Caesar

The first installment of the popular cycle of economic strategies dealing with the construction and management of the city during the Roman Empire, created by Impressions in 1993. In his role as provincial manager, the player must meet the requirements of the program, climbing higher and higher up the career ladder until he becomes emperor.

Contrary to the classic "city-builders (e.g. SimCity), the Impressions product offers a much bigger challenge for the player. Each game takes place on two levels. The user not only has to cope with the development of infrastructure in the city (detailed variant), but also construct roads to nearby settlements in the province, create trade routes and train an army capable of defending against an invader (general variant). However, the player will spend most of his time with the meticulous development of the city, which requires water supply to the houses, the surroundings of the latter with baths, entertainment facilities, as well as industrial plants. In order to prevent the metropolis from falling into ruin, it is also necessary to assign a large number of plebeians to specific tasks. If we do not see to it that the roads are maintained, we can be sure that it will soon be necessary to fill in the gaps - similar relationships exist in the other four aspects that determine the safety of the citizens of the city. As in any such case, in Caesar it is very important to earn money. Impressions' product is the first "city-builder" in which taxes can be distributed separately between residents and industry. The funds obtained in this way should be spent not only on further expansion of the city, but also on paying for the plebeians, soldiers and the emissary from Rome, who once a year will collect a large sum of money from the vault under the tribune.

The programme evaluates our progress in four basic categories (prosperity, culture, empire, peace) using percentage indicators. In order to successfully pass through each stage of the struggle, it is necessary to reach the threshold required by the game in each of these areas. Of course, in the next missions the bar is growing - in the last scenarios it is necessary to masterfully manage our mini-state and gradually eliminate the mistakes made at the beginning.

Caesar is a complex and difficult game, which will certainly encourage more demanding players to have fun. Unfortunately, the substantive content is not matched by the visual setting. The objects on the city screen are very small, which at first may make it difficult to distinguish them, and in addition, the whole thing is kept in gloomy, faint colors. For players accustomed to simplicity, the interface may also be disturbing - it is based on icons and supported by the mouse, but subsequent rows of functions are switched by means of spaces in a fixed order, which makes it difficult to quickly reach the necessary commands.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015