Line #198 VideoGame/ZeusMasterOfOlympus


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zeus_image41.jpg]]
2
3	''Zeus: Master of Olympus'' (2000) is the UsefulNotes/AncientGreece installment of the ''VideoGame/CityBuildingSeries''.
4
5	Players seek to build up their city-states while fending off attacks from rival cities, ferocious monsters, and even gods while calling on the greatest heroes of Myth/GreekMythology to help them.
6
7	The stand-alone expansion, ''Poseidon: Master of Atlantis'', puts the player in charge of {{Atlantis}}.
8	----
9	!!This work provides examples of:
10	* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Staffing a building is now instantaneous, requiring only road access and allowing storage buildings to be placed in out-of-the-way locations.
11	* AllohistoricalAllusion: One Atlantis mission has you build a colony on Thera, during which a mountain spits lava. The eruption of the volcano under Thera is one of the more plausible inspirations for the myth of Atlantis.
12	* AnachronismStew:
13	** It's possible to have Perseus and Hercules (Perseus' great-grandson) running around at the same time.
14	** Achilles (the youngest of the heroes in UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar) and Ulysses appear during the founding of Atlantis and several generations later, despite Troy being founded by Atlantean refugees in the game's chronology.
15	** Atlantis is founded in 3500 BC in the game, and yet Hera complains about Poseidon being granted patronage of the continent by citing the competition between him and Athena for Athens.
16	* AnotherSideAnotherStory: The adventure "Two Worlds Collide" is the second half of the earlier Atlantean adventure "Atlantis Reborn", but now you're playing as the Greeks, based in Mycenae,
17	* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
18	** Buildings are instantly staffed, finally negating the need for low-level housing in the IndustrialGhetto or waiting for a recruiter to wander past housing.
19	** Sanctuaries can be targeted and damaged in combat, but fortunately they can be repaired as if undergoing construction.
20	* AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence:
21	** The first Atlantis campaign ends with Atlas, now an immortal, going to Olympus.
22	** An astronomer wishes he could get turned into a constellation... so he wouldn't be so hungry.
23	** Priests try to convince the livestock they're sacrificing of the great destiny in store for them.
24	* ActionGirl:
25	** Atalanta, who single-handedly takes on giant monsters.
26	** Building Artemis' temple gives you two companies of huntresses for free. [[NonIndicativeName While they can't be used for hunting]], they can be used to aid in defending the city, conquering rival cities or answering a friend's request for troops without risking your own expensive troops.
27	** Atlantean tower guards are female, and disturbingly happy to use their flamers on the enemy.
28	* ActuallyFourMooks:
29	** Some gods will go to a resource alone and return with a line of human carriers behind them.
30	** Going by the loading screens, some monsters actually attack in hordes rather than the single specimen that appears on the game map.
31	* AerithAndBob: Walkers are either named after famous ancient Greeks (Thucydides, Plato), have Greek names (Phillipos), or have a ShoutOut with a Greek-ish suffix (Dirtyharricles, Ungryungryippos)...
32	* TheAlcoholic: Both Dionysus and the agora's wine seller are permanently sloshed.
33	* AllYourPowersCombined: Zeus can bestow any structural blessing from the other gods, and his sanctuary has the same oracular function as Apollo's.
34	* AlternateHistory:
35	** Thanks to an inhabited continent in the middle of the Atlantic, the Americans are discovered centuries before schedule, making Mayans and Phoenicians trading partners.
36	** The Greco-Persian wars end with Persia subjugated and turned into a vassal state.
37	* AmazonBrigade: Building Artemis' sanctuary gets two of them for free, while actual Amazons are recurring enemies based in Themyscera.
38	* AngryGuardDog: Cerberus will tear into criminals and enemies... if he's on your side. Otherwise he's right back into HellHound territory.
39	* ApatheticCitizens: While walkers next to a giant monster will react with appropriate fear, they do their jobs nonetheless.
40	* AreYouSureYouWantToDoThat: Every level in the mini-campaign "The Sinking of Atlantis" will tell you that, well, Atlantis is going to sink, and are you sure you want to proceed to the next level?
41	* ArrowsOnFire: In ''Poseidon: Master of Atlantis'', upgrading the defensive towers with {{orichalcum}} results in this.
42	* ArtificialInsolence: Repeatedly requesting aid from other cities (especially military or joint strikes) very quickly causes you to lose favor with them, requiring lots of time and bribery before you can ask again (presumably to avoid the player abusing the mechanic). On the other hand, it leads straight to GameplayAndStorySegregation when the entire point of a colony-founding mission is to set up a strong military outpost to fight back against an oppressive empire... who then refuses to help you.
43	* AssholeVictim: No one mourns when Bellerophon falls from his horse on his way to Olympus. Even when he survives the fall, no one wants anything to do with him.
44	* {{Atlantis}}: Here, it's a respectably-sized continent right in the middle of the Atlantic, close enough to Europe and South America that it allows trade between the Mayans and the Phoenicians. ''Poseidon's'' first campaign has you build it from the ground up, while two campaigns end with its destruction (one of them firsthand).
45	* TheAtoner: The Atlanteans react with horror at having destroyed the Atlantean centaurs, which they saw as AlwaysChaoticEvil barbarians, when they had fine cities of their own - including shrines to Poseidon, their own patron god. The Atlanteans swear to never attack except in self-defense afterwards ([[spoiler:as they continue to expand eastwards and westwards, you're eventually told this only applies to people on the actual continent of Atlantis]]).
46	* AwesomeButImpractical:
47	** Sanctuaries are high-appeal buildings that provide divine favor and can provide you with otherwise-difficult to obtain resources. Unfortunately, they're also ''huge'', take a lot of time, marble, wood and sculptures to build, need a lot of workers, and if your city produces fleece, cheese or cattle, will require constant monitoring and replenishing of your flocks as priests take animals for sacrifice. Even worse is what happens if you run out of animals to sacrifice: the priests will start sacrificing ''food'' instead (by burning it), meaning you risk starving your population.
