Very addicting, "just one more turn!"

This is a game of making the right choices at the right time. The world is static, made of a cartoon-like village with its districts and people working in them. Animation is minimal, there to simply indicate activity; like an animated picture. The picture is filled with additions indicating increased capacity, output etc. So the eye candy is minimal but satisfying.
The available choices include adding or increasing population, production, cultural value, trade, troops, and gold. These reflect more or less the economic power of your people. There are other choices as well that affect relations with the rest of the world. These have to do with familiar historical events such as the Dorian invasion of the Hellenic region, Alexander the Greats conquests, the Rise of the Romans, Christianity, and Islam and more. To manage these events the player is given interesting choices each with its consequences. For example, will you defeat the Romans for them to never be empire? Or will you submit to use their help when other forces descend upon you?
The game rewards the player well for bold choices: defeat and push back on every annoyance knocking at your door to become the mighty United of the world. But to do this you must prepare well. Every choice made has to gain you the max benefit and must particularly take into consideration the timing of it. Boost production on this turn, or is it better to pull back and boost culture. Invest people and gold on troops or buy troops through trade?
The historically based events appear at prescribed times, and thats cool. One benefit to the player is that with every repetition of the game the player can learn to make better choices. Other events that provide bonuses or cause turmoil seem to be different every time. I dont think theyre random entirely because I felt that when I could use some help I got just enough to keep me in the fight and when I was really ahead I received a well placed challenge. However Im not sure if this is true or just luck that had it that way. Regardless, undesirable famines or lucky strikes of receiving gold were well placed indeed.
At some point the game feels like a rubics cube. After the first few runs at it, I chose to restart a game just because Id realize making an error that would cost me much later. And I like that theres no save option. Because that would take away from the replay ability. The game will save if you exit out of it at the beginning of your last turn. So if you make one of those fast click errors, you can recover. But you cant try this and that and choose the best outcome two turns later.
The game is tough on the easy setting. Period. I think if you want to beat it on hard youll need to have very good memory of your past attempts or pull out a notebook and a calculator to track events and figure out how to maximize your gains with every turn. Doing so at the right timing however will involve long term strategic thinking or to be less fancy, good time management.
Some things Id like to have more help on from the get go would be the relation between farming, population, and starvation. I know the answer to starvation is more farm or less people but somehow I still starve my people from time to time; it sneaks up on me. I think the use of "people faces" icon for both farming and people confuses me, not sure.
Also, Id like to know if the relation to others affects anything more than the cost to becoming allies. Does it matter if another city worships mine if were allies already?
Other things in the game became more clear by playing and watching how numbers were affected, a bit tedious. Better would be to have more explanation in the help section. The tips provided at the end of a game, specifically for failed missions, were very helpful, and you dont have to follow them necessarily to "win" but it helps a lot.
Some folks have mentioned the difficulty of the game. I wont spoil the pleasure of figuring it all out with everything Ive noticed but Ill give these two tips: just because you have the resources to build a building, it doesnt mean you should. Maybe its best to wait to collect more resources for what you really need next. Same goes for envoys, scouts, settlers, and traders. Holding onto them for the right moment later may some times be the better choice.
Overall, its fun playing this challenging game? Buy it, its worth it.

MrSqueezeMe about The Marble Age