Grepolis (Online)
Developers: Innogames
Publishers: Innogames
Platform: Web Browser
Genre: Strategy, MMO
Modes: Multiplayer
Category: Free to play
Release date: Jan 2010
Short review
Grepolis is a great online game, but it takes more and more time, if you want to play it to the best of your abilities. The start of the game is basically all about your city which you try to grow the fast as you can. It takes real time for something to construct. At first, it just takes a couple of minutes, but the further levels can take up to couple of days. And also certain buildings require certain technologies or buildings which have to be researched or built previously. And while constructing buildings, the score of your existence is also growing which attracts certain people who are looking to expand. You might become a target and your existence is at risk. If you lose your only city, the game is over and you are left with no other choice but to begin again from the start. The best way to survive is to focus reaching the requirements for the colony ship which enables you to found a new city or colonise other cities that are abandoned or left with no defenses. You may also want to find an active alliance which will protect you from conquerors.
The city itself has a population limit which forces you to consider your tactics of what buildings you will construct and how many and what sort of soldiers you will train. As for the research, its all the same. The research points are not unlimited and not all the techonologies can be researched. At the start, as soon as the chance to build the temple is in reach, you should go for it becuase when the temple is built, favours of your preferred god can be accumulated. When having enough favours, you may ask for certain spells that give you extra resources or extra soldiers. You may also build mythical creatures such as Manticore, Medusa, Harpies and more...The gods that you can worship inside your temples are Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Hera and Hades. Each of them can bring you different bonuses and enables you to train different creatures.
And when expanding, it takes more and more time for you to coordinate your cities and armies. So if you don't have time at your disposal, I wouldn't recommend expanding too much or just expand on your own island and focus on defending units that you can then send to the sieged cities of your fellow ally mates.
The gameplay is easy to understand and even the things that you don't get right away are explained in their wiki site or in forums. Graphics are suited for the requirements of the game which is web browser only. The game itself has enough depth to keep you going and learning things. The battles and unlimited options and tactics is something that keeps you busy playing. The game's cycle depends on the world's speed. The world that I played lasted for a year and a half. I think I played for nearly a year before ending it just three months before the round ended. I was playing it for the first time and didn't organise myself well enough for the twenty cities I had. It took me just too much time. So my conclusion is that the game is great and is fun to play, but it also takes a lot of time. So if you can't afford time, I wouldn't recommend playing it seriously. But if you have time in abundance and like to play strategy games which include Greek mythology, you should definitely take a look into Grepolis.