all i've found a youtube guy reaching misson 8

i am mission 8

the population size demands keep growing but the game engine already can't keep up. increasing cycles breakes the game further

US version

-Plebian
1 Citizen 15
2 Equitus 20
3 Tabellarius 25
4 Decurian 30
5 Iuridicus 35
6 Procurator 40
7 Magistrate 45
8 Logistas 50
9 Praefectus 55
10 magister 60
11 cubicularius 65
12 legate 70

12 now. 11 needed 14000 population. since the increase is in 5s does it mean you have to reach 100% in the last 3 maps?

13 quaestor 75 ?
14 senator 80 ?
15 praetor 85 ?
16 consul 90 ?
17 proconsul 95 ?
18 princeps 100 ?
19 imperator 100 ?
20 caesar 100 ?

EU version
- citizen
1 decurian
2 magistrate
3 praefectues
4 legate
5 quaestor
6 senator
7 praetor
8 consul
9 proconsul
10 emperor

https://youtu.be/wrS7BRshMKQ

EU version is much easier

- citizen
1 decurian 15 45
2 magistrate 25 50
3 praefectues 30 60
4 legate 40 65
5 quaestor 45 70
6 senator 50 75
7 praetor 60 80
8 consul 70 85
9 proconsul 80 90
+ emperor

housing can reach top level while being next to the industry, maintenance is super cheap 50$ for thralls is basically enough

NA is basically Caesar 2 before Caesar II
everything is better but it's twice longer and much harder

corrected, final, confirmed goals for NA

-Plebian
1 Citizen 12 35
2 Equitus 16 40
3 Tabellarius 25 50
4 Decurian 30 56
5 Iuridicus 35 60
6 Procurator 40 64
7 Magistrate 45 68
8 Logistas 50 72
9 Praefectus 55 74
10 magister 60 78
11 cubicularius 65 80
12 legate 70 82
13 quaestor 72 83
14 senator 74 84
15 praetor 75 85
16 consul 76 86
17 proconsul 77 87
18 princeps 78 88
19 imperator 79 89
+ caesar

thanks man, that's helpful

..Агоф, это же ты, да?

ok i finally did it. first or like second person ever who did the US version. in the last 25 years for sure. i absolutely sure the devs didn't finish it. after mission, like, 7, the game starts to fall apart harder and glitches with corrupt graphics and performance of the engine tanks and cash overflows and goes into zero every several minutes

https://youtu.be/I2mo9TtqNCE

Congratulations!

I finished the US version a while back, and then gave the European version a go and was shocked at how much easier it was. I actually played through it and finished it in a day or two. As you mentioned, pleb cost is an order of magnitude lower, workshops seem to need far less population to be productive, and of course there are far fewer levels to play though.

I made the following post about the US version 8 years ago, which is still probably the most comprehensive info about the game available online: https://www.gog.com/forum/caesar_series/command_line_cheats_caesar_1/post2

I ended up severely changing my city layout after I posted the above, to speed things up. I made a big change to industry whereby I got rid of all roads running between the workshops and their associated housing. I found that housing still grows to single floor stone houses even without road access, so the roads just took up space that could be used for even more housing. Also, instead of having each heavy industry building surrounded by workshops, I instead just made a line of heavy industry behind a line of workshops, behind three rows of houses. This is because unemployment was always an issue for me, and heavy industry buildings are the best for employment.

The only real change I made to the residential side of the city was that I developed a fixed "vertical" pattern that I could just repeat in north to south ribbons to fill up the space. This allowed me to "zone out" mentally, and grind out the final few levels with ease.

I also got so bored of intercepting barbarians that I just kept saving and reloaded every time one appeared. They spawn based on a timer that doesn't reset when you reload, so reloading effectively skips a spawn.

I've kept my final saves for both versions. The one for the US version is particularly useful as it demonstrates my final city layout.

I gave your video a quick watch. The proportions of the various buildings and the spacing between them all is similar to what I did, but the big difference between my strategy and yours seems to be that I shoved all my heavy industry, workshops, and their associated single level stone housing into one corner of each map whereas you built your residential areas around them. Interesting!

would be cool if you could load your save and make a video showcasing the city

i rarely had any problems with unemployment and each 1 stone house tanks your prosperity into the hell, so you need to not have any

i did not surround industry with housing, that's 1 starting loop 2 workers for industry and i put it in the corner

you start map 19 with barely any money and your expenses are through the roof, so every map past 10 starts with industry loop, and industry doesn't work without citizens. only when it goes profitable i expand province then with big profits i start to make 3x3 housing only.

also you can block barbarians with walls

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IVhiEK2mHix4NmsNHiq4_VH_GrfV415DhD080P8WmQ8/edit?usp=sharing


also both (or more like 4) scripts are waiting to film tutorial. i'm just finishing aoede now and waiting for the voice actor to record the text

https://milkandhate.wordpress.com/2025/02/27/caesar-1992-us-tutorial/

https://milkandhate.wordpress.com/2025/01/16/caesar-ii-dosbox-gog-caesar-2-tutorial/

I'm not going to make a video! But here's a quick mockup of my residential and industrial layouts:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRoste7qwxhmQyVBlA7xPV25sYjoCaYa7oP2l-9xYJKxaSEcym4ENYi1e8ztxTBS1i9JMnsbCJBDfR1/pubhtml#

The final province was easy for me. It was no harder than any of the previous ~10 or so, just longer. You might only start off with 4000 gold, but once you donate the maximum 4000 gold from your personal savings, that gives you a solid 8000 to spend.

