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Romopolis Giveaway
$12.95
EXPIRED

Game Giveaway of the day — Romopolis

Build ancient Roman cities in this highly addictive tycoon strategy game. Construct an idyllic ancient Roman city with plenty of houses and keep your residents happy. You'll be rewarded with money, fame and honor.
$12.95 EXPIRED
User rating: 342 29 comments

Romopolis was available as a giveaway on February 4, 2012!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$5.00
free today
Crazy Desert Car is an exciting game in the arcade genre.

Romopolis is a fun tycoon strategy game with highly addictive gameplay and colorful graphics. Construct an idyllic ancient Roman city with plenty of houses and keep your residents happy by providing all the services they need. You'll be rewarded with money, fame and honor. It's up to you how to play - you can work your way to the top in the comprehensive campaign mode or you can create and play your own custom scenarios.

How to play

  • Construct houses and attract residents to earn your income;
  • Order additional wood, stone or train additional workers as needed;
  • Repair damaged houses in order to keep income coming in;
  • Invest your money by upgrading existing buildings and financing new construction jobs until your goals are completed.

System Requirements:

Windows 2000/ XP/ Vista/ 7; Processor speed: 600 MHz; RAM: 256 MB; Hard drive space (uncompressed): 35 MB; Graphics Card: 3D graphic card; Sound Card: 16-bit sound card; DirectX version: DirectX 9.0

Publisher:

Xing Interactive

Homepage:

http://www.lonelytroops.com/romopolis/index.htm

File Size:

19.8 MB

Price:

$12.95

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Comments on Romopolis

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#29

I know it is a bit late for translating but as I am a French native and bilingual in English, I can help with Comment #12
Good morning; to set the language in French, you need to go onto Bigfish's website, download the game Romopolis, install it, once it is installed the management interface of the games which is installed, that is going to download, once the download is complete, you have to go to Program File -> romopolis -> language and copy the French file and the Default file, afterward, paste them in the place where the you have downloaded (I wonder if this person meant instead of downloaded, installed) the game and which has been unzipped.

For a complete walkthrough on this game go this link:
http://www.gamezebo.com/games/romopolis/walkthrough
I have completed it completely with all the trophies. The toughest levels were levels 17, 22, and 23. Google safely Romopolis Level (number) to get some extra tips.


.....................Moderator Comment.......................

Thanks for the Feedback Flora. It may be better if you posted this information in the giveaway forums as users rarely visit a game comment page once it's passed.

Reply   |   Comment by Flora  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#28

I doubt anyone will see this now, but anyone have the solution for the last level on hard? Looks to me it is mathematically impossible, let alone doing it within the time limit, which is kind of stupid to have something that can't be done, wasted 30mins on that level, tried 2x before realizing it is mathematically impossible. I maxed all plots and all mansions bonuses for maximum income, and even then I was still short about $50 gold per month. If I destroy one of the other buildings and replace for a mansion with full bonuses, total income actually drops because unhappiness increases. Thanks for wasting my time, making a level that can't actually be finished on hard. Other then that, which totally pissed me off, was a decent short game, couple hours to finish, nice little time waster.

$13 is laughable price, but would recommend if were priced 1/10th that.


...............Moderator comment............................

Try posting this in the giveaway forums. you are more likely to get a response. Onse the giveaway is over not many users will revisit the page. As for the price. By todays standards i agree, but when this was originally released, ames did cost more than that. the average price of an arcade game was around $20. That price stuck for many years. It's only since the recession hit and sites like big Fish and Real arcade came to prominance that game prices started to reduce significantly. It all depends on what you want out of a game. During the sales you could have purchased Cities XL for less than the price of this game and that's a fully fledged city building game.

Reply   |   Comment by JonDoe  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#27

It's a bit late but I was checking the comments and read Deni@24 and thought I would answer to help out. The level you are playing that requests 8 houses and also requires 10% happiness is Level 5. If that's the case, well the solution is...cut down part of the forest. YES you can do it!!! Not the first one on the left side but the one after that, the next and the last one. Try it you'll see. It also took me forever to finish that level but finally managed to win a trophy. Anyway, hope this helps.

