Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile

                      Reviewed by Sue

Once I got into Pharaoh and realised I liked it a lot, I bought the
add-on Cleopatra. This takes the game to new heights. Not only does
it add four more campaigns from the late New Kingdom to the end of
the Ptolemaic period, it also adds new features.  Let's look at all
of this in order.

The campaigns consist of 15 new missions. I found these more
interesting than the Pharaoh missions which did get rather 'samey'
after a while. Some of the missions let you carry over money,
troops or monuments from one mission to another. For example, the
first three missions are played on the same Deir el Medina map.
For each, you have to build a new tomb, and ones built on previous
missions are retained but the basic layout of the land is the same
and some roads and structures may also be carried over.


So, there's more variety in the missions. I really liked the new
tombs! The only thing I didn't like is trying to position them.
They are set right into the cliffs, with just one square, the
doorway, sticking out into empty land. I thought I was NEVER going
to find the place where they should go. There seems to be only one
correct area, with a little bit of leeway left and right in each
case. At last they suddenly snapped into the right place, I knew
because the "footprint" had gone green, as it does when you're
positioning other items.

Like mastabas and pyramids, these constructions need special
workers and this brings in two new industries. First is paint.
This is used to decorate the tombs with hieroglyphics and other
ornamentation. The artisans guild is responsible for these. The
paint is made from henna which is grown on henna farms like barley
and grain.

Second, those tombs are DARK. There's no way the stonemasons and
artisans guild will go into them without light.  Introducing ...
lamps! These are made at the lamp makers from oil and pottery. Oil
always has to be imported. The finished lamps are dragged along to
the tombs by peasants who pull them on sleds.  You can build other
special monuments such as the figures at Abu Simbel. I know I still
have a few treats to come like the Pharos Lighthouse, Alexandria's
Great Library and the Caesarium (whatever that is) in the last few
missions which I have to do.

Because I installed Cleopatra fairly soon after Pharaoh, I didn't
realise until writing this review that some of the features I'd
taken for granted were from Cleopatra only. One is the introduction
of pop-up messages. I don't know about you, but I find it very
tedious to have to keep interrupting my play to click and close
game messages about wage changes, diseases and other relatively
minor happenings. You can choose to have many messages displayed as
pop-up boxes which disappear after a short time. I did this for
most of them except for ones like festival notification. I don't
like it when the gods get miffed so I like a warning when a
festival has been held so I can organise the next one.


There's a pyramid speed-up option with Cleopatra. Blessings from
the gods can be translated into a building boost for mastabas and
pyramids. Great! It saves tons of time. It's a shame this speed-up
doesn't work with other monuments like tombs.  Cleopatra introduces
plagues - frogs, hail, locusts and the Nile turning to blood. These
won't cause any long term problems but they look spectacular. There
are different enemies to fight like Phoenicians and Persians, and
more wild animals - snakes, scorpions and lions. Zoos are a new
form of entertainment and white marble can be quarried or imported.
Three missions have time limits and four are survival missions. In
both cases, a timer ticks down in the top left corner while you
play, adding an extra urgency to your task.

All in all, this is a great addition to Pharaoh, not only extending
the life of the game but enhancing the original one as well with
its extra features. I have got five missions to go but haven't
touched any of the custom ones yet. I may have a little break in
between.

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