Caesar (game series)
Caesar is a series of computer games developed by Sierra Entertainment that deals with building a city of the Roman Empire . The player takes on the role of governor and must ensure prosperity by erecting buildings, attracting residents, doing trade and defending the city from attackers.
Caesar
The game was designed and developed by Impressions Games and distributed by Sierra Entertainment. At the same time, Impressions had developed another game that was played during the Roman Empire : Cohort 2 . This was a real-time strategy game in which the player, similar to an early version of the Command & Conquer series, could fight ancient Roman battles. Impressions published with Cohort 2 , a program feature that players of Caesar allowed their savegames of Caesar to load -Play and this in Cohort 2 to play. A version was later released that would automatically launch a version of Cohort 2 when the player started a battle. This version was released in 1994 as Caesar Deluxe .
Caesar II
| Caesar II | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Impressions Games | ||
| Publisher | Cendant software | ||
| Senior Developer | Simon Bradbury | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
September 1995 | ||
| platform | DOS , Windows , Mac OS | ||
| genre | Building strategy game | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Mouse , keyboard | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
486/25 MHz, 8 MB RAM, SVGA, double-speed CD-ROM drive, hard disk 5 MB | ||
| medium | CD-ROM | ||
| language | German | ||
| Age rating |
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The second part of the Caesar series came on the market in September 1995. As governor of a Roman province, you receive an order from the emperor to build a flourishing city. There is a city-building mode, in which you have to take care of a single city, and a campaign mode, in which the aim is to romanize several provinces by achieving minimum scores in the four categories of peace, empire, prosperity, culture and a certain overall rating got to. There are four levels of difficulty. There is a lot to consider when building a city to prevent disease, fire, building collapse, riot, and a few other factors. In order for an autonomous city to emerge at all, the citizens must first be supplied. This includes the creation of a water supply with reservoirs , aqueducts and wells as well as educational and entertainment facilities (e.g. schools, libraries, bathhouses, theaters, arenas, circus maximus), religious institutions (e.g. temples), an entire food production facility and a lot more. The better the residents are supplied with these facilities, the larger the settlement buildings are built, in which there is space for more residents, which, however, cannot be directly influenced by the player.
Caesar III
| Caesar III | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Impressions Games | ||
| Publisher | Cendant software | ||
| Senior Developer | Simon Bradbury | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
October 1998 | ||
| platform | Windows , Mac OS | ||
| genre | Building strategy game | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Mouse , keyboard | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
Pentium 90 or higher, 16 MB RAM, SVGA graphics card 640 × 480 256 colors, 16 bit sound card, 4-way CD-ROM drive | ||
| medium | CD-ROM , download | ||
| language | German | ||
| Current version | 1.0.1.0 | ||
| Age rating |
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In 1998 the third part of the Caesar series appeared. The aim of the game has remained the same: you have to build a prosperous Roman city. As with the predecessor, there are two game modes:
- Campaign mode with additional tasks
- Pure city building mode
Campaign mode
The campaign (referred to in the game as “Career”) is about ruling the Roman Empire. About the story: Caesar plans to retire and is looking for a capable governor who could take his place. The player starts as a "citizen" and works his way up one rank with each completed mission (secretary, engineer, architect, quaestor, procurator, aedil, praetor, consul, proconsul, Caesar; compare with the ancient Roman official career path ) to those built after 11 Cities to succeed the emperor. Each city must meet a minimum population as well as the values of culture , prosperity , peace and favor . As an additional difficulty, for example, Caesar's demands for certain goods, unfavorable terrain and, in the military missions, defense against barbarians and / or foreign invaders arise.
The level of difficulty increases from city to city, but before each new assignment (from the third city) the player has the choice of whether he would rather devote himself to a military or purely urban mission. While the military missions have to concentrate on defending the city with walls, forts and the like, the latter is more about developing the economy and expanding the city.
City building mode
The city building mode is all about building a flourishing city, it is played on the maps of the campaign. With the separate map editor it is also possible for the player to create his own scenarios with freely definable goals. He can choose one of 40 locations on the empire map, which affects the trade in neighboring cities and the food available (no fishing in Alpine cities, etc.), and plan invasions.
Graphic representation
Compared to its predecessors, there are some new features, such as showing the entire province on one map, but there are no longer any separate maps of the city, such as for the landscape and the battlefield. An army is now trained on the playing map, where battles with computer opponents are also carried out. In contrast to the earlier versions, unemployment and unrest are graphically represented in Caesar III and the citizens tell the player whether they like the city or whether something urgently needs to be changed.
Feel
A special feature of the game is the system with which the living areas are supplied by the service companies (markets, schools, theaters, clinics, etc.): It is not enough to place such a building close to the former (as in the SimCity series ); Only an employee who regularly passes the apartment blocks on his tour guarantees access. The fact that the employees often choose their routes at random can either make the player desperate or spur them on to particularly careful urban planning (especially the crossroads), as it can easily lead to unbalanced living areas.
The main focus of the player is on the apartment blocks , as their development makes sense for several reasons: More developed apartment blocks pay more taxes, increase the prosperity rating and generally hold more residents. They are graphically represented from simple tents to primitive huts, insulae and villas to stately palaces. Each level (20 in total) requires additional services: starting with the water supply via fountains and aqueducts , later to coliseums , libraries, temples and the availability of goods such as dishes, furniture and oil. If one of the required services fails at short notice (which can easily happen due to the unconventionality of the employees), the apartment blocks fall back to lower levels. The result is unstable, fluctuating residential areas.
