View Full Version : Caesar IV demo out!
frogbeastegg
08-17-2006, 09:43
And just in time for my lone day off :gring:
Link (http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/caesar4/caesar4_demo_en.exe.html)
GiantMonkeyMan
08-17-2006, 10:37
sweet... i loved caesar 3... in fact i still play it every now and again, my only problem with it was the battles cos they kinda sucked but still :2thumbsup:
frogbeastegg
08-17-2006, 13:31
Finished it. All in all it's good; it has the 'Caesar' feel, and keeps most of the good bits and bobs from the old Impressions game while adding in my favourite feature from Children of the Nile: houseowners who do their own shopping instead of waiting for one of those market ladies to stroll by. Three grumbles though, the first of which will prevent me from buying at release unless it is fixed.
1. Performance. Gah! System hog! Even with things turned right down it's sluggish, the cursor inaccurate, and clicks not registering consistently. Not a driver or weak PC issue either; the Tilted Mill forums have quite a few people complaining about this.
2. The way information is presented. Now you have to go to a seperate advisor screen to get basic information like how unemployment is doing. Blergh. From Pharoah onwards this was available on the right hand side of the main interface. Building information is now squahsed into a tiny box on the lower right part of the interface; not only does this severely limit the amount of information displayed, but sometimes the text didn't fit the box and was cut off! There were also some categories of information which were in the old games and CotN I couldn't find here. Pain. Did I mention that the advisor screen takes several seconds to load? And that it takes several more seconds to get back to the city?
3. The camera. Possibly the lag working in conjunction with some unexpected controls, but the accursed thing is not terribly cooperative.
So long as number 1 is fixed I can live with the other two when the game reaches £25.
Anyone playing CivCity Rome? There doesn't seem to be a demo, and I hear there's similar lag/cursor precision issues in that game.
The Spartan (Returns)
08-17-2006, 14:53
well Rome had bad revs. (CivCity)
Hmm, played it yesterday, while I couldn't recognize any real lag, I had to click some buttons more than once when giving orders to warehouses. The order windows also liked to disappear for no reason.
The whole landscape had some horizontal lines in it which wouls get worse if the camera was showing a top-down view.
The gameplay had some Caesar feel to it, but it felt somewhat shallow to me so far and I didn't like that all buildings of the same kind had exactly the same look.
Catiline
08-19-2006, 23:15
Top stuff
I've played the civilian CivCity campaign through. It's a nice little game, but it's not that much of a challenge once you work out your technique, so you're waiting to win rather than fearing you'll lose. Still fun but there are some frustations in it. THe UI ones are largely cured by turning on the free camera.
Essentially the feel is of Caesar 3, they've done a very pretty rip off with some minor tweaks. THe most backwards thing however is that you need virtually no residences to win and population will turn up if there are jobs buty no accomodation, and often when there's neither.
It kept me entertained on and off for a couple of weeks, but C4 sounds far better.
Great I have been waiting soo long for this.
Thanks it would have taken me a few more months before I would have thought to check the official site again.
:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:
FesterShinetop
08-20-2006, 12:47
1. Performance. Gah! System hog! Even with things turned right down it's sluggish, the cursor inaccurate, and clicks not registering consistently. Not a driver or weak PC issue either; the Tilted Mill forums have quite a few people complaining about this.
Yep, this gave me problems as well... now I know my machine is getting a bit ancient by now but even at it's lowest settings it really crawled along. Was only playable when zoomed in actually. Pity though as I was really looking forward to this one. But I'll have to get a new PC before I buy this one. :no:
Catiline
08-20-2006, 16:55
Whilst it runs fine while it runs, it's crashed the entrie system to reb oot twice now - anyone else experienced that?
Bob the Insane
08-20-2006, 17:07
Whilst it runs fine while it runs, it's crashed the entrie system to reb oot twice now - anyone else experienced that?
Might be linked and should be a warning to any developer types out their, but I noticed it installs .NET 2.0 during the install...
For a game! Yikes...
I want to say that in my opinion some "minor" 3D engines created by some game studios are pretty bad, unreliable and buggy, this seems to be one of them.:inquisitive:
Catiline
08-20-2006, 22:13
Might be linked and should be a warning to any developer types out their, but I noticed it installs .NET 2.0 during the install...
