Ikariam takes place in the Greco-Roman era, and your goal is to build a far-reaching empire that has control over many different islands and resources. Plainly put, you must expand and conquer with the best of them, and Ikariam manages to make it interesting and fun rather than drab. While the game drops you in with no seeming protection right off the bat, there does not seem to be an issue with newer players being attacked, which is a definite plus for a game like this.

The first noticeable thing about Ikariam is the interface. It is cleanly designed, with a minimalist aesthetic that hides the true complexity of the game. Almost everything is instantly accessible with a single click, and you can also check your advisors at any time by clicking on their portraits in the top right. Advisors are separated into four groups, each of which corresponds to an important aspect of Ikariam: Town, Military, Research, and Diplomacy. While you can use some functions of the advisors, the more advanced functions (which are nice, but not necessary in the long run) are blocked unless you have Ambrosia, the microtransaction resource.

First comes the main town area, which is where you will spend most of your time in Ikariam. Here you can see your resources for that town, all of the available plots to build on, and your actual buildings. Every colony has two ports, one wall, and ten building slots. As there are many more than ten building types, you must specialize your colonies a little in order to grow as a nation. Some of the many buildings include embassies, warehouses, academies, taverns, and carpenters There's quite a variety, and each building has its own sub-screen in which you can control and upgrade it. Want to change a particular academy on one colony to research something else? Go for it. You can tweak your colonies all you like through the individual building screens, and it's a great way to visually represent all of that strategy without confusing players. Note that you can't use building queues with microtransactions.

The island view is much like the town view, only it shows individual towns instead of buildings. Anywhere marked with a yellow flag is habitable and can support a colony, any structure with a red flag is another player, and any structure with a blue flag is something you can use. There are your towns, and there's also the mines as well. These gives you wood, stone, wine, glass, or sulfur, and there is only one non-wood mine per island, necessitating that an empire spread itself through the island chains.

Next is military. The military is governed through your barracks, the military summary, and the island screens. The barracks determines what troops you have to fight for or against you. Soldiers such as slingers, phalanxes, and swordsmen are all part of your forces in Ikariam, and from the get go you can begin recruiting. Once you have soldiers, you can send them out to attack other colonies by using the island screen to select pillage. You have to send trade ships as well to hold all the loot, which is an interesting way to merge the two elements together. Finally, the results of all battles and which armies are where can be seen on the summary screen with the military advisor.

Next comes research, which is a simple field that plays a heavy role in how your colonies grow. Research is empire-wide, meaning that you only ever have to research something once and it is yours forever. Research is done in the Academy only, which is where you assign members of the populous to work. However, research also affects things other than just unlocking new capabilities. For example, research can increase the flow of wood from your woodcutter as well as boost the effectiveness of your carpenter, which does the same thing. It's a very important, and always active, part of your management.

Finally comes diplomacy. This part of Ikariam is rather touchy, as it involves dealing with other players, but Ikariam does not seem to suffer from a poisonous community like many browser MMOs, so it's not that bad. Diplomacy is where you do actions such as declaring war, annexing, and such. It's also where you send out and check on the reports of spies, which give you an accurate reading of the town they are sent to. Intelligence is everything, so spies play a big part in your overall strategy. Once again, an almost essential feature has been left out. In this case, it is data collection, and in order to collect all the data in one place, you have to use microtransactions to unlock it.

Ikariam is simple and complex at the same time. Your average expansionist won't mind simply gathering gold, wood, and ships to go and establish new colonies in which to further plunder the land. For those that are looking for a little something more, there's always pillaging and military conflict to spicen things up. It manages to appeal to both the conqueror and colonizer archetypes of strategy players at once, and that is a difficult feat to pull off for just about any game that is not Civilization. So no matter your style, chances are you will find something to enjoy.