48	** A hippodrome more than 200 stades long brings in 500 drachma a ''month'' - but not only is it a pathing nightmare, it also causes your citizens to dislike you as you're evidently more obsessed with the races than their well-being.
49	** Heroes have very heavy requirements (such as 32 of a resource, large armies, or even a functioning sanctuary or two) before you can summon them. Fortunately, monsters can eventually be killed by regular troops or, more rarely, by an outmatched hero. In addition, Apollo will single-handedly defend the city from monsters if you build a sanctuary to him (and is the only god to do so, as the other gods consider it beneath them).
50	** If you let monsters run amok until the final level of a campaign, you can then use multiple heroes for the last map.
51	** It's possible to have enough high-level housing to have an army consisting entirely of horsemen/chariots. Quite aside from finding the space to house them, sending them all on campaign leaves you with only static defenses and invites attack from other cities.
52	** A sanctuary to Ares grants the ability for the man himself to participate in an invasion, guaranteeing victory of a city on your behalf. The cooldown on this is also so long that you're probably only using it once a campaign, and Ares may randomly use it on his own anytime you invade someone.
53	* AwfulWeddedLife: Hera is clearly running off the sitcom-wife script.
54	--> If you don't know why I'm attacking you, then I'm not going to tell you!
55	* BadassBoast:
56	** "I'm Perseus, and I cannot be stopped."
57	** "With Atalanta here, you have nothing to fear!"
58	* BewareTheNiceOnes:
59	** Apollo is the god of arts and healing, who wanders the city blessing cultural buildings so they produce more walkers and perform better. [[OneManArmy He also singlehandedly defends the city from invading monsters]], and if you piss him off he'll unleash plagues on your city, and by cursing culture/science buildings ensure your housing will collapse in no time flat.
60	** Dionysus is a permanently drunken, fun-loving guy who increases you wine production and even gives you some if prayed to, but if angered he'll unleash madwomen on the city, curse the wineries, and send walkers to eternal drunkeness.
61	** Demeter, goddess of agriculture. Sounds like a pushover, right? Except that she's the 4th-strongest Olympian, meaning if she's pissed at you, you need Hades, Poseidon or Zeus (or Hera, in ''Atlantis'') on your side to stop her from going around destroying crops and agoras.
62	* BlasphemousBoast: Victorious competitors claim to be stronger than Hercules.
63	* BlatantLies: Priests looking for sheep/goats/cows to sacrifice tell them "I won't hurt you... much".
64	* BoltOfDivineRetribution: While Zeus (and other gods, and monsters) spew lightningbolts/fireballs, the cheatcode "Fireballs from Heaven" lets ''you'' send a fireball against anything you want gone. Including monsters, gods (yes, Zeus included) and even ''rocks'', which are otherwise unremovable.
65	* BoringButPractical:
66	** Hermes doesn't provide resources, summon giant monsters to defend the city or fight invaders... but he makes delivery walkers go faster and traders come by more often, in addition to fulfilling requests for you.
67	** Atlas speeds up monument construction by providing needed supplies and workers (and often does so on his own).
68	** Paying off invading armies is a lot faster and easier than fighting them. It can even be cheaper than caving to the attackers' demands.
69	* BreadAndCircuses: Averted to a degree in ''Poseidon'': While making a hippodrome brings in money and boosts your popularity, building one that's too big causes you to lose popularity among your citizens (clearly you're more obsessed with racing than their needs).
70	* BreakTheHaughty: Gods that want a sanctuary get a bit undignified as the available slots fill up. Although Artemis doesn't seem to get the idea of being flattering.
71	--> What other god will join ''you'' in the hunt?
72	* BuxomBeautyStandard: While [[WorldOfBuxom pretty much all the goddesses are well-endowed]], Aphrodite, [[LoveGoddess the goddess of beauty]], has the largest pair.
73	* CallBack: One of the actor school lines in ''Zeus'' is "Has anyone seen my spear? How can I be a SpearCarrier without my spear?". In ''Poseidon'' (which doesn't use actors), a spearman wonders if anybody might need his extra spear.
74	* CelebrityParadox: Theater put on plays by classical Greek playwrights (such as Oedipus Rex), when the subject of those plays are walking around.
75	* CessationOfExistence: Cities are sometimes wiped off the map with the message "It is as if it had never existed."
76	* ChallengeSeeker: "[[IncomingHam I am HERCULES]], and I'm ready for a challenge. What have you got?"
77	* CulturedBadass:
78	** Top-level residents have access to theater, philosophy, and personal trainers, in addition to serving as hoplites or cavalry. Atlanteans have science instead (librarians, astronomers, museums and inventors), and serve as spearmen or charioteers.
79	** Hercules and Atalanta both require high levels of culture/science in the city and around their halls before they can be summoned.
80	* CurbstompBattle: Sometimes a summoned hero will run into his monster before he's made it to his hall. The monster dies instantly (as opposed to the three or four hits it normally takes without being able to harm the hero).
81	* CurbstompCushion: Rampaging gods/monsters can only be repelled with a stronger god/the right hero, but they only target certain buildings (specific to each god/monster) that can be replaced quickly enough. Other heroes and weaker gods will also slow them down slightly.
82	* CreatorBacklash: InUniverse example; one of the enemy gods in the mini-campaign "The Sinking of Atlantis" is Atlas himself.
83	* CripplingOverspecialization: Downplayed. While heroes are only good against two monsters each and are useless against gods, they can be sent alongside your armies.
84	* CrossoverCosmology: Averted: The Mayans in the Poseidon expansion worship Hephaestus as their great god. Revealing his actual rank in Olympus makes him attack you.
85	* DaddysLittleVillain: The Chimera, of all monsters, seems to have this personality.
86	--> Mommy Echidna and Daddy Typhon will be proud of their little girl when I destroy this city!
87	* DeathOfAThousandCuts:
88	** Attacking a full-strength city is usually suicide, it's better to continuously raid them for supplies and chip away at their strength.
