Having never played Caesar's I, II or III there was no way of knowing what this forth instalment was going to be like. I was expecting some sort of Age of Empires type thing with armies and battles, so was quite pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be more of a city management simulation.
Being a bit rusty in the running of Roman cities I was glad of a tutorial that did a fairly good job of teaching the basics. It turns out that this is probably a must for anyone who hasn't played Caesar games previously as there is a whole load of stuff to learn. The number of icons to click on in menus and sub-menus is quite a daunting sight at first but soon becomes quite simple to navigate. The same can be said for moving around your city. My first city was a bit of a jumbled up mess making it difficult to find anything, but after a bit of practice I was building a city that I couldn't get lost in. This is because the controls are so simple to use. Everything from choosing buildings and positioning them, to navigating your city and decorating it with fancy ornaments is all done extremely easily.
Don't get the wrong idea that this is an easy game though because it isn't. If you forget to place one particular item a whole section of the city could be rendered useless. For example, you may have a grain field and a grain farm but if you don't have somewhere for the grain to go before it is sold in your market the whole process grinds to an unproductive halt.
You also need to keep people happy, whether it involves giving them jobs to do or statues to look at or bathing houses to visit, or any of a multitude of things that the miserable little plebs can find to moan about. Different classes of citizens have differing requirements as well so it can get quite tricky trying to keep all the people happy all of the time.
Having not played a Caesar game before this was a refreshing change and I think that management game fans will get a lot out of it. It's not particularly 'exciting' but it certainly gets the grey matter working, and it's this that may put other gamers off playing it.
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