Caesar IV
Posted October 31, 2006
If you're anything like me then you've spent countless hours over the years playing games like SimCity, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, and the like. Simulation games where you have to manage the everyday life of a given civilization are a dime a dozen and that's a good thing for the most part. Just about anything you can imagine has been made into a simulation game. Ancient Rome is no exception; in fact we're on our fourth serving of Caesar now. Caesar IV is Sierra's latest attempt to recreate the day in, day out workings of the Roman civilization. Will you become Caesar or just a slumlord?
Gameplay:
Unless you've been living under a rock the basic premise of a game like Caesar IV is almost like second nature by now. You need to build your empire from scratch, and along the way there are countless obstacles you will need to overcome, from famine to fire. In Caesar IV the game starts you out with a little overview of what the Roman Empire was like and it's really a nice setup for the game but the one thing it doesn't show you is that Rome came up from nothing, which is where you will start. That's not to say that Rome doesn't exist yet in this game, it's definitely there. You however are a new governor and you have been tasked with building a new farming village. The more successes you have under your belt the more Rome favors you and the higher you go on the political ladder.
The name of the game is keeping your citizens content. The way you do this is by providing housing, basic needs, jobs, entertainment, and services. In each of your first few campaigns the game will narrate the basic skills needed to provide the things your citizens require. For the most part the narrative is quite effective but it will not hold your hand through these tasks completely. You will need to figure out exactly what you need to do to achieve your goals using the skills the narrator teaches you in the beginning of each campaign. Sadly I have always been the type to go into building overkill when it comes to RTS and simulation games. Caesar IV has broken me of this habit by punishing me for having too much housing for my plebs and making sure my buildings catch fire or crumble due to poor maintenance, or angering my plebs to the point that they will move out of my city.
As you may expect each campaign grows in difficulty and scope. In your first campaign you are only expected to achieve a population of 500 and you win. Soon enough though you are expected to not only achieve a certain level of population, but also a rating on prosperity, education, and so on, this increases the difficulty exponentially as each different class of citizen present in the game expects a different lifestyle. For example your plebs are perfectly content so long as you provide them with basic needs, but the equestrians are a much more fickle crowd they need finer housing, jobs, bath houses, theaters etc. You can see where you could lose track of your plebs dealing with the equestrians, but make sure you don't because if you let your plebs become angry or even plague infested they will either move away or die. Either way you'll find your town a complete disaster soon enough if you don't pay attention to every detail.
Now that the game may seem high maintenance, don't fret you have an entire counsel of advisors ready to sing your praises and scorn you for your missteps. Your advisors are a good way of gauging how your doing at any given time. One thing your advisors will not do is solve problems for you by giving away the secret formula to whatever quandary befalls you. You will need to learn what "Our city doesn't have enough workers" means. It may seem obvious to some of you geniuses out there but the reason you don't have enough workers can be a bit of a mystery at first. Don't worry I'll let you solve that one on your own when you come to it. Phrases like the one I just mentioned are your advisors way of telling you there is something wrong and you need to fix it. Just because they say there aren't enough workers doesn't mean you need to build more housing. It could be as simple as not having a granary, or a food market. There is a plethora of things to do in this game, have some patients and you'll be building an empire in no time. In fact my only real complaint about the gameplay is the camera. The camera is finicky as all hell and I have yet to figure out how to make it work well for me. As far as the build commands, or setting wages and taxes, the game really pulls everything off with a high level of seamlessness.
Graphics:
I remember reading somewhere that Caesar IV was supposed to be using some sort of innovative lighting system that was going to be just amazing. For the record I don't see anything amazing about the visuals in Caesar IV let alone the lighting. I don't expect these types of games to have any sort of mind blowing graphics. Isn't it supposed to be more about managing a society than "Ooooh look how pretty that building is" or "Wow check out how lifelike that guy shoveling clay looks"? To be honest I think Caesar IV looks very nice, just don't expect to be blown away by it. Again my complaint lies with the finicky camera if they could do something about that with a patch this game would be pure gold.
Audio:
The sounds in Caesar IV aren't anything to write home about, but when you get close to a water source you can hear it. If you want to spy on one of your citizens they can have some amusing things to say. The audio in Caesar IV is quite functional, one thing I will point out is that Caesar isn't exceptionally loud, which is a welcome change as some games of the genre seems to have noises coming from everywhere, just for the sake of making noise. Of course if your advisors get on your nerves with their constant bickering about your management skills, you can turn their speech off and read it as text, which is a nice feature since they do tend to say the same things over and over again. One key sound you will hear is a little chime to let you know a message has flashed on your screen; many times it will be just to tell you the game is auto saving. Other times it will give you a message about how well Rome thinks you're doing or possibly letting you know a building has collapsed. This chime is good to hear because you can get so wrapped up in managing your city, that if it weren't there you could miss the messages all together, as I did. Before I knew what it meant.