The trick I landed on was to create a city pattern that allowed me to skip costly entertainment buildings entirely until I started making serious money. Right from the start of each level I'd place down the first forum and 4 blocks of 3x3 housing. I grew industry primarily to increase employment in line with my population. I effectively built towards the taxation snowball without plonking down anything luxury, and once the money started rolling in I started splashing out on entertainment buildings (quickly building up the Culture score that sat around 0% for a long period).

I had 1500 plebs (costing 1000 a year) just before the end of the final level. I was spending just 50 a year on military. Conscription was around 10%.

Barbarians were easy to conquer with just a single cohort of 8 soldiers. I spent as little possible on the provincial level. No walls, no towers, not even any forts (though a second cohort does help with the tedium of barbarians). They never reach my cities, so I spend nothing on military for the city level either.

Regarding industry housing, I discovered that workshops only seem to gain productivity from houses within 3 squares of them. This is why my industrial design focused on lots of stone housing running alongside the workshops. Heavy industry needs to be over 4 squares away from those houses though, because they limit them to wooden houses. Doing this, all workshops end up effectively maxed out with 7 jars, which brings in a huge industrial tax income. I think by the end of the last level I was making 2500 gold a year from industry at 5% tax. I probably could have got a lot more at 6% or 7% but I was making more money than I could spend at that stage. In comparison, I was making over 4000 gold from population tax at 6%.

It's interesting to see different approaches to the same opaque game. From Caesar 2 onwards, the mechanics became a lot more transparent!

you don't get 8000 because there's tax on your personal account

and residential tax don't grow until you get a lot of proper big buildings not counting that province 19 demands a ton of fire plebs per each house and you need to spend all your money on maintenance alone

i don't even bother to waste any money on military it's useless and it will eat up all your starting cash in minutes
it's better to just stop barbarians from spawning

jars take into account the total population too

your design uses a lot of forums for few houses, forums are limited to 30 so you need to use the walkers at their farthest
or you won't hit the population goals


this is my theoretical magnasati but you need a perfect river to try it. i didn't manage to generate one

You do get 8000 gold. You lose all your personal savings above 4000 when you move to a new province. That, plus the 4000 you start with in the new province is 8000.

You can make an absolute killing without any entertainment structures. With a school and hospital, together with a bath, market and forum, and perhaps a temple, a housing block should at least reach the wide stone apartment level. In no time you'll be raking in the income tax. I think at around the 8000 population mark I was hitting the income snowball, allowing me to start placing down the expensive entertainment buildings, oracles and upgrading roads to plazas on my way to evolving palaces.

Agreed on the military. Waste of money on both city and province levels.

Jars do take into account total population, as well as how linked up your city is to towns and the imperial highway on the province level. But if you put some houses within 3 squares of your workshops, you'll see them all jump straight up to 7 jars. I did extensive testing with this, and workshops seem to gather a workforce within a 9x9 "radius". If you compare how productive a workshop is after placing a bunch of houses within range to placing the same number of houses outside of this range, you'll see.

In my first 10 provinces I placed far fewer forums. But I realised soon after that closeness to forums was a major benefit to housing. Almost all of my palaces were right next to a forum, even though other housing blocks may have had more entertainment around them and therefore higher land value. But anyway, I didn't even reach 30 forums on the final level, so that limit is of no concern at all.

Regarding fire fighting, I think I needed around 750 plebs on fire fighting duty on the final level to win it? That's not too much at all.

A note regarding walkers: I'm not convinced they even work properly in Caesar 1. If they do work, it's very eratic. Certainly, designing a city around walkers as you know them from Caesar 2 and 3 doesn't work too well.

again, you do not get the whole 8000 there's a tax on transaction.

population tax works easily on first maps, past the middle point you need to make a giant investment to see ROI, meanwhile industrial loop gives you cash while it's still half finished and it needs way less plebs

i dunno how you could beat map 19 without running out of forums when you need population 12000 at the very least and then either destroy the industry or go like 19000 to offset the stone houses

750 is half of your allowed plebs there's hard limit of 2000

c1 c2 and c3 walkers are all absolutely different. you can not design your city without taking walkers into account because walkers is the only thing that turns your stone houses into anything above. making too complex roads makes them run around and lose their minds not ever visiting your housing. also starting with map 10 the game just cannot run itself and walkers start to bug out. the amount of cycles changes nothing

map 19 hits absolute limits in number of plebs in population demands in forums number. you can win only by barely scraping by on the easiest

You're right. You get 7600 after a 10% tax!

The rest is not accurate. I loaded my final save, and just after being made Caesar here is what I have:

I won the final level with a population of 16812. With 6% population tax I made 4471 gold from that tax in the final year, and from 5% industrial tax I made 2688 from industry in the final year, making the total tax income of 7159 gold. I spent 1200 gold on pleb welfare. I had 30 workshops with every single one at maximum (7) jars, so that's 210 jars in total. 17 forums in the residential area and 2 in the industrial area (making 19 in total).

Nothing you are saying adds up to my experience.

I ignored walkers completely in Caesar 1 because they are so poorly implemented as I mentioned. My designs were all based on building distances from each other.

how can you have 16000 pop when you have only 5 houses per forum? and you can't ignore walkers, you just oversaturate your roads. proximity actually doesn't matter at all, stone house will not upgrade unless it is touched by a walker and it will degrade. you just have a lot of forums per house.

income doesn't matter when you have a ton of it. what i'm saying is when you start maps past 10, 7600 is barely anything and then there are barabarians per second to manage

all i say is on the video. that game falling apart at 10000 cycles, bugs, glitches, demented walkers, plebs requirements, income zeroing from time to time, random breaks etc etc