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Learn how the Empire was run

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 22
Date: June 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As an expert on ancient Rome, I was anxious to pick up the newest version of Caesar (Caesar III) and having done so, I wasn't disappointed. This game should appeal to a wide range of people: students of history, fans of the Sim games, Age of Empires, Pharoh and civilization, anyone who enjoys a strategy building game and powerhungry company execs (or wannabes) who love control (it'll want to make you skip that boring sales meeting). One of the few entertaining games that I believe is educational as well: learn about money management, resource management and a bit of History. And for something under $20, its a steal. Buy it for the price, play it for the fun!

Best building game since Civ II!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: January 11, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is an excellent game for gamers who want to build cities; the game is complex enough to challenge you, yet the "advisors" are there to prevent the complexity from becoming frustrating. You can get many hours of pleasure for your dollars.

Very few games I know of have such a user-friendly and frustration-free system. One reviewer lamented the lack of difficulty settings, but a simple free patch at the Sierra site provides five difficulty levels and some other good tweaks. One of the interesting aspects of this game is how you get to know the character of certain neighborhoods. While the early building is great fun, even better perhaps is the urban renewal by which you fix some of the chaos that naturally occurs in cities (cyber and real). There is no random map generator, but you can play eight different games (four with and four without military actions) *or* choose the career path. Sierra has another free download which lets you create maps and scenarios (I haven't tried it). This is a major advance over Caesar II.

Caesar 3 - A Remarkable Game!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: November 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Emperor Caesar has allotted you the task of building a city and managing its affairs in a certain region of the Roman Empire as your 1st assignment. You are asked to meet certain victory conditions such as food storage targets, a desired population, a certain amount of Imperial Favor, rise in Cultural Rating and so on. If you are able to attain these goals the Emperor promotes you to a higher rank of nobility and yet another challenging task to perform. If not you are fired and that is the end of your newfound career as a clerk.
Believe me, this is a superb city building game wherein you start your career as a clerk, completing the various assignments allotted to you and finally get to be Caesar himself. You have to build cities that are prosperous and well defended from unwanted invaders.
I played the demo; it was so appealing that I had to try out the full game. Playing the game was such a wonderful experience. I enjoyed every second of it. City building was a whole lot of fun especially when you can learn the opinions of citizens walking up and down the streets of your city. This kind of interaction helps a lot since you get to know what kind of changes need to be made in the infrastructure of the city to create more peaceful neighborhoods, which are the foundations of a healthy and crimeless city.
To make your city prosperous first of all you have to see to it that the basic needs of the locals are well taken care off - like providing easy food accessibility by placing a market in every neighborhood. Placement of fountains is equally important for fresh water supply. Their medicinal, educational, religious needs should also be considered important. Another thing you find the citizens complaining about is limited entertainment; so keep that in mind too.
The graphics are simply neat. Certain buildings especially the gardens and fountains serve the double purpose of adding beauty to the environment and providing relief to the citizens. This helps to attract people to your city, which means more citizens. More citizens mean more jobs and more jobs mean more buildings to be built to erase unemployment. So far so good! But doesn't all this sound like spending a whole lot of money. Help!!! The city vaults are running out of money. This is where trade and industry come to your rescue. Open a trade route with a friendly city and with careful management your city vaults will have enough so as not to keep you worried.
Another thing, which might keep you worried, is defense against foreign invasions. Setting up a military will help you against enemy attacks.
The game also allows a certain amount of interplay with the Gods who prove to be a major influence on the people and thus threaten to affect the prosperity of the city. Planning and dedicating festivals to the Gods seems fruitful and loads of fun. Make them angry and get ready to suffer their wrath. This often leads to shortage of food or unwelcome problems in trade routes, which ultimately affects the citizens. It makes them either unhappy or rebels. The first lot usually leaves the city and the latter causes crime.
Another interesting factor is that you can set a salary for yourself and you can use the money you've saved to send the emperor gifts in an attempt to increase your favor rating. Not only this, you can also set the tax percentage according to your own will, set a salary for the employed lot according to your wishes etc. But at the same time keep in mind that too high a tax rate and too low a salary are going to affect the growing population of the city. Attention given to such minute details of city management is what holds the interest of the player and makes the game play loads of fun.
Some people find this game hard to play. True, city planning and managing its affairs is pretty difficult especially when you have to please the people, please the gods, defend the city and to top it all send the emperor gifts and meet with his over taxing demands which seem totally unfair especially at times when you find your city vaults do not hold enough to meet those needs. But hey! Are these not the very same factors that challenge your abilities as a good administrator and thus keep you interested all through the game and make it unique?
The game challenges your capabilities as a good builder and administrator. You have to supervise the affairs of the city and its citizens. You have full freedom to make decisions on the local, financial and military issues of the city to make it a prosperous one, but at your own risk coz if you fail to do so you are apt to suffer the Emperor's wrath.
Playing this game was a rich experience to me. I found myself in a totally different world, a different era. You get to learn so much about the History of Ancient Rome.
This is my first game by Sierra and I am totally addicted to it. I still have to try out the others. All in all it's a great game. Nothing less can be said about it.

Lots of fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: November 28, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game! Its very entertaining. It takes sim games to a new level because you can hear the opinions of the people walking on the streets. You must provide for the citizens, the various Roman Gods, the Empire, and keep pesky intruders away. It got me interested in Rome and Caesar, by representing the kinds of problems people had to deal with back then. So get it! Its fun, and, dare I say it, educational, and takes strategy and planning but isn't so hard that you can't win.

