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Frustration abounds!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 62 / 76
Date: October 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

As others have said, this was a much-anticipated game. I played Caesar II and III and was extremely excited when I heard that IV was coming out.

What a letdown!

I didn't have any of the installation errors that others have mentioned, and I haven't had the game crash on me. However, the game is unplayable on my system - which is only a year old - unless I turn down 90% of the advanced graphics. By "unplayable", I mean ten seconds or more of waiting between the time you click with your mouse, and when the game responds. Even with the graphics turned down, I still get lag when the auto-save starts. As mouse-control is essential when building roads or aquaducts, this is aggravating in the extreme.

It appears that Sierra's programmers and designers put a lot of work into upgrading the graphics. Too bad I can't see them!

The interface is horrible and takes up the right half of the screen at 1280x1024 resolution. This means that you must rotate the map to build along the right edge. I much prefer the "tabbed" building interface of the other city-building games.

Although you can build roads along the diagonals in this game - which you couldn't in earlier versions - the interface is not smart enough to auto-rotate the buildings to fit along the roads. You have to click and drag to rotate buildings, and lag - even at the low graphics settings - can make this an exercise in frustration.

I dislike the new warehouse management panel. The sliders might look cool, but they're slow (lag!). I would've liked to see additional options for "only store basic goods", "only store luxury goods", etc. This would take some of the pain out of managing them. Trade ports are different also - you can't see prices!

It appears that some of the scenarios have hidden milestones that you have to meet in order to advance. In the one I'm playing right now, I'm stuck because my prosperity rating will not rise above 36 (50 required to win). I have over 30,000 denarii in my treasury, and have been turning a hefty profit (and meeting various demands from Rome) for at least eight years of game-time. I have met and exceeded all other requirements for victory, but prosperity continues to elude me. My city is almost completely automated by now - the only thing I do is respond to Rome's requests for goods or cash. My advisors have nothing helpful to say. It's not fun if I can't advance.

So while the game is pretty - from what I can see of it - it's got too many frustrations to be worth much more of my time.

Beautiful game, but you may have to upgrade your machine

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 29 / 29
Date: March 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

For me, there's nothing wrong with the game; it installed without a problem; the graphics are glorious and the play is fascinating.

Unfortunately, they did set the system requirements on the box lower than they should have. You need a better machine than they say you do to use all the features. I can get by with a solid playable version by turning off a couple of things, but the game is really, really good. The last game Tilted Mill did, 'Children of the Nile,' frankly had too much make-work in it that did not really apply to the projects you were completing. The game-play on this one is excellent; it's so excellent, in fact, that I'm seriously considering buying a bigger and better video card so I can use more of what's available.

I know that there is a temptation for manufacturers to put requirements on the box that will sell the maximum number of games, but I wish they would warn you that these requirements are not the optimum configuration; it would be even nicer if they would say what the optimum configuration is, so that there is no possibility of a nasty surprise.

It is a genuinely good game, though, and a work of art. If you have bought it and have been unable to play it properly, I would advise you to hang on to it; in the normal course of things, it'll probably play perfectly on your next computer, and it'll be worth the wait.

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.

Initial fun at returning to Caesar gameplay disappears quickly

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: October 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was very excited when I heard that Caesar 4 was in development. When I heard that it was realeased, I immediately picked myself up a copy. After playing for a week or so, the game is already uninstalled. I got to the third empire mission, and couldn't make myself play any more. The reason is that the initial "fun factor" wore off, and I began to find the game tediously boring.

Many of the flaws of the game have been discussed already. Yes, it is true that the interface is cumbersome and that enabling shadows in the graphics options will likely bring your system to its knees. The thing that killed the game for me was the lack of variety in the missions. After you've played about 4 missions, you've seen everything the game has to offer. The only difference in missions is the geography, Caesar's requests, and the necessary ratings to win. I've played all of the city builders.....Caesar 3, Pharoah, Cleopatra, Zeus, Poseidon, Emperor, Children of the Nile, and now Caesar 4. There is practically nothing new in Caesar 4, and it omits many things that made the previous games addictive. Sure the game is in 3D and people get what they need rather than have it delivered, but that's about it. There are no cool monuments to build (why couldn't the Coliseum be a construction project?), so every mission ends up feeling the same......look at the world map to see what you can export, set up some houses, their infrastructure, shrines, and industry for export goods, and you're off. The rest of the mission is spent tweaking the city to get the ratings needed to win the mission.

