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Caesar III
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Caesar III | |
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| Developer(s) | Impressions Games |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | 1998 |
| Genre(s) | City-building game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ELSPA: +3, ESRB: Everyone (E) |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Apple Macintosh |
| Media | 1 CD |
Caesar III is a computer game developed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra Entertainment; the third installment of the Caesar series, part of Sierra's City Building Series. It was released in 1998.
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Cities in Caesar III try to accurately reflect the life of Roman citizens- the lowest plebs live in tents and shacks, while the richest patricians live in villas. Staple foods include wheat, fruits, and pork, and wine is required for some festivals and houses. Citizens wander the streets in their various garbs and can tell the player their name and how they feel about the city.
The city is viewed in a two dimensional isometric view with a fixed magnification level, and can be rotated ninety degrees.
Access to services such as market goods, entertainment, hygiene, education, and taxation are represented by "walkers," which are people sent out from their buildings to patrol the streets. Any house that is passed by a walker is considered to have access to the services of the walker's building. All movements of goods and coverage of walkers are accurately reflected by citizens walking the streets: a player can watch a farm's crop progress, and when it's ready a worker will push a full cart from the farm to a nearby warehouse or granary; then return with an empty cart.
Battles are fought by instructing a legion to march to the enemy, then arrange themselves in a particular formation. After this the soldiers take over and fight the battle.
There is no terrain editing, other than permanently removing trees to clear land for building.
Short video clips are played for significant events, such as city milestones or messages from the Roman Emperor.
A manual accompanies Caesar III, though there are minor discrepancies from the game in some editions.
Compared to other strategy games set in Antiquity, Caesar III focuses more on city-building than fighting, though invaders will sometimes attack the player's city. There are two ways to play the game: Mission Mode, which is tantamount to typical "campaign" modes of other PC games, and Builder Mode, in which the player plays one scenario from scratch.
In Mission mode the player starts with a rank of Citizen, and each time the objectives set by the emperor are reached, the player rises a rank, until finally becoming emperor and winning the game. After the first two missions, the player chooses between two cities to build: one more focused on military, or one which requires more developing.
| Missions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rank | Peaceful assignment | Military assignment |
| Citizen | Nameless village | n/a |
| Clerk | Brundisium | n/a |
| Engineer | Capua | Tarentum |
| Architect | Tarraco | Syracusae |
| Quaestor | Miletus | Mediolanum |
| Procurator | Lugdunum | Carthago |
| Aedile | Tarsus | Tingis |
| Praetor | Valentia | Lutetia |
| Consul | Caesarea | Damascus |
| Proconsul | Londinium | Sarmizegetusa |
| Caesar | Massilia | Lindum |
Citizen and Clerk provide a gentle introduction to the game and are tutorial in nature. For every mission after Citizen, the emperor will set objectives in five categories: Population, Prosperity, Culture, Peace, and Favor. These increase with each rank, and peaceful missions have higher standards than military.
Population is the number of inhabitants in the city. Immigrants will come to live in the city if there is enough housing and work, the province is secure, the people are in a good mood, and other factors. High unemployment is one reason the population can be in a poor mood, and citizens will start to leave (and even riot) if unemployment is high for too long.
Prosperity is the hardest criterion to achieve in the game. It reflects the wealth of the citizens and is measured by the quality of their housing.
Culture measures the level of literacy, entertainment, and temples available to the player's citizens. To make it rise as many citizens as possible need access to schools, libraries, academies, temples and theatres.
Peace rises every year there is no damage to the city from enemy soldiers, and no rioting.
Favor is the esteem the emperor has for the player. By default it falls every year, and will fall considerably when the player is in debt, under-performs, or pays themselves a salary higher than the current rank. The rating rises when the emperor's occasional tasks are accomplished, and when he's sent presents bought with the player's personal salary.
The advisors make suggestions to help achieve these ratings.
In the City Construction Kit mode, there are no specific objectives; the player simply chooses a city and develops it for as long as desired. Some of the cities available include Narbo, Toletum, Corinthus, as well as alternate versions of Mediolanum and Caesarea. In some of them the player will still face invaders, such as the Iberians.
Houses are the buildings in which the citizens live. First the player designates plots for the future houses. If conditions in the city are reasonably desirable, immigrants will move in and pitch a tent on the plot.
There are two types of housing: plebeian housing and patrician housing. Plebeians (or plebs) work while patricians do not. When an immigrant pitches his tent, he becomes a plebeian and starts working at places like farms, prefectures, markets, schools, libraries, clinics, etc.
The first service that must be provided to housing is water. Once given water (from a well or fountain), a small tent will evolve to a large tent, which has a higher value. Soon they will ask for food, religion, entertainment, education, pottery, etc., and evolve into higher levels of housing. The grand insulae is the highest level of plebeian housing. If provided with even more goods and services, it will evolve into patrician housing, whose inhabitants don't work (but contribute more than plebes to the city's tax revenue). The final level of housing is a luxury palace, but it is difficult to achieve as it has exacting requirements.
Desirability can prevent a house from evolving. In order to evolve, a house also must have a certain desirability in addition to more services. Desirability is calculated from the nearby buildings. For example, a reservoir is an undesirable neighbour while a temple is rather desirable. A house requires more desirability as it evolves.
Prosperity is largely based on the overall quality of houses- a city with a large population of tents and shacks is considered less prosperous than one of equal size with more luxurious housing.
