Caesar 3

I might be a bit of a city building fanatic. I have Caesar III & IV, Zeus + Expansion, Emperor, and Pharoah + Expansion. Caesar III was the first I played, and still one of my favourite games. Building cities is so much fun, and you can build them how you want. The Military Dictator holding off the ravaging hordes? Sure. The benevolant ruler with all his working class in top housing? Sure. Leaving the Plebs in the tents where they belong and giving your nobility the most luxurious palaces possible? Etc. Etc. The Campaign is a good tutorial that eases you into the game brilliantly, but not so slow that you get bored - it gets tricky quite quickly. The combat is good but not so important as to detract from the other aspects. You'll find that the main joy of this game is the building up of the city, and balancing employment and population. Compared to other games like Sim City, the game has a much faster action to reaction ratio, so you can see quite quickly what effect you have on the city. Get it. It's awesome. Here's to hoping that GOG brings the others here too - while all of the sets are quite similar, there's enough quirks and differences between each game to make them all equally enjoyable.

Caesar 3 is a game I enjoyed deeply as a kid. If any title deserves ranking amongst the "Good Old Games" (thank you GOG <3) it's Caesar 3. The gameplay, graphics, complexity, voice-acting, music etc are of tremendous standard. Though not the only strategy game with an Ancient Rome setting, but few games in general (not just Roman) have this much depth on the politics and economics that came with building and governing cities implemented within its gameplay. Even as an old video game, it takes you in to its historical setting in a way that even more modern masterpieces have not. While the game is well-made and relatively bug-free, it loses 1 star for its difficulty. Even on easier settings, Caesar 3 requires a lot of patience and skill. It's not that the game isn't completable, but one must not be surprised if (even earlier in the campaign) one has to restart a level because they failed or have lost the chance to be victorious in it. If you have the patience for the challenge though, you will find an addictive and rewarding experience. Anyone really into simulations, RTS's, and having deep fascination with Roman history cannot go wrong with this game.

A lot of old games I've played definitely deliver on a sense of nostalgia. But, Caesar 3 surprised me, it's legitimately a great game even by today's standards. The graphics hold up very well (imo the 2d graphics from this era aged a lot better than 3d from the same era). If I'm being honest, my only real gripe is the behavior/controls for military units is not great. Having said that, it's the only thing that's struck me as a pain since returning to this game. There's a great open source project, 'julius', that adds really nice wide-screen support. I can't recommend it enough. If anyone reading this has played the stronghold HD versions, the julius mod feels a lot like that. Same old game, except it looks right on a modern machine.

Good old classic from Sierra. This is a very challenging city builder game (Gods, Caesar, climate) and still eye catchy with those pretty graphics. The audio loop and the speed will turn you mad if you don't quickly touch the options. You also cannot do an alt+tab if you want to & the screen resolution options are limited. Overall no mistakes here, its a classic. "Caesar wants some olive oil, now !"

As a kid I tried playing this game, but failed to understand what I needed to do to make cities work, as I wasnt that good at reading information and strategizing. Now, being older, I wanted to try again and see if I can fair better. Although I did fair better and managed to understand how much of the things work, it isnt a fun experience. There are some issues I have with this game. First off, is that you need to often follow specific buidling strategies to be effective. Either because you need to make sure maintenance is carried out properly or houses develop properly. Its important, because if you dont then your city collapses or you dont have a proper tax base. So possibilities for variation are limited and often come out inorganic or even somewhat illogical from a normal city perspective. If you are new to this game, trial and error will be a running theme and there will be a certain lerning curve. Next off, you will require to do some micromanagent in certain situations, but interface and controls are so outdated it becomes quite a chore. This also applies to gathering information. Also, some information you dont get, like how far people can live away from their work place. There are those that are quite fine with the design of the game and others get mods to solve technical or other issues. I can definitely see why people like it a lot. Even I wanted to like this "classic". But while trying to play the missions and learning how it all works I kept catching myself on the thought that Im not enjoying myself. I caution younger or newer audiences to this genre. Despite having a lot of charm, the game also has its significant flaws.