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Imperium Romanum PC
User Score
7.7 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 14
  3. Negative: 1 out of 14

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  1. PascalG.
    Apr 1, 2008
    10
    Imho one of the best city-builders on the market...just perfect to relax after a long day of work...which is right now.
    • 2 of 2 users said yes
  2. [ANONYMOUS]
    Nov 28, 2009
    9
    Very nice graphics, Good gameplay, Interesting features and historical notes. Good game!
    • 2 of 2 users said yes
  3. FarhanS.
    Mar 3, 2008
    8
    The game's basic funda is city building as defined by the tag line. It covers all the part from the game CIV CITY ROME, with a touch of SIM CITY. Its value is in Graphics, AI system, and game mechanics or interface. Enjoyed Playing it.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  4. RobH.
    Mar 11, 2008
    2
    There's nothing particularly innovative or exciting about this game. I'm a big fan of city-builders but this does nothing to improve on what's already out there, and in many ways is actually worse. At best, it feels like I’m playing something from the 1990s with marginally better graphics. Building placement is simply about putting squarish building blocks parallel to each other on a perfectly flat green field around an arbitrary grid pattern. Each building type looks identical to every other building of the same type, which is particularly unfortunate as there aren’t all that many unique buildings to start with. Mines are even worse, as they can only be placed against a pre-existing pile of rocks or two like Lego with no flexibility about placement at all. To achieve the pinnacle of annoying arbitrariness, however, we can’t go past aqueducts. Aqueducts are enormous structures that literally tower over every other building on the map. They look ugly and take up huge tracts of what would otherwise be productive building land. Furthermore, aqueducts emerge from enormous fantasy-style medieval towers, usually emerging inexplicably from the dead center of a plain. The water ‘flows’ more like electricity than water, defying gravity and common sense on the way. On arrival to a city the water miraculously teleports to wells often several spaces away. In a bizarrely backwards move, there is no clear disadvantage to building anything anywhere, for example, a mansion will sit comfortably next to a brickworks without a peep from the inhabitants - there is only marginal 'desirability modeling' (is there a statue nearby? If so arbitrarily increase neighborhood desirability... blah). In fact, the only consideration behind building placement is to ensure that workplaces are close enough to houses to ensure that workers don't have to walk too far to get there. Under no circumstances will the inhabitants build anything for themselves, other than to ‘upgrade’ their houses as more goods become available. Whenever you need to build an outpost to ensure that workers are close to a distant resource, virtually every other single piece of infrastructure needs to be built as well to support them, forcing you to create mini-settlements all over the map with temples, schools, taverns, etc. It's all insanely annoying. Slaves are used for only one thing - shifting goods around, and you have no capacity to order them to do anything. Resource collection is particularly basic and unimaginative – collect wood, then bricks, then stone, blah, blah, blah. You have no capacity to innovate production at all, and there are no research trees. This means that every single new scenario starts off exactly the same way almost every single time. The military interface is also insanely tedious, for example, you can't select units by drawing a box around everything and moving the lot, instead, you must select and order each unit separately. I could go on, but suffice to say this game is a throwback, and the marginally positive reviews it has received to date are entirely inexplicable.… Expand
    • 0 of 1 users said yes
  5. BenjaminP
    Aug 20, 2009
    8
    A lot of indepth gameplay once scratching past the surface
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  6. DanaM
    Oct 24, 2008
    9
    Great to relax with, lay out your city so it is functional and watch it grow. Challenge is not over the top, but just plain fun.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
63 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 19 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 19
  3. Negative: 2 out of 19
  1. Strategy Informer
    78
    The level of historical detail on offer will be enviable to even the more established franchises, and whilst Imperium doesn't do anything to reinvent the genre as a whole, it's certainly a well-refined product that's worth a look to veteran players; or particularly those of you jumping in for the first time. Solid, if unspectacular then.
    Read full review
  2. GameStar
    71
    Imperium Romanum is fun, but it could have been so much better. There is no story to connect the varied missions -- that causes the game to feel lifeless and shallow. It's a shame, because it looks beautiful and is full of ideas, but fails in vital areas.
    Read full review
  3. PC Zone UK
    75
    If you can turn a blind eye to the ropey skirmishes, you'll be in for weeks of city building goodness. [Apr 2006, p.85]
See all critic reviews »