Ceasar III
Published by Sierra
Similar to Age of Empires, Pharoah
Rating (1 - 10) 7
Reviewer Graham Freeman
Review date July 2002

I first installed C3 in the 90's. Wow, that dates it, but it stands the test of time, and I've reinstalled it a couple of times now. It's first outing with me was on a sluggish W95 machine, and I was used to the slow speeds of other games on my PC so I didn't know if the speed was me, my machine or the game. It was the PC, honest. There were annoying bugs in the initial release of C3, but the latest patches solved those problems. I played for a while, and got sidetracked by AoE and Civ, so C3 was put to one side.

A new PC and a new O/S later (Win2K), and I was aching for some RTS one bored weekend. So I reinstalled C3, found it didn't work with Win2K, and I cursed Microsoft. Luckily I have cable internet at home, so a Win2K O/S patch later and C3 was up and running again. I praised Microsoft.

Enough of the preamble. C3 has a great intro, clear instructions for the tutorial and a set of scenarios that are pretty well thought out. In a nutshell: Draw roads, allocate living areas (population move in automatically), place buildings. Sounds like Sim City? Sure, but don't they all? With C3, when you place a building (such as a temple), a worker from that building walks along the road you laid, supplying building related services to the houses he passes. Specific examples - Temple walkers ensure that the buildings they pass have the religious services they require, Engineer walkers passing a building ensure that building doesn't fall down for a short while, and Market walkers supply food to the buildings they pass, though only the foodstuffs that are available at that market. More on this later. So putting the buildings in the right places around your houses is important, but just as important is the road layout, else your walkers clear off in the opposite direction you want them to. Fewer road junctions = more control over the walkers.

The living areas you allocate allow immigrants to flow onto the map and pitch a tent. That tent could evolve into higher forms of accommodation, depending on the supplies and services delivered to it by walkers. Food (of various types at each market), religion, health services, luxuries - all help getting that tent evolving into a villa, but without a water supply, it's still a tent. There's a stepped evolution of buildings - adding the next supply or service will allow it to evolve into the next level of accommodation. Usually this means that more people can live there, but can also mean that the inhabitants cough up more in tax. For this you need to place a tax building, and a tax walker to collect money from the buildings he passes. Getting the picture now?

You can spend money like there's no tomorrow - it's very easy. But run out, and your boss gets annoyed. In this game, you are not Ceasar - you work for him. The idea is to complete all the scenarios and campaigns and become Ceasar yourself. But while he calls the shots, you have to keep your Denari balance in the black. Sure he'll bail you out. Once. But keep spending what you ain't got, and he'll send round an army to crush you. So if possible, start up an industry, like pottery, or crops. You can set up trading routes and export your produce, but that has it's own perils - the Gods. Boy can they be fickle. Not enough temples to Neptune and the rivers get too rough for your ships. That means no overseas trade. Not enough temples to Ceres means your crops die. Oh oh - not enough food to export and maybe not enough to supply your markets. Starving citizens move out of the city...

There is an element of combat in this game, and if you'd rather concentrate on the economics of C3, there's a handy choice of routes to become Ceasar. Beat the crap out of your neighbours, by building up an army, or trade your way to success. It's fun doing both, and though I long for a C4, the developers brought out Pharoah and followed it up with Zeus. A nice RTS, but not a top ten game, IMO. Give it a go.

Graham Freeman

 


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