Caesar III: FAQ/SWAT/Walkthrough - Pre-Release Version
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Author: Adar (
[email protected])
Last Update: -
Last Revision: 10 April 1999
Last Change: 23 April 1999
Version: 0.00.048
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All rights reserved by Adar (
[email protected])
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Table of Contents (TOC)
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Please note: This table of contents is a summary of the main paragraph
titles and subtitles. Some information on the respective chapter is
given here, but detailed information can only be derived from the actual
part of text. One idea of quickly finding your way there (as the text
is quite long all by itself) is cutting or copying the title of the chapter
you want to read into your clipboard (system) buffer and then pasting
it into your "search text" dialogue (with edlin for instance use F3 and
then CTRL-V then ENTER). This will bring you to the referenced chapter.
- changed parts are marked with [C]
- added parts are marked with [A]
- removed parts will be mentioned with [R] and the name of the removed
chapter for a few versions
As long as there are no changes, additions or removals no symbols will
be attached to the title of the chapter. Symbols generally appear in
column number 1 (e.g. see the next line)
[A] The General Law of Gravity
where "[" (without double quotations) would be your left text windows
border
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I. Introduction
a. Preliminary
Informative text on the copyright and other legal information
concerning the release, availability and liabilities of the text,
reader, writer and other people connected to it.
b. Structure of the text
The implemented structure is meant to provide navigatorial help to
the reader. This chapter explains the various visual helps used.
c. Version Information
The version information goes back to the format x.yy.zzz which is
the primary version information. Some people, like webmasters will
probably need to review this version information chapter from time to
time.
d. About the game
1. What type of game is Caesar III?
2. A bit of the history of Caesar (the person)
Since the game bases on Roman history I am inserting history
information from time to time. If you need more information you
can always contact me or have a look at the more than generous
text of the online help.
3. A bit on the history of Caesar (the game)
Caesar - the game - has a long history. It started out way back
when the Commodore 64 ruled the Earth..
4. Installation
Although there are real good help supports online and available
straight through the Internet I have provided some common
troubleshooting aside from information on the files the game
installs.
5. Setting up the preferences
a. Outside
This means, you can alter configuration files (.cfg and so on)
to for instance adjust sound volume. Also, this is connected with
part IV (SWATs - secret weapons and tactics). Altering the files
may infringe copyright, so be sure to review your local law and/or
the copyright information of the game.
b. Inside
There are some menu entries you can always alter when in-game.
The speed setting for instance comes especially handy from time
to time. Also the map bookmarking is a very nice function to
have at hand when two to four armies attack simulatenously.
II. General Game Play
1. Types of game play
There are two types of gameplay, career mode, which puts you into
contigous wave of assignments and the individual (single) game play.
2. A note on online help and historical references
3. Exempli Gratia
a. Main Menu
b. Career Mode - Walkthrough
More than just an example I am providing a complete walkthrough
with a ton of hints and tips on how to solve various problems
common to some assignments' tasks.
Assignment 01
(Training)
This is the first assignment of career mode and it puts you into
a tiny area where you have to examine the various functions of
the game.
Assignment 02
(Training)
Almost the same as assignment 01 this area again features training
only. There are - however - a lot more functions activated by now
and this may seem quite overwhelming at first.
Choice assignments are what defines the bigger part of the game.
You may choose between warfare and buildup levels. BuildUp means
you have build your city and do not need to worry about war or
building military forces too much whereas Warfare levels usually
make you end up with six forts (a full legion that is) and your
city surrounded with heavily guarded walls. These are usually
the more difficult missions.
Assignment 03
(Choice) - BuildUp Level
Assignment 03
(Choice) - Warfare Level
Assignment 04
(Choice) - BuildUp Level
Assignment 04
(Choice) - Warfare Level
Assignment 05
(Choice) - BuildUp Level
Assignment 05
(Choice) - Warfare Level
Assignment 06
III. Frequently Asked Questions
Basically this is what I projected when I started writing this file.
This may also be the main sense for what GameFAQs (my initial
inspiration) stands for. Now FAQ files sometimes - and with GameFAQs
this happens around all the times - do not answer questions in the
sense of writing down questions and then the answers, but answers
are found by reading the walkthroughs. Both of these possibilities
are included in this file, and section III. Frequently Asked Questions
offers a collection of questions asked and answered.
IV. Game concepts
This chapter probably includes the most comprehensive information on
the game itself. Since every project has to have a concept behind its
working, this game has a concept if not to say concepts, too.
Of course these cannot be revealed in their entirety by just one
person, so this includes work of many other people. Sometimes
developers release game concept information, but this is not only
seldom but also most of the times costly - you may not publish
your information.
In addition to the bare concepts I included descriptions and detailed
information on the building types and so on. Since this game was
constructed from historical data, I have also assembled (true) historical
information about the game's components (for instance: walls, trade..).
V. Secret Weapons and Tactics
SWATs are so called cheats built into the game - e.g. the Alt-V cheat.
Aside of this, there are things you can do when utilizing disk editors.
Good things usually are hidden well, sometimes they are "legally"
available, others again may be hidden well (for instance the cheats
hidden in the IMUSE.EXE with Dark Forces by LucasArts). These cheats
will be found by some people and usually spread via NewsGroups and
reach publishing on the Web and in files like this one.
VI. Appendices
Appendix A - Legality Statement
The "all rights reserved" section - this is important, although not taken
care of by all too many people.
Appendix B - About FAQs/...
What is a FAQ? Where do I get FAQs from?
Appendix C - Official Distributors
Who are the distributors? Where do I get updated versions?
Appendix D - Rumors
Rumors on the game, basically only the weirdest or the proven ones
will reach this section.
Appendix E - Credits
Credit to whom credit is due. There have not been huge piles of people
supporting the upcoming of this file, but a lot of people contributed
in one or another way, aside from not knowing some people where just
an inspiration. I would like to use the few more bytes here and thank
them - you know who you are.
Appendix F - Upcoming implementations
What's going to happen to this file? New ideas..
Appendix G - Resources
Where I get my information from - only partly, of course.
Appendix H - Mailing List
Updates on the mailing list, information on the service, how to
subscribe, how to unsubscribe.
Appendix I - Discussion List
Why, when, where - hell, this is NOT in existence right now. See there.
Appendix J - Revision History
Revisions made are usually complex journeys through the mysteries of
grammar, alphabet, hyphenation and thesauric battles - these are the
outcomes.
Appendix K - Game Alterations & News
Updates, News mainly from www.caesar3.com
Appendix L - Manual Errata
Of course there had to be errors in the manual, who lives without 'em?
Appendix M - Frequently Asked Questions WITHOUT answers
Interesting questions seeking their answer in this file, please help
out, you'll be well awarded!
Appendix N - Known Bugs and Errors
See Appendix L.
Appendix O - Searching for Caesar III topics on the interNet
Private searching hints.
Appendix P - Fun Facts
To say it in one nice person's style: "Jovial Quotes". <scnr>
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I. Introduction
a. Preliminary
The text contained herein has been written, designed and formatted,
checked and revised, changed, saved and published out of free will.
No money has been received for the work put towards its creation up
to its present state. Because of this I hereby notify everyone, that
this file and its contents in their complete form shall not be bound
to any royalty or "distribution fee" which may arise to be earned by
distributing this file. Distribute it out of free will, but do not
take money for it. More information on distribution of this file may
be obtained from appendix A (legality statement).
This file contains information on a game named "Caesar III" (name
without double quotation marks). This game has been designed to work
on a PC, that is, a personal computer. General information on what a
PC is cannot be given during this file, but your local PC vendor may
help. Alternatively you can contact the author of this file for more
detailed information.
To understand what is contained within this file you will need basics
in computer using, e.g. how to start a file, how to launch Windows
Explorer, what is MBytes, MHz etc.
If you are not familiar with the basics of computer using and applying
Windows commands your PC vendor may help. Alternatively you may contact
the author of this file for assistance.
If you have not read a file like this one i.e. a FAQ, a SWATs
collection or a Walkthrough-file before, please read appendix B (about
FAQs, SWATs, ...).
b. Structure of the text
I have tried to implement a logical structure with indents, sections
and paragraphs each supporting the other one. It may however prove, that
some people will find it hard to read this text. Because of this,
I have provided a little information on how I planned the structuring
of the text.
A thing you may notice very fast: it is plainly written in ASCII
characters. This ensures many people will be able to read it without
many difficulties. Aside from this the text has not been formatted
with tabulator spaces, which may vary from editor to editor in length
and behavior. Also, the document was written in non-block mode.
This offers advantages as follows:
- the file can easily be read using any text editor able to
interprete ASCII characters
- the file can be published on the World Wide Web easily, since
no special formatting is needed
-> How to publish this file on the World Wide Web
- obtain written permission from the author of this file
by writing to
[email protected]
- enter your favorite HTML editor, alternatively use the
Windows Notepad
- copy the complete file to the text file and put it
between <PRE> and </PRE> tags; this lets the HTML compiler
of your browser display preformatted text.
Note: Unauthorized published copies are infringing the copyright.
Please read appendix A (legality statement) on this subject.
As you may have noticed the structuring basically is subdivided
in I. 1. a. and - listings. I.1.a. listings are very logical
by themselves, but differing between a. and - listings may be very
important in some sections. "a." listings refer to a important
sequence of things, which should be carried out using the alphabet;
starting with point a. run through the statements until you reach
the last one. "-" listings refer to a listing without significant
importance of sequence. Similarily a. b. c. listings should be read
in the sequence as they are written.
c. Version information
I am using a special type of version information.
"Last Update"
Updates refer to major updates after a long period of feedback, or
complete revisions with a lot of new information added.
"Last Revision"
Revisions are when I re-read the whole text, correct spelling, grammar
and other lingual mistakes and then rewrite parts or the whole text
to a better style, layout and contents. It is very important that
feedback arrives numerously, by the way.
"Last Change"
Defers that you actually are looking at a changed version. This may
be a simple correction, addition or deletion or whatever simple
change you may imagine. Of course there may be other bigger changes
like new chapters, but then again a change means editing the file in
any way.
