GameSpy: What were your inspirations for Zeus: Master of Olympus?
Chris Beatrice: When I think of ancient, cla ical civilizations, I always come back to the "big three:" Rome, Greece, and Egypt. Each has its own distinct character, of course, and I knew that eventually we'd cover them all. Rome was the perfect environment for a city-building game, for obvious reasons--the Romans were master city planners. The Greeks also excelled at this, and as we all know cla ical Greece actually predated Rome.
Because there are so many similarities between ancient Greece and Rome, it made a lot more sense to do Pharaoh in between Caesar III and Zeus. To me, Egypt has a certain mysterious quality that I don't think characterizes ancient Greece or Rome.
That being said, with Zeus we're emphasizing the mythology and the role of gods and heroes, partly because, quite frankly, that's what's cool. We all remember learning about Hercules or watching Clash of the Titans as kids. Also, we want to distinguish the setting from that of Caesar III, because we've already done the "cla ical" city builder in that title.
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