Zeus was developed by Impressions Games, the same team that created other city-building games such as Pharaoh and the successful Caesar series. Leaders of more advanced cities can even create buildings to appease an angry god or summon a great hero, like Perseus or Hercules. As the city develops, different types of workers become available offering more services to the community. Some will trade, some will farm, some will patrol the streets, and (depending upon the kind of neighborhood they live in) some might even lounge around all day, just soaking up the culture. These townsfolk are put to work to keep the village running and to aid in its expansion and improvement. By marking certain areas for housing, citizens will begin to move in and populate the budding village. Players start with an empty tract of land, full of possibility. I really can't recommend it strongly enough.Zeus: Master of Olympus is a city-building game set in the legendary Greece of ancient mythology. And it all looks lovely! Like spending several hours staring at a sun drenched afternoon. The little tiled roofs of the houses, and the delivery men who complain about hauling cheese across the city, and the Olympics that you can send your athletes too - watching them strut across the map to the host city, excited to represent you. There are so many lovely details to notice in Zeus. You can also build massive temples to patron gods, who then turn up to swagger around your city and occasionally cast miracles. Hercules demands excellent city wide gymnasium access and, if memory serves, loads of food in storage. Usually, you have to summon heroes to dispatch said beasts, who have a set of extremely specific and often very funny requirements. You need to mine a load of marble? Stick this hydra in your quarry and smoke it! These will often stand in the way of your victory goals. This means you must not only contend with the usual headaches of city planning (fire, earthquakes, plague) but also some suitably Grecian ones (citizens like to have good access to theatres and philosophers), as well as the threats of myth made literal. In Zeus your role is to build the great city states like Athens. It carries the perfect balance of beauty, difficulty, detail, and puns. Zeus: Master of Olympus (frequently now bundled as Acropolis with its expansion Poseidon: Master of Atlantis) is, and will probably forever remain, one of my most treasured games, let alone the specifics of genre. I'm shocked that this one hasn't already been covered in Have You Played, given that it appears on our Best Management Games Ever list, but this does mean that I get to be the one writing it now. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time. Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives.

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