Caesar (video game)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Caesar is a city-building computer game where the player undertakes the role of a Roman governor, building ancient Roman cities.

Released in 1992 on the Amiga, ported the next year to PC and Macintosh, the game was effectively a SimCity clone with a Roman setting. Aside from similar graphics and user interface, it featured levels of micromanagement comparable with the earlier Maxis title, including building the right number of schools, theaters, libraries, bathhouses, etc. within suitable distances of residential areas.

[edit] Differences from SimCity

Notable differences of Caesar from Sim City included:

Addition of a military aspect to the game.
Simulation with detailed historical city themes and structures.

In Caesar the player was required to organise and fund armed campaigns against barbarians, and budget accordingly. The battles themselves were not featured in the original game, but the player needed to accommodate travelling troops, billeting, provisions etc., as well as maintaining a road network to transport legions more effectively. SimCity eventually offered historical city graphics to overlay its game engine but the underlying user interface and growth simulation remained unchanged.

[edit] Sequels

Caesar was developed and designed by Impressions Games and distributed by Sierra Entertainment. At the same time as Caesar, Impressions developed another Roman-themed game, Cohort 2, a game which allowed the player to direct Ancient Roman battles in a style akin to a crude precursor of the Command & Conquer series. Impressions included a feature in Cohort 2 which allowed players of Caesar to load their saved files and play out the battles from Caesar in Cohort 2. Later, Impressions released an updated version of Caesar which automatically launched a version of Cohort 2 whenever the player engaged in battle. This version was released under the title Caesar Deluxe in 1994.

Impressions released additional sequels Caesar II in 1995 and Caesar III in 1998. A third sequel, Caesar IV, was announced August 2005 by Tilted Mill Entertainment and was subsequently released on September 26, 2006.