Caesar IV

aka: Cezar IV
Moby ID: 24324
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Description official description

Caesar IV is the long-awaited sequel to Caesar III. In this historic city-building game, you govern a province of the Roman Empire, and are given the task of building its capital city. If you are successful, you move off to another province, with the final goal of becoming Caesar.

The main focus of the game is on planning and building your city, while keeping your citizens happy and safe. Rome expects you to turn a profit and send regular shipments of goods back. And in the meantime, you have to defend your city against plundering barbarians.

The online part of the game is divided in two sides: in Caesar's Challenge you compete against other players to become the best governor of the season; in the Empire mode, you can build up and expand your own province by completing and uploading scenarios.

Spellings

  • Цезарь IV - Russian spelling
  • 凱撒大帝4 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

218 People (169 developers, 49 thanks) · View all

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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.0 out of 5 (based on 18 ratings with 1 reviews)

Caesar just died, by Jupiter!

The Good
You know there comes a moment in life for a veteran gamer that does reviews to really not start a game review with:

"Yep, better graphics".

Aww, come on. Not everyone one of us is a moronic teenager that buys games only after constant nagging to the parents.

The only other additional feature I noticed was the fact that now you can build roads and buildings "side-ways", not up-down-left-right. Adds some additional architectural skill, I might add.

Other than that, you have more graphical advisors with a little more detail. Never got so far as actual mass combat though, got bored. So I can't review the combat stuff.

The Bad
Yep, Caesar just died! I'm guessing this there won't be a Caesar V unless they fix up this mess, by Jupiter.

So how did Caesar die? By killing the 2 things that made Caesar a freakin award winning game:

  • Managing citizen routes;
  • Managing home improvements;
  • Managing trade;
  • Actually everything that has to do with Caesar III :p Managing Citizen Routes
    The most managerial thing about Caesar III was the fact that you had to control your citizens from moving into areas you don't want them to (via this no-entry button thingy which I forgot what it was called). Thus you could make citizen routes more efficient when it comes to supplying citizen needs such as food supplies, entertainment, security...the works. Now you don't need to do that anymore. All you have to do is place that darn building and you can see where that person actually travels. Its much more easier, but we don't play strategy games BECAUSE they are easier. User-friendly and Difficulty are 2 different worlds mate. The game did not become more user-friendly, it DID become more easier.
  • Managing Home Improvements
    Once upon a time all rich folk came from poor folk that eventually worked hard enough to get rich. Not so in Caesar IV. Now you have Pleb houses, Elites houses and Preatorian houses. Each still evolve, but must be built separately. Again, the game became easier but not more fun. Once upon a time it was fun seeing the poor get rich and evolve. You had to work darn hard to see your citizens become more. Bah, now I'm was more preoccupied in keeping the rich - rich and the poor - poor.
  • Managing Trade
    I remember trade was really fun in Caesar III. In fact, it was the really "real" source of income. Not taxes. In this version its the other way around. You have to rely on taxes, not trade. Not that I really care, but what I really do care is that the "sense" of money making is completely eliminated here. I remember having delight in seeing a merchant come in and buy my goods from the storehouse. There was also a supporting sound effect that indicated money was entering your coffers. No longer. You no longer notice a merchant entering your port. You don't even know why the merchant didn't buy all your goods. There's a lot it seems you don't know what going on in your city. Hmm.
  • Personal Touch
    One little thing I noticed in Caesar III is that you can always click on the citizens walking around like idiots and hear what they think about your fine city. Here the citizens are smaller and the default speed is faster (although you can slower it down). Its much harder for you to click on the citizens since they are small and not cartoon funny looking like in Caesar III. --- I haven't played the game long enough (which is probably only 48 hours in my book...long is a week). After finishing the "mandatory" tutorial (which also sucks) and 2 scenarios, I got bored. Something really impossible I thought for the most freakin addictive game series I've played. See my Pharaoh review. I played that freakin game for 2 weeks non-stop. Now if a fan gets bored of the same game series in 2 days, it must be really that bad, no? Yeah. The game became just this superficial illusion of a city-building game. Actually this looks more like a clone of Caesar III than a sequel. Different developers maybe? Oh, yeah. I just checked. Different developer. They also created Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile, which by the way is the ugliest (gameplay wise) city-building sim I've played. No wonder Caesar died...

    **The Bottom Line**
    Why did they have to kill off this wonderful series, by Jupiter? Seriously Tilted Mill Entertainment, Inc., you really can't make city-building sims. Or at least the bloke who came up with the idea of "city-building simulation" which actually IS (or should be) "city-building managerial strategy" can't make city-building sims.

Windows · by Indra was here (20756) · 2007

Trivia

Extras

The US launch release is bundled with the complementary DVD Rome: Engineering an Empire from the The History Channel. The documentary won two Emmy Awards. It chronicles the rich history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Caesar in 44 B.C. to its eventual fall around 537 AD, detailing the remarkable works of architecture and technology in between that helped create Rome's indelible mark on the world.

Online servers

The official online servers were shut down on 1 November 2008.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Pecunia.

Additional contributors: JRK, Sciere, Stratege, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added October 11, 2006. Last modified March 28, 2024.