Thanks GGOTD + Team & Lonely Troops for this game!!!

Have a nice week everyone:-)

Reply   |   Comment by Weezie  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#26

It's a nice game, just like the other one, that was available recently (2BeaKing) - nice change to the games that are usually to be found here (but which I like as well - don't get me wrong).

It's bit like a time management game with a twist :).

Looking forward to more of these and others.

Reply   |   Comment by Sunny  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#25

I downloaded and played this game, and I really like it, similar to the Be a King game frome the other week.
I have no tech experience, just like to pla these games. :)
I had no problems whatsoever either downloading or starting or playing this game. However, I do NOT create a direct link, rather I go to the folder where I have it and start from there. (my personal choice).
Thanks for all of the reviews, and such, everything is useful for people like me.
Thanks for the free games, all are very enjoyable. :)

Reply   |   Comment by pixie45  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#24

Nice game, however, very hard to get happiness sometimes and I'm only a couple of rounds. I've demolished and added gardens and and market and shrines all around and still just have 8 houses required and all the spaces are filled that can be (can't cut down other forest lands) and still only have 1* on all the houses and don't know how to get more. I agree with the other comments - seems a bit less exciting and harder than Build a Lot tm games which I already have, so really this should have some different premises. Thanks for letting me a giveaway to test though!

Reply   |   Comment by Deni  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#23

Can't really comment on the game since it doesn't work properly on my machine, but:

1) The installer should include a compatibility manifest. This avoids the popup Windows 7 displays asking the user if the setup worked correctly.

2) The game starts up, I can hear the music, but the display stays black. Unfortunately the common Alt-Enter doesn't work to toggle fullscreen/windowed. I have no problem with other games and I also develop on this machine, so I doubt it's my DX installation or some such.

.............................Moderator Comment........................


Have you tried any of the other suggestions made from the problems section (comment number 1) , for example tried playing the game in compatibility mode, disabling display scaling or desktop composition?

Reply   |   Comment by Endurion  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#22

Gee, and right before I downloaded this I had been playing Sandbox of God...which I had to buy. Every time it was offered here I was on vacation. What a difference. So far in Romopolis all I have done is buy wood and stone(and it must not be very good because it damages easily), built houses, markets, parks and trained workers. I think those people in the houses are having wild and crazy Toga Parties to make that much damage. Toga, Toga, Toga!

Graphics and music..so so. You need to add some bad and good weather and effects of weather...ice, snow, sunny, extreme heat, wind...then throw in some nasty storms with lightning and thunder. Earthquakes and meteor showers could be fun too. If no armies of enemies, how about some wolves and other threatening animals? Wabbits..did I hear Wabbits???(Oops, wrong game.) There is no real story...just build stuff then move on...Unless I am missing something. Not really my cup of tea..

Thanks Lonely Troops and GGOTD for the game. I only downloaded this because of you, Wabbit. I tried it. Have a Good day. Hope your daughter has fun.




............................Moderator comment............................

Thank you for your feedback. It's not a game I'd keep, but I try to be as impartial as possible when writing the demos. There's definitely something missing in the fun department with this game.

Reply   |   Comment by delenn13  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#21

A decent little Build-a-lot style time management game but it just seemed a little lacking to me in some way I couldn't quite put my finger on.

I really liked the idea of having the optional goals and the historical setting but, honestly, I didn't really get a real Ancient Rome feel to it. Maybe a ltitle more of a story and animations (people and carts going down the road, etc.) would have helped.

Also, as others have mentioned, a larger area to work with is nice. This one felt a little too arbitrarily constrained in the early levels.

As always, thanks to Lonely Troops and GOTD for the game and WhiteRabbit for all of the review and additional info.


............................Moderator comment............................

Thank you for your feedback

Reply   |   Comment by karolb  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#20

Great game, thanks.

Reply   |   Comment by Sandra  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#19

Romopolis installed with no problem on vista x64. It's not my kind of game, but so far i enjoyed playing it to my own surprise!

Thanks to Lonely Troops, GOTD & Whiterabbit

Reply   |   Comment by Pat  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#18

What is the version number o this "Romopolis" game???


