In this Great Age dominated by AOE iii and the likes, there is one old strategy game that I still remember. Starcraft? Nah.

 Does anyone remember Pharaoh?

Built by Impressions Games, the creators of the award-winning Ceasar III, Pharaoh for me is one of the greatest stratgey games built. Imagine a game where people desert your kingdom if there’s not enough entertainment or sanitary facilities. Built great monuments and please the Gods, or have their wrath turned against you.

Much of the gameplay takes place in a loose campaign fashion - where you are a city ruler sent by the Pharaoh to buil and rule cities. You get to buil pyramids (Imhotep’s here) and great temples and such.

As for fighting in the game, it’s somewhat dissapointing; it doesn’t match the Aoe series here, but it more than makes up via its other sides. The God Set may even strike down your enmies if your favor him enough! As a citybuilding game, Pharaoh rules.

For me, Pharaoh beats Age of Mythology, definitely. In Pharaoh you have financial crises, worker shortages, unemployment, fashionale city streets - almost real, you could say. The game’s subtitle says it all:

Build and empire. Rule the Nile. Live forever. .

toI went on Yahoo Answers recently qith a simple question: best trilogy/series/novel ? 

 My own answer: His Dark Materials, by Phillip Pullman

I got some really great answers. Thanks, y’all. Someone said said His Dark Materials, my favourite trilogy, is too difficult. Well, it’s my favourite, and I think it’s the best ever. 

There’s a reason I like it so much. I like complete fantasy; as in, I like my fantasy (stories) to have a sense of wholeness about them. LOTR delivers this; histories, languages, explanations - it’s all there. A setting; a background; a life to the canvas of the story itself.

 You might say I’m technical-minded, but to my belief, a book is a work of art and that art is greater when the world, the settings, the novel itself has a background. His Dark Materials: the best and the most paradoxically inventive I’ve come across so far. Cry your pardon, but I hold it among LOTR and The Dark Tower and I much prefer it over the others because of its emotional content. All the three books of His Dark Materials - Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass - are massive in their emotional accomplishment. Truly a work of art.

So: there you go. And if you haven’t read the books yet, what the hell took you so long?