Caesar IV

very good
key review info
  • Game: Caesar IV
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: N/a
  • Reviewed on:

In 1998, Impression Games set a new standard for city building games with the third addition to the Caesar series. This is probably one of the most renowned games ever. Despite some minor setbacks to the gameplay, Caesar III almost defined a genre of its own. Soon after a bunch of other great civilizations inspired city builders trying to take away its crown (Pharaoh and its expansion Cleopatra, Zeus and the Poseidon expansion, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom). In 2004 Tilted Mill Entertainment tried to revolutionize the genre with Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile that used a 3D game engine instead of the usual fixed isometric view allowing free camera rotation and a good level of zoom. Although Caesar fans didn?t welcome the new title very well and rather kept playing and creating more and more maps for the original game, it was clear to everybody that it was the first step towards a new ?era? of province governing.

Eight years have passed since the Romans gained a special place in our hearts. The time has come for the series to gain a new member. Dressed up in tridimensional clothes and proudly carrying its legacy along with a shiny (the dynamic lighting had a major part in this) aura comes the too long expected Caesar IV. Ave Caesar! It?s time to advance up the empire?s political ladder once again.

Story As the Roman Empire grows stronger and stronger (from 637 BC as you start your first training mission to 197 AD when you run for the emperor position) Caesar is in need of capable governors that will build city after city and present to the world the glorious conditions that the Roman cities provide. There are provinces everywhere that show good potential but, as they had no leaders to exploit the fertile soil and mine the resources out of the rich ground, it is now up to you to lay the cornerstone of flourishing establishments here ? to preoccupy yourself of the economical aspect or to push back the barbarian tribes that try to cross Rome?s path. People will follow you and do as you tell them for as long as you provide them with food and their daily life goods. The Romans were after all the first republic of the world so if you refuse to comply with the people?s requests they are going to turn against you in a heart beat.

As always there?s not much story involved when talking about city-building games except for the short introductory overview of each scenario and the problems (or bonuses) that you may encounter thanks to your own managerial skills. You?ll follow again the way to increasingly grandiose cities and taming barbarian tribes and sometimes please or summon the wrath of gods or the emperor?s (which is a lot worse). Trading, acquiring new merchandise for the people, exploiting resources, attracting more people, offering more jobs, seeing your cultural rating progress, in short growing your settlement is all the story a city planner could expect. You are making history. You decide how the entire world looks upon your city. What greater, intricate story could there be?

Concept The basic concept remains the same as in the classic Caesar III. Your city?s development will be expressed in terms of Culture, Prosperity, Security and Favor, along with the number of your inhabitants and your treasury standings. You?ll still receive an initial amount of money to get you started and next you gradually try the emperor?s patience as you get the province in debt (and yes, he will send his troops ? increasing in power with every new wave ? to trash the city).

The main campaigns give once again the chance of centering your reign on either economical or military assignments. The two shorter ladders of evolution with 7 scenarios each instead of a long 14 steps to victory provide the aspiring city planner with a scent of quicker world recognition. Resources are spread around the maps again and it is your job to make good use of them by turning it into finished products or improve your cash supply by exporting it (and occasionally send some of it to Rome).

As I said, the main idea is pretty much the same, yet there are tons of improvements available and the new game in the series concentrates on a more strategic gameplay. From residential and cultural to industry, trading, military and beautifications, all of these find their way into the vast menu of about 100 buildings. Again there are unique characters that roam the roads and can give you lots of useful info about what goes well or wrong in the city. And speaking of people? well, let?s just say (for now) that all your nightmares of secluded, poorly developed houses in the middle of your industry zones are now over as the pathfinding is not much of a problem anymore.

Previously you had to concentrate on providing as little choice as possible to your people to make sure they will do as you please. The ideal city was nothing than a long sinusoidal road and gods forbid you tried to control the traffic in any intersection (these were usually set in the middle of nowhere). You now have the chance to let your creative spirit kick in and not only provide the functional aspect of the city, but also take care of the design. Roads and buildings can now be headed 8 different ways (aside from the vertical ? horizontal axes a supplementary 45 degrees rotated axes system is provided, although it makes no difference whether the building faces the road or not).

