Ancient Rome Farming

The Danger of Living on Bread and Circuses: Alice Schroeder

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Rome in the first two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf between rich and poor. The mighty empire built on tribute reached its geographic limits. Its economy created few exportable goods. Slaves acquired by conquest built most of its bridges, roads and aqueducts and took jobs in farming, mining and construction. As this cheaper labor replaced Roman citizens, idle, unemployed, hungry people filled the capital.

The Caesars created make-work and part-time jobs, subsidized housing and doled out grain. Even more, they found, was needed. “A people that yawns is ripe for revolt,” wrote Jerome Carcopino in “Daily Life in Ancient Rome.”

The emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public executions and chariot races. Disgusted, the satirist Juvenal accused his fellow citizens of selling out for bribes of “bread and circuses.” The Romans did nothing to prove him wrong, until two centuries later the empire was divided forever and Rome was sacked by Visigoths.

The complicated causes of Rome’s decline have long fascinated historians, and provide a lens through which to examine the vulnerability of other dominant cultures. Americans’ addiction to entertainment has been compared to the circuses of ancient Rome. We can, and do, spend much of our free time watching dreck on TV like “Half Pint Brawlers,” about a company of self-styled “midget wrestlers” who attack each other with staple guns and broken bottles. In fact, in 2009, people over age 15 spent an average of 58 percent of their leisure time watching television, playing games and using the Internet -- an increase of 16 percent from 2003.

Digital Age

When entertainment dominates a society, it changes more than the culture; it also reshapes the economy. You can see that circuses are where the money is from the rise of digital entertainment, which has steered enormous amounts of discretionary income toward digital content and the devices that run it: laptops, televisions, gaming consoles, smart phones. In the decade leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the only major industry other than health care that consistently showed strong real growth was consumer electronics.

Although hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benefits. We produce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S.

Farm Frenzy: Ancient Rome Review | Gamezebo

. It seems that one of the helpful dolphins managed to find series heroine Scarlett an ancient book that, coincidentally enough, is about a young girl named Scarlett from ancient Rome who spent much of her life farming away. Sound familiar? Farming, it seems, is in Scarlett’s blood. Which would explain why she does so much of it. The story takes place across several chapters and, as with previous releases, you’ll be treated to short and simple, comic book-style cut-scenes in between levels.

As for gameplay, there really is nothing new here. If you’ve somehow managed to escape the series up until now, it works like this: you get water from a well, use it to plant grass, and animals eat the grass. The animals will create products -- geese, for example, lay eggs -- and those products can then be further refined to create additional products. Eggs make egg powder, egg powder makes cookies, and cookies make cakes. And so on and so forth. New animals are introduced, you can upgrade your equipment, and there are 90 levels each of which gives you certain tasks to complete within a certain amount of time. You’ll need to earn certain sums of money, collect a certain number of eggs, or bake a certain number of cakes.

Oh, and the bears are back. Only this time they’re wearing horned helmets and wielding clubs. That makes them barbarian bears! And that’s about all the change you can expect from Ancient Rome : aesthetic ones. There is nothing new in terms of actual gameplay. Worse still, the minor aesthetic changes show absolutely no creativity. Most of the animals, and even the machines, are reused from previous games. Apparently cake-making technology hasn’t changed at all since the peak of the Roman Empire.

What makes this all the more frustrating is the existence of a game called Terrfarmers had a fun and charming aquatic theme. Ancient Rome , in contrast, is pretty dull. It’s simply another field, only this time it’s surrounded by cobblestones and old buildings. The animals are geese and sheep and cats and dogs, all things we’ve seen before. Many times before.