The supply "pull" system sounds good since citizens don't have to wait for goods to be delivered. They go and get what they need. However, this system has a tendency to be a pain in the neck when it comes to supply houses, granaries, and markets. Instead of crops being delivered to a granary, the cart pusher at the granary goes and collects crops from all of the fields. Warehouse and market workers do this also. What ends up happening is that granaries and markets are usually low on food because their cart pushers are running all over the place obtaining goods.

I have already mentioned the thing that really kills this game for me, namely the lack of wonders/monuments. In my opinion, that is what really made the previous city builders fun...building pyramids, the Great Wall of China, temples to Zeus, etc. After getting to do those things in the previous games, it feels like a big part of the fun is missing in Caesar 4. The game suffers for it in my opinion and rapidly becomes tedious.

If you have all of the previous city builders, give this one a shot. If you don't, pick up one of the previous games. They are almost all funner than this one in my opinion. I think that Zeus and Children of the Nile are the best of the series. If I listed the games in order of enjoyment I had out of them, it would be Zeus-Poseidon, Children of the Nile, Pharoah-Cleopatra, Emperor, Caesar 4, Caesar 3. (The lack of roadblocks in Caesar 3 puts it at the end of my list.) That's not exactly a stunning endorsement of Caesar 4.

I really wish this was worthy of a higher rating!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: January 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As I said in my title, I really wish this game was worthy of a higher rating (I'm giving it 4 for fun and 3 overall) but because of overall unwieldiness of the controls I'm sorry that it isn't.

I'd lost track of the City Building Series since Emperor so was really surprised to find this "treasure" on the store shelf last fall. Being a lover of the series since Caesar 2 I had to give it a try.

I totally enjoy that the developers tried to take it back to the base Caesar 3 game and at the same time try to make the game more enjoyable and less frustrating. Unfortunately they didn't succeed in the frustration level in a couple of vital areas.

One major complaint is how unweildy control of scrolling and rotating the map is. Rotation can only be accomplished with the right mouse button and if you're not careful you've gone several 360-degree turns before you know what's happening.

The other biggy is trying to lay out a city that's both aesthetically pleasing and functional. I know it can be accomplished--I've seen plenty of screenshots to prove it. Unfortunately I don't want to take the time to count out the tiny tiles for exact road placement (I'm not a bean counter by nature). I want to get into the nitty-gritty of city building and have everything fit nicely and work out as I go along.

The roads themselves take four tiles, with most buildings taking nine or more tiles (with the exception of the few smaller buildings). Since the roads are multi-tiled and it's difficult to count the small tiles it's extremely hard to place things in any type of sensible layout.

Another thing that bugs me is that way too much of the city information is only available through the advisors (Zeus and Emperor both spoiled me with info available with one mouse click). As mentioned previously, very little info on trade is accessible through the trading stations. Unless I missed it somewhere if you want to know how much of a good has been shipped so far in the current year, that info can only be accessed through the Kingdom Map. I find myself spending about half my play time clicking through the Advisor menus for information. I don't mind micro-managing but this goes beyond that.

Another major sore point with me is the lack of messages when you're stockpiling goods to fulfill a request. Unless your memory is keen those requests could go unfilfilled without even realizing it. There should have been another message once you've reached quote for sending shipment.

I have to say the graphics in the game are quite striking. It's awesome to pull out from the city and look into the distance and see a somewhat faded view to give a more realistic look of perspective. Thankfully, though, the day and night feature is optional. I found it very annoying and distracting to have my city once a year go so dark I could barely see what I was trying to do.

A note to the person having problem with Prosperity rating: Prosperity isn't just how much money your city earns--your citizens have to reach a certain level of prosperity in order to reach those points. In other words, their housing has to evolve to a certain level to meet the win conditions. The actual numbers are a bit too complicated to go into here.

