Author: Gary C. "Mo" Morgan
Introduction, Presentation, and Plot
Cleopatra is an expansion disk for the extremely successful Pharaoh ancient city building simulation. It is a natural sequel, which allows players to continue their exploration of this very intriguing and romantic era. Much of what most people know of the ancient Egyptian civilization occurred very late in the span of several thousand years of recorded Egyptian history; the story of Antony and Cleopatra spawned a famous play by "The Bard" William Shakespeare and later a couple of motion pictures (one very recently with Timothy Dalton and Billy Zane). The appeal of Pharaoh to a diverse audience can't be discounted and Cleopatra helps female gamers identify with this legendary female ruler's challenging and rewarding reign through the addition of more structures and city capabilities such as zoos full of animals, oil-burning lamps, and henna farms. For those familiar with the Old Testament book of Exodus, Cleopatra offers many of the ancient plagues from the time of Moses such as locusts, hailstorms, and rivers of blood.
The Cleopatra expansion disk continues the Pharaoh story by adding the most recent and famous rulers and their kingdoms to the game - Rameses, Cleopatra, Tutankhamun, etc. In addition to the previous set of Pharaoh campaigns (Pre-Dynastic Period, Archaic Period, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom), Cleopatra now adds the following: Ancient Conquerors, Rameses II, Valley of the Kings, and Cleopatra's Capital, which continue the story line where Pharaoh leaves off. In addition, Cleopatra gives the player the ability to play any campaign or mission in any order without having to first complete all the preceding campaigns or missions. Cleopatra also adds numerous individual missions depicting challenges faced by Rameses, Tut, Ptolemy, and Cleopatra, including several on Cleopatra's city of Alexandria, highlighting the famous library which became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Cleopatra allows gamers to continue their exploration of the history of ancient Egypt all the way through Egypt's gradual fading as a major ancient world power, coincidental with Rome's rise to power.
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Build the Great Library Wonder of the World in an Alexandria mission! |
Now that's an exquisite example of world-class artwork! |
Installation & Technical Issues
Cleopatra installs in a straightforward manner, similar to its predecessor Pharaoh, which must be installed before Cleopatra. It does require additional hard disk storage space, beyond that already required by Pharaoh. Installation offers two options: a minimal install requires 130MB of hard disk space and a complete install requires 150MB. Cleopatra also must be installed under a /sierra main directory, as all Sierra games seem to require and adds files into the /sierra/pharaoh subdirectory.The main technical issues involve some game design bugs that mar the reputation of what would otherwise be a good product. One of the main game bugs involves monument "crashes" or "missing monuments." In this case, the player starts a monument and progress continues on it. Then when the player looks again later on, the monument is back to square one and won't proceed forward. I personally experienced this demoralizing bug with the Mausoleum in Alexandria and the Pharaoh/Cleopatra forums are full of other examples. Hopefully a patch will be put out to rectify this problem, but this is clearly a case of a product rushed to production and distribution before it is fully playtested and ready.
Documentation
The Cleopatra game comes with an attractive CD-ROM in a jewel case, an update to the city system structure to show how the new features interleave into the existing resources, and a short addendum to the game manual. Since not too many revolutionary changes were made to the game system, not much additional documentation is necessary to play and enjoy Cleopatra. Impressions Games has added a Cleopatra section to the Pharaoh website and this helps present some of the new additions Cleopatra brings to Pharaoh, as well as other informative and useful features. The new game box is strikingly beautiful, featuring an exquisite color portrait of Cleopatra. My sincere compliments to the gifted artist who painted that breathtaking graphic illustration - it now adorns my computer monitors both at work and at home as Windows wallpaper.
The jewel case contains a small booklet, which is inserted to be the front cover for the case. The information in this booklet depicts the new resources available in Cleopatra, specifically artisans from the artisan guild who use paint produced by paintmakers and lamps from lampmakers, which are made from imported oil. The booklet also discusses the two game modes (survival and time limit), new enemies, animal hazards (scorpions, asps, lions), zoos, and carry-over features for the campaigns (family savings, armies, and monuments last from one mission to another).
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