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| Caesar 3 | 
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| From: Vivendi Universal
Category: Video Games
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $0.91
You Save: $14.08 (94%)
New (15) Used (12) from $0.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  88 reviews
Sales Rank: 9822
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 95
ESRB: Everyone
Media: CD-ROM
Age: 5 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 4.1 x 3.5 x 0.8
MPN: 70558
Model: 70558
UPC: 020626711746
EAN: 0020626705585
ASIN: B000031KJX
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A true strategy classic October 23, 2008
It is tremendous to see this classic game still available a decade after its release. Although support for the game from its makers has pretty much finished now, there are still fan sites that support the game. Regular competitive events are still held for the game as well.
Caesar 3 is easy to play, but very hard to master. The depth of the game is incredible, so much so that things hitherto unknown are still being discovered today. The main secret of successful play is walker control. You understand C3's walkers (which continued with few changes through Pharoah, Zeus and Emperor), you go a long way towards mastery of C3. If you want to learn to play C3 well, I would suggest C3 Heaven, the site is still active and fans of this game love to help newer players. You can also compete against other C3 players on [...], but just don't expect to be able to defeat the experts immediately. Fortunately, this contest site also caters for novices.
With the support for this game from its fans still out there, and the massive game you are getting for such a small investment, I'd recommend C3 to anyone after an immersive RTS historical citybuilding game.
Game that keeps me busy! September 11, 2007
Well this is the second time that I've purchased Caesar 3. I actually got it when it was first available and just recently thought about it and went online to find it again. I like to play the freeform mode or "City Construction Kit" I find that building a city and keeping all of the areas happy really challenging. The other great thing is that you can alter the difficulty and even turn the effects of the Gods off... you can also choose between really hard assignments and more trivial ones.
The career mode of the game is more challenging. You have to send gifts to Rome, defend your city from invaders, make enough $ to sustain your city, and keep your people happy. I honestly sit and play this game while watching Tv... The manual is a good tool to keep everything organized...
Just go slow with your building and watch for running out of money. The best way that I have found to keep this from happening is to build forums and keep the tax collectors working. There are very few cheat codes out there for this game....so it's not one you can just fudge your way through. One of the main complaints that I have is that it's really hard to get your housing to evolve past a certain level. It's more frustrating to me that just about anything else. I prefer the freeform mode of the game as opposed to the career mode but that's mainly because I just like to play!
Happy gaming!
good product for learning a little about Rome January 4, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this product for my daughter, age 12. Her school used it as part of a intro to languages program. She loves it!
Still a great game... October 27, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Out of nostalgia, I decided to play Caesar 3 again. It's been 5 or 6 years. The Caesar series is the only city building sim game that I've played so I can't give a comparison to the SimCity games. Anyway, for a game that was released back in 1998, I think it still holds up pretty well today. Graphics is sub-par compared to the games today, but Caesar 3's strength is the challenging gameplay.
There are two mode of gameplay; I'll call them city sandbox and campaign. In the city sandbox mode (I don't play this mode) you select a province you want to play so that you can build a city from scratch. There may or may not be any barbarians you would need deal with depending on which you province you choose. Campaign mode is my preference. You start your career as a clerk and you are given very low expectations by Caesar's proconsul since it is your first city. However, as you advance in your career the proconsul expectations will increase. If I remember correctly the first two cities in campaign mode are pretty much tutorials where you will be given tips on how to improve your city.
I believe after the first two cities you will be given the choice of which province you want pursue. If you are the non-violent type, then you can select the peaceful province which is easier since you won't need to build forts with trained soldiers to repel barbarian attacks. If you want a bit of a challenge then choose the harder province where you will need to deal with barbarian and sometime rebellious natives. Because the you will have less headaches in peaceful provinces, the expectations are generally higher than in the harder provinces since there will not be any barbarians to deal with. That's not to say it will be a walk through the park though.
Your goals are broken down into 5 categories: Population, Culture, Prosperity, Peace, and Favor. Population is easy to understand, simply attract as many people to live in your city. But that's easier said than done. Culture refers to a combination of temples that you build to the gods, education infrastructure for your citizens and theatrical entertainment. Prosperity basically is a measure of how well your city is doing (are you spending more than you are collecting?) and how wealthy your citizens are. The wealth or prosperity of your city his depicted by the type of building they live in; from tents through large palaces. Peace is simply, do not let your people riot. Make sure they are employed and fed. Mars (the god of war) may cause some of your citizens to rise up against you if you do not pay homage to him by build temples dedicated to him. Lastly, defeat the barbarian hordes. Favor is basically how much Caesar likes you. From time to time the proconsul will request "goods" from you that must be delivered to Rome. Send the goods on time and your favor goes up. Send the goods late then... Well at least you can say, "Better late than never." But if you fail to provide the goods at all, then your favor will plummet. You can also send gifts from your personal savings, but once you start giving gifts then they will no longer be gifts in the future. They will become requirements.
Now that the introduction has been completed, it's time to start building. This is where the fun begins. Most of the time you will start in an empty province and you will need to build housing and jobs to attract people to your fledgling city. You don't build villas or palaces from the start. Instead you build tents. As people move in, the tents will evolve to shacks, hovels, small villas... well you get the point. But you have to build up the desirability of the neighborhood for house to develop. Water is one of the primary necessities. While a well will provide water, it is much too primitive for most people and housing will not evolve beyond the basic hovel. People want clean water from nearby fountains. They want jobs! Employment means money. Money means they can eat and buy things. They want a marketplace nearby to go shopping, but don't build it too close `cause marketplaces are noisy and will have a negative affect on the overall local desire level. Build temples, people love going to a nearby temple to prey to their gods. They want a nearby bathhouse `cause who wants to walk around smelling like "old cheese"? Hey, all work and no play means one hell of a boring city, so build theatres, amphitheatres, and a coliseum or two.
Anywaste, you get the point; people want to be happy. All you have to figure out is how to do so and where to place the various types of buildings. Anything that is noisy or dirty will have a negative effect on the local neighborhood and prevent housing to evolve beyond a certain point. For example, farms are generally dirty places so any housing built right next to it will probably have a hard time evolving into a large villa. Workshops for building goods is also noisy as are granaries and warehouses. Building plazas, gardens, temples, theatres, and other structures as well can offset negative effects. The manual's pretty good and it should be referred to from time to time.
One of best features of the game is that you can right click on your own citizens and they will tell what's on their mind. They are not shy about it. This will help you improve your city. Right clicking on a build, like a house will tell you why it has devolved or what is preventing it from evolving. A place of business like farms or docks may tell you there is no one living nearby, thus no employees. A bit of micromanagement and organizational skills are necessary to build a successful city. But I think it adds to the fun `cause you directly affect how well the city performing.
Caesar 3 is unlike most games because very little violence is actually involved. Yes, there are the barbarian hordes, but the violence is very minimal. Violence can be totally avoided by simply choosing the peaceful career path. All-in-all Caesar 3 is still a great game to play because of the underlying complexities of how citizens react layout of the city. There is no one strategy to winning the game.
At this time Caesar 4 is currently on sale, but it has some mixed reviews. One complaint is that the game is less complex than Caesar 3 so some people don't find it as challenging as it's predecessor. It's more pretty (better graphics), but has less substance.
I love it May 7, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I keep coming back to this game. I love the challenge of building the city, and the battles aren't bad now I've figured out the strategy involved. ;)
More city building games... please, make more!!
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