Caesar III

by Vivendi Universal

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000031KJX
• Item Weight: 4 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: August 27, 1999
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,006 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC

Amazon.com Review

Caesar III is a city building and management simulation that transports players back to ancient Rome, letting them live the life of a provincial governor. It's your job to create an environment that will attract citizens, keep those people fed and supplied with fresh water, and defend the city walls from jealous and greedy enemies. As if that's not enough, you also have to meet the demands of your caesar or face... dismissal.

We were eased into the career mode with a series of easy tutorials that gave us a good feel for the basic game mechanics. After that the challenges were legion, but the rewards for good city planning and wise financial management were worth the effort. It is satisfying to create a self-sufficient and profitable city that can fend off enemy attacks and produce productive, educated citizens.

Cities really come to life, thanks to the game's detailed graphics. Fountains, statues, and gardens can be used to pretty things up, and all the familiar Roman landmarks like the Colosseum and Hippodrome will eventually end up dominating the landscape. We whiled away many hours with Caesar III's City Construction Kit, which lets players build a city without the goals of career mode hanging over their heads. Any fans of the SimCity titles should enjoy Caesar III, and its unique setting and fun gameplay should attract even those who didn't like that related series of games. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Roman theme makes for some challenging historical considerations
• You have to both build a city and defend it from invaders

Cons:

• Demands from the caesar can be unfair (and sometimes impossible to meet)

Product Description

Build rule and defend Product InformationAs a provincial governor charged with spreading the glory of Rome your missionis clear; build cities foster trade and industry make money.  How youaccomplish this entirely up to you. Gain wealth and power make a career out ofpleasing the emperor battle Barbarians and repel invaders or concentrate onbuilding the next Eternal City. Fail and you'll end up as lunch for the lions.Prove your strength of mind and spirit and you just may be crowned Caesar!Product Features Build rule and defend on one screen - no more switching between city province and battle screens. Use the City Construction Kit to build the perfect city or climb the ladder of Roman politics with a career. Now your citizens can give you a glimpse into the life of the common man - talk to them for clues about how to improve your city. Appease 5 gods with temples and festivals. Each god has its own sphere of influence; Please Ceres and your crops will thrive. But dishonor Neptune and watch your trade ships sink into the sea. Various new structures and challenges arise throughout your governor's career for tremendous depth of play and replay-ability. A truly intuitive helpful interface let's you jump right in and start building. Additional FeaturesPlayers of Caesar III are immersed in a city simulation set inthe age of the ancient Roman Empire. Players place buildings on previouslyempty terrain and construct a city. These buildings come to life and thecity begins to evolve. As the city grows it encounters various problemswhich must be overcome. Players have specific objectives to achieve althoughmany players will not use these but rather will content themselves indesigning their idea of the perfect city.The game is structured as a career beginning with

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very engrossing, even with minor documentation flaws, December 10, 2000

By 

J. K. Kelley "literary mercenary" (Eastern WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Caesar 3 (CD-ROM)

The best way to visualize _Caesar III_ is to think of SimCity: the player creates urban environments, then attempts to profitably adjust to the influx of people, random (and not-so-random) events, and Imperial demands. You build and govern a city for awhile as part of a campaign; when you achieve the given objectives, you move up to a more challenging and involved assignment.

It's very attractive visually; the user interface is pretty good; the hotkeys make sense. The only thing that chapped me a little was the documentation: it was classic Sierra documentation, one of those books that looks and feels great until you actually need it to look up information. For example: when setting up trade routes for the first time, I experienced a shipwreck. Ok, very well, I thought, let's figure out what happens now since it seems to be blocking my harbour. I looked in many pertinent sections of the manual; not a word on shipwrecks. I just had to wait and hope it went away after awhile. Even though the manual has an actual index--rare enough with game documentation or strategy guides--it could have been better. Also lacking was an in-book reference for the tutorial; all reference for it is in-game. That's fine except that one reason you have a manual is so you can take it away from your computer and read up.

Very good game. Fine graphics. Ok manual. Superb dollar value--it has dropped in price to the point where you can hardly lose.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but gets to be repetitive., January 17, 2001

By 

The Feisty Curmudgeon (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caesar 3 (CD-ROM)

Caesar III has a lot of things going for it, and a lot of frustrating flaws. Your job is to build a city that meets Caesar's demands in culture, prosperity, peace, and population, and to keep the citizens who live there both happy and healthy. At the same time, you must manage your available funds, appease the gods, send goods to Caesar, and fight off invading armies.

The pluses? Don't be intimidated by the thick manual enclosed with the game. It's easy to get started, and the game guides you carefully through your first cities. Advisors are available to help you if your city isn't progressing. The people who populate your city are interesting, and you can click on any of them and they'll tell you how they feel about the city and how you're doing. Completing a city and moving on to the next one is always fun. What will the next landscape be like, and what will you will have to do to win Caesar's favor this time? After you've completed the beginner cities, you're able to make a choice between which of two cities you'd like to try next: either a peaceful settlement or a dangerous one where you'll be fighting off a lot of invaders. You'll probably be a little bit addicted to the game at first. It is fun, and it's hard to resist the "let me just finish one more thing" feeling.

The minuses? The game is rather repetitive. When building your city, everything must be completed in roughly the same order every time. First you build houses and a way to keep them from catching on fire or falling down. Then you provide the citizens with food and clean water, and then with temples, and then with theatres, and then schools, and so on. If you deviate from doing things in the correct order, your housing won't develop, and people won't move into your city. Another problem is that once you place a building, a worker must leave the building and walk by the housing in order for that house to develop. The workers don't always walk where they should. For instance, if an area of housing needs schools, you must wait for a school child to leave the school and walk by a house before that house will develop. So you build a school right across the road from the house. And the child leaves the back of the school and wonders away into your fields, never walking by the house that is right in front of the school. Argh! This is a major frustration. I also found that some of the buildings available were totally unnecessary. Two small temples seemed to work better than one large temple, and took up less room. The Senate is a large building used to collect taxes, but the smaller forums worked just as well and didn't require as many employees.

All in all, Caesar III is well worth the cost, but don't expect it to keep you entertained for months.

51 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but two big problems, December 1, 1999

By 

Paul McGrath (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Caesar 3 (CD-ROM)

I played this game for a couple of months earlier this year, and enjoyed it very much. It was very exciting when you got to the point where you were generating money, pleasing Caesar, and increasing the population. There are two big problems, though.

The first is that the instruction booklet, which comes with the game, is not complete. In order to get to the nitty gritty, which I insist on knowing in every game, you must buy the companion "strategy" guide. This is bull. For the $ you have to plop down in the first place, you should be able to get complete instructions.

The second problem, and the more serious one, is that the game is almost impossible to win. Now I expect it to be difficult, and I don't mind playing a scenario three or four times before I get it right, but at some point, I would like to be rewarded with a victory.

In Caesar, the goals are usually to reach a certain population level, and to reach a certain rating in four categories: peace, prosperity, culture, and favor. You can see where you are at any given time. So you click on prosperity, and you are at 31, and to reach the goal, you must have 35. You click on it, and it says, for example, to build more theatres. So you do. A year goes buy, or about ten minutes, and the favor improves to 33. Great, you think, I will win next year. But the next year rolls around, and it stays at 33! Why? You click on it again, and it says the favor rating is improving. So you wait another year. Now it goes down! So you click again. Again it says the rating is imrproving. And the following year, it does. But now it's been forty minutes, you've accomplished everything else, and you'd like to go on to the next scenario, especially since you've played this one five times already.

I finally quit in exasperation, and haven't picked it up since. It is unfortunate, because all the other ingredients were there.

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