Too complex to be fun.
And fails as a game because that is just too much.
Pros:
-Graphics are absolute awesome, the best i´ve seen in a strategy game, no kidding.
-The atmosphere of the game. The game doesn´t change eras like Rise of Nations, but the buildings are so nicely drawn that you won´t need it.
-The complexity of the economic system will attract many people.
-The need to trade with Orient is a niiice adding to the game.
Cons:
-The placement of some buildings (like those that need farms) is very tedious.
-It has no PAUSE key (why!!??). And in a game of this complexity, you just cannot keep the pace once you reach a certain point.
(I know some people are concerned about the pause key... But Age of Empires, Rise of Nations and Shogun2... DO have Pause key and it just ADDS value to the gaming experience... if you don´t want it..just don´t use it. I dream of a world with Starcraft and Warcraft with a pause key!)
-The building menu doesn´t help at all. In general the interface is pretty bad.
-The establishment of trading routes is, to say the less, very bad. It´s not user friendly at all... pretty dumb, if you ask me.
-For a game so economically oriented, is unforgivable that there is no way to calculate accurately how many resources consume some buildings -like the houses-. Other games like RoN, give you an accurate consumption per minute that lets you improve the economy to perfection. This game gives too few info about that.
It´s really frustrating, cos this game was really close to be a real jewel of the crown!
In my opinion... it NEEDS a Pause key, badly.
Also, they had to either remove any military management or make the resource management less complex and improve the building menu and economic info panel.