The Wargamer

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres...

In 1998, The Wargamer reviewed Caesar III; in that review, our former History Editor (and now board game designer) Mark McLaughlin called Caesar III the Augustus of the franchise: "an elegant, thoughtful refinement of its predecessor, whose depth and accomplishments eclipse all that came before."  After a showing as strong as that, can Vivendi bring back the city-building franchise and top the famed Augustus?  We saw the the game for the first-time at this year's E3 convention, complete with deafening background music, and came away favorably encouraged at the prospects of this empire.

The developers behind Caesar IV are actually many of the same developers from Caesar III.  See, back then Impressions Games was heading up the development work with backing from Sierra.  In the eight years since, Vivendi has purchased and disbanded Sierra, and closed the Impressions Games studios.  As a result, many of these talented developers moved on to form their own company, Titled Mill Entertainment and continue this city-building legacy.  Following the success of their Children of the Nile game, Vivendi approached the company with the opportunity to revive the Caesar franchise.  Since then, the company has been feverishly working to bring the series into the 21st century with new 3D graphics and a significant number of updates to the original formula.  As we saw at the show, they are not making massive changes to the foundations of Caesar, instead choosing to leave in place the basic concept of a city and empire-builder set in the midst of the rise of the Roman Empire.  As such, the player takes the role of a governor during the rise of the Empire.  Taking orders from Roma, Caesar IV will have its city planners hard at work on projects that will develop the Empire in both economic and military ways.

The very impression that struck me when I first saw the game was its beautiful new buildings and landscapes.  The cities of this classical era have really come to life, complete with structures that will make it easily apparent to even the most casual of historical eyes that this is in fact the Roman Empire.  The new graphical effects (many of which are more technical than are worth writing here) really make the game that much more immersive and give players a reason to focus on the aesthetic quality of their buildings and cities (combat plays a limited role in this game).

With the progression of computer technology, Caesar IV will now be able to intricately model the lives of each of the city's citizens.  That population will be affected by a variety of factors, including their overall prosperity, security, and cultural attributes.  During the demo we saw, their current condition could be easily determined from their body language and gestures (The Sims in Roman times, perhaps?).  An angry worker might stomp on grapes to express his displeasure with the current regime, for example.  Should the player want to learn about a particular citizen, it's possible to click on and follow about a particular citizen's life to learn more about their current state.  These intelligent citizens have an ultimate effect on the success or failure of a city, so it's especially important to appease the masses in this Roman game.

Economic management in Caesar IV comes through in a number of different ways, but suffice it to say that the low-class citizens will carry the brunt of the laboring and structure building, the middle class will provide the occasional service or goods, and the rich will sit around bossing around people.  The player will need to balance those classes to achieve the right mix of workers to continue developing the city as well as rich people to pay taxes.  Some 30 different resources will also be available to trade and develop for economic gain.  Should a question arise, the player can always rely on the game's advisors to make suggestions.

As an added bonus to the basic city-building objectives presented in the campaign, the final game will also include scenarios from historical cities of that time.  While a specific list of cities has not yet been announced, expect to travel from as far as the hills of Britannia to the deserts of North Africa. 

We were pleasantly pleased to see Caesar IV so far along after just 18 months of development time.  The game's good-looking 3D graphics and detailed population modeling will make this a worthwhile game for strategy and city-building gamers to watch in the coming months, although it may have its work cut out for itself with three other Roman city-builders coming to the market at nearly the same time.

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