Conclusion:
If you enjoy simulation games then you can't go wrong with Caesar IV, this game is very challenging while not being over the top. I know for a fact I'll be playing for a long time to come and there will be plenty for me to do before I become Caesar myself. I highly recommend this title to anyone who enjoys the genre.
Gameplay:
Unless you've been living under a rock the basic premise of a game like Caesar IV is almost like second nature by now. You need to build your empire from scratch, and along the way there are countless obstacles you will need to overcome, from famine to fire. In Caesar IV the game starts you out with a little overview of what the Roman Empire was like and it's really a nice setup for the game but the one thing it doesn't show you is that Rome came up from nothing, which is where you will start. That's not to say that Rome doesn't exist yet in this game, it's definitely there. You however are a new governor and you have been tasked with building a new farming village. The more successes you have under your belt the more Rome favors you and the higher you go on the political ladder.
The name of the game is keeping your citizens content. The way you do this is by providing housing, basic needs, jobs, entertainment, and services. In each of your first few campaigns the game will narrate the basic skills needed to provide the things your citizens require. For the most part the narrative is quite effective but it will not hold your hand through these tasks completely. You will need to figure out exactly what you need to do to achieve your goals using the skills the narrator teaches you in the beginning of each campaign. Sadly I have always been the type to go into building overkill when it comes to RTS and simulation games. Caesar IV has broken me of this habit by punishing me for having too much housing for my plebs and making sure my buildings catch fire or crumble due to poor maintenance, or angering my plebs to the point that they will move out of my city.
As you may expect each campaign grows in difficulty and scope. In your first campaign you are only expected to achieve a population of 500 and you win. Soon enough though you are expected to not only achieve a certain level of population, but also a rating on prosperity, education, and so on, this increases the difficulty exponentially as each different class of citizen present in the game expects a different lifestyle. For example your plebs are perfectly content so long as you provide them with basic needs, but the equestrians are a much more fickle crowd they need finer housing, jobs, bath houses, theaters etc. You can see where you could lose track of your plebs dealing with the equestrians, but make sure you don't because if you let your plebs become angry or even plague infested they will either move away or die. Either way you'll find your town a complete disaster soon enough if you don't pay attention to every detail.
Now that the game may seem high maintenance, don't fret you have an entire counsel of advisors ready to sing your praises and scorn you for your missteps. Your advisors are a good way of gauging how your doing at any given time. One thing your advisors will not do is solve problems for you by giving away the secret formula to whatever quandary befalls you. You will need to learn what "Our city doesn't have enough workers" means. It may seem obvious to some of you geniuses out there but the reason you don't have enough workers can be a bit of a mystery at first. Don't worry I'll let you solve that one on your own when you come to it. Phrases like the one I just mentioned are your advisors way of telling you there is something wrong and you need to fix it. Just because they say there aren't enough workers doesn't mean you need to build more housing. It could be as simple as not having a granary, or a food market. There is a plethora of things to do in this game, have some patients and you'll be building an empire in no time. In fact my only real complaint about the gameplay is the camera. The camera is finicky as all hell and I have yet to figure out how to make it work well for me. As far as the build commands, or setting wages and taxes, the game really pulls everything off with a high level of seamlessness.
Graphics:
I remember reading somewhere that Caesar IV was supposed to be using some sort of innovative lighting system that was going to be just amazing. For the record I don't see anything amazing about the visuals in Caesar IV let alone the lighting. I don't expect these types of games to have any sort of mind blowing graphics. Isn't it supposed to be more about managing a society than "Ooooh look how pretty that building is" or "Wow check out how lifelike that guy shoveling clay looks"? To be honest I think Caesar IV looks very nice, just don't expect to be blown away by it. Again my complaint lies with the finicky camera if they could do something about that with a patch this game would be pure gold.
Audio:
The sounds in Caesar IV aren't anything to write home about, but when you get close to a water source you can hear it. If you want to spy on one of your citizens they can have some amusing things to say. The audio in Caesar IV is quite functional, one thing I will point out is that Caesar isn't exceptionally loud, which is a welcome change as some games of the genre seems to have noises coming from everywhere, just for the sake of making noise. Of course if your advisors get on your nerves with their constant bickering about your management skills, you can turn their speech off and read it as text, which is a nice feature since they do tend to say the same things over and over again. One key sound you will hear is a little chime to let you know a message has flashed on your screen; many times it will be just to tell you the game is auto saving. Other times it will give you a message about how well Rome thinks you're doing or possibly letting you know a building has collapsed. This chime is good to hear because you can get so wrapped up in managing your city, that if it weren't there you could miss the messages all together, as I did. Before I knew what it meant.
Conclusion:
If you enjoy simulation games then you can't go wrong with Caesar IV, this game is very challenging while not being over the top. I know for a fact I'll be playing for a long time to come and there will be plenty for me to do before I become Caesar myself. I highly recommend this title to anyone who enjoys the genre.