......................Moderator comment...................

v1.19

Reply   |   Comment by Berry  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#17

Management games aren't my forte, but I played it for a bit today. It does look nice and the play is relatively straightforward. The tutorial is definitely useful for the strategy-challenged people such as myself. As for fun, I will leave that opinion for the ones who most enjoy this genre. I do like that the game filled my entire screen. Many offerings here use a 4:3 resolution so they have bars on the sides of my 16:10 screen. Not so here as it seems to have been designed for a widescreen display. It may have a 4:3 option though for those using older displays, I didn't check.

OT: WR, any update on my forum account issue? I haven't yet heard from anyone so I thought I would ask. Thanks again for looking into it.


.......................Moderator Comment......................

Sorry QM, I have received a reply from the other Admins. As usual my heavy dose of opiates has slowed me down. I'll Email you soon.

Reply   |   Comment by QM  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#16

Excellent game! Downloaded/Installed without a hitch on my Win7x64 machine. I love this kind of game so it was right up my alley. Thank you to The team here and the developers.

Reply   |   Comment by indianacarnie  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#15

Downloaded, installed, and activated fine on Win7Home/64. After launching, it quickly let me into the options screen to change to windowed and turn down sound. That's important to me, I don't like games that start blaring sound in full screen while taking forever to let me change options. I went through a couple stages of the tutorial and really enjoyed the gameplay. It worked well so far in windowed mode, which is really important to me because I often play on and off while working in other windows. Don't have time to play further this weekend, but am very pleased with it so far and look forward to playing a lot more. Thanks and thumbs up!

Reply   |   Comment by Terri  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#14

I really am enjoying this game, but as a former player of the "Ceaser" series waaaay back when, I am extremely bias :).

The Graphics are a bit lacking for a modern game, but it would not surprise me if the game was a bit older than we may think. These kind of sims were popular back in the 90's and I have not seen one themed like this in a while. Minecraft has destroyed what was left of a dormant genre.

Reply   |   Comment by Mike Medina  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#13

The game's a bit laggy and unresponsive on my system. I delegate that complaint to my graphics card. The game itself doesn't seem very hard, but is a bit boring. The graphics are not bad, but the GUI looks a bit old. Would liked more effects.

The game is written in Delphi, so if there's anything to mod, it'll be a bit different than most other games. An interesting note is this game looks like the MyPlayCity version, as seen by a certain string inside the executable.

@6: Beats me too why they use WinRAR SFX as an installer. Maybe it's to show the game doesn't need a formal installation to run (as a lot of casual games are so). On the main GOTD side, they only do this if the installer is a MSI package.


.....................Moderator comment....................

Thanks for the update on the installer GMMan.

Reply   |   Comment by GMMan  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#12

Bonjour; pour metre le jeu en français il faut aller sur le site de bigfish, telecharger le jeux romopolis, installer, une fois installer il y'a l'interface de gestion des jeux qui es installer, ouvrire l'interface du jeux, sa va telecharger le jeux romopolis, une fois que c'est fait, il faut aller dans programmefils>romopolis>langage et copier le dossier français et le fichier defaut, enssuite les coller dans l'endroit ou le jeux que vous avez telecharger ici a été décompresser.


...........................Moderator comment.......................

Roughly translated:

Hello, meter for the game in French must go to the website of bigfish, download the game Romopolis, install, once installed it there's the management interface for games that are installed, the interface opens the games, its will download the game Romopolis, once that's done, go in programmefils> Romopolis> language and copy the folder and file French default, enssuite paste them into the place where the games you download here was decompress.

Reply   |   Comment by hala  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#11

Ok Windows 7 x64. Play full screen or windowed, music sound sliders.
Agree with the prior comments. Did this game a year or so back and gave up due to that 'too much like work' factor. Thought it might get more interesting but didn't since isn't a full blown, high end commercial game. Decent enough for a freebie but if your time is highly valuable or want soming more creative, wait for a more fun one. Thanks GOTD.

......................Moderator comment......................