Also there is special type of information contained in the actual
version numbering: x.yy.zzz whereas x denotes the first number, yy
the second number and zzz the third number each having as many digits
as letters in x, yy and zzz respectively. x denotes the releases
which do not happen many times. yy denotes updates so far and zzz the
days working on current release.
As far as releases are concerned, they are published scarcely. Usually
I will release pre-releases or updates. Pre-releases are versions of
the document, that although incomplete, yield important information
already. Even though, the document is not completed to state where
it could be called a unity of questions and answers i.e. pre-releases
often include many more questions than answers.
d. About the game
1. What type of game is Caesar III?
At its core it's an action simulation. It simulates a career of
a Roman citizen that takes up the so called "cursum honorum" which
is the "curse of honors". Romans had to undergo several types of
offices before they were admitted to governing and legislative
offices. For example they were tax collectors, police staff and
and other members of public service required for a town or
civilization in general to work. More about the history of Caesar
later on.
This cursus honorum has already brought you to a point where
you govern a city. If you know Sim City, Caesar III will be
very familiar. But! There are big differences, still!
You will have to construct a city out of nothing. There
is a lot of woods, water and perhaps a street through the lands.
But that's it. You will have to cultivate land to feed your people
by building farms. Further on you will need to construct
workshops to equip your armies and fight intruders. There's a whole
lot of life in ancient Rome, and your city is a thrilling pool
of activity. A lot to attend and a big amount of details you may
overlook, but this file should put you on the right way to it.
Basically after building up your basic city, still every single
building added may cause little catastrophes. It is not easy being
one of the mighty ones, but it's great fun watching for people
unfold, develop, grow and finally having a metropolis making Rome
itself turn pale.
2. A bit of the history of Caesar (the person)
About 2000 years ago the Roman Empire had its
biggest spreading in history. Also, about 2000 years ago, emperors
ruled it. As we all know from history Rome first was ruled by
kings, then, after Caesar claimed dictatorship emperorship was
introduced (after Caesar's death - should you never have seen
any Asterix movies or read comics - they stabbed him to death).
Emperorship under Octavian who was also called Augustus (the month
August is named after this emperor, the first in Rome's history
namely) was something completely new to the Romans. Now when Caesar
claimed dictatorship after he had a quite interesting and
adventorous career, actually marching straight through Gaule, that
is the ancient France, and bringing it under the flag of the Roman
Empire (which was some type of spear with banners and stuff around
it, with the letters S.P.Q.R. (senatus populusque Romanus) -
"belongs to the Roman senate and people") he invaded
Britain and "convinced" Britains to be part of the Roman Empire
from then on. It was also him who added a lot of culture to Rome's
outlook. "panem et circenses" may be familiar to some of you, which
means bread and games - and that's exactly what he did: he spent
money to bring food to the (starving) people to get their favor
and then he entertained them with games full of blood and brutality.
Actually you may have heard of the Coloseum in Rome, a small picture
of it is also shown during the game at the map of the Empire where
ancient Rome would be. This theatre, which consisted of a doubled
ancient Greek theatre (half circles usually) featured a lot of other
games aside of plays but also covered some blood thirsty gladiator
battles (the fighting gladiators greeted Caesar with "ave Caesar,
morituri te salutant" which is "greetings, those who are going to die
salute you"). They had also quite funny games. For instance they let
people dressed up in feathers run and jump from the highest
precipice to honor the gods. And then again there were also games for
Artemis, the goddess of hunting: A wood was constructed in the middle
of the Coloseum. Into this wood small animals were brought. Quite
actually all spectators were then admissed to search and hunt for
the small animals. Entertainment was big fun in those times.
3. A bit on the history of Caesar (the game)
Caesar, in the original way was designed to work on the PC. There
were and are several similar programs around. The oldest predecessor
I still remember was Centurio on the C64. The three games of Caesar
each offer similar game play. Even though one immediately sees the
huge amounts of changes applied to all three games, the changes
from Caesar II to III were not that great than they were from the
original Caesar to Caesar II. Yet, and that may be the most
fascinating thing, Caesar III offers even more details than Caesar II
which already incorporates a lot of what is known about the antique
Roman civilization.
Caesar III in it's general has far more advanced graphics, nice
tunes and new sounds, of course also old elements but a much richer
game engine, that features a lot more details than the other
versions. Basically, if you do not have any of the three games I
would recommend Caesar III, because it incorporates the best of all
games and adds some new things, too.
If you already have Caesar or Caesar II you should consider trying
whether you are still fascinated by similar game play, but yet still
the game Caesar III itself has already a place among those nice
games arrayed on the heaven of game stars.
4. Installation
Although explained with a lot of details, the installation of
Caesar III may yield some problems. However I will not repeat
endless "how to clean up Windows 95" articles here, instead,
please contact me, if you need assistance on installing the game.
If you are planning on doing so, please include at least a
Microsoft System Information file, which contains all data
available about your computer.
-> How to extract information using Microsoft System Information
- open the Windows Explorer
* select Start in the left bottom corner,
* select Run from the opened window,
* type "explorer.exe" (without double quotes) into the blank
field
* press [ENTER]
- go to \PROGRAM FILES\COMMON FILES\MICROSOFT SHARED\MSINFO
on your primary bootdrive
* select "PROGRAM FILES" (without double quotes) from any
window by either clicking one time or double-clicking
* select "COMMON FILES" (without double quotes) from any
window by either clicking one time or double-clicking
* select "MICROSOFT SHARED" (without double quotes) from any
window by either clicking one time or double-clicking
* select "MSINFO" (without double quotes) from any
window by either clicking one time or double-clicking
- run the program Microsoft System Information by selecting
MSINFO.EXE from any window and pressing [ENTER]
(there are other ways to start a program, but since Windows 98
lets you customize whether you use double-clicking or single
clicking to open a program, I will stick to selecting and
pressing [ENTER])
- select "FILE" from the menu bar on the top of the program's
window by clicking on it or pressing [ALT]+F
- select "SAVE" from the file menu that you have just opened
- enter a path and filename for the file
The file should be around 500 KBytes in size, which makes it
easy to be sent via E-Mail. Should you fail in creating or
sending the file, please contact me at
[email protected] and
I will try to assist you.
5. Setting up the preferences
Some things like performance or sound volume should be adjusted
before you start playing. If you have a problem like the game
running very slowly, read these paragraphs.
Also the following paragraphs will net you with a bunch of
information you will need to set up the game for a better performance.
a. Outside
Before actually running the game itself, please make sure you
have a look at the following file (i.e. open it with Notepad
or similar).
README.TXT
This file contains extremely useful information considering you
are not completely familiar with the instruction manual. So
called 'readme' files are usually addenda to manual errata,
that is, they contain information or corrections on mistakes
that have been placed into the printed manual. Sometimes
readme.txt files also contain information which could not be
added to the help files, because different people worked on that
file. There are some additional manual errata in this file,
please read appendix L (manual errata) on this subject.
A lot of what is stated in the README.TXT paragraph is
very important and should be known by all players.
Generally reading the following paragraph will render you
with a thorough basis of nice tips and "what-do-I-do-now"
information.
It should be located in the directory whereto you installed
Caesar III.
I will list the most important things here, so you will not
have to switch files a lot. Also I will include some hints and
information from myself.
As for originality as stated in the FAQ to FAQ writing (at
http://www.gamefaqs.com) the following information of the
following paragraphs is mainly taken from the README.TXT of
Caesar III. Generally I have however corrected some mistakes
that were stated and added new information. I have placed only
the most important information and what conclusions may arise
from reading it here.
1. Minimum requirements for playing are..
- 100% IBM compatible PC
- 90 MHz processor
- Quad-Speed (4x) CD-ROM drive
(600 KBytes/sec transfer rate)
- 16 MBytes RAM
- Video Card capable of 16 Bit graphics at a
resolution of 640 by 480 pixels
- Hard Drive space of at least 150 MBytes
- Hard Drive space of at least 100 MBytes for Virtual
Memory
- Windows 95/98 installed
If you need more detailed information on what technical
terms like 'virtual memory' are, please look them up in your
Windows Help.
Recommended components for playing are..
- 133 MHz processor
- 32 MBytes RAM
- Full Installation
Include with these the components from above. Of course
having a 450 MHz Pentium II with 512 MBytes of RAM will
work - even better, that is.
2. The following information may be useful if you have problems
inside the game. You will have to come back outside (i.e.
quit) to apply any of these hints.
If you get a warning about low memory or "low virtual memory"
please consult your Windows Help on how to increase
virtual memory. Be sure that it is set to at least
100 MBytes AND that your harddrive also yields 100 MBytes of
free space.
If you have extremely slow game play, try increasing
virtual memory and defragmenting your harddrive.
Also, if you seem to have problems with your mouse, try
installing new drivers from your mouse hardware vendor.
Many of these offer them for free download from their
homepage e.g.
http://www.logitech.com for Logitech mice.
Note: Even new computers may be shipped with outdated
drivers.
Some TSRs (programs located in the system tray, usually
left of your system clock at the right corner of the
Windows Desktop featured as little icons, smaller than
the others on the Desktop) e.g. screen savers as well as
compression programs e.g. Stacker, DriveSpace or
crash protection programs e.g. Norton CrashGuard may
interfere with the game. Unload these programs and try again.
Do so by pressing [CTRL], [ALT], [DEL]. A window will popup.
Select an application, hit [ENTER] and another window
will pop up. Click "End Task" (or press [ENTER]) to
unload the previously highlighted application.
Trying to unload everything except "Systray", "Explorer"
and "Caesar III" may crash your computer, since there
are a lot of programs that are needed for some computers
to function correctly e.g. when playing on a diskless
workstation.
Occasionally you may refresh your monitor by pressing
[ALT], TAB to switch between your Desktop and Caesar III.
3. Now, if you have not yet read the manual, do so. A lot of
information that follows now refers to things stated in the
manual and you will not be able to follow if you do not
know some basics of the game.
Some things here are well in-game situations, but they
are good to be known or heard of before you start a game,
so you don't come back here frustrated because something
does not work how you expect it to do.
