I've been having the same issue since 2007 or so when I bought a faster computer, with both the original version and later the GoG version as well.

The game should use timer-based animations so they look the same speed on every computer, but for some animations they apparently tied the animation to the refresh cycle of the graphics. In short that means the faster your computer, the faster the animation will be. The hippodrome spectators have the same issue.

The slow gods bug, that I've only been experiencing on my last 2 computers, seems more related to graphics/sound drivers, not just the speed of the computer (though it does play a role). While the hyper traders and hippodrome guys are just eye-candy, those slow gods are really annoying

Yeah, I've noticed it, but I learned not to really worry about it. Zeus is a very old game, so the timings were probably hard coded for slower CPU's, and obviously were never fixed for more modern CPU's. If you want a god in quickly, just set up to 100% and then slow it back down.

This is brought up on the Gog forum for the game. I don't know if this works, but you could try reducing how many cores the game runs on. You can do this from the task manager. On win 10 it's in the details page, right click on Zeus and click on "set affinity" and reduce it to one core.

And iirc It is a issue with god summoning times being coded differently from the other things, so they will appear later then they should.

rather then setting affinity every instance of starting zeus or posd; or scripting the startup pif...

Right click the 'Zeus.exe' in the impression games folder, choose properties, click 'compatibility tab', click "change settings for all users(will need admin log-in password), set to run in "windows 98/windows me"(this triggers the startup to run only on 1 core), might as well check the "disable display scaling on high DPI settings', click apply, then ok.

Being deaf, I disable(turn off all sound stuff), but for hearing-abled turning off "3D sound" in the 'sound options' is usually enough to avoid most of the slow gods stuff.

Zeus.ini should look something like this for 3.2Ghz processor in case the cpuspeed test was bypassed.
[Config]
CDDrive=D
RAM=2047
CPU=3193

Use a new shortcut to launch zeus as the pif's in 'Program files' don't play well. I delete them or recreate them, since the install is in C:/Impression anyway.

In any case, its best to go through the entire in-game "options" menu to initially set-up for the way your going to play. "windows mode" is likely the best unless you want to fiddle with your graphics card to display the 4x3 aspect ratio for HD displays or use a 'widescreen hack'.

Zeus like EMperor can mess with the desktop scaling. the [F5] trick works but many win10 windows still experience minor size/scaling issues until you log out and back in.

[This message has been edited by user3 (edited 02-13-2017 @ 02:53 PM).]