We’ve
all heard the phrase ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, but what does it really
mean? Time to check out Caesar III.
In CIII you will see first hand how the Roman Empire rose to
such great heights, and it will be due to your ability to manage resources
and build shipping and trading routes as well as commanding forces in the
field. As the game progresses you will see that a true empire doesn’t get
built in a single day. You certainly won't build your empire in a single sitting.
We concentrate our reviews on combat simulations here, and this is one game
where the combat action is weak at best. Although Caesar III suffers this
shortcoming, it is an excellent strategy game that will give you hours of
challenge. Being a mission based game it is up to you the gamer to choose
which path you wish to take with each mission; peaceful or hostile.
Immigrants heading your way
In peaceful missions you will be faced with objectives such as
building
a larger populace, creating effective trade routes as well as ensuring
that your community prospers and increases in proportion to the goals
Caesar
sets forth for you. You’re hired on as a low-level government official
and Caesar gives you simple goals at first to test your ability (and to
ease you, the gamer, into the gameplay.) Once you’ve accomplished these
you
are rewarded with further provinces to govern, and build each
increasingly
more difficult and involved.
In
hostile missions you will be faced with the same above challenges as well
as military ones. Tasks such as defending your province through building
defensive structures and troop barracks will add more management challenges
for you to tackle.
Feedback from your citizens
Unlike
Microsoft’s Age Of Empires, this game is strictly single player. But
don’t let that turn you off, this one has so much to offer in terms of
flexibility and replayability; you’ll never miss multiplayer. Having the
opportunity to choose from either a peaceful or hostile province is like
having two games in one. Add to that the added choice of a city building
kit that allows you to build your city your own way without following Caesars
agenda, and you now have three games in one.
Chief advisor gives his assessment.
I
had played my old copy of Sim City to death years ago and was happy to
find Caesar III has a stunning resemblance in playability to that old favorite
of mine. I love combat sims, I love blowing stuff up and causing massive
carnage. But I also have the desire to build instead of destroy,
and Caesar III now has a permanent place on my hard drive because of it's
incredibly enjoyable and challenging substance.
The combat model in the game is very simple and for
this reason may turn off fans of RTS combat titles. You basically build
one of three military structures: a barracks, military academy or
a fort. Unlike AOE, your troops are automatically created for you.
Combat
is carried out by selecting the unit you wish to use and pointing them
to the place on the map you wish them to move to or unit to attack.
They
will then travel to the destination and battle will commence.
As
simple as this is, it serves it's purpose, because Caesar III was
not intended to be primarily a combat game, but rather a strategy title
of empire building. I had hoped for a bit more in the combat department
and if that’s all you’re looking for you may be disappointed. After
having tried the combat side
of the game I’ve stayed away from it because I just can’t get enough
of the city building side. There’s so much more to do here than in any
combat game, and I prefer to concentrate on honing my governing skills.
Your city grows!
On starting
the game you are given your assignment via courier from Caesar. A starting
allotment of funds and a piece of wilderness to build on is yours, then
it’s up to you to bring in immigrants. You set up plots of land for sale
for housing for people to occupy, construct farms to feed your people
and ensure there are proper roads to allow access to all facilities.
Building
an effective road network is one area of this game you will find a bit
frustrating at first, as your people have a tendency to wander almost aimlessly
down roads unless you lead them to and from proper avenues. If you want
people to get to the market you must build a road that will lead them to
the market, the same for the theaters, granaries, and other structures
you build. After a few times playing through missions you’ll get the hang
of it, and thankfully Sierra has made this an adaptive game where you start
small and slowly increase size with each mission.
Time for a festival.
As
governor you must take into account not only food and housing but religious
well being, as not only do your people need this but the Gods demand it.
There are five Gods: Ceres, Neptune, Mercury, Mars and Venus who demand
tribute or you can incur their wrath. This is accomplished through building
temples for each respective God as well as holding festivals. Please them
and your people and city will prosper, forget about them and they can make
life miserable for you. I recommend holding festivals as often as you can,
at least every couple of months.
Once
you’ve established your basic needs such as people and farming to supply
food you must supply your city with water in the form of reservoirs and
fountains. Health concerns are managed through hospitals, doctors
and bath houses. Security and building upkeep is done through proper placement
of prefectures and engineer posts. These will provide you with workers
who will inspect and fix crumbling structures as well as the local ‘bucket
brigade’ to deal with fires.
No food... no people.
As
your city increases in size you’ll need to keep a good eye on food supplies
and even start a trade route to other parts of the Empire to increase your
cash flow and provide further foodstuffs and other necessities. Creating clay pits and lumber yards will allow you
to make pottery and furniture both for export as well as local sale which
will increase the desirability for people to live in your city. Failure
to keep your people well fed and happy can hurt the growth of your city.
The
interface is very intuitive and easy to navigate, allowing you to pick
it up in one sitting. Sierra really has made this game an enjoyable experience
from the first minute of play. All aspects of your city are controled from
this all-encompassing interface, allowing easy access to information on
any portion of your city as well as help from advisors.
A city alive.
Helpful
hints don’t stop at your advisors either, as you can easily right click
on any of your citizens as they roam about your city and get instant
feedback
from them. “This city needs more workers” is one you’ll hear from them
quite often (especially if you build more structures than you can
furnish employees for early in the game). It’s best to pace your
building in accord with
how many citizens you have living in your city or you can find yourself
short on cash in a hurry, with no people to do the work.
The
citizen animations are quite nice and amusing, a lot of good detail here.
Build a theater and watch as people sit down to enjoy the performer onstage;
see school children skip about through the town after class lets out; carts
get pushed by workers from farms to granaries and more. The animations
bring this city to life and make you feel involved in the game, giving
you a sense of caring for your citizens.
An empire in the making.
The
bottom line on this one is that I love it. If you’re looking for a
challenging strategy/building title this is one you should not miss. The
combat model is not great but it does do the job; this is a game of building
and management. Add to that some excellent graphics and citizen animations
and we have an instant winner!