- there is not a context help to any single element in
the game featured with a context help button
- SPACEBAR does not pause time, the P button does
(look up appendix D (rumors) for more information!)
- use SPACEBAR to toggle between normal view and overlay
view or overlay view and another overlay view
- hotkeys are as follows
P .. pause game
[ .. reduce game speed
] .. increase game speed
cursor keys .. scrol main map
SPACEBAR .. view main map while in overlay view
SPACEBAR .. return last overlay while in normal view
L .. cycle through legions
F .. fire overlay
W .. water overlay
D .. damage overlay
C .. crime overlay
T .. problems overlay
advisors
1 .. labor
2 .. legion
3 .. emperor
4 .. ratings
5 .. trade
6 .. population
7 .. health
8 .. education
9 .. entertainment
0 .. religion
= .. finance
- .. chief
hitting a key twice takes you back to
normal view
- you can set bookmarks to certain map locations using
[CTRL], F1 for position #1 through to [CTRL], F4 for
position #4; recall these bookmarks using F1 through to F4
- enter window screen mode (background = Desktop) using F6
- you may change the currect resolution using..
F7 .. 640 by 480 pixels
F8 .. 800 by 600 pixels
F9 .. 1024 by 768 pixels
4. The README.TXT features some hints and tips for those
who actually read it. These are very useful for all who
like to be on the safe side in the beginning. However,
if you keep to reading this file, you may not need the
README.TXT, since I incorporated some ideas, enhanced
them and eliminated some mistakes in the README.TXT.
FILES IN THE INSTALLATION DIRECTORY
There are always some files that are human readable, or pleasantly
to the point where you still can manage to edit something.
*.SAV
You will not have any of those directly after the installation,
since these are the savegames the game creates. As you may know
the filenames DOS 6.x uses are made of filename.ext; 8
characters, a point and 3 characters. This has been changed
a lot with Windows 9x, as there the limit of 8 characters
before the first point (more or less) has been set to 200+
characters. Basically you may use up to 255 chracters
of whatever kind except \ / : * ? " < > |
Now as you name your save game during game play (via the file
menu - save game) you will enter a name around 10 - 20
characters usually. This name will be exported to the
installation directory (i.e. to the directory you installed
the game to) and there the extension ".SAV" will be added.
These files are the savegame files and may be deleted freely -
since you can save as often as you have free hard drive space,
you may easily get a harddrive full of savegames (I did so with
Dune 2 some years ago). Then you would have to delete some.
Another little hint on this: Try to use senseful filenames/save-
game names since when deleting you may have a hard time
guessing at what savegame were those you wanted to keep
and those that existed practically just to be deleted.
Bad naming would be..
"BEAT EM.SAV"
"HAHA.SAV"
"ENDED WAR.SAV"
"GOOD GRAIN.SAV"
Good naming instead could be..
"LEVEL 1 - Beginning.SAV"
"LEVEL 1 - Temporary Save.SAV"
"LEVEL 2 - Beginning.SAV"
Basically creating save games at the beginning of an
assignment does not have much sense, since you may easily
restart an assignment by selecting "replay map" from within
the file menu.
I am using a combined naming of "assignment nr." and
what type of save it is. I like to keep a savefile for the
beginning and ending of each assignment so that I am able
to show people how to do something or make screenshots.
CAESAR3.INI
One very obvious line:
CDDrive=<something>
(<something> means any letter or something else)
Now changing this can assist you with game play, if it's very
slow, try copying the CD to your harddisk and playing it from
there. Use CDDrive=. in order for the game to recognize your
harddisk as CDDrive (and thus being able to run the whole game
from there - which is much faster).
SIERRA.INF
Some information placed by Sierra. There are some things which
you may change. You can also add your own bookmarks here, which
may be shown somewhere.
Also your basic configuration is stored here aside with
product code and version and some information which demos the
game will show to you.
This is interesting, since you may actually skip the demos if
you just blank the lines after the equation marks. Unless you
like them or have enough time to lose, do this - speeds up
loading the game.
C3_MODEL.TXT
This file contains information on every structure and the
taxes in connection with them. There is some information
in that file on model data (that is the data contained therein).
Basically this a trial-and-error thing. The values of what
a structures costs etc. are balanced out, so game play is
good. If you change this, you may have a nice cheat, like
paying only little for a palace or something. This is however
not recommended. Slight adjustments are okay, but do not
exaggerate it. Unless you are very familiar with the game,
do not change this. It offers a lot of possibilities though.
Also see the SWATs section for more details on this file.
STATUS.TXT
Created as a log file for loading the game parts. Whenever
you start the game, it logs what happens during loading the
game's parts. If you have any errors at hand, have a look at
what could not be loaded or was not enabled, is not sufficient
(like memory) or could not be found.
Except for the README.TXT and the STATUS.TXT it is a bad idea
to delete any of the files contained in the Caesar III directory.
Technically you may delete any TXT and MAP files for the game
to work. But pre-designed maps probably needed by the game may
fail to load if you do so. This could be needed for small laptop
harddisks. Usually you do not get more than you lose by deleting
every single file you do not need.
You may also delete the SMK files (video files) and various
WAV files (audio files). Handle with care - the game may crash or
not even start doing so. Again technically you can reduce the
amount of space needed, but this reduces the actual game to
its engine functions. Same thing if you remove the beautiful
red metal outlets, the wooden inlays and stuff like that from
a Ferrari and go driving around with the engine in front of
you. It's possible but it's not a nice feeling with all the
wind coming at you at 100 mph. And then, a car door adds
a lot of comfort, doesn't it?
Installation Hints
- I have received some questions on "ISSET_SE general
protection faults". This basically happens during
installation, when the setup procedure starts up and
cannot allocate enough memory. Also faulty memory
chips may be the cause. Be sure to thoroughly test your
system before contacting me.
b. Inside
Quite exactly, editing any preferences inside is very easy
because there are not many that refer to the games actual
outlook.
First of all, you have to start a game and on the main screen
to actually get to editing any preferences (also have a look
at the chapter later on, where we will talk about how to
start a new game).
On the main screen there will be a menu on the top where there
is something called "options" - a dropdown menu item listing
where you can select Display, Sound and Speed Settings.
DISPLAY SETTINGS
This lets you adjust how you actually get to look at your
city. Resolution and windowed mode may be changed. These
are the same things you can do with the F6 through F9 keys.
SOUND SETTINGS
These are very obvious. You can adjust the volume and whether
sounds are played at all. Generally the basic settings
(everything ON) is okay. You will have some performance gain
by turning of music and sound effects.
SPEED SETTINGS
Now this is an interesting menuitem, because you may adjust
game speed, which may help you if things are overwhelmingly
fast - and that 450 MHz Pentium II running at your service
may overdo it :).
Scroll Speed - this lets you adjust the speed of how fast the
main window will scroll around the city map
Aside from these settings you may change the Warnings and
the Mouse Help. Both are changed via the Help dropdown menu.
Warnings - if ON shows warning e.g. nearby enemies etc.
Mouse Help - if ON will show tool tip like windows if you place
the mouse cursor over any topic a help item is
assigned to
if SOME will show only most important mouse
context help
This is pretty much you can do concerning preferences that have an
effect on how the game works.
II. General Game Play
1. Types of game play
Caesar III has been designed to allow different types of playing.
There are generally two modi which you may choose from. I will
give an overview of both first and then go into detailed information.
Career Play - This type of game puts you in the position of a Roman
citizen which has to first eloborately prove her or his
management skills by building two cities to a preset
amount of wheat stored, population etc. may go choosing
what types of city she or he governs. Basically you are
given the military style career and the governing,
managing type of career. A balance between both is also
possible.
Individual Play - This type of game allows the player to play single
games with the goal Sim City may set. Expand your
city and keep it alive against all the bad things
that may occur. With Caesar III these things are
differently from invading spaceships. But there are
wild storms angered gods may conjure to wreck your
nice city.
Individual play more or less offers freedom of action
since there are no real goals to achieve.
For now we will concentrate on career play, since this is the story
mode. You may also look at it from the view of a campaign, since in
this mode you have many connected levels or cities to build up.
2. A note on online help and historical references
There are a lot of mistakes one can make when starting a new game,
that is, many things, you do not even know about in the beginning.
The online help of Caesar has some very important strategies embedded
into it. Even if you are going to try and play on your own, you
should read this paragraph. For one, there are no spoilers
because everything is available from the beginning on, and two,
these are not talked about anywhere else, because I would have to
rewrite them.
I will try to explain it as neatly as possible, but some things
may be hard to understand. I urge you to reread them since some
strategies, although hard to overlook are extremely efficient.
Some strategies are taken directly from the online help, because
sometimes this help is quite confusing. For instance clicking
context help on caravans shows help on workers. Now that was not
quite exactly what you wanted, right?
So help is not that useful. I have scanned through almost all screens and
tried to unwind the complexity - I believe there is another manual
typed into the online help. A lot of things could be noted here,
but quite a bunch already is printed into the instruction manual
you got when you bought the game. Still there are some glitches,
ideas and hideaways you may simply overlook, because they do not
seem important or because you are not yet familiar with games
like Caesar.
First of all, the cursus honorum discussed earlier is a bit
enhanced from what usually is known to be a cursus honorum. There
are far more different states on this, and you may actually
have more job types than described in mythology and history
encyclopediae. Now this is perfectly okay for a game like Caesar.
Note that Caesar in that context also offers some glitches from
history, that is, as far as it concerns the game, there are sometimes
additional buttons leading to genuine historical information.
In case you miss some, you can always come back to them, because if
once a building has been discovered whenever you click at it, you
review the historical information on it. This may be something
of interest to you.
3. Exempli Gratia
This section will deal with a complete game in the career mode. This
means, it will take you from the actual starting of the game to the
end scene. During this section there will be big amount of knowledge
you can apply later on when you are playing independently. This
basically will be something like a walkthrough. In career mode you
have two maps of training before you finally are able to choose
what maps or types of job you are going to do during the game.
Since career mode also is some type of history mode (compare to
campaigns, only that there is only one) I will describe every
map, its difficulties and strategies to get over the problems
arising.