89	** Attacking a monster with regular troops is very slow, but will eventually kill the monster at the cost of [[WeHaveReserves who knows how many replacement soldiers]].
90	* DeathOrGloryAttack: It's possible to have your city's troops consist entirely of infantry and cavalry (meaning no rabble/archers). Sending them all against your enemies has a higher chance of success, but it means [[FairWeatherFriend other cities]] instantly attack you due to having no troops to defend the city.
91	* DefeatMeansFriendship: Conquered cities hate you at first not because you beat them but because you attacked them in the first place (attacking a rival gets you increased rep among other cities). Give them enough gifts/answer their requests, and they'll quickly give you their full loyalty.
92	* DemotedToExtra: Oedipus appears in the Thebes campaign... as your deputy, running Thebes while you're out founding colonies. His major achievement (killing the Sphinx) is given to Atalanta in the sequel. [[{{Patricide}} His other claims to fame]] [[ParentalIncest go unmentioned.]]
93	* DeusExMachina: The actor walker is probably meant to invoke this (as an actual ancient theater trope), wearing a winged costume and being seen caught in the machine that descends him from heaven. He fervently wishes for this trope when near a monster, too.
94	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
95	** Monsters can be brought down by regular armies, including rabble/archers. But it takes so long, it's only really viable on huge maps where the monster won't rampage through your town.
96	** Orichalcum-enhanced towers can sometimes turn even attacking gods to stone.
97	* DynamicDifficulty: In a roundabout way; in the colony mission of the first campaign, your city is attacked by Talos, who can only be defeated by Jason. However, the requirements to summon Jason are outrageous for a small map with few resources, and defeating Talos isn't required to complete the mission, or even expected, as the victory text assumes that you left Talos alone and he follows you back to Thebes, where summoning Jason is much more reasonable. However, it ''is'' possible, though very difficult, to fulfil the requirements for Jason to arrive and defeat the behemoth. Your reward for all of this? Since you were skilled enough to defeat Talos, the very next month after his defeat, [[TopGod Zeus]] himself will invade your city, destroying your palace and cursing your industries, presumably to punish you for ScriptBreaking. And then [[AllForNothing Talos follows you back to Thebes in the next mission anyway]].
98	* EarlyGameHell: The first level of a campaign greatly limits the buildings you can place, and on occasion doesn't even give you the means to make money, turning the whole thing into a TimedMission until your funds run out.
99	* EinsteinHair: Atlantean inventors and astronomers.
100	* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: Or rather, the glamorous are more elite. Professional soldiers are only produced by elite housing, and need a lot of resources to keep functioning.
101	* EnergyBall: Several gods have one in their hand, and use them to attack or bless buildings.
102	* EverybodyHatesHades: Subverted: Hades is one of the more useful gods, since he's lord of the Underworld - and ''all the silver inside it''. His temple creates veins of silver ore, he wanders around the city making tax collectors produce double (gives new meaning to the saying "Death and taxes", doesn't it?), praying to him gets you even more money, and his HellHound goes around eating troublemakers. Conversely, when pissed off, he sends Cerberus at you or curses those same buildings, and worst of all, kills a large amount of walkers just by showing up.
103	* ExactWords: The Symphonia Ithikos prevents Atlanteans from raising arms against anyone except in self-defense, under penalty of divine retribution. Later levels clarify that this only applies on the actual continent of Atlantis, leaving you free to send your armies against Mayans, Phoenicians, and Greeks. On one occasion, two Atlantean cities declare war on you and each other, so conquering both is the victory condition.
104	* FailedASpotCheck: The maintenance building watchman is so intent on looking for fires from his perch that he doesn't notice his cloak is on fire.
105	* TheFamine:
106	** Famine in other cities is also an occasional event, but it's made easier by the fact that they ask for any kind of food and you can ask for food from any food-producing city, which they'll give if your relationship with them is high enough (including, in some cases, ''the city currently suffering from famine'').
107	** One mission sees your sources of importable food slowly dwindle until you're limited to the oranges you can grow and urchins, while the coastline keeps changing until your urchin collectors can't reach the urchin banks. The ending narration notes that everyone in the city is out of recipes for oranges.
108	* FemaleGaze: Atlas is visited by Aphrodite as he's helping with construction work. Seeing a sweaty, gigantic, muscular man (if his statue is anything to go by) standing in front of an equally gigantic building, she declares herself impressed (with a self-satisfied Atlas lampshading that she could have been talking about him or the building).
109	* FertilityGod:
110	** Demeter's Sanctuary turns all the land around it to meadow, on which livestock, crops or farms can be placed. She'll also bless farms and can fill granaries with food if prayed to. She's also the fourth most-powerful goddess after the Big Three, so having her around can thwart quite a few invasions by other gods. Naturally, having her as an enemy will cause a lot of problems for agriculture-based cities.
111	** Gods associated with a particular foodstuff (Poseidon for seafood, Artemis for wild game, Hera for oranges) or trade crop (Dionysus for grapes, Athena for olives) will bless their particular industry, making it more productive, and can provide large amounts of it when prayed to. Hera, Dionysus and Athena also provide groves for their crops, allowing your city to harvest a small amount every year.
112	** Aphrodite isn't a fertility goddess in the usual sense (population only increases through immigration if you have the housing for it), but if you've suffered a massive population loss due to disease she can instantly replenish your population... for less than heroic reasons.
113	--->Heavens! There aren't ''nearly'' enough people in the city to [[AttentionWhore worship me!]]
114	* FetchQuest: Many heroic deeds involve you attracting the appropriate hero to the city so they can go on a quest to get some item or other for a god.
115	* FishMen: Oceanids are green-scaled creatures with underwater cities, though you never get to visit them.
116	* ForcedTransformation: An angry Hera turns people into cows.
117	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Building animations all have AmusingInjuries happening to their employees, such as cheesemakers hammering their own hand or olive oil salesmen forever slipping on an oil patch. Greek triremes have a hoplite ''water-skiing'' behind them.
