Caesar (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by Lemon Amiga.com
47⚔️ It's time to battle our way through Europe!, this time at the point of a trowel, bricks and some mortar, as we attack this overhead real-time "Sim City" strategy sim, released by Impressions in 1992. Working all the time for an Emperor in line, thats livin' alright (thats livin' alright)*.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 20-22 June 2019 (from in-game saves)
Narrated: 7th August 2019
Edited: 6-8th August 2019
Uploaded: 9th August 2019
I was looking over the HOL database searching for games similar to The Settlers, and this came up. I'd never heard of it before, although those who did play this in the day see it as a classic. I jumped in and played it for maybe 3 weeks, moving from one place to the next, as you can see the footage. When I had enough to make the video, I edited it all together and then left it on the shelf for a while, not knowing if it would be in the next series or in a new Roman themed special. I then found Hannibal, and spent another several weeks with that, and saved my places so I could record the footage later, and soon it was time to arrange a series of Roman shows in order - this being the last one I originally played of the four.
I didnt know about Caesar Deluxe until after I recorded this, when I watched someone playing the PC version online. I looked and sure enough, there was Caesar Deluxe - complete with Merchant Dealer! - on the Amiga. But he gives away what you should and shouldnt build as far as factories and the economy, so Im glad I played the original, as for me this aspect seemed to add to the tension of building up a city - while rapidly running out of cash to maintain it. Even at the easiest setting, I was always close to going bankrupt, and when learning it can be more fun to try to fix a broken town, than have to reload due to no more funds. I read a few tips online, and one of them is to stockpile your personal wealth on the easy early stage, and then you have it to spend on the later ones. This came in handy as early as level 4, which is what you see in the video, as a bail myself out of dept.
Looking back, this was enjoyable, speaking as someone who never really liked Sim City games and the variAnts. But after recording lost of hours of footage for the review, I never felt like going back to get further in my game. I reached maybe level 6, having breezed straight through Corsica, but there just seems not enough to pull me back. I suppose also the Music Jingle when you have defeated an enemy outside the camp gets extremely annoying! Thats one reason I used it to introduce half of the Roman films. But in the end I had to use a different theme from this game for the other half, just so the intros werent so very annoying too!
Danscore:
As a Sim City game it has class and some variety. I like the extra touches when the city is expanding, and transforming a small building into a huge one can be fun to see. There is no need to deal with traffic flow, or boring economy figures, and everything is available with a few clicks of the mouse. The graphics are functional, sound is minimal. The music in the forum is memorable and well done, but the music in the game is bare minimum - with the same jingle each time you win a battle - which can get annoying. Building the city is the best part, but having to keep zooming out to move around the legions who fall asleep after every battle stops, is highly annoying, and a waste of time. Thankfully the battle options are easy to memorise from the manual, and finding the best battle option to defeat each tribe is very easy to find, and works every time. This makes the battle pointless, although with Cohort 2 it could drag things out even longer. But who wants to do that? when all you want to do is was get back to the city? The game is engaging and has long hours of absorption value, so I give it 7.5 out of 10.
If you'd like to support me on Patreon, please click the link below.
https://www.patreon.com/lemontubeamiga
* - this is a reference to a UK TV show called Auf Wiedersehen Pet. If UK users type auf wiedersehen into Google, this is what comes up ahead of the german item for "goodbye". It was a show about brick layers building / jobbing their way around Europe.