Let's get down to it. After starting the game the various opening
video sequences appear. You may click the left mouse button
to skip them, but do not overdo it - clicking too fast may cause the
PC to crash with some machine configurations. Not even Sierra is
completely sure what types these machines may be, but they
experienced problems.
a. Main Menu
The main menu features a nice title screen "Caesar III" and four
menu options.
Start a new career - Clicking this enters career mode with a new
career, that is a new game.
Load existing career - This will allow resuming earlier careers
by loading a saved game.
Save games are snapshots of your current
position, rank, time etc. so you may
continue playing at the same position etc.
after you have turned of the computer because
you needed a break after many hours of
continous play.
City Construction Kit - The third option invokes the second game
mode, which is individual playing. Here you
may design your own city, just as if you
were playing career mode, except you are
not made Clerk, Engineer or other rank after
you have completed a city. Basically this
differs from career mode because you cannot
have any story in the backgrond. Put simply
this is designing a city to play with.
HINT: If you would like to play the career
mode maps in individual playing mode, which
normally is not possible, save any career
map you are currently in and load them
when in individual playing mode.
Quit - The most obvious function. Quits the game.
HINT: Pressing ESCAPE will allow you to exit
the game almost that quickly you sometimes
miss out saving, because the game does not
explicitly asks for it. Great if you want
to play when your boss/parents/.. are coming
around to watch you work on the PC and you
have to get out quickly leaving no evidence
back. Save often, if you are doing so...!
b. Career Mode - Walkthrough</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
After starting career mode, you are presented with a briefing on
your first assignment.
Assignment 01 - Training (Citizen)
------------------------
Objectives: population of 150 citizens
Chronicles: no events
Basically this is an extremely easy assignment, however still
there are some vaults that you may readily jump into and
wonder where all the money, citizens and fame have gone within
four minutes (it's a pity I did not film my first try on the
game - without reading the manual I just started clicking
around - bing - that was it ... 4 minutes 3 seconds of playing)
What we are going to do now, is have a little relaxation,
because knowing The Settlers I, II or III will render you
with some experience of what will be going to happen very soon.
150 citizens may sound really little if you compare it with
Sim City where a 5 billion (or so) citizens is maximum.
Now, 150 actual means 150. So if you have 150 citizen you can
go, press P for game pausing and then scroll around counting
them. Here it would be a bit difficult, because once you reach
your goal you will be awarded a new rank and that's it for
this city - on to new waters.
But not so fast. We have just read the first few lines of the
briefing and that is not quite enough for a new rank yet.
If you look carefully at what is provided during the briefing,
you may well understand a lot of the game's inner workings. As
mentioned beforehand practically the whole manual has been
embedded into the game, and part of it will be shown almost
every briefing. During this briefing they teach you how to
reach your objectives, namely building a path and placing
housing.
First things first I read in a FAQ some days ago. And that's
what's happening shortly.
Clicking the little arrow in the window on the bottom right
corner will lead you to a little loading and finally your
main view expanding over your monitor. This seems to be
your home for the next hour, because an hour around you may
spend before advancing. Depending on what you would like to
do - gain experience, try various things - or just roam about
get some people chained to your city and move on, this assign-
ment takes from 10 minutes to 60 minutes. Keep in mind that a
well built city also is quite rewarding, and during career
mode the more money you have the better gifts you can give to
Caesar, the better you will be in his favor.
This reminds me of a little erroneous information during the
game. You start out in around 400 BC, which is definitely not
the living time of Caius (yes, it's a C, not a G, that's Latin,
folks) Iulius (I instead of J) Caesar, who actually lived
from 100 BC to 44 BC (when he was murdered).
Being Caesar's friend is already rewarding a lot if you
need assistance or run out of money: Caesar may justly give
you 5000 more denars if you need them. (Denars are the
currency unit used, aside of the more widely known sesterce,
the denar was the larger unit, compare: dollar - cent and
denar - sesterce). There is no significant difference in
naming this currency unit denar or denarius, the plural
being denars or denarii. One it the English derivation
from the latter Latin expression denarius.
So, you have arrived at the main view of your map. Quite
actually I have tried this various times and found out some
things..
- the first map does not change contrary to some rumors on
the InterNet
- the trees and rivers are always situated at the same
positions, relating to north-south coordinates
- the size of the map is not the full size available in
later games
- you face unemployment very fast, since there will be
a lot of citizens and you will not have enough need of
structures, since you will have constructed the needed
structures very fast, because you only have a few
structures to build in the beginning
Actually these things are very general but apply well to
the first assignment. If by now you start experience
performance problems, please read the related paragraphs
again, because later in the game the screen gets so crowded
with animated little people that performance will drop
to a frame each second.
The first thing you may try to do whenever you enter a
level may be looking for a suitable site for your
first residential area (of course saving beforehand may be
a nice idea as well). This may well be somewhere where
you have as many resources close by as possible. For this
city, and only for this city by now, look for a place,
where there is some water, a river for example, and big
patches of land without rocks. It does not matter whether
there are many trees, since most of the time land will
be covered with trees which makes it almost impossible
to be member of Greenpeace of ancient Rome. Now that
you have found an appropriate spot, you start building
and note that, heck, citizens seem to move in from one
side only! - Now that can be remedied. I recommend
you have another look at the map. There is a red signpost
at one side and a blue one on another one. The red one
directs people into your territory, and the blue one
away from your territory.
This means, that most of the time, you will start building
from the red signpost, because citizens will then
come in from the fastest.
Note: Do this only, if enough resources are close by, or
resources are not available at all at that stage, or -
alternatively to the latter two, if resources are not
important. And that's what's happening during the first
assignment. Resources are much less important than they get
very soon during the next assignments. But for now, you
may simply eradicate ("detach") some trees from their
former woods by clicking the shovel icon on the right
icon bar and then marking a 3d-window shape with clicking
the left mouse button and dragging the window around.
You will notice the ground shape is changing slightly
indicating you are changing the window borders. Inside the
border usually everything will be destroyed.
Now again, don't exaggerate in the beginning. You do not
have a huge money bag at your disposal and tax income with
a 100 citizens is not overwhelmingly good - perhaps just
enough to pay your income (which we'll discuss a little
later).
Be careful with this option, because you can lay
waste to a full grown city within a second and leave
a thousand people stranded.
Build a three by three tile square without a housing in
the middle - a method taken from Sim City.
Now click onto the icon with the 3d-street picture. If you
cannot find it - it's hard to identify - click on the
icon to the right of the shovel. Create a patch of roads
around your 3x3 tile. Using the shovel you can correct any
misplaced tiles, but beware, everything costs money and
again: you do not have endless money bags in your treasury.
A more in-depth description of what you have to do:
After you have eradicated some space above and below
the initial street, start building out some housing (select
the house icon and place each housing tile simply by
clicking the left mouse button. Remember that you can
also click and hold this button and then build a row or
rectangle at once. The cost for these types of building
actions always are shown at one corner of the window
you are creating. With buildings in general it will be
much easier distinguishing the window borders from the
background, because half visible shadows of the buildings
to be build will be shown.
In case of housing however just a signpost will be
displayed - something like "for rent" or "for sale"-signs. :)
These first housing patches may well disappear if you
are not fast enough drawing streets around, so be fast,
or alternatively do not put too many down at once.
Be sure streets are adjacent to the housing patches!
A 3x3 tile should last quite some time, but, left alone
from the main street, that is, not adjacent to the
main street - which is a normal road all by itself - will
disappear far more likely right a second before you
click on it than a 3x3 tile adjacent at one side to the
main street running straight across and cornering
to the left (north). OKay, so your first 3x3 tile is set
up, you came up with streets. Now go for some wells.
Later on we will use another "standard" design for housing,
but for this level 3x3 tiles are more than enough.
On the free tile in the center place a well.
Placing a well is almost as easy as any other building action:
Click on the double wave symbol in the lower right corner
of the screen. Select 'well' and then click at the center
of the 3x3 tile. A well will be built. To have a look at
the water distribution system, press W. This will activate
the water overlay, which lets you examine the sewer and
water distribution pipes, if such exist, and in case of a
well as this one, lets you see what area can be covered
with water to last the demand.
Now that the well seems to hydrate the surrounding area
quite well, begin building some more 3x3 tiles.
For your first projects try building one or two more 3x3
tiles. Do not build more than that, or you may run out of
funds quite soon.
Do not forget the wells at their centers.
Citizens should begin moving in quickly and within half
an hour your city should already have a fifty to hundred
citizens. Now your city features some unusual behavior:
fires will break out, because Romans tend to burn every
building you do not explicitly watch out for. -)
For this reason let's built a prefecture, a site where
a "soldier"-like person stays and moves out to watch for
crime and fire - should a fire start, you can watch him
carry two heavy buckets of water. Right click on him
whilst he's carrying them, and he'll simply tell you,
he's busy! ;-)
Now, hurry with that prefecture, because if you do not,
fire will spread around the city and all housing be destroyed.
The leftover rubble is NOT able to hold housing,
so you have to eradicate that using the shovel icon mode
and then rebuilt housing. It makes sense to have enough
or more than enough prefecture offices around and spread
around the city all the time: first, because fire can lay
waste to a city almost as fast as can do the shovel.
And second, because sometimes citizens come marching into
your city seeking a housing position. And with twenty to
fifty new houses filled within a few seconds you may get
problems supplying them all. So new housing should always
have water (which the little fellows from the prefecture
will need to fetch!) and a prefecture nearby.
You can watch how much buildings are likely to catch fire
by pressing the F key, which activates the fire overlay.
The higher the column the worse the situation. Do not get
it higher than three units and everything's fine. Higher
is very dangerous. And highest means fire-water-burn to your
city.
But that's not all of the trouble. If you did everything
correctly and keep waiting suddenly your buildings
will start collapsing. Fun, isn't it? Okay, another
obstacle fortuna has placed on our way to glorious
city building.
You will have to erect engineers' outposts. Those are not
needed to be put that frequently because buildings catch
fire more likely than they will collaps. If you press
D you may examine the damage overlay showing you structural
damage within your city. Again: keep it to a maximum of
three unit columns. More may be the Big One to your city.