Thanks for your feed back

Reply   |   Comment by beergas  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#10

I played Romopolis for half an hour, and there are some things that I really like about it. I like the artwork. Romopolis has charming, old school graphics, created with a skilful and pleasing use of colour. I could happily look at the artwork for hours. Also, the tutorial is very clear and well written.

Having said that, I'm not a big fan of this particular style of time management game. I agree with the close comparison with Build a Lot, and in fact, I'd rather play Romopolis than Build a Lot, purely on aesthetic grounds. However, for me, this type of game lacks the fun factor. Performing intricate sequences of tasks in the style that this game requires far too closely resembles actual work for me to find it fun. I know that lots of people absolutely love this type of game. It's just not my personal cup of tea.

In summary, this is a well crafted, old fashioned game with proper old school graphics, and if you are a fan of the Build a Lot series or similar time management games, then I'm sure you'll enjoy this one too. Thanks very much to GGOTD and Lonely Troops for the giveaway.


...........................Moderator Comment..............................


Thank you for your feedback Julia

Reply   |   Comment by Julia  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#9

This is a wonderful style of game play. I really like Be A King 2 and this one looks good too. Gonna give it a try. Thanks GameGiveAway.

Reply   |   Comment by Sheltiemom  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#8

I definitely agree that at times the game is static and some animation effects would be welcome - when I demolish a house to build something larger - some homeless residents would be nice... (and might make me care that I was kicking them out of their homes).

That being said - the gameplay itself seems well balanced for a building game. If I want a large house, I have to give them certain amenities or accept that their happiness will not be at it's best. Upgrading a home gives me more money.... etc.

A good game overall, but with room for improvement.

Reply   |   Comment by Anna  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#7

This game is a clone of the Build-A-Lot series of games (which may itself be a clone of something else I don't know about) with an ancient Roman empire theme. That's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. It is a very enjoyable style of game play. It's not any kind of city simulator. It's about managing limited resources to meet a goal within a time limit. Thanks GOTD & Lonely Troops!

Reply   |   Comment by Nate  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#6

Why was the Windows installer stripped from the game and replaced with Winrar? Once again the games do not install or play correctly by doing this and be prepared for a lot of whining.




...........................Moderator Comment..............................


It's a peculiarity of the giveaway system. doing what they do enables then to add a registration process. There are thousands of users downloading these games and no one has ever brought up the complaint you mentioned. no one apart fro you (so far has whined) ;-)

Reply   |   Comment by Chuck  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#5

This game is very similar to "Be a King 2" with a few exceptions.

The first is that Be a King is more bent on your personal existence in the world, and trying to survive, It includes combat and the possibility of losing money (money is much more fluid in this game and you gain a ton by selling buildings).

This game, Romopolis, has more to do with Caeser's expectations of you (within a certain time period). It's definitely focused on creating buildings, and buildings have an effect on other buildings. For example, if you build a park near other homes, those homes get a boost in happiness. A fort nearby those will decrease their happiness. And homes' happiness are also affected by certain requirements (which you can ignore if you want).

Another big difference is the parts of the game effort was put into. Be a King 2 was more focused on graphics and animations, lettings you see and control individuals to an extent. You could also expand your visibility of the world around you. In addition there are quests in Be a King 2 which could help your kingdom out (if you don't get bad luck). Romopolis has no animations, people, or quests.

But the same concepts from Be a King 2 are built into Romopolis (as in population and workers). Instead Romopolis' UI is much easier to use requiring fewer clicks and laying out the restrictions of each scenario much better (through Blueprints/Concessions). The tabbed interface in Be a King 2 was much harder to navigate through, whereas most of the UI is just laid out on the screen for you in Romopolis. You can also command workers more efficiently in Romopolis (such as hiring 2 in a queue versus just one and applying more workers to complete a job faster). Last, you can actually collect wood and stone in Romopolis without having to buy it, and this is the replacement for visibility.

Both are pretty good games, probably better for different people :) Not sure which I prefer...




...........................Moderator Comment..............................


Thank you for your feedback

Reply   |   Comment by Pluto  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#4

I already played 3 levels. It looks a good strategy game with good sounds and graphics. I think that it deserves to be played.
Thank you GOTD and Lonely Troops!