118	* GameBreakingBug: On occasion, a food buyer will continuously show up to a granary and disappear without buying anything, leaving the food shop empty, triggering the catastrophic collapse of the entire city as no food is delivered (and not caused by CriticalStaffingShortage for once). This is apparently caused by having too many direct walkers in the city.
119	* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:
120	** Oceanid trade ships are no different from those of humans, despite the cities being underwater and their species being amphibious. The post-game exposition claims they do this to avoid freaking people out and make trading easier.
121	** Oceanid armies have no need for transport ships and move underwater, meaning your frigates can't attack them. The Kraken, however, can.
122	** The Odyssey campaign has several:
123	*** Penelope's trick with the tapestry is discovered not through a servant's treachery, but by the suitors wondering why their gifts of fleece keep getting refused.
124	*** The mission requirement for elite housing is presented as a way to get the suitors out of the palace.
125	** Atlas sends Hercules to widen the Strait of Gibraltar. In-game, there's a flood that plows through the strait (at the start of the next level), widening it.
126	** Some missions actually stick to the myths and not the gameplay:
127	*** Missions with a hostile Poseidon often feature him sending the Cyclops (despite his personal monster being the Kraken).
128	*** Similarly, one level has Athena claim the Hydra was Ares' pet, when normally she's the one sending it.
129	* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
130	** Loading screens and inter-mission exposition reveals that the heroes engaged in epic combat with the monsters. In-game, they close in then beat the snot out of each other until one drops. Particularly painful for Atalanta, who supposedly stunned the sphinx by answering its riddle so it didn't even see her shooting her arrows.
131	** The centaur cities were supposedly razed to the ground by the Atlanteans... except that during the level they behave exactly as regular cities do, continuously sending tribute and being very polite about it.
132	** One mission sends you to Egypt to teach the locals how to build pyramids. The flooding of the Nile is simulated by having tidal waves destroy any coastal buildings.
133	** Anytime a previously-invulnerable city is weakened by the plot (TrojanHorse, Atlantean superweapon...), the only in-game explanation is that [[TooDumbToLive the city's leader has decided to greatly reduce his military.]]
134	** It's entirely possible to react to a city asking for goods by requesting that very same good from them if they produce it ([[WhatTheHellHero including food during a famine]]). [[ExtremeDoormat Not only will they comply if they like you enough]], you can then send part of their gift (which may have been in larger quantities than they asked for) back to earn their gratitude.
135	** Winning a colony level usually only requires that you send a certain amount of local goods to the parent city. As there's usually several cities producing the necessary goods, you can simply ask them for the goods and send them over, with the task of actually organizing the productive infrastructure falling to your successor.
136	* GodhoodSeeker: ''Poseidon''[='=]s first campaign has king Atlas (a son of Poseidon) visit Olympus and eventually beg to live there. By the end of the campaign, he's ascended among the Olympians, and shows up in later campaigns as a worshipable god who helps out with monument building.
137	* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: The gods wander around your city advertising their services to encourage you to build an expensive sanctuary to them. Naturally, there're more gods than available sanctuaries, so the unlucky ones get ever more desperate in their efforts.
138	* GrandpaGod: The Big Three, naturally. Taken literally in ''Poseidon'''s Atlantis campaign, as he's the father of Atlas, himself the father of the player character.
139	* HandicappedBadass: Hephaestus is seen walking with a limp. This doesn't prevent him from rampaging around the city breaking storage yards.
140	-->''A lame immortal still has more power than you can imagine!''
141	* HealerGod: Worshipping Apollo helps prevent plague, but if he's hostile he'll send a plague and curse your infirmaries nd cultural buildings.
142	* HenpeckedHusband: Zeus may be TopGod, but even he fears his wife Hera.
143	* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Averted with Ares, Theseus, Achilles, Hector and hoplites, who always keep their face-concealing helmets on. Athena wears one that doesn't hide her face.
144	* HistoricalFantasy: The game cheerfully mixes history and myth together. For example, the Athens campaign has you fend off the Persians in one level, then battle [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapiths#Centauromachy centaurs]] in the next.
145	* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: In basically every version of ''[[Literature/TheIliad The Iliad]]'' ever, Hector is portrayed as an honorable warrior who serves his city with valor. In ''Zeus'' and ''Poseidon'', Hector is a bloodthirsty demigod who wrecks everyone and everything unfortunate enough to cross his path (often at Aphrodite's command).
146	* HopelessBossFight:
147	** If you're not supposed to conquer a city before the game says so, it will resist every attempt made to conquer it although its strength will be reduced, so the only way to tell is to see a one-shield city defeating eight chariot companies, five triremes, three heroes and a WarGod.
148	** Gods cannot be beaten by anything other than a stronger god (except, sometimes, Orichalcum-powered towers). You're almost always given the ability to build a sanctuary to a stronger god (sometimes Zeus) in the final levels, although the Sparta campaign doesn't and you'll just have to grin and bear it every time Athena comes calling.
149	* HorseOfADifferentColor: Greeks use oxen to carry heavy loads around, while Atlanteans use elephants.
150	* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: The only game in the series to have them. Beginner (very easy), Mortal, Hero, Titan and Olympian (very hard).
151	* IdleAnimation: A building with employees but no resources will show the workers lounging around and playing with yo-yos.
152	* ImmuneToFire: Having a sanctuary dedicated to Hephaestus makes all buildings non-flammable. Unfortunately, because buildings are still susceptible to collapse, you still need maintenance outposts.
153	* InsistentTerminology: According to Athena, what Ares calls "ambush practice" is what most people would call "hide-and-seek".
154	* InstantWinCondition: Colony missions only require you to have a certain amount of resources sent back to the parent city, as you're there to set up basic industries, one of which will be their tribute in following missions. In fact, you can simply ask around for the necessary resources and win in a few minutes.