Gameplay After a short preparatory experience with the Kingdom campaign, the real challenges come through in the Republic and Empire campaigns. Every city presents you with a different challenge. Aside from the goal progress information, the governor is also presented with an overview of the overall goings in the region. His own group of advisors (just like a in a small senate meeting) provides the necessary knowledge about each aspect of life in the province. From the list of major activities and the labor that goes into them to how appealing your city is to the gods you can find it all out from your trusty servants (they really do give away the best advise as possible and finally they provide a realistic statistics of the province).

Remember Caesar III as you always had to keep a close eye on the house development as they could just ruin your entire work by upgrading in the most chaotic way there was and then the remaining houses didn?t have the necessary space to evolve anymore? And there were also times when the big majority of your people get a hold of too many commodities for their own well being and they decided to become patricians and live the working to their more unfortunate relatives. Now, this was a big setback of the game? I had no control whatsoever on the people that reside in my city.

Well, Caesar IV got the idea that there are three major classes in the Roman society ? plebs, equites and patricians. The gap between these classes is impassable here so there is a top level of evolvement that can be achieved by each of them. No more will plebs leave their jobs to get a closer view of the luxurious noble lifestyle. Although some fans may find it harsh, it?s rather a good addition to be able to have a mixed society without overreacting with the precaution measures for certain houses not to evolve beyond a certain level. Although you?ll need a lot fewer houses to achieve the population goals than you got used to in the previous game in the series, a high number of inhabitants is nothing rare in this one either (the biggest expectation from you is to achieve a population of 10,000 ? providing the jobs will be more entertaining as the patrician houses can only hold 30 people no matter how evolved they are).

Romans finally learned how to get to their jobs no matter how far that is. All they need is a road. No more high unemployment despite some buildings lacking workers just because they are too stupid to find the way to the residential zone and even loose labor from time to time as the personnel in charge of hiring took a wrong turn and got lost. Actually most of the pathfinding problems got solved as buildings have an area of influence rather than depend strictly on the road system. Yes, it is a lot easier this way, but come on? Having crooked houses all over the map or, even worse, small neighborhoods that employ several times more people than you needed for the industrial zone itself wasn?t really all that fun. Several underdeveloped house areas were necessary and this was hurting my prosperity rating a lot and besides these usually bruised my budget too.

The struggle is that laborer?s houses don?t pay taxes any more. The only internal revenue comes from marketplaces and patrician villas. Exports need to cover up for the remaining expenses. The good thing is that your market traders won?t just buy everything they can get (and eventually run out of food just because there?s a sale for wine at the warehouse). Each class comes with additional commodities requirements so specific markets are available. Everybody wants food and the basic goods, but luxury and exotic wares are only available at specific stores (well, they are all generally referred to as marketplaces). Good, good. So setting a wealthier district nearby becomes a lot easier.

While the plebs will worry about the physically challenging work (farming, industry, commerce, infrastructural and military services) the equites take care of the more intellectual jobs on the market (the water system, taxing and all the cultural, educational and health activities). And of course the patricians just enjoy themselves and pay their taxes for this. I was surprised to see that house development was based on getting certain wares and services, giving little attention to the food supply. People will however protest for the lack of food (the snob patricians will even protest for too little entertainment, but that?s another story) and eventually live the city if conditions don?t improve.

The novelty is that resource gathering facilities don?t have to be set on the fields or the mining zones anymore. This comes as a benefit since no roads need to reduce the fields by half, more working centers can send their employees to exploit the same resource deposit. It is useful of course that they have nearby the according manufacturing and storing facilities.

There are several new products available (an amazing amount of 12 exotic goods ? true, you can?t just harvest most of them). There are 3 types of food ? grain, vegetable and cattle (they replaced the pigs with cows - OK, but did the fruits mix up with vegetables or what?). The industry however thrived with the addition of 3 all new raw materials ? wool, gold and sand. There are a total of 10 manufacturing buildings available ? four of which brand new (it was about time for the people to dress up and learn the art of jewelry and glass designing).