Reply   |   Comment by Maner  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#3

Romopolis, the game is a like a build a lot which in the market you have many options however this type might lack a few features others may have it does make up for however in game play.

A rather hard game when it comes to all the goals from time limits to extra things that you can do. I was rather pushed more then once playing it and it was a beat the clock game. The game does have a sandbox feature which is a nice add on for people who just want to enjoy what they can do with enough time.


Price - The price for this game is rather low which at the time of writing this only 12.95. For what it offers that is more then fair and a rather large plus in this day and age when a lot of people are more greedy with money.

The game does show you what to do in a easy to read format. The buttions in the game are simple to use and to understand. However I did wish the game gave more impact to why somethings were needed such as health and such. The game does use many things ingame for goals from a money goal, house goal, amount of people and so on which is a plus.

The game is very static on a downside. No animation other then a few circles counting down and what looks like fireworks when you finish a level. I did wish for people to walk around to the markets or shines or even some type of weather such as fog or rain.

Buildings just like in real life do get damage. At first this is just a slight problem and a easy fix but later levels it can be very tedious as it seems you are fixing them right after another.

The game does offer a few options on how hard the game is. I did notice a much easier time when I set it to easy and a harder time on hard mode. It felt like things were faster and the buildings were damaged less on easy mode then hard. I have to say this is a plus due to how each player likes to play.

A few ideas to help the developers who made the game -

Add some type of weather for a small touch of life in the game. Feels very dead in that sense.

The romans were very faithful to the gods. I wish something could be added to show this in game such as when shrines were build in game small messages from time to time to show what people did in the shrines or a bypasser showing faith.

Change the adviser now and then to show the passiage of time in game. Such as male or female or different hair colors on the model.

Add a small area to the game where you can see the different medals and other optional awards on stand per say to show what the rewards look like and give a deeper sense to the player on why they should push to get them.

I just want to say thank you to developers for the game it was very fun. Also to Game Giveaway as without it I would have missed this small gem. This a really a good buy for both price and the many hours you can get out of it and I hope this small review can help for furture plans.





...........................Moderator Comment..............................


Thank you for your feedback

Reply   |   Comment by Xavim  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#2

Gr8 game, superb graphics. . Must b given a try. .

Reply   |   Comment by Pallavi  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#1

Full Review to follow later, i've posted all of the standard stuff like problems, the usual request for feedback, plus installation and Intro, but there's no The Game or conclusion yet. I'll sort those later this morning. My daughter is going to the airport in about an hour (skiing in Bulgaria with her grandparents) and I want to go see her off . Will finish off and post the remainder of the review once I've returned from the airport.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Brief:

Basically this is a resource management and city builder game on the lines of build a Lot (though Build a Lot has more features), where you aim to build various buildings such as hospitals, markets, shrines, libraries and houses. Your primary aim is to earn money so that you can also build roads, sewers and other amenities. There are several ways to boost your income ,such as creating trade routes and upgrading your homes by building other amenities such as gardens and new entrance halls.

Romopolis features a 24 level campaign mode and a sandbox mode that allows you to create scenarios from the 24 maps taken from the campaign mode using a levels editor.




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Developer
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Main Menu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installation:


The game downloads to a 19.8MB zip file that unpacks to a read me with the terms and conditions plus a dual activation and setup module (the orange icon with the key symbol) Click on the module to install and register the game. To those new to the game giveaway project, basically this means that once the game has installed the game is activated. The installed game is 33.9MB in size. If you get any activity from your anti-malware programs it may be because while installing this software, the activation module phones home to the giveaway site to confirm activation (not sure of the exact process); this may set off some overly sensitive anti-malware programs, please ensure you've throughly checked the game before reporting that it has virii because this stops other users from downloading the program. The site has been up since the 2nd Dec 2006 and there has never been any malware ever downloaded with any game given away, though there has been many users reporting false positives, that have been proven to be nothing more than poorly set up anti-malware programs.