One of The Best Strategy Games Ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: August 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I love this game! I've spent countless hours building my very own Roman Empire and downloading other people's empires from fan sites. The graphics are great and you can learn a lot about the Roman Empire from playing this game. The best part is you *really* get involved in your city, you control everything, unlike Sim City. That's why I think Caesar III is much better than Sim City.

You can start a career and work your way up to the title of Caesar or you play a scenario and not have to worry about being promoted. In your career, you have two choices each time you get promoted (after the training levels). You can take a dangerous province which has many invasions and battles. Or you can choose the peaceful province which either has none or a very small amount of invasions. Both are balanced out in difficulty, so the dangerous province is not necessarily the hardest province. The peaceful usually has more obstacles and higher standings that need to be achieved in Rome in order for you to be promoted.

A great game! This game is such a bargain at it's extremely low price!

Another brilliant strategy game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: December 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Caesar 3 is unstoppable! You can play it a million times and each game will be different. The cities in the game can be huge, one of my cities covered the whole map.
The game is very easy to play, you have to build a Roman empire, and take care of it's residents. You have to build loads of things, like schools, libraries, theatres, markets, farms etc.
A cool effect of the game is that every person says something when you right click on them. I had fun just by doing that in a city. Sometimes in the game, Caesar sends you requests and if you don't fulfill them, he gets angry and chucks you out the city, taking away your place of mayor.
You only get 500 in money (i can't remember the name for money in the game) and if you use it too quickly Caesar gets angry.
There's loads of disasters in the game - like fires, building collapses, riots and disease.
Overall, a jam packed game that you will not get bored of. Play and become Caesar!

great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: October 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I still go back to this game and play it every once in a while. it is one of the best games I ever played. I wish they would re-make it with modern graphics.
I am surprised people having so many difficulties at getting through levels. advice: be very smart about strategy. develop this city altogether. you can't concentrate on one aspect of life at a time, fix it up and turn to other aspects. this is not how this game works.

to "Classified": to solve fire problem, control your roads. don't twist them too much. this will help minimize number of services per capita as well. for defense don't build only legionaries, use velites as well. ratio 1+1 works very well. just keep velites out of melee. towers with ballista on top are very good addition as well.
try building "blocks" at a time: rectangle shape road wide enough to put 2x2 houses on the inside and still have at least 2 spaces for gardens. give the "block" own prefect, temple, market... do houses 2x2, works by far the best. leave spaces for entertainment, education, which you will build later. one road to farms, one road to docks... prefect and engineers at each end. storages along this road. not too close to settlement. when need more workers. do second "block". build first troops early enough. no need to do more than one from the beginning. invasions start small...
try playing again. it is a real pleasure, not "nerve shattering". just need to do it right.

p.s. funny: after saying it, decided to check and turns out they are making Caesar 4! coming fall 2006. looking forward to it.

Wonderfully Addictive and Challenging!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: December 20, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Caesar III is wonderfully addictive and challenging. You can expect weeks and weeks (even months)of thought provoking game play with this one. Hours go by without eating or sleeping, it's utterly engrossing! Quit your day job! This is much more fun! I find myself dreaming of city maps and getting up in the middle of the night to play them out. This game can be won! Easy to install and run, very reliable (have not crashed once)and a wonderful online community of support and tips at Sierra. Can't wait to see Pharoh! A definate Buy!

One Hellova' Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Ok, so I admit it, this game can become difficult and annoying (at some times), but let's face it! It doesn't get better than Caesar 3. But to be honest, you have to like the Roman times! This game remindes me a lot about "Gladiator" the movie, it ties in. Once you become someone who understands the game, you win the game (which I intend to do, but still haven't) which can be difficult. The graphics are amazing, the action is true, and the game is real. Now I bet you've lost me when I said the game is true, but it all means that you can have fun while you play this strategic game. The following games are like Caesar 3: Many of the many "Sim" games, "Starcraft" or "Warcraft", one of the many "Age of the Empires" games, "Pharoah", and many others. Have you ever played any of these games? They can be fun, but Caesar 3 is the most realistic. Come on, people say this game can be difficult, which it is, but they don't look "beyond" the difficulties! This game makes sitting around watching the computer screen fun! Now I know I've skipped many features and details of Caesar 3, but I'm running out of room to type. So I'll make this short and sweet, buy this game and you will experience something totally new, totally different, and totally fun! Take whatever I typed in concideration, thanks Ü

Caesar 3

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: December 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Not long ago, I could remember once playing (and being addicted to) a thrilling game called Caesar 2. I also remembered that since my computer had crashed, I was unable to continue my thriving civilisations and had been deprived of any games as enthralling. So, in search of another great game to fill my endless hours of boredom, I stumbled across a demo download of Caesar 3. Curiosity got the better of me and after waiting 2 hours for it to download, I started playing the game. 5 hours later, I shut down my computer.
This game is so brilliant, I was not distracted by anything while playing it. I was completely intrigued by it. I do not even have the full version (but am currently prowling round my local stores, hunting it down), but found the game to be so exciting, especially compared to it's predecessor, Caesar 2. Although it presents some rather challenging assignments, I managed to overcome them, and considering my inexperience, I think that this shows that it poses challenges that are not impossible - rather...well, challenging!
It is definitely a game which is easily recommended to all people who are looking for a new kind of entertaining game.
By the way, in case you have classified this game into a group which is limited to the likings of 30-something, male archaeologists, take this into account - I am a 15 year old girl!!! It definitely has no restrictions as to it's fans!

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