Caesar II

This is not a game review : to be short, the game is great, for me it's the best game in the serie. This is a gog version review, and there's things to tell... First of all : you have to disable mouse acceleration or you juste cannot play at all. Next : I remember an "accelerate time" action in the speed menu of the game. It's not here anymore. A city builder without time acceleration... Woooo, that is a huge drawback ! Luckily the shortcut (A) still work.... Then the game is cluncky... at best. Do not expect a smooth experience. And the smoothness of the game vary greatly seemingly without any reason... But the game works and that's way more than anything I succeded doing in the multiple attempts I did in the past !

I first saw this game on my home computer when I was about 3 years old and it was certainly one of my favoured ones. If only to build a big group of houses and then remove all the plebs and watch the town burn to a repeating voice stating "PLEBS ARE NEEDED" When I saw this was on GOG I thought I might as well pick it up and the game is pretty much exactly as I remember it, however there are a couple of things that have been bugging me here: Firstly; I'm not sure what to call it, mouse acceleration perhaps? but the cursor movement is really off. I'm not sure how to describe it but mostly moving the mouse up and down will push the cursor off to sides. It's as if there is a magnet in the middle of the window. It's not heavy though, so you could learn to get used to it. Secondly; the game runs a bit slow, which I believe was always a thing. when placing a building or removing one the game will kinda stop for a single tick. This is also annoying. The game is still solid by design though, I love the art for all the buildings and that your housing isn't strictly restrained to roads unlike all city builders have decided now where buildings will fall down if there is no main road that passes outside them. and also the unique world map overview which allows you to operate outside your city building farms and trading ports. Very cool. That's all I wanted to say.

PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED PLEBS ARE NEEDED

With a high focus on land values it is similar to Anno. Unlike Anno the buildings don't show their radii in which they effect others. Instead it relies on a mix of a radii maps, which you can look through but are incomplete. Everything that isn't covered by the few available radii maps you have to read up yourself. Luckily the game has an excellent encyclopedia which can be activated by right clicking on anything you don't understand. If you are willing to read up on the functions you will have a lot of fun with this game. Due to it being a bit laborious to learn I can only give it 4 out 5 stars.