The game focuses more on city-building than military, but there will still be some fighting, even in the "peaceful" missions. The enemies in Mission Mode, from weakest to strongest, are:
- Etruscans: Tarentum and Valentia
- Greeks: Syracusae and Miletus
- Pergamum soldiers: Tarsus
- Egyptians: Damascus
- Numids: Tingis and Caesarea
- Gauls: Lutetia and Massilia
- Goths: Sarmizegetusa
- Celts: Londinium and Lindum
- Carthaginians: Mediolanum and Carthago
(Brundisium, Capua, Tarraco and Lugdunum will never be invaded.)
Sometimes popular insurrections will occur. The insurgents are easier to kill, but there's no warning before the event happens.
To defend a city the player can build walls, ballista towers, and forts. The soldiers in a fort can be trained as legionaries, javelins, or cavalry.
One of the important aspects of this game is the divinities. There are five Roman gods which need to be satisfied by building temples, building oracles (which require marble, a good), or having festivals. They are Mars, god of war; Venus, goddess of love; Mercury, god of commerce; Ceres, goddess of agriculture; and Neptune, god of the sea.
These gods will be displeased if not enough temples are devoted to them or if they do not receive equal treatment with the other gods. If a particular god is satisfied, the city may receive a blessing, but if they should become displeased, the player should be prepared for their wrath. However, the player has the option to turn god effects off, making gameplay easier.
Higher levels of housing pay more taxes. See the Housing section.
In addition to benefiting citizens, goods are a valuable source of income and trade routes can be established with neighbouring cities either by land or sea. The resources available depend on the location and are wheat, vegetables, fruits, grapes (used for wine only), olives, meat, fish, timber, clay, iron, and marble. Workshops can be built to process grapes into wine, olives into oil, timber into furniture, clay into pottery, and iron into weapons. Selling manufactured products is more profitable than raw materials, but they take longer to produce.
In the cities of Lugdunum, Carthago, Damascus, and Sarmizegetusa, the player will encounter natives. By building mission posts in their villages they can be convinced to ally with the player and even trade. But if some of them are still hostile towards the player, building something in their territory will provoke an insurrection.
There are several challenges in the game, failing to meet which would result in delays in attaining the goal of winning the game or even in outright defeat:
- Failure to balance the budget: A game of Caesar III involves expenditure on the part of the player, to pay the workforce, construct new buildings and repair broken ones, hold festivals in honor of Gods and satisfying Caesar. The income of the player arises from sources such as taxes, an initial allowance from Caesar and most importantly trade of manufactured goods. An inability to balance expenditure with income would at some point result in the bankruptcy of the state. In this scenario, Caesar at the penalty of some favor will loan the player an additional amount of money to help tide over the crisis, however an inability to repay the loan in good time and restabilize the economy will result in an invasion of Caesar. Usually, this results in the complete destruction of the city and the end of the game. Bad trade policies all too often contribute to the downfall of a city, an example of which is to export low priced raw material like iron, olives, clay instead of trading high priced processed goods like arms, oil, pottery. A city has to grow in a proportional fashion, with exports serving to cover expenditure and offset the cost of build up. Building up too fast means that the city will have too few workers to staff its projects and run a deficit to bankruptcy.
- Inability to defend the borders: Attacks from vandals will often hit the city, in military scenarios. If the city is not properly defended by legions in fortresses, the invaders will systematically destroy buildings in the city. This can lead to the population of the city dropping to zero in minutes. As an example, consider the breakdown of the water supply to the most populated areas of the city. This will lead to big housing transforming into tents instantaneously leaving large numbers of people homeless. The mass exodus arising out of this results in the short-staffing of most industries in the city. Invariably, if corrective action is not taken, this results in the problems described above with the budget!
- Excessive taxation: Excessive taxes reduce the motivation of the people to work in the city. Consequently, dissatisfied citizens begin to leave for better lands, once again leading to budget problems.
- Incorrect prioritization: The industries receive labor from the workforce according to a prioritization setting set by the player. Usually, this prioritization is dynamic, depending on the problems facing the city at that particular point in time which the player is trying to fight. As an example, when Caesar makes an urgent request for oil, it is necessary to halt oil trade and focus the workforce on olive farming and the oil pressing industry, denuding the entertainment industry temporarily if necessary. An incorrectly deployed workforce could result in, as an example of a dangerous scenario, fully stocked warehouses but no docks to export the goods (having all collapsed due to an insufficient numbers of engineers). Some basic priorities, like firemen and engineers take priority over everyone else in most scenarios, as a lack of their essential services would result in the whole city falling down in ruins.
- Wrath of the gods: Incurring the wrath of the gods by failing to build enough temples and offer festivals in their honor on a timely basis would result in unexpected calamities befalling the city. This causes additional complications often in critical moments of the game and might lead to defeat.
A few years after the game was released, Sierra made an Editor available on their website. The editor allows players to produce their own scenarios from over twenty city locations, as well as choosing the identity of invaders (with new inclusions such as the Huns, Seleucids, Macedonians and Jews), the available buildings, and everything that would appear on the map itself. The Caesar III page on Sierra's website is now down, but the Editor is still available for download from GameSpot, and was also distributed with later releases of the game. The editor is also available from the Vivendi Universal website.
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Historical City Building Series
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Caesar • Caesar II • Caesar III • Caesar IV Pharaoh • Cleopatra • Children of the Nile |