Ikariam is a free to play RTS browser game from Gameforge, publishers of popular MMO titles such as Wizard101 and 4Story. The game is based in the era of Gods and Soldiers in Ancient Greece, featuring colorful and detailed graphics that has you playing on a sand filled island in the Mediterranean.

As with many MMORTS titles, resource management is vital. Ikariam offers a total of 5 collectible resources including Wine, Marble, Crystal Glass, Sulphur and Building Materials with each resource being valuable and useful in its own way. To harvest the various resources available you must first create villagers to live on your island and then task them with collecting your resource of choice, the more villagers you have gathering any particular resource, the faster it will accumulate.

Technology plays a large role in how your island will survive in terms of fighting NPC towns and other players. You start off with very basic units but as you expand your island and begin progressing in the game, you will gain access to the Research Building. You can tell your scientists what to research and how quickly to do it, you will soon find that you're able to recruit far stronger units and use technology more familiar to Ancient Greece such as siege weaponry and catapults.

Trading is very important in Ikariam, sometimes your plot of land will lack a particular resource but be abundant in others, this usually means you will have a large amount of a resource that you don't really need. Once you build a Trading Port and add a few Trading Ships you will be able to export a various number of resources to other players in return for resources your island is lacking. This forces players to create diplomatic type relations with other players, especially if you find yourself often short of the same resources.