Caesar 3

A truly wonderful manager sim where you play as a newly appointed provincial governor that will be given several different tasks by the emperor himself as you progress in the ranks. You will have to make sure that the people who come to your city have access to food, work, security and entertainment among things. Another important aspect is to establish a trade route with any of the neighbouring cities in the province. It is also important that you keep the gods happy as they can quite easily get jealous if only one of the Roman gods are worshipped in the city, they will punish you with things like making a certain amount of food in your storage just disappear, fires break out and more. This is a true gem when it comes to manager simulators and is a must play, even if you haven't played any of the earlier Caesar games.

As the title states, this game is truly a masterpiece. There has been a slew of "city-builders" released at around the same time (essentially same games with different themes ie Zeus, Pharaoh, Emperor) but Ceasar III really stands out. It's polished, the systems make sense and function as expected, in all my time with this game I've barely had any issues, and none of them bigger then minor annoyances. If you're a fan of city-building and games that are more about managing the economy as opposed to fighting. Although there are times when you'll have to get your hands bloody in this game as well, but when you're given a choice of provinces there's usually a peaceful one to pick. At this point (2013) Ceasar IV may be a better option. It's got a 3D engine so it's capable of much more realistic looking environments, though the game does lose some visual charm, CIV is not as colorful as this game.

One of my all time favorite games. The old style graphics and entertaining sound track create a great sense of immersion. Caesar 3 has a great balance in which building any kind of city is possible but not easy. The only weak point I would point out is the combat system- it is much too fast paced compared to the rest of the gameplay and feels out of place, however it's not enough to bring down the 5 star rating this game deserves.

I've played SimCity [the 2014 release], Anno, Grand Ages, Tropico, Children of the Nile, Dawn of Discovery [Anno 1440], and still find this gem to hold up for it's graphics and standards. It has a nice vibe, and goes into the gameplay very fast.

The game might seem to be a little too hard at first since even relatively stable cities can fall apart in minutes due to the seemingly slightest mistakes. Maybe Caesar3 punishes beginners like me too hard, but once you have figured out the game mechanics the game becomes rather easy. If you don't have the time or the patience to learn how to play this game then you should skip this. If you like challenges and city builder strategy games you should give it a try. (Note that this was my first city builder game so I cannot benchmark it with other city builders.) Also note that in the GOG version I had problems with controllong the audio in-game.