fingers. Building temples also grants your city bonuses and protects you from monsters that threaten your citizens. (JW TIP: Build one to Zeus. Trust me.)

If you build a temple to a certain God, other Gods will become cross with you and may attack your city. While most of these are little more than minor annoyances, there are a few that can really set you back an hour or so. Hades likes to bring everybody walking your city’s streets with him to the Underworld… if you need that in plain English, he cuts your population by nearly a third. Poseidon wreaks havoc on your seafaring ships, which can cripple your Navy as well as your fishing boats.

And if you piss off Zeus… yeah, just stay inside for a while. Consider reloading your game and getting to work on that temple, even. Because when you piss off Zeus, he lays complete waste to everything in his path — starting with your palace.

Campaign Mode

I’ve owned Zeus: Master of Olympus for nearly a decade and I have to admit: I’ve played through the campaign scenarios all of twice. Maybe. There are several different campaigns in Zeus, all of which have their own separate goals that you must meet. Some of these are based on Greek myth (Seige of Troy, for example), while others serve more as a tutorial for learning how to play the game.

What usually kept me away from campaigns in other games like this is the fact that once you met your objectives, you would lose your city and have to start anew. Zeus was one of the first games of this type to get it right, as you kept your city throughout the whole campaign and (if memory serves), the final chapter in every campaign was an open-ended mission that allowed you to keep playing after you met your goals.

Brotherly Love

In 2001, Poseidon: Master of Atlantis was released as an expansion to Zeus. The expansion gave players two new Gods (Hera and Atlas) to grovel at the feet of, “new” cultural buildings that merely replace some of the options in Zeus, and overall gave the game a more “Atlantean” feel to the world.

The core of the gameplay didn’t change, though, so ultimately Poseidon was more of a skin pack than anything else. Although if you were (or still are) a fan of Zeus, Poseidon was still worth picking up.

In Conclusion…

Zeus: Master of Olympus holds up, even today, as an excellent city building experience. While it may not have all of the technical bells and whistles of some of its more recent contemporaries, and by today’s standards it is certainly lacking in some of the micromanagement options, Zeus strikes that perfect balance of depth and accessibility that makes the game fun for new players while still providing enough of a challenge for the more experienced lot.

If you can find the game through a garage sale or an online store, do yourself a favor and pick it up. Hell, you can get it on eBay for around $20 — a fair price for a game you may not be able to pull yourself away from for a few nights.

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