155	* IrrevocableOrder: If you send your troops to attack a city, and the city decides in the meantime to ally with you, your troops still attack and you're reviled by everyone for being an evil backstabbing bastard.
156	* ItOnlyWorksOnce:
157	** If an attacking city destroys your palace, you can continue playing as their vassal. If you're conquered by someone else and the original conqueror returns and wins, you lose the level.
158	** Summoning a hero only works once per level, if you finish the mission and return you'll have to wait for the hero's presence to be required again.
159	* JerkassGods: In full force. Many attacks by gods are only motivated by a god seeking revenge on another god (or a hero), and harming everything they hold dear... such as your city. And that's if you're lucky and the opening narration explains it, sometimes they just attack without giving you a reason.
160	** This can be averted with a fully-completed (and very expensive) sanctuary for Zeus, as Zeus will chase off any attacking god.
161	* {{Kaiju}}: Every god has a monster they can unleash to guard/attack your city, though sometimes they attack on their own.
162	** Zeus sends [[SmashMook Cyclops]].
163	** Poseidon sends [[KrakenAndLeviathan Kraken]].
164	** Hades sends [[HellHound Cerberus]].
165	** Artemis sends the [[FullBoarAction Calydonian Boar]].
166	** Apollo sends [[MultipleHeadCase Scylla]].
167	** Hermes sends the [[OurMinotaursAreDifferent Minotaur]].
168	** Hephaestus sends [[MechaMooks Talos]].
169	** Aphrodite sends [[Literature/TheIliad Hector]].
170	** Athena sends the [[MultipleHeadCase Hydra]].
171	** Hera sends the [[RiddleOfTheSphinx Sphinx]].
172	** Ares sends a [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragon]].
173	** Demeter sends [[GorgeousGorgon Medusa]].
174	** Dionysus sends a [[DrunkenMaster Maenad]].
175	** Atlas sends the [[ClassicalChimera Chimera]] (instead of the usual three-headed monster, the Chimera consists of a giant lion in front, a goat's body in front, and a snakelike tail).
176	** The [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies Harpy]] (a giant bird with a woman's head) and [[MotherOfAThousandYoung Echidna]] (usually half-snake half woman, here a woman's head on a snake's body) attack on their own.
177	* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Rivals will cave to demands made of them if your military strength is greater than theirs.
178	* LarynxDissonance:
179	** The (male) narrator falls into this when reporting what various goddesses have to say. During the Trojan War campaign, he accidentally uses [[DrillSergeantNasty the Spartan narrator's voice]] for Aphrodite before correcting himself.
180	** The Chimera and Echidna are voiced by men despite being female.
181	* LoveGoddess: Aphrodite's blessing consists of instantly providing population to fill up vacant (that is, that was once occupied before plague, war or emigration emptied it) housing. She just can't stand the idea of having so few worshippers.
182	* LoyalToThePosition: Fail to meet a request by your parent city and the deputy running it in your absence will tell you he's more loyal to the city than you.
183	* MadnessMantra: Walkers carried off by Dionysus and Aphrodite constantly repeat "Toga toga toga!"
184	* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: Hephaestus doesn't figure out Harmonia is the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite until twenty years or so after his wife went off to a beauty spa for nine months. When he does, he attacks the city.
185	* ManChild: If Athena is to be believed, Ares likes to play hide-and-seek with his priests and warriors.
186	* MassiveNumberedSiblings: Atlas has nine brothers, all twins.
187	* MeteorSummoningAttack: The "Fireballs from Heaven" command causes fireballs to crash onto the target area, replacing just about anything under it with rubble that can then be cleared away, including enemies, monsters, gods, rocky terrain, and earthquake cracks (which normally can only be partly neutralized by building roads). The only exception is lava, which becomes walkable terrain but still can't be built upon.
188	* MotorMouth: Hermes (naturally) talks very fast.
189	--> [=I'mHermes!Worshipme,andsomeofyourcitizenswilltastemyspeed!=]
190	* MsFanservice: Goddesses, especially Aphrodite, tend to be very attractive and drawn with low necklines.
191	* MundaneUtility: Inverted with orichalc, which is used first as a building material to decorate monuments and then as a weapon.
192	* {{Narcissist}}: Aphrodite's blessing instantly creates people (if there's housing left over)... so she can have more worshippers.
193	* {{Narm}}: {{Invoked}} One outcome for the Pythian games is for your actors to reduce the crowd to tears. Unfortunately, they were performing a comedy.
194	* NoFlowInCGI: Zeus' hair in the game's introductory CGI cutscene looks like a wig carved from stone.
195	* NoIndoorVoice: The competitor walker is constantly shouting to be heard over the roar of the crowd. Even without a crowd.
196	* NonEntityGeneral:
197	** The player character is the leader of a city, and only referred to as such (even gender is unspecified). In one Atlantis campaign, s/he is the child of Atlas or king Atlon, while another is Penelope's cousin.
198	** Though never named, the player character of the Proetus and Bellerophon campaign is either king Iobates or his (unnamed) wife, the parents of Stethenoboea.
199	* NoodleImplements: The Odyssey campaign has Ulysses thank you for providing you with the materials to defeat various monsters. While the requirement of wine makes sense against the Cyclops (originally, Odysseus got him dead drunk before blinding him) and possibly against Scylla, the dozen-odd jugs of olive oil, high popularity and large amount of elite housing do not.
200	* NostalgiaLevel: The Atlantis level where you build the first Egyptians pyramids plays like a revamped revisitation of Pharaoh with the new engine of Zeus and brings back other unique features like Nile floodings.
201	* NotTheIntendedUse: One of the cheats in the game allows to send fireballs to the clicked location. While it's there to deal with invading armies and monsters, the ''actual'' use most people have with it is bombarding inconvenient spots on the map, like a jagged rock or a [[EarthquakesCauseFissures post-earthquake fissure]], which are then turned into regular rubble and can be permanently removed. This is particularly useful to increase accessability to ore-bearing rocks.