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Options
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Sandbox Mode









The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed during the installation wizard. The C drive may be different depending upon if you have more than one hard drive installed and whether your OS is installed to the C drive or a different one like mine (which is the F drive, though I always change it to my G drive which is where I prefer to keep all of my games):


C:\Games\Romopolisv119



There is no shortcut installed to either the desktop or the start menu/programs list. Also there's no uninstaller. There is no significant registry files installed so to uninstall the game all you need to do is delete the games executable. You can create your own shortcut by following the path detailed above then opening the games folder then right clicking on the executable then select the option from the drop down menu that sends a shortcut to the desktop. You can also create one for the start menu programs list if you wish; to do this you need to find the start menu folder that's located for Vista and Win 7 within your profiles folder in the AppData folder (which is a hidden folder), or in XP in the Documents and Settings folder . To find it in Win 7 or Vista is a little more complex than it used to be, but it's useful to know if you like to rearrange your programs list, especially if it's become very large. You can find it via the following path. Because it's located within a hidden folder you will need to go to the Control Panel and find folder options, then change folders to not hidden:

Start Menu > Profile Name > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Windows > Start Menu > Programs

Just a note to newcomers, when the game has been installed you'll get a pop up asking if you want a shortcut to the game giveawayoftheday placed in your favorites/bookmarks, this is quite innocuous, however beware of the Install software Informer button that's to the left of the install bookmark button. The program (Software informer) isn't ad-ware, it's actually quite a useful program that informs you about updates to programs you have installed on your computer, but many users don't like the program, so I thought it prudent to warn you, just in case you end up accidentally clicking on the button and installing the program. You can also set up a Firefox permatab from this window.







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Available goals
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Map
Introduction:





Developers Intro:


Romopolis is a fun tycoon strategy game with highly addictive gameplay and colorful graphics. Construct an idyllic ancient Roman city with plenty of houses and keep your residents happy by providing all the services they need. You'll be rewarded with money, fame and honor. It's up to you how to play - you can work your way to the top in the comprehensive campaign mode or you can create and play your own custom scenarios.




Reference accessed HERE January 28th 2012





Features:


Highly addictive and deep-yet-approachable gameplay with friendly, intuitive controls.

Dozens of Roman-styled houses, structures and other buildings.

24 varied campaign scenarios set in diverse environments.

Option to build your own custom scenarios- play how YOU want!

Optional awards available for the meticulous gamer






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Map
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Map
The Game:


When first starting Romopolis your first job is to create a profile. Your first profile is actually already in place because the game adds the computers name to the profile list for example my main computer is called Whiterabbit-uk, so my first profile was already added to the games profile list. You can add as many profiles as you wish, which makes this an ideal family game. Each profile saving the games progress and settings on the same computer. To play any of the profiles created, just click on the name at the top of the main menu . This will open up a separate window that allows you to choose from the available profiles that you've previously created.

You can set up your game via the options menu which enables you to toggle between full screen and windowed, toggle between deadline off and deadline on (basically a timed and a relaxed mode); you can also select from three difficulties, easy, normal and hard and adjust the sound effects (sfx) and music via two sliders.


Once you've created your profile, or selected the default profile and adjusted the settings to your liking you can choose to play either the campaign or sand box mode. It's advisable to start with the campaign mode because you are introduced to all of the games concepts via a three level tutorial which I've documented via a series of almost a hundred screen captures which you can access HERE





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Tutorial
PicDepict.com

Tutorial


The sandbox mode is basically a freeform version of the campaign mode with all 24 maps unlocked and available. You can create your own scenarios. When selecting the sandbox mode you will always start with limited resources (e.g. Money, building materials and workers). And you don't own any blue prints or concessions. These have to be acquires through game play. To play a custom scenario you have to select one of the 24 maps that are available. (you can see all of those via the link above or the slide show link below. Once you've selected the map you have to select up to a maximum of three goals and if you wish, set a deadline. The main difference between each map is the space available for building. Each map has its own challenges. You can add up to 3 different goals such as creating a specific number of apartments, having a certain number of residents living in your city or building specific public amenities such as amphitheater's, libraries, shrines etc. There is a large selection of over 30 different goals, many of which are number specific, for example build 20 mansions or have a balance of five million denarius (silver coins) in your account, These are all added using the add goal button; though you don't have to add specific goals if you just want an open ended game. The same goes for setting a dead line. You should always make sure you give yourself plenty of time to complete all goals yo set, remembering that you always start a custom (sandbox mode) scenario with little in the way of resources.