You'll find the engineer's post in the construction submenu,
that's where the hammer is displayed on a rectangular area
right next to the sword where you found the prefecture.
A note on desirability: maybe you have found out you
may examine a single building by right clicking it. Generally
examining something is possible with right mouse clicks.
Another click will deactivate the information popup window.
Now a buiiding next to a prefecture has the likelihood of
not developing very well. Try to move the prefecture some
tiles away (mind the fire overlay!). Security should be
your topmost goal. Next comes housing, then food, water.. etc.
Note: Chain structures such as aqueducts do not affect
desirability.
Okay. Your city should be flourishing now. Since there
are no enemies that early in the game all you have to
do is provide shelter and water.
Note: Your prefecture-soldier does not necessarily need
road access to your well. He still will get buckets from
the wells if they are placed within the insula - in case
you wondered.
Next thing you will have to do is build a senate. These
huge buildings..
- increase desirability
- manage to get taxes (beforehand you did not receive any)
- show you ratings faster than the rating advisor
- can only be built once in an assignment, that is, there
may be only one
You may be noticing changes in the street graphics: this is
a sign for development. Because of the nice senate you just
built streets are getting enhanced. This shows you are
building a nice community.
Usually it takes around a year to accomodate 150 people,
although if you are fast and do not look at your city looking
perfectly nice, you can do it within three months' time
as well as in twelve.
Next will be the temples. But beforehand you should have
a look at whether you have enough workers. Whenever the
message "not enough workers" appears, build more housing,
and if needed provide more food (we'll get to that later on).
If you have not had any messages (and you have turned
Warnings ON) go ahead and build each god a small temple.
One after another, waiting whether there will be
a message, which may happen if there is not enough housing
in your city to accomodate all those workers.
Build a temple of Ceres (you may access them via the flash
symbol in the array of icons to the right of the screen),
Neptune, Mars, Mercury and Venus (all of the gods).
Whereever you build them keep following in mind:
- build a temple for every 750 people you have
- build them spread so each house has access to a temple
- temples raise desirability of their neighborhoods
- always have the same number of temples for all the
gods (i.e. 4 of all gods; 4 for Ceres, 4 for Venus,..)
otherwise you will displease them and a wrathful god
is a pain in the neck - it can wreck your city within
a year.
During or shortly after you have built the temples you will
reach around 140-150 people which ends your assignment.
There is a way evading this and building more temples and
fill the screen: simply only build one 3x3 tile or,
alternatively even less. Now this should only be done if
you are completely sure you have saved beforehand, because
if you do so, you may actually fail the assignment.
Another thing possible is the following: Since you may
play on this map later on in the City Construction Mode
(which is the single map game, similar to melee game in
Command & Conquer) you may as well stay in this level and
make a full grown city out of it. The only problem is,
after some time it will be very hard getting a lot of
houses, a lot of money etc. with just 140-145 people.
As soon as one house evolves, it can hold more people and
if people immigrate to your city in that moment the
assignment is over (though successfully finished).
If you have done well, let's face the next assignment.
Assignment 02 - Training (Clerk - Brundisium)
------------------------
Objectives: population of 650 citizens
Chronicles: no events
This assignment is already a bit more difficult. A little
side note:
First of all you start out on a completely different map.
With this assignment you may already experience size problems.
My city soon expanded over the half of the map. But don't
worry, the single levels are not that hard and once you
have tried this level you may retry it as many times as
you want simply by selecting Replay Map in the File menu
of the game. This makes exploring and trying out very easy.
You could for example try different trade routes,
undergo experiments as to write "I Love You" with
garden patches (which impresses girlfriends; or boyfriends,
to the girl players out there) or make a Smiley out of it.
But let's start right into it. If you have read the online
help carefully one thing they tell you (as well as I am
telling you from time to time above and below this
very line) is to look very hard where to place your first
residential district. Now this is very important. You may
as well have a little pause and scroll around the map
for a few mintues looking at what will be built where.
Naturally farms and all food industry will have to be built
on farmland. And this is something which will happen quite
a few times during this level: Something which you never have
heard about just coming in without warning.
During this and the next assignment (level, mission, heck!)
you will face the situation as follows: You have nearly
all types of buildings at your commands. This makes it
hard to decide what to build with absolutely no experience
how many farms are needed for say a large city of 2000 people.
But all you need is written here - let's get back to
farmland. Farmland is basically what is displayed with
yellow dotted areas (which may be wheat). These yellow
dotted areas are also shown on the minimap in the upper
right corner. So go to one of these patched areas and have
a look, whether there is some water nearby. If so, you've
found your place. As stated earlier, always have raw materials,
farmland and water close by. Since raw materials (clay in
this case) are always near water, or stone (with marble) all
you need is some farmland, a river or pond and some small
pebbles around (well, a mountain to be exact). Found your
place? Okay!
Now best would be if you started out in the Southern West
corner by eradicating around a big area. Desirability
increases as you clear the surrounding of trees.
There, to the North build a reservoir to have water access,
but mind that it should be far away from the rest of the
to-be residential area. A short way to the north (that is
to the upper side of the screen area) there is a flat
(i.e. not zig-zag running part of coastline); try building
it there.
After you have established your first housing areas start
out building prefectures and engineers' post. You should have
at least two for every twenty buildings you build and at
least two of each should be on every screen you look at; if
the city inside this screen fills out the whole main
view, that is.
Finally you should remember that you must build a senate in
order to receive any income from taxes. For the moment this
is more an object of prestige rather than a real source of
venues. Build it though.
Another thing very important in this scenario is to open
up a trade route as soon as possible. You can do so by
making up with around 3 clay pits and another two or three
potteries (found under the hammer icon on the right portion
of the screen; click on workshops then on pottery).
Don't place either of them near any housing facilities or
you will suffer in deevolution of these very housings.
If you are set having enough employment around 300 people
in your city and a well working industry over all,
you may have forgotten something: Our chain was security,
water, food. And we still lack food. If your people have
not complained as of yet, now is the latest time to
actually build farming. Do so in the Southern regions.
Next to the farms build a granary and near to your housing,
but on the opposite side of the roads, build markets. Two
for each 9x9 tile cluster (approximately).
After building all the basic structures (including
temples), do not forget you will need water for each
housing building. If you have a lot of money try opening
up any trade routes that may be possible.
Note on trade routes:
These, if established will bring caravanes of traders
or trading ships to your city which will naturally bring
much more income than before. You will have to pay
a little money initially but after you actually have started
a trade route, and be it the least effective selling only
wheat you may gain a lot of money from it; I usually have
all possible trade routes open and my cash income seldomly
falls below 10000 denars. If so I usually just wait and sit
without expanding for a minute; which usually renders you
with exports of marble to the extent of 10000 denars.
Opening trade routes is basically very simple; all you
have to do is opening the trade advisor which is located
on the button to the left of the small map on the right
icon section of the screen; alternatively you may press
5 which will also bring you there directly. Another
possibility would be to go there via the menu bar (advisors).
As you reach the trade advisor you will face a ton of
options you may select from. Be aware that every little
thing you change here ultimately also effects on the wellbeing
of your city. For example clicking on wheat brings up
a window which allows you to start stockpiling wheat. If
you start stockpiling wheat now, in that early of the game
your people will soon starve. But later on Caesar may
request wheat from you and stockpiling is the most effective
way of getting enough wheat for the request to be dispatched
as soon as possible (and since requests are bound to a
time countdown of 24 months or less you maybe want to hurry -
the faster the better the favor score you earn - it seems).
Clicking on any product you may trade with does not have
any sense right now; first click on "Goto Empire" at the
(not very) far bottom of the screen. This will bring up
another window which shows a map of the Roman Empire, its
borders and other cities around. Their flags are color-coded:
- red cities are Roman cities willing to trade with you
- a big golden flag indicates your city
- cyan flagged cities indicate Roman cities not willing
to trade with you
- dark yellow flagged cities indicate distant cities of
foreign population
Try to specialize in commodities (i.e. products made in
the workshops out of the stuff you produce in the raw
materials outlets).
For now make up one type of commodity which is not
immediately needed by your people e.g. clay.
Be sure you can trade this item with any city (clicking on the
various cities reports to you what they will buy (buys) or
sell (sells) in advance to opening a trade route of specific
type). Exit the advisor now.
After you have built some clay pits and have your workshops
start producing pottery, open the trade route by clicking
on the city you want to open a trade route with (of course
on the Roman Empire map). By clicking on the city
there will shown an additional button on the bottom of the
map where you may click (it is labelled "xxxx denarii to
open trade route"). Click on it and you will be offered
the possibility to visit your trade advisor. Do so.
With the trade advisor click on the goods you want to
trade. After another window has appeared click on
"not trading" which will change to "trade over .. units".
Enter 0 units for the beginning. If you are trading
pottery this is okay. It's meaning is as follows:
.. units will be stockpiled. If you have stockpiled
above a certain amount you enter here, the overflo0w
will be exported. The stockpiled amount will be traded
within the city so long you do not enter stockpiling
on the button at the bottom of this window.
After you have finished click the little arrow on the bottom
right corner of this screen. Resume with your city planning
then.
You will have 8000 denari at your disposal, which should
be plenty to build and rebuild your city quite a few times.
The more money you save, the better you will be able to
face any crisis that may occur. If you are not able to
hold your money bag filling above 2000 denari, immediately
start a trade route. Focus on this. Of course basic
supplies like water and food, security and engineering
must be provided first. If you have too many employees,
build temples. Aside from the blessing you may receive
this takes away a few employees. If you have too little
employees, take away extra buildings. If you cannot
afford anything else you will have to eradicate some
housing space in order to make the surplus of employees
go away (only if your problem is unemployment or lack of
food; if you have too many jobs, and enough food respectively,
build some housing and immigrants will overrun the place!).
OKay, I hope you are doing well that far. If this was
quite complicated, don't worry. This assignment was
quite overwhelming for myself in the first as well, since
you have so many new things to think of. You may get a feeling
over time for how to face a crisis and soon some things
like placing housing at a nice pattern (I privately like
5 housing tiles in one row, in the middle of another row
right behind them I put a fountain, the rest is filled with
gardens; I usually use empty spots which are left due
to landscape types with barbers, doctors, prefectures and
engineering posts namely).
