not bad but not better than anno series
The graphics are good and the speeches by the characters are pretty entertaining.
Gameplay is S-L-O-W in a big way...without a way to speed up time, this game dragged to the point that watching tv took more effort than watching my city develop. The storyline was good, but I never found a reason to try any of the other characters, and never found myself challenged.
The map changes in climates as well, indicating the different seasons and giving additional challenges to the player (eg. Would you trade excess meat, fish, honey, etc for gold or would you save those for your city when the long harsh winter or when the long summer drought sets in?).
TS:RoAE has added heroes kind of like the ones in warcraft, but their primary purpose is not combat but rather exploring the map and running errands. Mostly you'll be dispatching them to friendly neutral cities for trade. In order to buy supplies from a neighbour, your hero has to be in the vicinity of their storehouse, and you can only buy small ammounts of goods at a time.
The combat while never the focal point of the series is worse than ever and inexcusable for a game released in 2007. Unit AI is dreadful, the interface clumsy and combat boils down to left clicking on whatever you want dead, and pray your soldiers won't stop attacking midfight.
overall i suggest you if you like this genre go and play Anno series but if you don't have problem about money this game is good for a few days.