Wow gamespot does not like this game. I quite liked it actually...
Positive : I've playing for the last 2 days and haven't had a single bug in the game at all. The graphics are nice...and it keeps you doing things...such as expanding, trading, defending, gathering and the alike. The people look good as they roam the streets, picking up goods etc and the amount of things which could be built makes you fell like this is actually a real city. Not the small minded buddings in age of empires say where you build a university and a farm and thats it, you have to build more expanded things such as bakery's, butchers and clothing shops to accompany your linen, wheat and livestock farms.
Negative: Fires, riots and shops telling you they have no clay. These are the only issues i have with this game. when a riot starts because of the lack of wheat and they start lighting fires and you've built a farm and a bakery 5 meters from there houses. Also when this happens, they leave there work...this means you get no income. this means you cant build things which the request to stop them from rioting.
i would recommend that if there was a new game in the series they should make more of the gameplay centered in conquering places. with armies which are controllable (in a aoe style) as well as a different enemies than barbarians cause thats such a #$# (bad) enemy. Also Building places would of been alot more fun if giant blocks of stone were carried by 10 slaves through the streets of Rome. And staged building because a building dosent magically appear after a while. aswell as things like tax and money to police (theres a name for them which i cant remember) thoses sort governing options which came out of your money every what ever amount of time would be nice. (these are genrel recommendations over all games not just "IR".
Overall i liked it more than i hated it, takes a bit to get used to though
I give it a 7 out of 10
Thanks Gareth somers