Now that you already have a nice city going, you may as
well try out one of these hints. Maybe something is
going wrong and you would like some help..
- from time to time activate D(amage) overlay and scan
through your whole city whether there is need for
more engineer's posts
- sometimes the engineers also do not go where you want
them to go (I had a nice farmland area some way from
my senate - which is usually my centre of town - and
the engineer I placed near the farms actually did not
give a penny for the farms and wandered around the
senate having a good time; perhaps this is connected
with desirability because my farms usually do not have
a higher desirability than the area surrounding
my senate)
- do the same with your prefectures in F(ire) overlay
- if a fire occurs immediately take out (!) any
adjacent buildings with 2x2 tiles or less,
you can easily afford rebuilding them, but usually
you cannot afford them having put fire to their
adjacent buildings and so on until you got something like
another burning Rome - which you clearly will never
be able to afford
- if a building collapses remove the rubble immediately
as it causes negative desirability
- usually people get thrown out of their homes even
though you did not do anything: this is a cause of
lack of housing; build more residential areas
- buildings always need specific things to evolve,
right click them and have a look what's needed - build
that and more people will be able to live in that
newly evolved grand insulae (which is even nice to
look at - and if you care to have a few in a row it
already looks a bit like a city of ancient times!)
- always have water, even most primitive sources like wells
are needed to get bigger tents from normal tents
- only place wells though if you have no chance of putting
up a reservoir nearby
- initially you do not earn a lot from your taxes and you
should have set it to something around 1%, later if there
are enough people to get a 1000 denari from 4% to 6%
make it 7% increasing by 1% every year from the
1% you had to the 7% you want
These should be quite a bunch of things to watch for yet.
Although there are many many more details like with driving
a car it happens that you get much more accustomed to it
than you may believe. It will run through your fingers
and mind almost automatically.
Whenever you have spare time, try searching for problems.
Either there is one or one is developing - seems to be
part of the game concept... :)
To quote E. Murphy: "If you have tried to mount two
things a third one, unexpected will go lose and crash" -
and many similar ones.
Assignment 03 - Choice
----------------------
Times get interesting from now on. The first two assignments
were for training only. But now we will concentrate on real-
life matters. You are given to choose between a more peaceful
city named Capua and a slightly dangerous city called
Tarentum. We will try both. First let's face Capua, which
seems the easier one.
Choice #1 (Capua) Engineer - salary of DN 5/month
Objectives: population of 2500 citizens
prosperity rating of 10
favor rating of 60
culture rating of 35
peace rating of 20
Chronicles:
Initial money
DN 8000
Highest Housing Level
Grand Villa
Trading (all selling and buying is on a per year basis)
Syracusae (sea route)
sells 15 meat
sells 15 marble
buys 15 olives
buys 25 oil
buys 15 furniture
Tarentum (land route)
sells 15 furniture
sells 15 wine
buys 25 pottery
Jan 350 BC The level begins
Requests
Jul 348 BC 10 oil
Apr 345 BC 15 oil
Things may prove a bit more difficult than ever before. You
have a full disposal of buildings to build and you have
8000 denars to waste. But beware! Don't hesitate but don't
overdo it either! This assignment has some tricky spots.
As always try to locate a nice spot for the beginning of
your settling. Ideally this should be somewhere on the street
and to the south where there is farmland. Build your
first reservoir to the river north and put up some housing
just south in order for some fountains to work with.
After this initial residential placements, build up a
senate somewhere near to the left on the main street.
You should have enough employees to start building temples.
Do so. Then build housing around the senate which increases
their desirability (and thus evolving them to a better
level). Place gardens near housing, at curves and
crossings place plazas. Do not overput plazas as these
represent special places. A special place will become
boring if there are only special places on the world.
Next start building farms right on the edge of the map near
the main street as far away from the farmland as possible.
Build 4 farms for wheat. A granary just next by and one
or two markets around your housing. Of course you need
to connect everything using some streets!
If you are not able to support your farms with water from
a fountain or well, do not worry. Initially they do not
necessarily need water supply, but do not forget them
after some time has passed. If you would like to add the
water supply immediately, be sure you still have a bit of
money left - you will need a few denars left after you
have finished with the following sect ion.
First, clear any remaining woodland or grassland in the
vincinity of the lake with the island in it. Next, build
a reservoir as close as possible to your farms, but beware,
do not build them on the rare, valuable farmland. Keeping
all these things in mind finally place your cursor and
erect it. Place your first fountain as far north (towards
the main road) as possible. This will make future expansion
in this region easy: Since you are supplying an area beyond
the needed already you are possibly filling the gap of
pipelines in the subterranean level with fountains which
actually supply a much bigger amount of area than the wells
will do. Besides: fountains cause bigger desirability, too;
this will be visible, when you notice the fountains
develop. Sometimes they'll be rectangular, but usually they
get nicer all the time. This generally is an indicator for
the cleanliness and desirability this fountain spreads.
Although you could have done so earlier, now may be the
right time starting up your advisors. And this will be
something we will be going to discuss a bit more in-depth
here.
Take a look at the 'Advisors'-menu on the menu toolbar on
top of the screen. Left-Click there and select 'labor
advisor'. This will bring up a completely different screen.
The game will be paused for the time you spend with your
advisor, so take a good, extensive look at what is presented
to you.
Basically the labor advisor allows to change the priority
at which the people will be working at specific jobs.
E.g. we've got entertainment, religion and education.
Now if you place priority 1 on entertainment, 2 on religion
and 3 on education, people will primarily work on enter-
tainment, and respectively on the other two. This of course
only applies if you are low on workers. If the game starts
telling you that you are in need of more workers, you may
actually change the priority, so that the most needed
jobs are getting done. Otherwise people themselves choose
what they want to be ("I want to be a lion tamer" :).
Best however would be if you set the priorities before
you are facing a crisis. Most of the time a crisis arises
because you do not have set these settings and people start
having (say) a job as teacher and you lack in prefectury
workers who keep your houses from burning down (which will
assuredly happen if you do not have enough people assigned
to prefectures).
Now what would be the best priority setting, you may ask.
Even though this depends on what level you are in among
how you designed your city - you should try to balance
everything out: the number of unemployed/employed workforce
is always shown in the labor advisor; as long as you
have got unemployment, try building some things which
render some jobs, preferably something that increases
desirability or welfare (e.g. trade goods like clay pits);
as soon as you got exactly the needed workforce start
building housing; alternatively, if there is already
a forty people moving into your city (from some far away
edge to your city) you may as well get more jobs built.
I usually keep my priorities set around to this. Note that
this is generic and should be changed if something else
is more important.
Priority
1 ... Prefectures (otherwise buildings will burn down,
crime produces bad habited rioters
who are quicker with fire than normal
citizens)
2 ... Water Services (without the simplest form of water
supplement not even tents will develop)
3 ... Food Production (food, jobs and water are essential to
immigration)
4 ... Engineering (buildings will crash; not as soon as
with lack of prefectures they would
catch fire, but they will, if you
do not have an engineer close-by)
5 ... Industry and Commerice (quite important, since without
workers or merchants even markets
will not supply food)
6 ... Health and Education (important to immigration, since
the better the people are talking about
you and your renownedness, and the
big life-span you've got in that
nice city of your's, the more like to
come - also some high class citizens
need it badly; aside from that,
education always is good, isn't it?)
7 ... Governance and Religion (governance means tax income,
which is not very important if you
have a good trade route array,
but religion can be dangerous - even so
gods are not angered as fast as
are citizens without water and shelter)
8 ... Entertainment (important to high class citizens,
among immigration)
9 ... Military (should be changed to higher setting in
more hostile areas; see specific
assignments)
All set? OKay. There's plenty more you will have to do:
- prepare to set out doctor's huts (under the cross
symbol) around your housing
- make up some hospitals (about half or less than
doctor's huts)
- build a school, library and academy somewhere nearby
housing
- build an actor colony near to any housing and one or
two theaters (NOT amphitheaters) spread around your
housing - best would be farthest from the colony, since
the actors will tell all houses they pass about their
new play on the way from the colony to the amphitheatre
- from time to time scan using fire and damage overlays
in order to control whether your prefectures and
engineer's huts harmonize with your city design
- try to concentrate on harmony more than on expansion;
this is especially important once your city grows beyond
one screen - there's almost always a minor fault you
should correct; but beware: don't get distracted!
- should you manage to get a layout that is very suitable,
please send me a short notice, so I can implement the
strategy here
- as soon as population exceeds 750 citizens build another
small temple for each god - basically each temple
can cover 750 citizens at maximum - but try to spread
them over the city so each citizen has good access to
religious services
These are just basic guidelines. You should try to smoothly
arrange with these actions: expansion, harmonizing, pleasing
the gods and getting money. Oh, yes. Getting money. Wages
can be set too in the labor advisor. It's generally
a bad idea having lower wages than Rome. If you can afford
it, pay 5-10% more than Rome does.
Let's get back to the advisors. The legion advisor is not that
important for this assignment, but the emperor advisor is.
You need 60 favor points and that is quite much if you are
low on money. If your private salary savings allow it, buy
some expensive (generous should be plenty) gifts.
But aside from this, you will have to supply goods some
time - and this one's coming up soon.
The next advisor may be the most important in some aspects.
It basically shows you how much you have advanced towards
completing the assignment. Aside from a certain score you have
to reach during the assignment you will also receive important
hints on what the city is lacking. For example with
culture it may be academies which may be attended by young
grown ups - Caesar III keeps track on what type of
people are in your city, their age, everything. There is
even a graph on this with one of the advisors - we'll
look on that later, though.
If you reach the trade advisor things will start getting
interesting. Raising funds never has been easier. Although
there are quite a bunch of things to realize if you want
a functioning trade route.
There may be two different things that may arise out of
your current situation:
1. Caesar demands resources from you (e.g. 12 units of oil)
2. you want to open a trade route because you need money
If you have not opened up any trade routes start doing so
immediately. This is next to required for your survival.