Music and background noise
The music of the game is based on the late romanticism . Strong influences from Gustav Holst can often be heard, in places, for example, “Mars, the Bringer of War” from the orchestral suite “ The Planets ” is directly quoted . In addition, music borrowed from Hollywood sandal strips from the 1950s / 1960s, which still shape the image of “Roman music” today and received their catchy intonation by the important Hungarian film composer Miklós Rózsa .
The background noise mimics that of a city. Depending on which buildings are currently displayed on the screen, corresponding noises can be heard.
Caesar IV
| Caesar IV | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Tilted Mill Entertainment | ||
| Publisher | Vivendi Universal | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
October 2006 | ||
| platform | Windows | ||
| Game engine | Linden trees | ||
| genre | Building strategy game | ||
| Game mode | Single player , online mode | ||
| control | Mouse , keyboard | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
Pentium 4 1.6 GHz cf. Athlon, 256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM for Windows XP), 128 MB graphics card w. PixelShader 1.1 support, 2 GB free hard disk space | ||
| medium | CD-ROM | ||
| language | German | ||
| Current version | 1.2 | ||
| Age rating |
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In 2006, the fourth version of the previously successful urban development series appeared in Germany and is the first Caesar game with complete 3D graphics. The aim of the game has remained the same: to build a flourishing Roman city. In campaign mode you have to achieve ratings by building the city in order to advance in rank and be able to visit the next city.
campaign
Here, too, the principle is the same as its predecessor: You work your way up from apprentice to Caesar by building cities and having to achieve various evaluation goals in order to be promoted. In contrast to its predecessor, this time it is not about helping the previous ruler to retire and one only follows the ancient Roman official career to a limited extent . Each city must meet a minimum population as well as the values of culture , prosperity , peace and favor . As an additional difficulty, for example, Caesar's demands for certain goods, unfavorable terrain and, in the military missions, defense against barbarians and / or foreign invaders arise. However, in the later phase of the game there are also (small) attacks by revolting barbarian tribes on rather peaceful cities.
After each successful mission, the player can choose between a more centrally located and a border town. The more centrally located cities usually only offer construction, administrative and “managerial” activities as a change, the border cities also offer military defense.
In contrast to its predecessor, a mission can be played indefinitely. After reaching the objective of the mission, you can continue to play the city until you want to move on to the next mission on your own. The predecessor only offered a limited time frame to continue playing the current city.
Urban planning
In this mode, the player builds a city and does not care about campaign, mission and empire. He only has to meet goods demands and otherwise of course keep the city alive. The difference to the campaign is that the player on the game status in city building mode will always stay in the city that he selected at the beginning of the game round. Depending on the location of the city, different goods are available and the military threat also varies. In the city-building mode, the player may have to pay more attention to running the city economically and also to have a military force for defense.
graphic
Caesar IV is the first in this series to offer full 3D graphics. In the game, the camera view can be rotated and swiveled freely, with the mouse wheel you set the camera viewing angle and its distance to the ground, which is a kind of zoom. The view can be reset at any time with an additional button. Buildings (in contrast to their predecessors) are no longer only shown from the front, but are steplessly visible all around. In addition to water reflection and particle effects in the event of fire or storm, the game also offers day and night, which, however, are not aligned with the game time (which runs in months). The graphics and the graphics performance can be fully adjusted in the settings of the game, so that the game could also run on weaker graphics cards, which, however, cannot display all effects.
Feel
Caesar IV contains all the game principles of its predecessor, but with numerous redesigns. In order for a service building in the city, for example a bathroom , to have an effect, an employee of the bathroom ( hygiene inspector ) no longer has to walk the streets to provide a residential area with access to the bathroom. It is sufficient that the residential area is in the (invisible) area of activity of the bathroom, because the citizens go there themselves if they know about the bathroom. There is also no need to specifically plan intersections or set up barriers: the citizens of the city now have their own AI that automatically guides them to underserved areas.
In contrast to their predecessors, residential buildings are divided into three classes from the start: insulae for plebeians , domus for equites , and villas for patricians . The difference lies in the tasks that these stalls perform in the city. Plebeians do very simple, basic jobs: prefectural service, engineering, farming, industry. The equites represent, so to speak, the ancient middle class, they are responsible for administration, religion and water supply. For this they need additional incentives to come to the city, for example furniture as a luxury item, protection of the city walls or simply more attractiveness (by planting gardens, bushes, hedges, etc.). The patricians do not work, but pay a property tax that is measured against the basic value of their houses. That brings money into the city coffers, but it also costs a lot because the basic value is measured in terms of services and supplies. But mostly a medium-sized, well-located city can also cover its financial needs by exporting goods it has produced itself.
Other differences to the predecessors
Citizens now purchase goods from different markets. There is a food, a standard, a luxury and an exotic goods market. The markets differ in the range of goods: standard goods are pottery or glassware, woolen clothing and olive oil, luxury goods are wine , cutlery, wooden furniture and gold jewelry, while the exotic goods market includes ivory , silk , salt and amber . The goods differ in the price range, accordingly there are not always citizens who can also afford them.
The city's income is based primarily on trade with other cities as well as the property tax of the patricians and the consumption tax of the markets.
The city advisors, who show you problems in the city in different categories, are also animated in 3D and provided with voice output.
A fort now needs an additional canteen in which the soldiers' food is prepared. There must be enough food available for the military and the city.
demo
The German-language demo for Windows contains the mission "Narbo". The following goals have to be achieved: A people of 1000 Romans with a value of 15 in the field of culture, 20 prosperity and 45 reputation. The Gallia Narbonensis region is rich in timber, and here too the need must be met. The online mode of Caesar IV is not playable in the demo version.
Caesar IV in other games
The graphics engine and the multiplayer concept of Caesar IV are also used by developer Tilted Mill in SimCity Societies , which appeared in November 2007.
Web links
- Caesar series at MobyGames (English)