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It's bad news when the patch precedes the game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 47 / 66
Date: October 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I first suspected something might be wrong in ancient Rome when patch 1.1 for Caesar IV was released the day before the actual game. Patch notwithstanding, this game is unplayable on my system, which exceeds the required specs listed. The game suffers from mouse lag, a cumbersome interface, and worst of all, apparently random game crashes requiring a complete hard reboot. Don't believe me? Head on over to the technical support area at Tilted Mill; many people are having the same problems. Many are not, to be sure, but a game this buggy should not have been released.

Might be a fun game if I could play it for more than a few minutes without crashing. My advice? Wait until the next patch (or two or three) come out.

Pretty disappointing. Crashes, delays and usability problems.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: November 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I started with Caesar2 back when it came out. I played it for hours and hours and loved it. When Caesar3 came out I bought that too and loved it even more and spent even more time playing. Both Caesar2 and 3 rarely crashed. Things have changed!

I'm spending more and more of my time restarting Caesar4 than I am playing it. About 8 out of 10 times that I access the area where you trade with other cities it crashes. Without trading, you make little money and the game is essentially over.

Other problems I'm seeing is overall performance. I don't have the fastest machine (AMD 2.1ghz, 512ram, rockin' video card with 256meg of mem) but there are irritating 1 second delays in addition to the crashes. I find the whole game to be difficult to use. This was not the case with Caesar3.

Unless they issue a patch, I'm done feel frustrated with crashes. Maybe I can dumb down the graphic setting to get rid of the delays.

My suggestion? Wait for a patch before buying --- or move on.
- jason

if i could ever get it to work

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 18
Date: October 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Well, it sounds like a great game, but after five hours of upgrading and downloading all of the specified programs and upgrades, I couldn't get the video to work at all, couldn't get technical support at all, and I gave up and have returned it to the manufacturer. a great disappointment because i love and still play the previous versions.

Varus! Give me back my Legions!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 17
Date: October 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I just bought the long anticipated Caesar IV from Sierra games. I'm returning it. While Caesar III was a GREAT game, C4 is hands down the worst game I have ever bought. Right from the start the problems began. The auto run function on the 2nd installation disk will not run, and my PC (a state of the art Dell XPS) cannot read the 2nd disk once the first has been ejected. After several force quits and errors, I finally out-smarted the flaw. I used my 2nd CD drive and restarted with both disks inserted. Had I not had a 2nd drive on my PC, I never would have gotten any farther. Once it finally loaded and I began to play, I spotted the first major graphics flaw. When you rotate the perspective to plan or top-down view, all the topography meshwork translates through the scenery skins and you can read the skeletal aspect lines of the geography - very shabby and annoying. As I got further into the game, I quickly realized other shortcomings of the game - for instance the very narrow and confining perspective boundaries. When viewing the outer-most edges of your settlements, you cannot fully rotate the perspective 360 degrees and have to rotate it back and forth. Also, the overall perspective range is very limited - similar to the latest Roller Coaster Tycoon. While you can achieve a plan view, you cannot bring the perspective tight to the ground - in fact, not even close. The playability, features, menus, objectives and other characteristics are virtually unchanged from the last edition (which was released in 1998!) . There have been almost no changes from what I can see, other than some fairly improved and more up-to-date-ish graphics. It's basically a C3 facelift if you ask me - but you can still see the old, grouchy 10 year old game under all the bad, puffy plastic surgery. This game is a total disappointment, especially given Sierra's reputation for pushing the envelope and making high-quality, imaginative, creative and ingenuous games. Don't know what's happening over at Sierra recently, but if this product is any reflection of their latest corporate mission, philosophy or structure, I'd say they're headed in the wrong direction and need to take a second look at what has made them successful in the past; taking a close look at Rome Total War wouldn't hurt either - that was their competition for C4 and they totally struck out. I for one will not be looking to purchase another Sierra game anytime soon. Very shabby and shoddy work. Maybe I accidentally got a copy of the 1st rough draft or something??? The American consumer is not so far gone that we're always going to settle for 2nd rate or "good enough." Once in a while, some of us still expect quality out of a $40 purchase - especially in today's economy.

Caesar IV...the Decline of the Empire

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 26
Date: September 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Having been a huge fan of the Caesar franchise, I was dying to see what new features the newest offering, Caesar IV, had in store. Unfortunately, all I found was an incredibly clunky UI that did not allow for any semblance of gameplay whatsoever. Navigating the screen is incredibly frustrating as the UI seems to be 14 steps behind where the mouse is. For example, place the cursor on the map edge and nothing happens for about 45 seconds, then the point of view jerks radically to some unknown place. Hovering over icons do produce a tip, but clicking on them doesn't seem to have any effect. With all of this, it is impossible to zero on any map point and forget about placing objects where you want them.