Should Caesar require something from you, try to
have it within the given period.
</pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
Hints to achieve this..
- try to increase your workshops' output by getting built
warehouses nearby
- get more workshops built
- with oil have at least 5 workshops if you need 1 oil/month
- try to get farms of all types as soon as possible
- always produce MUCH more than you eat
If you manage to build these things and have still some
harmony, you will easily succeed in this scenario.
You now get the choice of accepting your promotion or
continue building your city for 2 or 5 years. You will
not receive any salary, because you are doing this out of
free will (no more gifts for Caesar!).
Whatever you may choose, after this period you will advance
to the next assignemnt (skip the next paragraphs in this case!).
Choice #2 (Tarentum) Engineer - salary of DN 5/month
Objectives: population of 2500 citizens
prosperity rating of 10
favor rating of 60
culture rating of 35
peace rating of 20
Chronicles:
Initial Money
DN 8000
Highest housing level
Medium Insulae
Requests
347 BC 10 Vines in 24 Months
345 BC 10 Vines in 24 Months
342 BC 10 Vines in 24 Months
Invasions
347 BC 5 Etruscans from NNW
344 BC 9 Etruscans from W
341 BC 13 Etruscans from NNW
Loans
DN 6000
Price Changes
345 BC furniture (+DN 40)
This is a quite tough assignment if you are not very careful
with what you are bound to do. First of all: Try to
celebrate a few festivals around one every 4-6 months.
Dedicate at least half of them to Mars. This will most
probably allow so called guardian spirits to destroy any
incoming enemies, Since throughout the assignment you will
have some enemies closing in, this is a very nice addition to
any legion you may build. Generally gods are giving
you boosts in a special way if you please them with a lot of
temples/festivals... Ceres yields boosted crop growing,
Mercury increases payment from oversee trade, Neptune lets
them arrive faster, Venus enhances the moods of the people.
For more information on mood effecting on the game see
game concepts (IV).
Now this region is somewhat strange in building, but quite
actually I tried Aaron Jensen's strategy here the first
time and it worked extremely well. See the SWAT section
for more information on how to apply this. The layout is
very simple and may be also applied in part as well.
This means, you also have an open side of the rectangle
in any type - e.g. without a street on one side. You can
build gardens etc. inside. Around it build a school,
library, actor colony, theatre and more in that
direction. Be sure to have your taxes raised to about 7%
only after you have reached around 1000 people.
With that happening (probably with your second rectangle)
you will need to build a forum. This is found in the same
menu as you find the senate in. Simply select overlay
view and commerce/tax income to see where the least
money is received from. Where there is no money got from,
build a forum nearby which allows the people being
registered. Generally a rate of around 90% registered
payers is quite okay - but hey - 10% more brings 10% more
in tax income, so why not spend a little more on extra
fora (latin word, plural is fora)?
I would recommend building the first settlement near the
blue flag. Enemies will almost all the time come from
the opposite corner which leaves enough time to react to their
strength and approach. Walls should be build only if there
are excessive enemies or if you do not have a "exalted"
with Mars in the religion advisor (which would mean you do
not have any guardian spirits at hand). If you want to
rely on your own army alone, do sure build some walls and
remember all the hints that are found in this text on
building a wall (search for wall if you do not remember them
all).
Right, the city should be flourishing quite well by now.
If you have your settlement, build across the country.
Be sure to have around 1000 people quite soon. Simultaneously
establish all possible trade routes, as you are surely
going to need the money: build two iron mines and at least
three vine-farms (Caesar will request 15 vines later on)
together with 4-5 weapon workshops (exports and army supplies)
and around 3-4 wine workshops (people and exports).
If you are set with that, we'll face some detailed hints.
- build barracks, a fort for legionaries, a military academy
adjacent and away from residential districts in that
order
- have them staffed
- do not draw a city wall unless Mars' wrath is on you;
most of the times his guardian spirits will kill the
enemy (and if his wrath is on you, hold a grand festival
to his honor, build him a large or small temple and
one or two oracles - balance the overall temples for
each god, though - and he'll be settled again)
- build auxiliaries only if you are planning to stay
in this level after completion (2 or 5 years)
- most of the time enemies are not immortal;
hit them fast and hard and they are but whincing meat
- try to be on the "double": have two or more
legionaries at hand for each enemy unit you face so
you can easily overthrow them
- clicking on the fort will produce a line up with
formations:
* only send people into war who have positive health
and morale (perfect with both is only available
with the already build military academy)
* have them use the left most of the selectable
formations since this is the most efficient one
* read the descriptions of the formations and
act accodingly
- watch your people when fighting, re-arrange their
order and formation if needed and retreat if
the onslaught is too strong, sometimes enemies
wait there for you to return with another (new, refreshed)
refreshed army
- build more legions or auxiliaries if you need more
legionaries
- have long range fighters behind short range, because
short range fighters can then protect the more
effective long range units who are extremely
vulnerable to short range attacks
Should you win all (total battle count with my games: one)
battles, your city may well raise its desirability since
you are able to defend from enemies - possibly. I
noticed slight changes in crime rates after
successful battles.
Note: Once the enemy has entered your city, the best is to
let him damage something and remove all buildings
in a line behind that building, building a wall in the
empty trench and then moving on again.
With that, the assignment should be done for easily.
Assignment 04 - Choice
----------------------
Whatever you chose priorily, you again will have to choose
between a hostile area and more or less peaceful region.
Basically both can be the same, with the peaceful region
being a bit easier to conquer, because you do not need
any legions. We will start out with Tarraco in Spain (old name:
Hispania) - the peaceful region, but later on I will also talk
about the "somewhat" dangerous region Syracusae, the so called
wheat store of ancient Rome (because the closer Roman cities
were all supplied by grain from this island in the
very early times - also, this was the first Roman province).
Choice #1 (Tarraco) Architect - salary of DN 8/month
Objectives: population of 2500 citizens
prosperity rating of 25
favor rating of 70
culture rating of 45
peace rating of 30
Chronicles:
Initial money
DN 8000
Highest housing level
Medium Insulae
Trading
Capua (sea route)
sells 25 timber
buys 40 wheat
buys 25 fruit
Tarentum (sea route)
sells 15 furniture
buys 25 marble
buys 15 pottery
Jan 270 BC The level begins
Requests
Apr 269 BC 10 pottery
Sep 267 BC 10 fruit
Mar 265 BC 15 pottery
May 263 BC 25 fruit
Sep 261 BC 15 pottery
Mar 259 BC 20 fruit
May 257 BC 15 pottery
Jun 255 BC 15 fruit
Sep 250 BC 15 fruit
Sep 245 BC 15 fruit
There are no more requests after 245 BC.
Price Changes
Aug 265 BC Fruit price increased by 20 Dn
Jul 262 BC Marble price increased by 20 Dn
May 255 BC Furniture price increased by 20 Dn
Mar 250 BC Fruit price decreased by 15 Dn
There is a strange detail I just noticed with this assignment.
If you play the dangerous assignment (Tarentum) as
assignment #03, and then choose this one, Caesar (i.e.
the assignment briefing) will tell you that you have to get
less people into the city now, but strangely this assignment
again requires 2500 citizens.
So, may this be a bug?
Another nice thing you may recognize: Playing this
assignment after Tarentum will present the same map as would
be presented if you had not chosen Tarentum in the
first choice you had to take. We'll have a look at whether
there will be earthquakes as well in this region.
Yep there are! It may be some time for you to build your
city, but the earthquake will assuredly come (Jun 268 BC).
It always affects the same area with the same pattern,
so building, saving, reloading and doing it better second time
would be wise.
Quite actually you may still access all of the land if you
stick to building bridges there.
You should be using the 9x9 road tiles layout and should have
some three of them (complete or incomplete is not that
important) around. If your money ever drops below 2000 denarii,
build a warehouse, if you do not already have one and
a dock. Open up a trade route selling marble. This will
greatly bring money to your city. If you actually build two
docks, you are done with that for the time being. Have at least
three marble mines, better four and make them produce as
hell goes - all filled up with employees. If you also
want your citizens to get marble, or need marble for temples
(big temples for instance require marble loads, or loads of
marble, if you want to put it like that), you should build
another two mines. There is plenty of stone and since you do
not need any workshops, build your warehouse nearby.
If you can afford it, build more than one warehouse. Always
have the granary nearby if not attached because food is rare
and the faster the wheat is produced, the faster you will
get your people fed and the less will starve and/or leave
your city because of malnutrition.
If your city is close to harmony start importing timber to
let your large casas advance to insulae. You cannot
get anything better than medium insulae here, because you
cannot get oil. But with medium insulae, three 9x9 tiles
should be enough to reach the population goal. The peace
rating will come with time - since there are no prolonged
intruders you may as well sit there and wait for it to raise.
But beware of rioters! Those decrease the peace score.
For the favor score, you should buy gifts periodically and
deliver whatever Caesar wants as fast as possible.
Waiting a year for around 15 units of fruit IS annoying!
Culture should be no problem; since 750 people need one
small temple of each god or vice versa - each god needs
a temple for each units of 750 people you got - you will
have quite a few temples around which will nicely raise
your culture score. Not so with the prosperity rating.
This may be a bit difficult and hints on that may be
found in-game as well as here. One would be to
have all trades routes set up, imports set to nil,
2-4% unemployment, medium taxes (4-9%) and a working industry
which will supply a 10000 denarii a year. If you are doing
well, your score will raise, if you lose money, your
score will drop. Losing means, overall. That is, you
use 10000 denarii on building and get an income of say 20000
denarii still means you got 10000 denarii with no money lost
but prosperity increasing because of the positive
overall money.
Remember: High taxes only are useful if,..
- they do not exceed 10% (riots will happen otherwise)
- fora and a senate collect them (as soon as the
registered tax payer rate drops below 90% you need more
fora!)
- the tax collectors are working (i.e. you have enough
employees for the senate etc.)
- you have a 1000+ citizens. Otherwise drop them to 1-6%
(increases immigration by a lot!)
After managing this assignment another choice assignment lies
ahead, and the following ones appear to be even tougher.