When selecting the campaign mode it opens up to the level selection screen. Initially only level one is unlocked. Each of the other 2 levels are arranged around the periphery of an image of a town, with padlock symbols denoting that they are locked. You can always return to a previous level, but that then overwrites the current progress and you have to start from the level you returned to. Progress is always saved from the point at which you choose to leave a game even if it's only part way through a level. You can see what each level will look like by first selecting the sandbox mode and scrolling through the 24 maps. I've taken screen captures of all of the level maps if you wish to take a peek. ;-)

When you start your first level you will be taken through a straightforwards tutorial that introduces you to all of the games concepts. I am not going to go through all of these as this review is meant to be an introduction to the game; besides it's already late in the day so spending even more time writing up a full review would leave most of the giveaway day over. . Instead I suggest you follow the tutorial prompts as they will give you all of the information you require to be able to play this game. I've taken screen captures of all of the tutorial steps through from level one to level three. So if you want to start playing the sandbox mode right away it would be a good idea to at least read over the tutorial screen captures before starting to familiarize yourself with the vqarious controls and menu selections.

You can see a very good review of the game over at Gamezebo HERE









Slideshow & Video of Game Play:


You can see a slideshow of over a hundred images that include all of the tutorial screens. Unfortunately i've numbered them so that the tutorial is backwards. You can see the slideshow HERE


You can see several videos of game play, including French, spanish and Italian versions HERE, HERE - (60 Second Preview), HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE - (French), HERE - (Español) and HERE - (Italiano).




System Requirements:


Windows 2000/ XP/ Vista/ 7

Processor speed: 600 MHz

System RAM: 256 MB

Hard drive space (uncompressed): 35 MB

Graphics Card: 3D graphic card

Sound Card: 16-bit sound card

DirectX version: DirectX 9.0



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Blueprints & Concessions
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General in game level
Conclusion:



I would agree with the conclusins made by Gamezebo on this particular game. If your into building games like build a lot you'll probably like this game a lot, but it isn't as good as Build a lot in my opinion (and Gamezebos). The following are the pro's and cons for this game referenced from HERE


Pro's

Adjustable difficulty. Two play modes. Level editor. Easily accessible. Good variety of buildings. Ok length.


Con's:

Only superficially different from Townopolis. Unbalanced pace. Static graphics. Annoying regularity of damaged buildings - especially in later levels. Rather weak compared to other games in the genre.



Scoring

Graphics … 7

Sound … 6

Game play … 7

Re-playability … 8




Total … 28 out of 40 that’s a score of 7 out of 10 which equates to a game worth downloading and playing. :lol:


Suggestion for the developer:

Include more obvious animations and enable the user to slect different building types for each category. This would give the towns a more natural look. Include a story line and add some mini games to break up the game into bite sized chunks. I'd include a slider in the options menu that enables you to set the amount of damage that is likely to occur during a game.





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Problems installing, activating and running today’s game:


If you have difficulty downloading or activating the game you can try again later or do one of the following - for example once downloaded when you click on the dual activation and set up file you may get the message “Failed to connect. Please try again later” Check to see if your internet explorer isn't offline (thanks to MrSnoozles/Mike and GMMan for that fix). If the previous suggestion doesn't work go check out previous comments from the last several weeks and look for comments from GMMan and Mike. They have also posted their possible fixes for this problem.

Mike suggests that you check to see if Internet Explorer is offline (even if you use firefox). If it is make sure that it's online thn try again. I’ve always tried re-booting my modem and/or router with some success, though Mike has said that doing that does nothing. Still, it’s worth a try if all else fails.


If you are getting the black screen problem right click on the games executable and select properties then click on the compatibility mode and select the disable visual themes. This should fix the problem, if not try disabling the display scaling on higher dpi settings and disabling the desktop composition.

