Caesar III is part of Sierra’s City Building Series and was released in October 1998. Cities in Caesar III try to accurately reflect the life of Roman citizens: the lowest plebians live in tents and shacks, while the richest patricians live in villas. Staple foods include wheat, fruits, vegetables, 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.
Background music is played which varies according to the situation (gentle themes to begin with, war drums during times of conflict and triumphal music when the player nears the objective). Musical themes are supplemented by crowd noises, the sounds of manufacturing and the clash of weapons at appropriate times.
There are two ways to play the game: Mission Mode, which is tantamount to typical “campaign” modes of other strategy games, and City Construction Mode, in which the player plays one scenario from scratch.
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.
Background music is played which varies according to the situation (gentle themes to begin with, war drums during times of conflict and triumphal music when the player nears the objective). Musical themes are supplemented by crowd noises, the sounds of manufacturing and the clash of weapons at appropriate times.
There are two ways to play the game: Mission Mode, which is tantamount to typical “campaign” modes of other strategy games, and City Construction Mode, in which the player plays one scenario from scratch.
As a provincial governor charged with spreading the glory of Rome our mission is clear: build cities, foster trade and industry, make money. How you accomplish this is entirely up to you. Gain wealth and power, make a career out of pleasing the emperor, battle Barbarians and repel invaders or concentrate on building 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!
Caesar 3 Key Features:
1, Build rule and defend on one screen – a truly intuitive, helpful interface lets you jump right in and start building.
2, Citizens give you a glimpse into the life of the common man – talk to them for clues about how to improve your city.
3, Various new structures and challenges arise throughout your Governor’s career, for tremendous depth of play and replayability.
As a provincial governor charged with spreading the glory of Rome your mission is clear – build cities, foster trade and industry, make money. How you accomplish this is up to you. Gain wealth and power, make a career out of pleasing the emperor, battle barbarians and repel invaders, or concentrate on building 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 might be crowned Caesar!
To help you achieve that goal you can ask your advisors for their insight or ask the people about their thoughts. You can also build temples and create festivals to please the gods and receive rewards or aid in return. You can choose between peaceful and military assignments to prove in various ways that you deserve the title of Caesar!
| Minimum System Requirements | Recommended System Requirements | |
| CPU | 1.0 GHz | Intel Pentium III / AMD Athlon MP |
| VRAM | 16 MB | |
| RAM | 256 MB RAM | 32 MB |
| OS | Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10 | Unavailable |
| Graphics Card | DirectX 7 Compatible 3D Card | nVidia GeForce 2 MX 100/200 32MB / AMD Rage 128 Ultra 16MB |
| Direct X | Version 7.0 | DX 8 |
| SOUND CARD | DirectX Compatible | DirectX Compatible |
| HDD Space | 600 MB available space | 256 MB |
| Game Analysis | 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, vegetables, 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. | |
| High FPS | 200+ FPS ( GTX 1060 ) | |
The music fits perfectly with the game's mood and provides an ambient feeling by becoming more and more epic the bigger your city grows.
The only negative aspect of the game is how time consuming it gets. Once you advance to the more demanding missions, the play-time of a single scenario can easily exceed seven or even eight hours.
If you are into city building games, you will find Caesar III right out of the gate addictive. At the beginning of the campaign-mode, you first have to get through a couple of tutorial-missions. After that, the scenarios slowly rise in requests and difficulty, leaving you with the choice between “dangerous” and “peaceful” cities. The longer you keep playing, the more you will have to show all your creative city designing-skills, and your logsitic skills to fulfill your citizens’ demands for supplies, services and products. As you progress you need to deal with crisis-situations, rising needs and imperial requests, all of which will challenge your multidimensional management skills to make all these things work together spontaneously.
Another nice thing about the game is, that the maps are big enough to allow you (in most cases) to try out different city designs what adds notably to the game’s replayability. In fact the game is so entertaining and provides so many options how to design and manage your city that after all these years I still get sucked into it, once I start playing.
Conclusion: I could continue talking about this game for ages and still not do it justice. Regardless of whether you like or hate this style of game, I would strongly advise to give it a decent try.