From the province to the Empire
The game modes of Caesar 4 include primarily a kind of "career", where starting from the small province obtaining the favor of Rome in such a way as to gradually take on greater importance within the Empire and, consequently, become the new one boss. In addition to this, we find the possibility of choosing scenarios in which to immerse yourself, taken from the previous mode or created through the appropriate editor included in the game.
As previously mentioned, Caesar 4 takes some elements from Sons of the Nile, especially as regards the social life within the city, where we can find a real subdivision into social classes: plebeians, equites and patricians. The former obviously constitute the poorest caste, which are burdened by the most strenuous jobs such as agriculture and livestock, while the equiti mainly deal with the level of city culture, covering roles such as actors, poets and teachers. The patricians, on the other hand, are mainly involved in attending shows, without carrying out real jobs but still playing a fundamental role for the economy: in fact, most of the taxes acquired by the governor, that is the one who plays Caesar 4, come from them.
Thinking that these 3 classes exist without cooperating with each other is impossible, in fact Tilted Mill has concentrated many of its efforts precisely to make the economic system of the game the most advanced that has ever been seen within a city builder: to give an example , all of them will need the plebeians to get food, as it is only this class that deals with providing the raw materials, while without equality the whole city will become a place without culture and, above all, it will not be able to count on a health system efficient. The system just described was created in a big way, as there are over 30 kinds of raw and non-raw materials, 10 types of industries and 4 different types of markets where to sell goods of various kinds to their citizens, without forgetting the possibility of undertaking commercial agreements with other cities: in particular moments of need for a given resource we can in fact choose to reach agreements with other governors, offering them a good that is in excess for us but which the other city needs.
Tilted Mill has concentrated many of its efforts precisely to make the economic system of the game the most advanced that has ever been seen within a city builder.
Sims or citizens?
The social system of Caesar 4 does not stop at what is described in the previous paragraph: Tilted Mill has in fact had the brilliant idea of adding to the game the possibility of manually selecting the citizens we see walking on the street, simply following their activity or paying attention to what they will tell us, as their sentences are often composed of advice, heated criticism or, when deserved, compliments. In the same way we have the possibility to see the state of satisfaction of the inhabitants of each of the houses built, in such a way as to discover if this building can evolve, and therefore also contain a greater number of people, or is stopped due to the lack of goods. or resources, necessary for its inhabitants.
The division of citizenship into classes is also felt from this point of view: while the plebeians will in fact be content to have a well nearby from which to take water and a market for goods strictly necessary for survival, equities and patricians will ask to have fountains and reservoirs nearby, as well as other markets where to find luxury goods or exotic goods, thus closing the industrial circle of our city, supplying buyers to the industries that process the raw materials.
Order and discipline
Even in ancient Rome, today's emergencies were on the agenda: episodes of fires and collapses are in fact around the corner for the inexperienced player, who does not cover the entire city territory with public offices as prefects and engineers, dedicated precisely to avoiding such misfortunes. Our city will also need a tax office, through which to fleece the "poor" patricians.
A novelty of the fourth chapter of Caesar consists in the introduction of the possibility of commanding one's troops in the field, in addition to the presence of the army in the city economic system described above. Precisely with regard to the latter, in order to have swords and armor to give to their warriors (as well as the gladiators of the Colosseum) it is in fact necessary to extract raw materials such as iron, which are then processed to obtain weapons: it is however possible to replace this process agreements with neighboring cities as in the case of other assets. The long-awaited strategy within the battles unfortunately turns out to be lacking from all points of view: although certainly no one expected to have anything to do with the depth of Rome: Total War, since we are still talking about a city builder, it would have been nice to see a little more than what is present in the game, which can be summed up simply in the ability to move troops without any tactics, given that the army that can count on a greater number of elements is practically always winning. adopting strategic measures that perhaps in reality would have led the minority faction to victory anyway. Given that the career mode will soon be divided into two parts, one more linked to the economy and the other to the army, the advice is to focus on the part dedicated to the social system of the city, dedicating only later to wars in order not to run the risk of missing the most interesting part of the game.
Order and discipline
a missed masterpiece: this is how we feel to define Caesar 4
3D: joys and sorrows
The transition to three-dimensional graphics was certainly a must for a game with this emblem and ambitions. Seeing the city "live" from a bird's eye view is simply spectacular, with the various citizens busy with their activities as well as the buildings, animated in an excellent and always industrious way. However, shrinking the zoom has the negative notes: people walking on the street have serious gaps in terms of animations and textures, just as the activities of humans and buildings remain unrelated to each other. Another criticism concerns the game interface, which has the gift of presenting itself in an intuitive way, with an excellent amount of indicators on the screen, but which very often ends up invading the area of the city, opening one or even two submenus that often end up preventing the correct placement of buildings or whatever. In these phases the game also seems to lose the player's clicks, forcing him to an unspecified number of mouse button presses in order to successfully complete an action: we can assure you that such things when they take place are definitely frustrating.
As for the sound, Caesar 4 can count on a good soundtrack and a speech system that stands at very good levels, both as regards the voiceover, and for the phrases that our citizens pronounce on the street at the moment. where we go to select them.
Hardware Requirements
The game was tested on a system equipped with Intel Centrino Duo T2300, 1 GB of RAM and ATI X1600 video card. Although the details were not set to the maximum from the beginning, the game proved to be quite demanding in terms of resource demands, especially in the construction phases and the panoramic view of the city. An at least equivalent system is therefore recommended for a satisfying gaming experience, also given the often not short loads between one scenario and another.
Final comment
A missed masterpiece: this is how we would like to define Caesar 4. If on the one hand, in fact, we have very interesting innovations, such as the management of the entire city and military economic system and spectacular graphics (in the overall view), the downside ends up by invalidate the final evaluation. The interface is in fact very uncomfortable from the very first moments of the game, just as the battles end up boring the player quite soon; It is also a shame to notice the serious shortcomings in terms of animations when zooming in on the streets of the city. The presence of such a complex and elegantly built economic system still makes the game unique in its genre, guaranteeing that breath of freshness that these days often ends up missing in video games, especially on those that can already enjoy a good coat of arms. : The efforts of the development team are therefore to be appreciated. In conclusion, we can recommend Caesar 4 to all those who think they can appreciate a city builder where the elements of construction are combined with those of management of the real social system, as well as obviously fans of the series. On the other hand, those who have approached this game by hearing about armies and battles better look elsewhere.
For
- Charming company management
- Large number of buildings
- Excellent feedback from citizens and advisers
- Awkward interface
- Missing animations
- Lack of strategy in battles
Evolution of the species
Taking over a lucky brand like Caesar, 8 years after the release of the last chapter, is certainly not an easy task: the need to modernize the game structures always falls on the shoulders of programmers in such cases, without however go to irreparably distort the characteristics that have made this title one of the most successful videogame series, finding himself having to deal with a host of nostalgic fans, who constitute the most extremist and intolerant fringe of the market. Fortunately, as we already had the opportunity to discover in the hands on, Tilted Mill are not naïve, since many of them were part of the old Impressions, but especially in the course of these years they have been able to give us a game as Children of the Nile, which in its time met with some success. Precisely from the game set in ancient Egypt, Caesar 4 takes the greatest cues of gameplay innovation, combined with a 3D graphics now a must for any game that wants to be respected, whatever its genre.
