''Caesar'' is a 1992 city-building

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

published by

Sierra On-Line Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game ge ...

in which the player undertakes the role of a

Roman governor A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many Roman province, provinces constituting the Roman Empire. The generic term in Roman legal language was ''re ...

, building ancient Roman cities. Released in 1992 on the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

and

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desig ...

the following year to

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

, PC and

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

, the game is similar to ''

SimCity ''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game franchise originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, '' SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and was followed by several sequels and many other spin-off ''S ...

''. In addition to similar graphics and user interfaces, it also came with issues of

micromanagement Micromanagement is a management style characterized by behaviors such as an excessive focus on observing and controlling subordinates and an obsession with details. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation, suggesting a lack of fr ...

, including complicated city-planning requirements such as building the right number of schools, theaters, libraries, bathhouses, and other amenities within suitable distances of residential areas. An updated version, ''Caesar Deluxe'', was released in 1993 for the Amiga. ''Caesar'' spawned three direct sequels and several spin-offs set in other ancient civilizations, which are together known as the '' City Building'' series.

Reception

According to Sierra On-Line, combined sales of ''Caesar'' and ''Caesar II'' surpassed 400,000 units by the end of March 1996. In June 1993, ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

'' recommended ''Caesar'' to ''SimCity'' fans who "wished for more buttons to push, knobs to adjust and wires to reroute". The magazine concluded that "''Caesar'' provides that rare quality in strategy gaming — an experience whose rewards prove equal to its challenges ... tprovides the serious player with a real lion's feast". A survey of pre-20th-century strategy games in the issue gave the game three-plus stars out of five, calling it "More of a game than a simulation, but it can be fun". ''Caesar'' and its

sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music, or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...

were named, collectively, the 96th best computer game ever by ''PC Gamer UK'' in 1997. The editors wrote, "Impressions keep on keeping on with the likes of ''Lords of the Realm'' ..but have never managed to regain the dizzy peak they climbed with their handsome brace of think-'em-ups."

Sequels

''Caesar'' was developed and designed by

Impressions Games Impressions Games was a British video game developer founded by David Lester. He sold the company to Sierra On-Line in 1995, who was then bought out by Cendant and eventually, Vivendi Universal (now known as Vivendi SA). Impressions speciali ...

and distributed by

. Impressions also developed another Roman-themed game, '' Cohort 2'', at the same time, which allowed players to direct ancient Roman battles in a style akin to a crude precursor of the ''

Command & Conquer ''Command & Conquer'' (''C&C'') is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game franchise created and originally developed by Westwood Studios and currently owned by Electronic Arts. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself ba ...

'' series. Impressions included a feature in ''Cohort 2'' which allowed players of ''Caesar'' to load their saved files and play out the battles from ''Caesar'' in ''Cohort 2''. Later, Impressions released an updated version of ''Caesar'' which automatically launched a version of ''Cohort 2'' whenever the player engaged in battle. This version was released under the title ''Caesar Deluxe'' in 1994. Impressions released the sequels '' Caesar II'' in 1995 and ''

Caesar III ''Caesar III'' is a city-building game released on September 30, 1998, for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems, Mac OS, developed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra On-Line. It is the third installment of the Caesar (comput ...

'' in 1998. A third sequel, ''

Caesar IV ''Caesar IV ''is a city-building game set in ancient Rome, developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment ( Vivendi Universal Games). The game was released on September 26, 2006, in North America. The game featur ...

'', was announced in August 2005 by

Tilted Mill Entertainment Tilted Mill Entertainment is a video game developer located in Winchester, Massachusetts. It was founded in 2002 by former Impressions Games lead designer and general manager Chris Beatrice, business manager Peter Haffenreffer, and designer Jef ...

and was subsequently released on September 26, 2006.

References

External links

''Caesar''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...

''Caesar''
at the Hall of Light
''Caesar Deluxe''
at the Hall of Light

(on Internet Archive) {{DEFAULTSORT:Caesar (Video Game) 1992 video games Activision Blizzard franchises Amiga games Atari ST games Business simulation games City-building games DOS games Classic Mac OS games Sierra Entertainment games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in antiquity Video games set in the Roman Empire Impressions Games games Single-player video games