202	* OddballInTheSeries: The tone and artwork are notably more [[LighterAndSofter cartoonish]] than in the rest of the series, with the narration, events and exposition usually relying on sarcasm, silly voices and tongue-in-cheek humor. Also, unlike the other games, ''Zeus'' doesn't use the name of a political, human leader (since Ancient Greece wasn't a unified entity) in the title, but goes with a mythological one instead. Several key mechanics are notably simplified, some of which get reverted in ''Emperor''.
203	* OddJobGods: Some gods' blessings are related to their lesser-known domains as per mythology. For example, Poseidon blesses maritime industries, but also makes horses be produced faster (since he created horses), while Hades makes silver mines more productive (as everything from underground belongs to him).
204	* OfferingsToTheGods: Once a sanctuary is built priests will regularly emerge to collect sacrifices. If a city has goats, sheep, or cattle they'll take those, otherwise grain or food.
205	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Heroic quests beside monster slaying happen offscreen, with some lines at best about the outcome being given. Relief and conquest missions performed by your army receive the same treatment.
206	* OldFashionedFruitStomping: The working animation for the winery shows workers stomping around in the grape vat.
207	* {{Orichalcum}}: Known as orichalc, the ore appears as a red metal in the Poseidon expansion, used in defensive towers, warships, and monument decoration.
208	* OurHydrasAreDifferent:
209	** The Hydra is a fire-spitting monster unleashed by Athena if she doesn't like you (although Ares sends it in one campaign), usually on marshy terrain, and is defeated either by building a Hero's Hall for Hercules [[WeHaveReserves or by sending lots and lots and lots of regular troops at it]]. It can talk, but has a bad case of SssnakeTalk.
210	--->Our ssstinging bitessss are our giftsss to you!
211	** Scylla is depicted with a similar structure (but with human heads on snake necks, and it's aquatic).
212	** The intro cinematic shows Typhon as having multiple snake heads as well before being buried under a mountain.
213	* OurSphinxesAreDifferent: The Sphinx, as a winged female-headed lion, is a monster sent by Hera who can be defeated by summoning Atalanta.
214	* OutdoorBathPeeping: After being the victim one time too many, Artemis sics her pets on the world (Iolchus gets the Calydonian boar).
215	* PaletteSwap: Subverted: Every monster has a unique appearance and preferred target type (food/industry/military/seashore buildings), but are functionally the same (a melee attack and fireballs).
216	* PatronGod: As in the original myths, cities are often declared dedicated to a single god, which causes no small amount of resentment in other gods, who usually attack/sends monsters to your city. As the angry god is often higher on the divine totem pole than the patron god, it's often only in the last few levels of a campaign that you can finally do more than simply endure their attacks and use your own allied Top God to send them packing.
217	** Each god protects a different industry (Poseidon blesses fisheries, Athena blesses olive growers, Artemis blesses hunters, etc.) and the city can build up to 4 temples to these gods to obtain different blessings from them.
218	* PlotArmor: Given to your ''enemies''. Some cities simply aren't meant to be conquered until the game says so (the best way to find out is to send a huge army to attack a practically-defenseless city and watch them come back in defeat). In some cases, rival cities can be conquered through sufficient expenditure of troops, but by the next level the ones you weren't supposed to take over will go right back to being rivals.
219	* PowerupLetdown: Gods who bless buildings don't care if that particular industry has been shut down.
220	* ProtagonistCenteredMorality:
221	** Attacking an ally is a heinous act that ensures no one wants to work with you. Attacking a rival? No problem whatsoever.
222	** Two ''Poseidon'' campaigns play out the same events as Atlanteans and Greeks, the narrator of each proclaiming their side is in the right.
223	* ProfessionalButtKisser: Citizens, heroes, city leaders and even the narration are disturbingly prompt to shower you with praise for running a city without too many problems.
224	* ProudScholarRace: The Atlanteans use science instead of art to improve their housing.
225	* ProudWarriorRace: The Spartan campaign revels in this. Note that despite their constant rivalry with Athens, their troops need exactly the same philosophers and actors to function.
226	* ResourceGatheringMission:
227	** Campaigns are centered on building up a single Greek city, interspersed with building colonies that will then provide the main city with annual tribute (usually the material you were sent to gather) and a trading partner. During the main missions, requirements will usually include storing certain goods for the colony (which are then given to you at the beginning of the level), while the colony requirements themselves are usually limited to sending back the requested amount of whatever trade good the city needed. Here the difficulty is not so much running out of resources as it is building up the infrastructure to collect them with any efficiency (along with natural disasters, demands from the parent city, attacks by rivals, monsters, gods...)
228	** The demands for food by other cities are made much easier by the game now allowing you to send ''any'' type of food. If your relationship with them is good enough, it's even possible to ask for food from another city ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential yes, including the one begging you for famine relief]]) and send it on its way as soon as you receive it.
229	* RiddleOfTheSphinx: She makes it a little easier to guess:
230	--> What crawls on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, three legs at dusk, and screams in abject terror now?
231	* RodentsOfUnusualSize: Atlas mentions a giant gopher, probably a prank on Hermes' part.
232	* SacredHospitality: The game puts you in the unenviable position of having to kill someone under your hospitality- in this case, Bellerophon. He turns out to be TheThingThatWouldNotLeave, so the next mission is to send him against the Chimera.
233	* SadlyMythtaken: Hoo boy.
234	** Among the Twelve Olympians, Hades (who wasn't considered an Olympian because he didn't live on Mount Olympus) replaces Hestia. Most of Hestia's purview is given to Aphrodite instead.
235	** The tutorial subverts this, in that killing the Cyclops causes Poseidon (father of the Cyclopes) to get pissed off at you. In other missions, he's Zeus' special monster.
236	** Poseidon's monster is the Kraken. Note that it's not the GiantSquid of Myth/NorseMythology, it's a giant talking fish-man (closer to the actual SeaMonster killed by Perseus, named Cetus).
