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Review: "Caesar III"
Not just another city management game!
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"Caesar III" Heaven

Who needs another city management game? There are plenty out there to try, so why try "Caesar III?" Especially since it is an older game and won't live up to the quality graphics and sound new games now have. If you haven't tried "Caesar III," you may be impressed for it's depth.

Gameplay:
Caesar is the SimCity of the ancient times.In ancient times, you have to be ready to defend yourself against enemies, bring happiness to your citizens, and please Caesar. Caesar is challenging and allows you to choose your direction in the crops you grow, items you export/import, what types you build, and more. Caesar will ask you to provide goods, such as oil or fruit. Sometimes, his expectations are simply unattainable and this displeases him if you can't fulfill his request.

The first couple of assignments you are given are merely tutorials to help you learn the game and become familiar with the interface. Once you are promoted to the third level, you are given complete freedom, well almost, as to what you grow for food, export, and what you build. At the end of each level you are given a chance to choose from two cities with two different objectives. One has a military mission and the other a peaceful, economic situation that needs to be solved. The military missions tend to be easier, since the economic mission requires more planning, decision-making, and reasoning.

A lot is expected of you. Trading, worshiping the gods, farming, industry, defending against enemies, and bringing prosperity to the province are just some of your responsibilities. Keeping the city in order is no easy task. The game is fast paced and constantly testing your management skills. You could spend hours upon hours building and rebuilding your cities.

Graphics:
A fun part of the game is just watching the citizens, workshops, and others move around doing their jobs. The graphics are good, not the greatest I've seen, but fits in well with the mood of the game. The animations for the warehouses, farms, docks, oil workshop, etc. are clever and add to Roman like atmosphere. The quality is good considering it was created a few years ago, and requires a very basic graphics card.

Sound:
You won't need a fancy graphics card or speaker system to play this game. I could easily play without the sound. So it's a great game for late night playing, when you're trying to be quiet.

Conclusion:
The depth and challenge of this game is far beyond "SimCity." I recommend this game to anyone with a love for city management games and challenges and don't care about fancy graphics and sound. If you are trying to get a friend who loves ancient history into simulation gaming, tell them about this game, they'll fall in love with it.

Minimum PC System Requirements:
Intel Pentium 90
150 MB hard disk space
4X CD-ROM drive
1 MB PCI video card
16-bit windows compatible sound card with DAC
Microsoft Windows 95 or Later
16 MB RAM

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