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[teezzy]

Recently had an uptick in my curiosity about ancient Rome

Saw Caesar 3 on Steam. Bought Caesar 3. Having not played a city builder since I was a kid with Sim City on SNES... I'm very much enjoying this completely different playstyle from what I'm used to

Any old fans here? What should I know? Any favorite memories?

Not really interested in any mods or anything for the time being unless they fix compatbility bugs like a weird audio loop I ran into immediately on Windows 10 - thankfully that was a simple correction



Seriously, this is hype

Let's talk about Caesar 3 please and thank you

 

[Kuranghi]

I never played Caesar 3 much but I played the spirtual successor Pharoah (+ the Cleopatra expansion) quite a bit. I loved the building animations, watching the Pyramids slowly get built. The graphics felt like pre-rendered CGI back then, compared to other games.

 

[teezzy]

Kuranghi

I actually saw a Pharaoh and Cleopatra bundle on Steam as well. Made a mental note of it for later depending how my experience with this goes. I wrongly assumed they were released concurrently, and didn't expect it to be a spiritual successor. Interesting

 

[Kuranghi]

Kuranghi

I actually saw a Pharaoh and Cleopatra bundle on Steam as well. Made a mental note of it for later depending how my experience with this goes. I wrongly assumed they were released concurrently, and didn't expect it to be a spiritual successor. Interesting

Yeah I just saw that while searching to confirm Cleopatra was an expansion. Theres also this:

 

[SinDelta]

Yeah I just saw that while searching to confirm Cleopatra was an expansion. Theres also this:

Zeus is a literal God tier city builder. Only reason I'm hesitant on getting it again is due to various issues I've read about on modern systems.

Also Emperor Rise of the Middle Kingdom is pretty good.

 

[Vasto]

Zeus is still my favorite of all time.

 

[teezzy]

Yo why does my shit keep burning up

 

[belmarduk]

The gods are annoyed with us!

 

[stranno]

Imo the best city builder of all time.

If you want to play it nowdays, Julius is the way to go. An 1:1 open-source re-implementation with many fixes and improvements. They even fixed the classic inmigration bug in Very Hard. It has been ported to Vita and Switch as well.

GitHub - bvschaik/julius: An open source re-implementation of Caesar III

An open source re-implementation of Caesar III. Contribute to bvschaik/julius development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Just drop the Julius executable in the Caesar III folder and play.

 

[Bragr]

Classic city builder but has aged quite a bit, mostly recommended for people with nostalgia.

1998 - Caesar III
1999 - Pharaoh
2000 - Zeus
2002 - Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom

Those 4 are the "famous" Impression Games city builders that all play very similarly and were pretty popular back in the day. I like Caesar the most, but only because of my nostalgia, Zeus and Emperor are the two that play the best right now.

 

[teezzy]

stranno

Idk how people play this sorta thing without a mouse... im getting hella stressed as is

i think im grasping the basics but its just alerting me constantly

need more workers - i build more houses
people eating more than they produce - i build more farms
some god is angry - build them a church or whatever
this building is on fire - build an engineering post
you need more workers - i build more houses

so on and so forth

then there's all this water stuff, gardens, theaters, schools, senates, etc

there's a lot going on and im like a couple hours in tops haha

 

[stranno]

stranno

Idk how people play this sorta thing without a mouse... im getting hella stressed as is

Both ports support touch screen, direct and indirect touch iirc. I played them with the gamepad, tho (docked Switch and Playstation TV).

 

[teezzy]

Both ports support touch screen, direct and indirect touch iirc. I played them with the gamepad, tho (docked Switch and Playstation TV).

Is it normal for stuff to burn? like is that part of the gameplay loop? or am i missing something?

stuff burns and then i click on it with the shovel to clear land and put a new one in its place - right?

 

[stranno]

Is it normal for stuff to burn? like is that part of the gameplay loop? or am i missing something?

stuff burns and then i click on it with the shovel to clear land and put a new one in its place - right?

You just need a couple of "fire stations" to keep buildings safe. I used to put one in each corner of the buildings block.

Until the desert levels, where you need a fire station ever two centimetres

 

[sertopico]

One of my favourite games back in those days. Planning carefully how you build roads is key to avoid any kind of problem, including fires. Try to maintain an urban layout that's as simple as possible, so that everything/everyone (people, goods, firemen, guards etc.) can get to point a to point b fast. Also avoid building too many intersections, they will slow down the development of the city and cause many other issues. My strategy was to build self sufficient blocks that had everything they needed to develop and connect them one to the other just with one road. Also remember that not every single block must be made out of villas, otherwise there will be nobody left willing to work hehe.

 

[teezzy]

Man, there is just no pleasing this Julius Caesar guy

 

[teezzy]

Like bro, if im not paying attention to one thing, something else is exploding, and then im running out of room and like you gotta force fuckers to pay their taxes, like motherfucker you see the life i've provided for you? you owe me motherfucker

Ohhh we want a theater, oooo we want hospitals, ooo we want a library, ooo i need more oil, oooooooo

whiny bitch ass Romans

 

[Tschumi]

What do you need to know...

Stack farms

Keep your street layout gridded and iterative...

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom is the best version of the Impressions City Builder games.

 

[sackings]

Like bro, if im not paying attention to one thing, something else is exploding, and then im running out of room and like you gotta force fuckers to pay their taxes, like motherfucker you see the life i've provided for you? you owe me motherfucker

Ohhh we want a theater, oooo we want hospitals, ooo we want a library, ooo i need more oil, oooooooo

whiny bitch ass Romans

look up how to build an optimal housing block. once you know how to do that, the game becomes so much simpler to control and organize

 

[teezzy]

thanks for the pointers guys


im also going to look more into tax rates and exactly how the trading works in this game. i shouldnt be going broke the way i am trying to keep the city afloat

 

[Tschumi]

thanks for the pointers guys


im also going to look more into tax rates and exactly how the trading works in this game. i shouldnt be going broke the way i am trying to keep the city afloat

I rather recommend giving a whatsit, non-campaign map a go first, in a temperate location, lots of farmland etc, just show yourself that you can get it to work ... But these games are really based off having the ideal block layout... When you're super efficient the rest can take care of itself....

I reiterate though.. Caesar 3 gets in the way of itself... Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom just lets you flex.. it's really superior to the rest imo