Trading is the cornerstone of economy. As a trading route is opened the construction of specific ports or depots becomes available. Their menu allows you to easily set the quantities to be stored and control the goods exchanging operations. It is of crucial importance to quickly secure a trade route that will provide you with nice revenues.

The buildings are created up to scale so no more does the theatre occupy the same space as an ordinary house. This may prove to be quite a challenge when dealing with unfriendly terrain and need to squeeze everything on a small piece of land (and once your buildings tend to grow up you?ll encounter some difficulties in keeping an eye on the smaller constructions around). Yet this is part of the challenge of the game and refers to the strategic aspect I was telling you about earlier. The maps don?t excel in size (as the ones from Caesar III did), but they do provide you with a fairly big region. Everything can fit, but you need to plan carefully your zones (keep in mind that Romans feel safer behind well defended walls so live a little space for that too).

Video The game engine from Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile is used to create the tridimensional aspect of the modern Caesar. Dynamic lighting and bump mapping allow your city to seem more real than ever. In addition to this a day and night cycle and realistic weather effects have been inserted. As you anger the gods different trouble may appear ? a lightning strikes your market, a plague kills half of the population. Which is more, the level of zoom and free camera rotation also allows for a quick city wide screenshot (Ctrl+F9) (the night in the game comes once a year ? in December ? so careful not to miss the views). The shadows in the game can upset even a new generation system so it is advisable to enjoy them for a few minutes at the beginning of the game and disable them afterwards for a more fluid gameplay.

Technology has come a long way in eight years so let?s be grateful for the way Caesar IV keeps up the pace and leave the setbacks that come with it for the future games to prove that can be overcome. But the close up zoom offers some of the best looking views in city-building games with a great amount of details, high resolution textures and funny animations. I appreciated the graphical aspect of its sibling as well, but the Roman grandeur just boosts it up at least two steps. System requirements may be a little steep for best quality, but the game proves to be highly scalable so most fans and newcomers can engage in the emperor?s challenge.

Sound Orchestral elements combine to create a relaxing atmosphere as if a slow yet encouraging background music to a movie about achieving one?s dreams of glory (this is what the game is all about anyway). Composer and audio director Keith Zizza provides the player with more than an hour of this musical feast (he was also in charge of the sound in Pharaoh ? actually all the stuff at Tilted Mill were involved one way or another with titles like Caesar III, Pharaoh, Zeus and Children of the Nile).

Multiplayer Surprise! Surprise! Yes, Caesar IV comes with a multiplayer option. What for you may ask. Well, it doesn?t allow you to trade with friends or anything like that. There are two choices ? Caesar?s Challenge and The Empire. These both basically consist of singleplayer scenarios (presented on the official site) where you give your best to grow your city and achieve ever so high scores. The difference is very subtle. The Empire is all about growing your province, improving it, reshaping it as you please over an indefinite period of time. Just play one of the specified scenarios (at a time) and upload the results from the win screen or the scenario overview screen. You are ranked according to the total number of inhabitants that your enlisted cities house. You can see your overall population increase on the Empire?s map and even get short glimpses at other players? achievements (a city wide screenshot included). Caesar?s Challenge requires a better (actually, more like constant) internet connection as it requires you to play certain scenarios and be connected to the official database all through the process. Your achievements are automatically saved and compared to others. There are so called seasons that decide on which scenarios are on for the challenge (season V is already up). At the end of the season different medals are awarded for high score, high population, time trial or most denarii.

Conclusion There are some games that you could go on playing for ever and ever. You can sit in front of your computer for hours and hours and don?t even realize it. As you manage to win another scenario, while still having a wide grin on your face, you suddenly realize that you still need to eat and sleep once in a while. Yet the game captures you completely. You?d want to do everything while still playing. Caesar IV can have this effect on you. It can be addictive. No sooner as you gain a new rank in the empire you get an idea of how you could achieve that quicker, with a better looking city or try the other challenge for the same position. It offers a great potential of replay value (enhanced also by the tool set that allows you to create your own scenarios and maps). ?La cita eterna? (Rome ? the eternal city) calls again for your managerial skills. Can you open heartedly refuse?

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story 7
gameplay 8
concept 8
graphics 9
audio 9
multiplayer 6
final rating 8.3
Editor's review
very good
 
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