For a game! Yikes...
I noticed that and pulled a face at the time, though without any real idea of what .NET 2.0 was. Still don't really even after a bit of googling.
3 crashes not boot now...
Shame seemed likea fun game...
It ran well on my machine; in fact when I was playing it my weekly virus scan started and barely slowed the game down at all.
for a point of reference my specs are
Dell P4, 3.00 GHz, 1024 MB RAM, ATI Radeon x800 256MB
I think my new video card is what makes the difference, because there are people with my specs (but different video card) complaining about major lag problems.
I liked it overall, and when I inverted the mouse controls for the camera, I liked it even more.
Some of these have been expressed above, but my main complaints are
The camera often jumps for no apparent reason, especially near the edge of the map.
Often you can click mulitiple times on a button (or to build a building) and nothing happens.
Information is buried - they need hotkeys to each of the advisor screens.
Slow loading to and from advisors-city-empire views.
I wouldn't mind an end of the year report - nothing major, just a popup summary.
The list of buildings to build can really clutter up the screen when you're trying to place a building.
frogbeastegg
08-27-2006, 18:40
Hmm, I played through this a second time (first time had reawakened those city building urges) and enjoyed it much more. For some reason it performed more smoothly, though I have altered absolutely nothing at all either in or outside the demo. I didn't encounter those irritating menus closing themselves and clicks not registering either. Knowing what I was doing made quite the difference; I set up a pretty looking, efficient city and relaxed into the flow. Yup, feels like a modern Caesar to me, right down to the funny comments about the city and life in general your peeps give when you click on them.
CivCity: Rome is meant to be getting a demo soon. It's also down to £17.99 on amazon.uk. I admit I am tempted; the initial rush of complaints about it has slowed, and to some extent reversed. Bugs, interface issues, a few design decisions - they still attract rightuous grumbling, but the game itself is now getting praise. One good patch or demo and the frog might possibly hop for it. It has been far too long since my last city builder, 'Children of the Nile'. Yeah, just what I need - yet another game to sit about while I struggle to find the time to do anything with it. Woop de do. Gah! After nearly a year of hardly any games which interested me why do ten or so good ones have to crop up within the same quarter of a year!?
Sjakihata
08-28-2006, 09:55
Nice, I loved the previous items in the series - when is the full version due to be released? Thanks for the link.
frogbeastegg
08-28-2006, 10:48
October 27th for the UK. The demo version is an unfinished build.
Tilted Mill (the developers; they have many of the old city builder devs) are taking suggestions on their forums and are implimenting feedback from the demo where it is possible, which is good to see.
Mithradates
08-31-2006, 20:21
Maybe this should be another thread but does anyone remember caeser 2? It was my first real computer game and it rocked, great city builder. Also they had a campaign map not unlike RTW which included battles that were RTW esque i always wondered why after this the game took a step back and just kept u confined to the city.
frogbeastegg
09-01-2006, 12:41
Plebs are needed!
Plebs are needed!
Plebs are needed!
Plebs are needed!
I remember it. My main memory being that :points at above: They should stick that voice file in Caesar IV somewhere as an easter egg, along with some kind of homage to Caesar III's infamous market lady.
I loved the battle map, and I've been waiting for city builders to bring it back since the day I found it was dropped. Best part of the game to a very young frog with a Roman army obsession. The good old province map is getting close to its old functionality; as of Emperor: RotMK you could send out armies to conquer, and I saw something about building roads between cities in one of the new Roman city builders ... CivCity?
Catiline
09-01-2006, 16:07
in the sense that in civcity there will be one or two cities you can trade with in each map, and if you open a trade route you can then tell it to build a road. Only one per map i think, predefined , not very exciting.
Catiline
09-01-2006, 16:10
THe other thing abotu civcity, rather perversely, is that the smaller amount of accomodation you build the quicker you can level up. If you need 5 palaces you probably don't need to build more than 5 houses initially, anymore and you end up sharing resources. The population will move in even without accomodation being ready for them if ratigns are high enough. it's very backwards
:inquisitive:
forget the demo - check this out:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/caesar4/screenindex.html?sid=6157079
~;) ~:)
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