August lives up to its name with Reign of Augustus

Time flies when you are conquering Gallia, as the old saying goes. I think. Or rather, "tempus fugit" would be more appropriate to say, I suppose.

So what am I prattling on about? Well, the fact that the expansion to Grand Ages Rome, Reign of Augustus, has finally been put up for sale in North America. I didn't think that was ever going to happen, but happily it did. Now I can happily Veni, Vidi, Vici the crap out of the hordes of simulated barbarians and build huge metropoli. Good times to be had by all.

Of course, my DDO and LOTRO playtime have suffered. But that is OK. I am feeling that city-building crack flow through my veins and it feels good. Though I am not quite at the point where the little people running from their insula to the butcher are talking to me. Not yet, at any rate.

Of the changes, the one I find most interesting are the roads. I purposely stopped playing until I got the expansion because I figured that, like virtually every other city-builder in existence, roads would play a huge part in GAR:ROA. But no ... so far as I can tell, they add quite little. That doesn't really bother me, however, as I have long found the roadless gameplay GAR introduced a refreshing change.

Not that I would want to encourage future city-builders to take the same path, as I think those of us who enjoy these games love us some road building. However, GAR is one of those cases where something you might not think would work actually does work and works well. So it doesn't really bug me much that the roads in ROA appear to be more tacked-on and non-essential than I thought they would be.

Perhaps the biggest change to GAR that was added in ROA is the concept of Authority. Authority is a point system that builds over time and allows you access to boosts such as an increased supply of slaves or an emergency supply of building materials. It's not a huge life-altering game system that makes or breaks the game, but it works well with the existing game and is a welcome addition.

I'm not a very good game reviewer, if you couldn't already tell. I do think at this point it is worth buying the Grand Ages Rome Gold Edition (which includes Reign of Augustus) is worth the extra $10 over just buying the base game. If you already have the base game (as I did), then you might want to evaluate whether or not the $20 expansion price is worth it to you, as it does not add a lot per se.

Being a fan of the genre, and already a fan of GAR, it was worth the price tag to me. And now I get to plop down Odeums (Odea?) on every street corner for the sweet boost in Entertainment. One important thing to note about the expansion for those who already own the base game is that installing the expansion will wipe your existing save games.