Caesar IV

[SwordsMaster]

So... Who got it? Who played it? Why?

[frogbeastegg]

I got it. I played it. I found that it didn't like my old computer much, and also decided that I enjoyed CivCity: Rome far more, so it got dropped before I finished the 8(?) mission tutorial campaign.

The demo was great. It felt like the old Impressions games, and ran tolerably well on my system considering it was based on an incomplete build of the game. The full thing ran worse, though that system was a good one (P4 3.0, 7600gt, 2GB DDR RAM). I must admit that this computer died a slow and horrible death as the motherboard failed, so it's possible this was partly responsible for the performance issues. I know it affected M2TW; that game steadily became unplayable.

As for what happened to the fun, I honestly couldn't say. It seemed like I spent all my time trying to find out basic information which used to be easily available in the old games, and finding it impossible to get any food to my populace. I'd have loads and loads of farms, and the necessary support and distribution network, and still there'd be nothing in the granaries or markets. So I'd add more farms next time it was planting season, and still my people starved. Repeat over and over, until I manage to meet the requirements to finish the level. It just seemed like each farm produced next to nothing, despite being fully staffed and well placed within the network. I recall having 2/3 of my plebs farming away, and still not enough food for my little cities. Each mission seemed to take forever, and there wasn't that much to do once the basic city was slapped down. Nothing, that is, except adding more farms in an effort to shut up the whining about the lack of food.

I was so disappointed. I loved the old City Builders, and liked Children of the Nile too. The game needed patching; it had some nasty bugs at release. I suppose the patch may be out now … :checks Tilted Mill’s forums: Yes, it’s out.

If you want a city builder, I recommend you take a look at CivCity: Rome. It's been patched to fix the bugs which hampered the initial release, and it does some things which no other game of this type has done to my knowledge, such as adding in tech trees so you can research to improve your city.

I may load it up and give it another go, now the patch is here and I have a posh new PC. I did like the demo enough to play it through several times. If I don’t like it I’ll load up CivCity and finish that a second time.

[SwordsMaster]

Thanks froggy! Apparently patch 1.5 or something of the sort is out, so perhaps some of the issues you mentioned have been solved.

Basically I am feeling like a city-builider for when i finish my thesis in 2-3 weeks and was wondering about this game. I'll have a look at Civ-City Rome.

What are the main differences between these two? Apart from farming, which apparently is one...

[edyzmedieval]

I found Civ City: Rome a big dissapointment. True, I didn't play it with the patches...

[frogbeastegg]

Oops. I didn't have time to reply when I first read this, and then I forgot about it.

It's been a while since I played either game, and I didn't get so far in Caesar IV. That in mind, here's what I remember:

1. CivCity has the ability to research. This tailors your city to your task or personal preferences. Want your people to get about quicker? Research better roads. Want more output from your farms? Research that area. If there's an industry you rely on then you can research improvements for it too. Plenty of options, and it makes for some tough choices in the early stages of the scenarios.

2. Roads. CivCity's plebs can get about without roads; they move faster when on a road, and the speed boost increases with each road upgrade. I don't remember if Caesar's need roads or not ... I kind of suspect they did.

3. Distribution. CivCity's people will go and get what they need provided it is in a set distance of thier house/workshop. It's a pull economy and it works nicely for keeping everything running.

4. Caesar IV has more missions. I also felt that the early missions in Caesar IV took longer than the midway missions of CivCity, although this may be deceptively influenced by the fact I was not enjoying Caesar IV terribly much.

5. Visually CivCity looks more grimy, a lived in world. Caesar IV is shiner, pristine. Of the two there is no doubt that Caesar IV has more and better graphical options; if you have the right PC then it can look very flashy.

Got to go! I know Caesar IV has a demo. I think CivCity may have one too. I suggest you try them out.

[SwordsMaster]

Thanks froggy! No worries! Don't really have time to play now anyway. Thesis due Thursday, so barely have time to train even