Review: Ikariam

Ikariam (Builder)

Quality: 7/10
Fun: 5/10
Longevity: 8/10
Total: 20/30

This game is very similar to Travian, but I wouldnt call it a clone because it is very well worked through. You begin with a small village out of Asterix & Obelix that looks like a collection of mudhuts. Over time you can collect resources and build new buildings and expand existing ones. There is also a complete techtree to research that reminds me of the Civilzation games a bit, very linear.

This game has a couple of great things going for it and I'll start with the first thing you notice. The graphics are well done, both technically and from an art perspective. The style is best described as "cute". It is very clear the developers have put some effort into the graphics because as you develop your little village into a fullblown city the graphics change alot. Not only the buildings but the village background changes. For example as you expand the village size more and more of the village ground gets paved. When you grow past certain sizes a village well is built, or an aqueduct. All of this does a good job of masking the numbercrunching, textbased browsergame that is behind it. A very small minus from this is that it takes a while to load when surfing from a handheld device.

Another really big positive thing about Ikariam is that it is openended, something I value very high in all games. There is no built in max level of buildings or villages. Of course, as things get exponentially more and more expencive, somewhere along the line they will hit a soft cap. But this allows the game to be played in two ways, either you build effectively and use "best-bang-for-the-buck" tactics to succeed or you pay ridiculous amounts of money to be very hard to beat in a specific area. In the same way, the techtree is open, allowing for "Future Tech X" (think Civilization end game). This gives the game a really good longevity score fo course.

What about the fighting? I tagged this game builder and not fighter as opposed to Travian. Thats because in Travian you will be involved in fighting wether you want to or not. In Ikariam it is possible to reach a balance where you can have good enough defences that it isnt worth attacking you. Naturally, once in a while someone will attack you anyway, but if you play defensively it is very rare. If you do want to get involved in fighting, there is plenty of opportunities for that as well. The fights are very tactical in nature and good intel, army composition and timing is essential as it is possible to have a very good defence. Recently they also added the option to occupy a hostile village which makes for some interesting situations.

Because it is possible to have a good defence and because of the openended buildings that takes alot of resources, this is a game that you can afford to just login once a day and give some orders and leave it to itself. If you do want to micromanage resources that is possible also and will give you a small edge but is not required in any way.

All in all a very solid game that I will play for long time yet just to see if I can max out my main village. Not much everyday action but doesnt require alot of time either.