With a computer that more than exceeds the recommended requirements of the game, I am very much suprised that a game this unmanageable exists.

I guess it's back to Caesar III for me!

Let down of the millenium!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: October 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing the incarnations of Caesar (II, III) since I was 13 years old - I am now 23. After almost a decade of no new Caesars and after really enjoying both earlier games, how exciting a Caesar IV was!

What a let down when I finally played it!! CAESAR IV falls victim to the same disease that brought down SIM CITY 4 - that of emphasizing vulgar showiness and graphics over basic gameplay fun. It really doesn't matter if the characters have unique faces, or can see their reflections in rivers, or if grass is blowing in the breeze. How is any of this relevant to gameplay? I am using a new computer and the game CHUGS like a train going up a mountain.

Futhermore gameplay itself is stupid - for starters the interface is a disaster. When you click on an icon in the taskbar, a sub-menu pops up with choices - click the "scythe" icon in the taskbar and you get a sub menu of grain farms, fields, etc. Click the laurel wreath, get an sub menu of civic buildings, and so forth. But after you click the choice in the menu, the menu stays up and you have to RE-CLICK the icon to make it go away! Having to do this OVER AND OVER is a huge annoyance. And placing an object is an equal annoyance - you can't just click ONCE and be done with it - you must click at least two or three times for a building to appear. What's the deal???

Further down the cobblestone road of frustration, features such as "night/day cycle" is a real hazard as the cycle is quite slow and chuggy, not smooth as it was in a game such as "Glory of the Roman Empire". Also the scrolling/angle change feature is lame as well, it's very hard to try to change the angle of the game view. I'd rather stick with 3 frozen levels of altitude than this.

All in all, this is a product and a game to AVOID unless you own a computer given to you by NASA or are financially equipped to splash out on very high-end memory/graphic cards. Don't buy this very disappointing product!

Don't buy this!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: November 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have had this game for just 2 days. After finally getting it loaded it is SO slow I just don't have the patience. It crashed a number of times and the graphics are really awful as well. I have spent many hours playing other games (Emperor, Ceasar I and II, Pharoah and Cleopatra, Zeus, etc.) and loved them. I am really disappointed but I am giving up on Ceasar IV.

Epic disapointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: February 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I preordered this game based upon my experience with Caesar III. Big Mistake.
1. The game will only funcion properly if your PC is exactly the configuration that the designers used. I am using a 2.33GH Laptop with an NVIDIA 7600 series video card. I am serving Iraq and live with my laptop. This game will not function properly on LAPTOP computers.
2. I searched the forums extensivly looking for fixes to the various performace problems: system crashing, artifacts, vectoring, slow operation. Some of the forums attempted to help me. Overall the suggestions boiled down to this. Update drives or adjust game setting to minimum graphics setting. These did not work.
3. Vivendi, Sierra, and Tilted Mill provided no support for this product.
4. This game was hyped as have fantastic graphics. It may, but they add nothing to game play. It is really cool to zoom in on a building and see little folks doing things. Once you have seen it you don't need to see it again. In order to effectively manage the city you have to be zoomed out to the point that you can't see that level of detail. It's a lot of computer power consumed with no value added to gameplay.
Poor design with terrible exicution would be my analysis of this product. Great marketing, there is a sucker born everyday and today it was me.

Can't run it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: January 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Caesar IV works only on computers with separate video cards. Something not mentioned in their literature. I have three computers, two laptops and one desktop, all that do not have a separate video card. I still haven't gotten beyond looking at the pretty pictures while it installs. I gave it the 1 start ratings because I was forced to rate it.

I have been on Tilting Mill's tech help board, and posed my question to the specialists (there are many other people in the same situation as I am), and they politely blew off most of the laptop owners, since laptops do not usually have a separate video card, and those of us with desktop on board video cards. I have a hard time with the Tilting Mill folks (the actual programmers of the game) not being aware of the large number of on-board video cards that are out here. Maybe they will come out with a laptop patch.

Oh Well. I'll live with the disappointment, although I am out the price of the game.

Wait for the patch or pass on this

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: December 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

A greatly improved version of C3 but with one of the worst interfaces in the gaming world. I even purchased a new hard wired custom gaming mouse to make the game playable...without success.
Bottom line is don't buy this game unless Sierra/Tilted Mill improves the interface.

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