237	** In ''Poseidon'', centaurs are apparently a civilized race, responding with complete politeness when defeated. Those in Zeus are the usual drunken brutes, forever demanding that you send them wine.
238	** There are two entities named Atlas in Myth/GreekMythology: the Titan (son of Gaia and Ouranos) holding up the sky and the first king of Atlantis (son of Poseidon), neither of which was a god. [[CompositeCharacter The game conflates the two after the latter ascends to Olympus.]]
239	** Atalanta's only claim to monster-slaying in myth was participating in the hunt for the Calydonian boar (which Theseus kills in-game), here she kills the Sphinx (instead of Oedipus solving its riddle) and the Harpy (instead of Jason).
240	* ScriptBreaking: During the Trojan campaign, you cannot attack Troy until the war itself begins. When the war begins Troy receives a massive boost in military strength shortly into the mission, making it effectively unassailable without going through the rest of the campaign. However there is a short interval where you can invade and conquer Troy before they receive the boost. They will then remain your faithful vassal throughout the campaign, massively cutting down the number of invasions you'll have to face, while the story will continue to treat Troy as an enemy. In the final mission you'll even need to re-invade Troy despite them being a vassal in order to win the war.
241	* SexSells: Aphrodite is particularly unsubtle about the way her services work.
242	-->''Worship me, and no one will leave your city's embrace!''
243	* TheShowMustGoWrong: The drama school shows the actor walker dangling upside down, tangled up in the mechanism that descends him from above. The theater uses the same animation.
244	* ShoutOut:
245	** Just about every line issued by a walker refers to a character/monster from Myth/ClassicalMythology or a famous ancient Greek (regardless of whether or not said famous Greek was even born at the time).
246	** The actor school's line "Build me a pyre to roast my friends upon" is almost a literal quotation from ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}'', as are "For Athens' sake I will never threaten so fell a doom" and "If only they had been invited to a Bacchic reveling, or a feast of Pan or Aphrodite!" (and is indeed one of the women's lines, being spoken by Lysistrata herself).
247	** "My advice to you is, get married. If you find a good wife, you will be happy. If not, you'll become a philosopher" is from Socrates.
248	** "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation" is attributed to Plato.
249	** The game's developer acknowledges in the manual a debt to late-night reruns of ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' for inspiration, which is evident in the game's much sillier, campier tone in comparison to ''Caesar III'' and ''Pharaoh''. Certain snippets of Keith Zizza's score echo some of Joseph [=LoDuca=]'s ''Xena'' themes, and the gods notably appear and disappear with the ''exact same'' visual and sound effects as they do in ''Xena''.
250	* SillinessSwitch:
251	** "Mammaldrome" replaces the horsemen in a hippodrome with deer, wolves, boars and bulls.
252	** "Cheese Puffs" puts cheesemakers in cheese costumes.
253	** "Bowvine and Arrows" causes towers to shoot cows.
254	* SimpleYetAwesome: Avenues and Boulevards allow you to connect a building to a road while being one tile away, allowing them to keep road access while letting superintendants go on a longer route as they don't have to take a twisting path. And of course, prettying up the place.
255	* SkippableBoss: Curiously enough, the monsters don't always have to be killed (unless specifically required), only blocking off one area from urban development. In campaigns, leaving them alone until the last mission can actually be beneficial, as this leaves you with extra heroes for battle abroad (as heroes' halls disappear from mission to mission and can't be rebuilt unless a quest/monster requires their presence).
256	* SssnakeTalk: Sssscylla and the hydra, with ssssimilar lines to boot.
257	--> "Ssssuffer my sssstingsss!" / "Our ssstinging bitessss, are our giftsss to you!"
258	* SmallNameBigEgo: The actor walker refers to himself as the finest actor in all of Greece. When returning from unsuccessful games, [[NeverMyFault he wonders if the audience are becoming barbarians.]]
259	* SmashMook: The Cyclops, who proudly proclaims himself one when selected.
260	--> Smash smash smash! Bwahahahahahah!
261	* SoreLoser:
262	** If your athletes didn't get first at the Nemean/Olympic games, they'll claim the sun was in their eyes or that the jury was rigged. Similarly, the actor bemoans Greece's descent into uncivilized barbarism if he didn't win the acting competition.
263	** Several missions have gods attack your city [[IfICantHaveYou because they weren't awarded ownership of it.]]
264	* {{Stellification}}: If your city doesn't have enough food in ''Poseidon: Master of Atlantis'', the Astronomer expresses a wish to become a constellation so he wouldn't be so hungry.
265	* SuckinessIsPainful: According to the narrator, Hercules scaring off the Stymphalian birds was less the effect of his playing the castanets and more the fact that Hercules decided to dance the flamenco while doing so.
266	* SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome: Gods that were friendly in one adventure may become enemies in the next (and vice-versa).
267	* SuperNotDrowningSkills: Heroes on their way to kill monsters will take the most direct route, instantly producing rafts if they need to cross water.
268	* SuperPersistentPredator: After Jason retrieves the Golden Fleece, the dragon that was guarding it follows him and attacks you (and gets there before Jason does).
269	* SuperSpeed: Hermes' speed rubs off on traders and deliverymen so they can make more trips in a year.
270	* SuperStrength: One of Hercules' quests in ''Poseidon'' is to widen the strait that connects the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Atlas himself performs a similar feat after tricking Hercules into holding up the sky for a while.
271	* SuperweaponSurprise: ''Very'' surprising: The Atlanteans, under Ares' guidance, are building a superweapon to deal with Greek threats once and for all. Unfortunately, Odysseus manages to infiltrate and fire the weapon at Atlantis itself, destroying the sanctuary of Poseidon, before sabotaging it so it can't be used again. It's used in the final level to weaken Mycenae, and in another campaign where it succeeds in destroying Atlantis.
272	* SupportPartyMember:
273	** Building Atlas' sanctuary first greatly speeds up construction of other monuments.
274	** Hermes makes walkers... walk faster, and sometimes answers requests without consuming your resources.