Overall I'm not sorry I bought the game, but I am sorry I paid full price for it instead of waiting a few months until the price came down because I don't feel it was worth it.

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

Great Game- So Long As Your System is Up To Scratch

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: October 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Caesar 4 is getting a reputation for being riddled with problems. This is unfortunate, as the game itself is a fine effort by developers Tilted Mill. They have achieved an admirable balance between maintaining elements of the earlier Caesar games, and providing something new. The improvements are certainly the graphics of the game, and also the distribution system. Where in C3 you had to make absolutely certain walkers did not have options of which way they could go, this no longer matters. Still, you do need to build in a certain way if you wish for success.

Like many others, I had crashes when first installing the new game. The Tilted Mill tech forum were very helpful, turned out I needed to install a patch for my Athlon dual core CPU, and get all the Windows updates. You need up to date drivers and a goodly amount of free space on your hard drive if you want this game to run well. That's the way it is, like I said its a pity because it will cost this game some sales.

This game, while enjoyable, lacks the depth of its predecessor C3. While many played the game, few played it really well, due to its unravelling complexity. The new game seems to have deliberately avoided this sort of a situation, and it should be easy for someone familiar with this kind of game to play at a high level fairly quickly.

The music in this new game, by Keith Zizza, is worth the price of ammission alone. Here is a major improvement from C3, which had quite good music itself.

There is a map editor included, but it is quite difficult to use, prone to crashing, and doesn't appear to have any help file incorporated. It is to be hoped for the longevity of the game that this is addressed. It will not have been lost on Tilted Mill/Sierra that although C3 was made some eight years ago, it is still being played competitively, due wholly to the ability of players to produce good custome-made scenarios.

Caesar 4 is a great game. You can build truly stunning cities with it, more so than any other citybuilder. It's a pity this means purchasers may need to do a little bit of system tidying up to get it to work properly.

New era in city-building games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 25
Date: September 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Tilted Mill has set a new standard for the city-building genre that others will have to follow. I've played the demo scenario many times and from the ease of use to the mind-blowing graphics and animation I feel they have a winner. Never before has the transportation to "life-in-your-city" been as enjoyable. Tons of industries to control, differing levels of citizens to keep happy, Caesar to keep happy, and wads of "beautification elements" provide for hours and hours of escape and relaxation from the daily grind. This one is a winner.

Great game overall. Some room for improvement.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: November 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

An addictive game, which has kept me up well past midnight. If you enjoy maps, urban layout planning, and patient strategic thinking, this is the game for you. (Don't buy it if you are of the action-and-adrenalin persuasion.)

It does take plenty of system resources. I own a Dell XPS 3.2 GHz machine with 1GB RAM, and there are still a few bells and whistles beyond my reach (it helps to have a sophisticated video card, which I don't).

The campaign mode is annoying (they give you too little money to get started, and bad things start happening too quickly). However, the sandbox (scenario) mode is a joy to play. You can use the scenario editor to fill your treasury to the brim before starting the game, and to get rid of all the distracting "disasters" (plagues, god's wrath, etc.) that prevent you from doing what is really fun about this game: BUILDING A ROMAN CITY. You can specify everything: which goods to produce (from a finite but ample enough menu), which buildings to erect, where to place them, how quickly to grow, how much to export/import, how much to store or consume, where to place your plebeians, patricians, and soldiers, etc. Of course, the city has to run properly, and there are things you can't get away with (people have to eat, don't like living in ugly neighborhoods, need access to running water, and so on) but these restrictions merely imply that you have to ensure functionality and aesthetics, which is part of the fun. There are several maps to choose from, and you can even build your own (although here the program shows its weakness: the editor is not at all friendly when it comes to map editing, and can lead to crashes; the first time I tried it, I overdid myself and had to reinstall the whole program, so beware).

The key improvements I would recommend have to do with the number of ready-made locations offered: there are too few (only 3, in fact). All the other locations are destined for campaign mode play, and are therefore not modifiable at all, which is a pity.

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.

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