Caesar III
| Caesar III | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Impressions Games |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra Entertainment |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Apple Macintosh |
| Release | 1998 |
| Genre(s) | Real time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Caesar III is a computer game developed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra, the third installment of the Caesar series, part of Sierra's City Building Series. It was released in 1998.
Description
Compared to other strategy games set in Antiquity, Caesar III focuses more on city-building than fighting, though invaders will sometimes attack your city. There are two main menus in the game: Builder Mode and Mission.
Mission Mode
In Mission mode you start out as Citizen, and every time you reach the objectives set out by the emperor for your city, you rise up one rank in the ladder, until you become the emperor. After the first two missions, you can choose between two cities to build. One will be more focused on military, while the other requires more developing.
Aside from the money in your city's treasury, your salary is deducted from the treasury periodically. Your savings can be given to the city when in a bad financial state, or can be used to send gifts to the emperor. Every rank has its own salary, and the higher your rank, the higher your salary. Your can choose another rank's salary if you wish to.
The missions:
- Citizen — Build a village with 150 inhabitants. This and the following mission provide a gentle introduction to the game.
- Clerk — Brundisium
- Engineer — Capua (P) or Tarentum (M)
- Architect — Tarraco (P) or Syracusae (M)
- Quaestor — Miletus (P) or Mediolanum (M)
- Procurator — Lugdunum (P) or Carthago (M)
- Aedile — Tarsus (P) or Tingis (M)
- Praetor — Valentia (P) or Lutetia (M)
- Proconsul — Caesarea (P) or Damascus (M)
- Consul — Londinium (P) or Sarmizegetusa (M)
- Caesar — Massilia (P) or Lindum (M)
(P = Peaceful, M = Military)
For every mission after Citizen, the emperor will set your objectives for five categories: Population, Prosperity, Culture, Peace and Favor. They will rise every time you obtain a new rank, and peaceful missions have higher standards.
Population is the number of inhabitants in your town. Immigrants will come to live in your city if there are enough jobs, housing, the province is secure, and the people are in a good mood. Sometimes poor city mood can prevent immigration. High unemployment can be one reason why a city has a poor mood. The citizens will start to leave (and even riot) if unemployment is too high for too long.
Prosperity is probably the hardest criterion to achieve in the game. It is basically the wealth of your citizens, and it is measured by the quality of their housing. When you build houses, at first they become little camps, or small tents. Their value is then 5. When they get access to water, they will upgrade to a larger tent, which has a value of 10. When they have access to a market with food, they turn into a shack, etc. The final level of housing is a luxurious palace, with a value of 100, but it is extremely difficult to reach that point, as it needs access to every sort of food, two sorts of wine, all divinity temples, every sort of entertainment, perfect neighborhood desirability, etc. Starting at the large casa level of housing the houses will need services other that food, water, education, religion, and desirability. They will start to consume pottery once they reach this level. Thereafter, the housing will eventually need furniture, oil, and wine. All these things must be provided in order to reach the luxury palace level. Prosperity is calculated as the average value of all of your city's houses. The highest prosperity level you will have to reach is 80, in Massilia.
Culture measures the level of literacy plus entertainment and temples available to your citizens. To make it rise as many citizens as possible need access to schools, libraries, academies, temples, theatres, amphitheatres, colosseums, etc.
Peace will rise every year when there is no damage to your city from enemy soldiers, and no rioting. This criterion was probably included to prevent expert gamers from completing missions too quickly.
Favor is the esteem the emperor has for you. By default it falls by two every year, and will fall considerably when you are in debt or under-perform. If you pay yourself a salary higher than your current rank, favor will decrease in proportion to your overpayment. Likewise, if you set your salary lower than your rank's salary, then your favor rating will only decrease by one every year. To make it rise, accomplish the emperor's occasional tasks, or send him presents bought with your personal salary. When you send two or more presents within a short amount of time, the second gift will have less effect on you favor rating. If you send too many presents, the emperor may get used to receiving presents and his favor will not rise as much as for the first gift.
Builder Mode
In Builder Mode, you have no specific objectives; you can simply choose one city and develop it as long as you wish. Some of the cities available include Narbo, Toletum, Corinthus, as well as new alternate versions of Mediolanum, Caesarea, etc. In some of them you will still have to face some invaders, such as the Iberians.
Military
The game focuses more on city-building than on military, but there will still be some fighting, even in some of the "peaceful" missions. Only Brundisium, Capua, Tarraco and Lugdunum will never be invaded. This is a list of the enemies you will have to face in Mission Mode, from weakest to strongest:
- Etruscans: In Tarentum and Valentia
- Greeks: In Syracusae and Miletus
- Pergamum soldiers: In Tarsus
- Egyptians: In Damascus
- Nubians: In Tingis and Caesarea
- Gauls: In Lutetia and Massilia
- Goths: In Sarmizegetusa
- Celts: In Londinium and Lindum
- Carthaginians: In Mediolanum and Carthago
To defend yourself you can build walls and ballista towers, and also build forts with armies. You can choose among legionaries, javelins and cavalry. Sometimes, popular insurrections will occur. The insurgents are easier to kill, but you won't be warned before the event happens.
Religion
One of the important aspects of this game is the divinities. There are five Roman gods which you have to satisfy by either building temples 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. If you should displease them, be prepared for their wrath.
Commerce
Higher levels of housing will pay more taxes. By benifiting houses with more temples, goods, gardens, etc., they will evolve to higher levels of housing.
In addition to benefiting your citizens, goods are a valuable source of income and trade routes can be established with neighbouring cities either by ground or sea. The resources available depend on the location and are wheat, vegetables, fruits, grapes (used for wine only), olives, meat, 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 twice as long to produce.
Natives
In the cities of Lugdunum, Carthago, Damascus and Sarmizegetusa, you will encounter natives. By building missions in their villages and making sure missionaries cover all of the houses in their path, you can get them to ally with you and even trade. But if some of them are still hostile towards you, building something in their territory will provoke an insurrection.
Editor
A few years after the game was released, Sierra made an Editor available on their website. With it players were able to produce their own scenarios in which they could decide from over twenty city locations, as well as choosing the identity of invaders (with new inclusions such as the Huns, Seleucids and Macedonians), the available resources, and everything that would appear in the map itself, for example. The Caesar III page on Sierra's website is now down, but the Editor is downloadable on GameSpot. It was also distributed with later releases of the game.