Other fixes include changing your screen resolution, installing the latest direct X (remember that XP uses DX 9 or earlier only, Vista uses DX 10 or before and Win 7 DX11 or before). Also try updating your graphics drivers. The main two chip manufacturers are NVIDIA and ATI (now AMD) both of which offer driver downloads for free. Just go to the respective manufactures home page and you'll find a link to the driver download page. To find out which graphic card or graphics chip your computer uses type in Dxdiag in the search field (Vista or Win 7) or the run command (XP); this opens up the DirectX diagnostics panel. click on the display tab and look to the left panel. You should easily see what graphics card or chip you are using. (This is required information when selecting the correct download from the developers site).

If you are asked to turn off your Data Execution Prevention for this game to run. You can create an exception so that the game will run without having to turn DEP off. Please bear in mind it's rare that anyone even mentioned getting a DEP warning. If you are not sure how to create an exception read THIS article, which tells you how to do it.


If you are having problems unzipping the game giveaways zip file, for example getting a message saying the file is invalid try using a different file archiver such as 7-Zip, J-Zip, CAM UnZip, Hamster Free Zip Archiver, GZip, B Zip2, peazip, ZipUnzip, FreeRAR Extract Frog, RAR File Open Knife, ALZip, The Extractor, RarZilla Free Unrar

Okay, that should be enough. there are actually many more free versions available. also there are other commercial titles such as the well-known WinRAR, Stuffit, WinAce, NXPowerlite and Corel Winzip Pro, but IMO 7-Zip is probably one of the better freebies. I did purchase a copy of Stuffit when it was on sale a few years ago and recently repurchased a more up to date version when it was o offer via BitsDuJour, but didn't like the interface for some reason, so hardly ever use it.




If you are posting requests for help late in the day I would suggest posting in the main giveaway forums in the game Game Discussion . If you’ve installed the game but it won’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at another time. Unfortunately if your problem is actually installing it then once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done until the game is given away again (though that isn’t guaranteed. It’s always worth checking out the free games sites as sometimes the games we get here are also available for free from them as well.



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If you are looking for something else check out the game discussion forums and the free games synopsis. We’ve posted a couple of thousand free games over the last three years, some of which are fantastic. There are some freeware games that are similar to todays game that you may like to check out; especially if you like this type of game. All of the major game distributors such as Steam, Direct 2 Drive (soon to combine with another site), Impulse and GOG all have some sales with savings as good as 75% in some cases. This weekend it's 66% off most Warhammer games There's some space Marines DLC that's not included in the sale, otherwise everything else is. Todays 24 hour deal is Section 8: Prejudice a unreal tournament like game (only better). A new 24 hour deal starts at 6p GMT. You can check out all of the main distributors deals via the Didematic Site



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Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take some time once you’ve played it a while to leave some constructive feedback either positive or negative. The more constructive feedback we get, the more likely developers are to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with search engines like Google. Developers want their products out there on the WWW, this site has the potential to do that. The game giveaway project gives away on average between 9 to 17 thousand downloads for each game depending upon what genre and how obscure the game is. That’s a lot of homes these games are being downloaded into and a lot of potential cash that’s being lost by the developers. If we get better games because of better feedback, the community are likely to continue to benefit from the generosity of the developers. Satisfied community members are then more likely to visit the home sites of those developers and purchase games that they may not have bothered with before they discovered the developer via the game giveaway site, thus giving the developers more incentives to give away more decent games to draw more users to their site. There are a lot of game sites and they all want your business. I really do think if we can improve on the quality and numbers of users leaving suitable feedback more developers will join the project. It's a great environment to recruit beta testers as well; giving the community the opportunity to try out games that aren't on general release yet.

Again PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE leave some suitable feedback once you’ve played the game for an hour or so. It can be positive or negative, but please explain your reasons for the feedback you post. It doesn't need to be a dissertation, just a paragraph or two explaining what you think could improve the game and maybe what you didn't like about the game with suggestions to replace the negative area's. Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment. It will be very much appreciated by the developer, the giveaway team and me. Thank you.





Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit-uk  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
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