275	* TheStarscream: Miss a deadline by a parent city, and your deputy tells he he's starting to think he might be better at running a city than you.
276	* TakenForGranite: The fate of people who run into Medusa or orichalcum-enhanced towers. This can include ''gods''.
277	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: The trader does not mince words if you have a bad rep:
278	--> Are you talking to me? You and your city are ''scum'', and everybody in Greece hates you!
279	* TheThingThatWouldNotLeave: Bellerophon turns out to be one, demanding sumptuous living quarters for himself in just about every level he's in (in the Biminis mission, you need to summon him on a tiny, cramped island that barely has enough resources for the city, so that he can go look for the FountainOfYouth for Aphrodite).
280	* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: Monsters ''can'' be defeated by using military units and very rarely by the "wrong" hero, but it takes so long you might as well develop the infrastructure needed to get the appropriate hero to the city so he can one-shot the monster.
281	* TinyHeadedBehemoth: Hercules and the cyclops share this design.
282	* TopGod:
283	** The gods are arranged in order of strength, with Zeus naturally being at the top. However, he's not entirely invulnerable, as having Hera (the 4th strongest) around will cause him to flee (if he's attacking).
284	** Aphrodite isn't a very high-level goddess, but she prevents Dionysus, Ares, Hephaestus and Hermes from attacking.
285	* ToplessnessFromTheBack: Medusa appears like this on a loading screen.
286	* UriahGambit: The narrator suggests you use Bellerophon to conquer the Amazons and Persians, as they're said to be good shots.
287	* UnblockableAttack: Gods can't be prevented from rampaging around without a stronger god (and even then, defending gods don't always react immediately to the invaders' presence). Monsters can be attacked by troops and a different hero, but it takes a long time to kill one without the appropriate hero. Ares and Artemis' troops can be engaged as normal, however.
288	* UnreliableNarrator: The Atlantean narrator seems blissfully unaware that his actions might be interpreted as BlatantLies by people unhappy with Atlantean expansionism.
289	* UnusualEuphemism: Aphrodite's title is "Goddess of the Tender Passions".
290	* UnwantedAssistance:
291	** Hermes will sometimes fulfill a request with his own supplies whether you want him to or not, leading to rival leaders condescendingly thanking you for caving to their demands.
292	** Tributes and offers of aid are often sent when you have no need of them, and building storage facilities or giving away surplus goods can be a major hassle. Despite the offended tone of the reactions to refusing the gifts, it doesn't affect intercity relations in any way.
293	** You can do this to other cities by continuously sending them goods until they tell you to stop (even with money).
294	** An InUniverse case during the Odyssey campaign, where the suitors figured out Penelope wasn't making any progress on her tapestry because their excessive gifts of fleece kept getting refused.
295	* UnwinnableByDesign:
296	** The "Open Play" adventures have no victory requirements for their final mission, meaning you just build until bored.
297	** "The Mayan Adventure" has a single UndefeatableLittleVillage that will never be conquered, no matter how many huge armies you send at them, as the "Ruler has dismissed most of his military" event never triggers.
298	* VideoGameDelegationPenalty:
299	** Inverted with bribing armies. This is much faster than actually fighting, which cuts into your manpower, slowing down production for months, and frees you from having to maintain expensive troops. That said, if you maintain zero troops whatsoever (or have an all-elite army and send all of them to war) other cities will happily attack you.
300	** Played straight with the auto-combat system in which troop movements are handled by the computer, usually resulting in entirely avoidable losses because the troops only go to their preset positions instead of defending outlying suburbs.
301	** Honoring the gods can net you some very interesting blessings such as increasing trade frequency or instantly killing enemy armies. However, to prevent you from getting overly reliant on them there is a limit to how often you can pray/hold festivals per year. Furthermore, sacrifices regularly eats up your sheep/goats/cattle/food, which need to be manually replaced (there's no automatic warning that your livestock population is getting low, meaning your first hint is all your housing simultaneously devolving to hovels or shacks and the catastrophic loss of manpower that entails).
302	* VoiceOfTheLegion:
303	** Scylla speaks with multiple male and female voices.
304	** Demeter usually has a refined accent. But if she's your enemy...
305	--> At my bidding, fertile farmland will no longer be fertile, and all that is growing upon it, will '''''die.'''''
306	* WackyFratboyHijinks: The College (which trains philosophers) prominently features a guy getting drunk, while the University (astronomers and curators) has two guys endlessly repeating the "Thank you sir, may I have another" scene from ''Film/AnimalHouse.''
307	* WalkingShirtlessScene: Theseus and Hercules.
308	* WalkingWasteland: If Hephaestus is an enemy, he sets buildings on fire just by walking past them.
309	* WarGod: Ares can be prayed to go alongside your soldiers, while Athena stays at home but boosts their ability.
310	* WellDoneSonGuy: Averted: Atlas regularly approves his child's achievements, and in fact ends the campaign claiming to be proud to be your father.
311	* WelcomeToCorneria: Some buildings such as theaters and podiums have a few lines they endlessly repeat.
312	* WeNeedADistraction: Hera comes up with a quest to aid the Atlanteans against the Zeus-sponsored Greeks: Have Zeus catch her and Jason in a compromising situation, distracting him long enough for you to fire a weapon against Mycenae.
313	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's never explained what happened to the Oceanids after Atlantis sank, preventing contact between Europe and America for centuries.
314	* WhyWontYouDie: Despite everyone's best efforts, Bellerophon just will not die. Even falling from a flying horse fails to do him in.
315	* TheWorfEffect: For a WarGod, Ares is quite low on the ladder, and sending him on far-off campaigns isn't the surefire success it should be.
316	* WorthyOpponent: A title bestowed on you by rivals if their opinion of you increases (usually by winning pan-Hellenic games or attacking a rival).
317	* YourSizeMayVary: Sculptures are taller than most buildings when in storage and in temples, but shrink to human-size while transported.

Context VideoGame / ZeusMasterOfOlympus