Zeus: Master of Olympus

Zeus: Master of Olympus

Technical Information
Developers	Impressions Games
Publishers	Sierra Entertainment
Release Date	2000
Game Information
Era	Ancient Greece
Year	3000 BC - 500 BC

Zeus: Master of Olympus is a city-builder game designed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra Entertainment.

Background[]

As with all city builders, Zeus focuses on the paths of an ancient empire: in this case, it follows the Greeks. Unlike all other games, the adventures are not played in chronological order and simply cover important periods of "history" for Greece: for example, the second adventure does not chronologically occur after the events of the first adventure, and so on.

Most adventures in Zeus are mythological in nature, but a few, such as the Peloponnessian War, focus on historical facts, with some twists. Much of the game has been made more "comedic" and less serious, and much of the gameplay has been radically overhauled to provide a simpler experience to new players. Indeed, for the first time in any city builder, an extensive and detailed tutorial was provided, which makes it very easy for any new or experienced player to understand the changed mechanics.

Gameplay[]

Zeus made a large change to many gameplay mechanics, the most notable being the separation of common and elite housing. This means it is now much easier to develop elite housing without accidentally evolving normal worker housing, and removes any possibility of large labour shortages. Furthermore, buildings no longer send citizens to find nearby housing but automatically access the labour pool, regardless of distance, so building unappealing industrial structures close to housing plots is unnecessary.

The evolution of common housing has also been significantly simplified, with only 3 goods needed to evolve housing, along with a simplification of the culture mechanics, which makes it much easier to reach the top-level common housing. Instead of a wide range of commodities being needed (like two food types, pottery, beer, and linen from Pharaoh), common housing now only requires access to a single food type, Fleece and Olive Oil.

In addition, while multiple types of food are available, such as Wheat, Carrots, Onions and Fish, they are all considered as one, so a player needs only supply one single type of food to evolve housing. It can sometimes be beneficial to provide multiple food types, especially if farming is limited or not available, but when food is limited in this way, a large city is usually not required.

Culture has also been simplified to only the basics: coverage no longer matters in any way, as long as the walker of that particular culture passes housing, they will have access. The coverage of each culture type — Philosophers, Atheletes, Actors and Competitors — now only has relevance when attempting to win the Pan-Hellenic Games, an outside influence which is only needed to summon certain heroes to the city. The Pan-Hellenic Games can significantly boost favour with other cities in the empire, but it does not impact the city in any way if not won. In addition, competitors are provided automatically from Gymnasiums as long as a Stadium has been placed somewhere in the city, which automatically helps to provide 3 culture types to common housing and is enough for low-level elite housing.

The campaign model has also been radically deviated from the norm of previous games. Adventures no longer follow the construction of a host of different cities in chronological order: rather, the player will construct a single parent city over the course of many missions, and will build separate colonies to provide access to missing resources needed for a parent. As a result, early missions of an adventure will be simpler to complete and by the end of an adventure, there will be an economic and military powerhouse constructed.

As mentioned earlier, religion has been mostly eradicated from Zeus: shrines and temples are no longer built to honour particular gods. Instead, large sanctuaries are built to those gods which the player wants to gain the most help from. A city is capped to 4 Sanctuaries and it is impossible to build more: therefore, the player must ensure they build sanctuaries to the gods they want the help from. The construction of sanctuaries is used in replacement of monuments, as no monuments may be constructed in Zeus. Of course, some gods are always hostile to you for the duration of the adventure and may decide to attack your city, with their curses affecting a certain aspect of your city depending on the god. Or the hostile god may unleash a powerful monster to potentially wreak havoc on your city.

For example, if a city cannot produce any wine and it is not possible to import Grapes from any trade partner, the player may find it useful to construct the Grove of Dionysus, as his sanctuary provides limited vines to grow grapes. Praying to him can also produce large amounts of wine, which makes it possible to have wine in a city which cannot naturally produce grapes on meadowland. Similarly, if a city cannot produce or import Olives or Olive Oil, then the player will find the Arbor of Athena to be the most useful, as it provides access to olive trees. Some gods may not provide benefits like this, but may provide useful protection from invaders, whether that be an invading god or an enemy army: in such cases, Ares' Fortress, alongside the Artemis' Menagerie, provides 32 mythological warriors and two gods who will defend the city, which can be invaluable if you have little funds and your troops are away from the city.

The military arm of Zeus has also been radically overhauled, with the removal of the standing army mechanic. Rather than constructing forts that house a fixed number of soliders, the housing of the city is the army. The people of common housing make up the basic defense, known as "rabble", who throw stones at the enemy army. It is unlikely that rabble will succeed in defending a city, but can do so in very large numbers and when supported by stronger troops and heroes. Elite Housing now forms the more stronger and reliable army: elite houses who are provided with Armor will become hoplites automatically and a single elite house can support 2-4 hoplites. Elite Housing which are provided with Horses from a Horse Ranch become horsemen respectively. Developing an elite housing district is required to conquer cities: you cannot use the rabble to conquer your enemies. As a result of these changes, the army can be as big as you can fit into a map, although it is usually never necessary to build more than 12 elite houses to support a fairly large army.

Campaign Adventures[]

Zeus: Master of Olympus includes seven adventures. A bonus adventure, The Odyssey, was released by Impressions Games with the Zeus Enhancement Pack.

Bugs & Fixes[]

Sometimes the building sprites and animations are missing. This is fixed by restarting the computer.