But let's face it: you can do it! You came that far!
Venebas, videbas, vicebas!
Choice #2 (Syracusae) Architect - salary of DN 8/month
Objectives: population of 4000 citizens
prosperity rating of 20
favor rating of 20
culture rating of 45
peace rating of 25
Chronicles:
Requests
267 BC 5 Oil in 24 Months
264 BC 5 Oil in 24 Months
261 BC 10 Oil in 24 Months
Invasions
267 BC 9 Greeks from SSW
264 BC 16 Greeks from SE
261 BC 16 Greeks from SW
258 BC 16 Greeks from SE
Initial Money: DN 8000
Loan: DN 6000
Price Changes: 267 BC; oil (+ DN 40)
You start out with the goal to provide a new settlement,
once more. However, earlier governors had problems
establishing and permanent city of any size in this area,
and so, Caesar's premium governor, you, obviously, is sent
to deal the matter. Basically the main problem will be
feeding 4000 people with just a few patches of farmland.
And this is it: You have too little farmland than to
be able to feed them. You will have to generate food by
importing them. Additionally to this you will have to
waste precious farmland using olive farms for oil Caesar
is going to request. However - the favor score only needs
to be 20 points, which is extremely low compared to the 70
you had set as goal earlier in the game. Now this
could mean you may ignore some (or all) of his requests,
because a score of 20 is achievable also with gifts
alone. However, we will try to achieve the best out of the
situation.
Note: It is not recommended ignoring Caesar's requests
completely, since favor will drop to 1 (he wants you into
arrest) - and the only way to raise it from there is
getting the exports done he wants and other things amongst
some gifts as well. This is, if you are not close from
winning the ratings assignment dangerous and laid waste
to a complete city of mine!
This assignment is among the hardest you may have seen
by now. Usually the threat from invasors is nothing compared
with the real low amount of food you are able to produce.
First of all, really do think about how and where you
are going to build up your housing. It is highly recommended
that you use the 9x9 tile technique described in the SWATs
section. With this technique, build one residential
rectangle, and another, directly adjacent. The second
one contains of the following buildings: a senate,
one or two temples, a prefecture, an engineer's post, a
doctor and a barber. Additionally add anything you like to
this. Next, on the farthest side of the second rectangle
make up a fort of legionaries and one of mounted auxiliaries.
To the other side of the road, that is the one facing
the long side of the forts, build one barracks unit and
a military academy. Encircle everything with roads and
gardens, placing fountains (with reservoirs) into the
middle of the rectangles with the reservoirs being
on one of the empty sides of the rectangle with the senate.
Now start out building more prefectures and engineer's posts
as needed. Then, build another rectangle of just roads
next to the forts one. You should have a "line" of rectangles
by now. Into the fourth rectangle build a unit of each
educational facility and the rest of the temples. If there
is still space, fill it with one barber shop, one doctor,
a hospital and an lion house. If have this one, make
up another rectangle, this time again a residential one.
Into the next, sixth rectangle, build entertainment facilities,
i.e. amphitheatres, a gladiator school (which should be on
the opposite side of the side facing the residential area of
the fifth rectangle) and finally a coloseum. If you have
done so far, watch your city unfold and take your time.
You should still have some money left. Start building out
farms, but be sure to use up as little space as possible,
errecting the maximum number of farms. Have wheat farms
only and errect no more than four in the beginning. Cover
them with roads and prefectures, engineer's posts and some
housing, which you will have to destroy in a few months.
If crime is getting high here, simply destroy the housing
and do not rebuild it. Crime will vanish but not the laborers
from the farms. If you are doing well so far,
do not forget the granary and markets to your people.
Also, start iron mines and workshops for weapons (3 and 5).
If your legions are maxed out we will go on.
Beware of storms, as well. Sometimes a message with a content
in the vincinity of "what storms!" will appear - this will
render sea-borne travel and trade (and such is the only one
you have right now) impossible for some months. So be sure
to have full ability to trade with the maximum capacity a
trade ship can carry once it arrives. The next one may
be long from arriving. As far as I found out, this is not
connected with Neptune's mood in any way. It seems to be a
nature cause, just like the earthquakes.
After building military structures (at least two, one
legionaries and one mounted auxiliaries are recommended)
have all trade routes maxed out and continue building
residential districts. You should have a three rectangles
and then start optimizing their evolution by importing
furniture for instance. Always try to supply what is
needed at the moment.
You will need five or more rectangles in the end to reach 4000
citizens.
I just found out enemies seem to be able to kill sheep, so if
you count yourself among the lucky, they perhaps will make
steaks out the sheep so they can't trouble you no more.
Assignment 05 - Choice
----------------------
Whatever you chose priorily, you again will have to choose
between a hostile area and more or less peaceful region.
Basically both can be the same, with the peaceful region
being a bit easier to conquer, because you do not need
any legions.
This time however you will have to choose between a largely
(sometimes not so) peaceful area called Miletus (some may
know the name Thales of Milet, who find for example the
mathematical theorem that each triangle with two corners
on a half circle diameter and the third on the half circle
is a 90 degree triangle) and a very dangerous region called
Mediolanum. Place your choice, we'll have 'em both.
Choice #1 (Miletus)
Objectives: population of 5000 citizens
prosperity rating of 35
favor rating of 40
culture rating of 60
peace rating of 40
Chronicles:
Initial Money
DN 7000
Highest housing level
Grand Villa
Trading
Corinthus (sea route)
sells 15 clay
sells 15 pottery
buys 15 weapons
buys 25 fruit
Athaenae (sea route)
sells 25 wheat
sells 15 wine
sells 15 marble
buys 15 fish
buys 15 oil
Jan 220 BC The level begins
Requests
Oct 217 BC 10 weapons
Mar 215 BC 10 furniture
Jul 213 BC 10 weapons
Jul 207 BC 10 weapons
Oct 204 BC 15 furniture
Jun 200 BC 10 weapons
Oct 195 BC 10 weapons
Oct 190 BC 15 furniture
Jul 210 BC 15 furniture
Invasions
Oct 217 BC Greek invasion from the southwest
Sep 214 BC Greek invasion from the northwest
May 211 BC Greek invasion from the southwest
Jun 208 BC Greek invasion from the northwest
Aug 203 BC Greek invasion from the southwest
Aug 198 BC Greek invasion from the northwest
Apr 193 BC Greek invasion from the northwest
Oct 188 BC Greek invasion from the southwest
Price Changes
May 215 BC Oil price increased by 20 Dn
Jul 210 BC Weapons price increased by 10 Dn
May 200 BC Wine price increased by 35 Dn
Jul 200 BC Marble price increased by 40 Dn
Other events
Sep 210 BC Corinthus now buys 25 weapons per year
Jul 205 BC Corinthus now sells 25 clay per year
Sep 204 BC Corinthus now buys 27 weapons per year
This assignment will net you with a lot of experiences in
the neighborhood of frustration and depression, if you do
not care a lot for prefectures. Since this is a desert
scenario, buildings have an increased rate of being a victim
to self-ignition. For this reason, using the 9x9 tiles
technique you should stick to at least 2 prefectures for
each 9x9 tiles area. Also, it is very hard to decide where
to start. For instance you may try on the coast line,
but fish will get "rare", that is - you cannot build
enough wharves to feed all people. Using the farmland
yields a lot more food. I feed 600 people with one fruit
farm. I recommend starting with your first residential
area setting foot on the second road tile away from the
red flag. This way, you get the settlers settling soon and
moreover you can apply a little trick: you can actually
catch the zebras and put them in a nice cage. When they
run in the stone cornered zone to the north, build a
wall to make it a non passable area - voil , so much for
the wild animals of this assignment (they ARE quite a pest
in this scenario, and given the fact there may be people
who cannot as of yet kill wild animals, this may be
very helpful).
After building up your basic settlement, start building
forts of legionaries (one or two) and at least one or
two mounted auxiliaries. Sometimes your city gets big and
out of hand. You simply cannot build a pile of forts around
your city, city walls would soon have to be eradicated
again because of your city expanding and thus troops
will have to get from your military district to the enemies
probably on the other side of the map in no time. The
fastest troops in this game are the mounted auxiliaries,
so have them for a fast strike array - they will hold the
enemy from charging against your unprotected city (time
to have them lay down a 1500 people city: 11,5 seconds).
Meanwhile your academy trained legionaries can mop them
up. Since mounted auxiliaries regrow much faster than others
and in advance do not need weapons to be trained, you may
as well start building mounted auxiliaries in masses.
But remember, you still need workers, food and - of course
the forts have a huge detrimental-effect radius, which means
you cannot build housing with a high desirability within
say half or three quarters of a 800x600 screen (around 10
tiles). This means, plan your military district well.
Best would be building the city around it. But since you
cannot start out with building a fort, and then housing
around it (desirability y'know?), you will have to
stick to the strategy described above.
Most important is to have Mars on your side. Try to have
him constantly exalted using festivals, temples (large
temples preferably, but importing marble may be a bit
costly) - so if you have twice the amount of temples you
you would need for the amount of citizens you have should
also do the trick nicely.
Strange enough a once set guardian spirit has his own will
or so it seems. Foes came into the city and only when
one was left did the guardian spirit awaken and kill him.
Aside of this, they were sent by Mars because I had him
exalted and then wrathful.
The main trick here will be to have two cities. Quite actually
one will be supplying the food and the other one will
do the trading. This will be achieved by building one
city as far towards the sea connected using farmland
to the shore.
So building one residential area will net you with food
and housing for quite some time. But it will not be
sufficient for a long period. Because of this I urge you
plan another residential area in the vincinity to the sea
or alternatively if you started out near the sea, a new
area should be made up somewhere near the wheat (yellow
dotted) area on the other half of the map. Both, the fish
from the sea and the fruit (and olives, which more come into
evolution than into nutrition) yield part of the food you
are going to need during this assignment. Of course you could
also refuse from having any wharves and just build up a lot
of fruit farms on the two patches of farmland (one is
hidden by trees near the order of the map with the red flag
to it) - but you will need to have a working trade route
system which may not be achievable this way. As with the
two-cities trick you may as well save time since you will
two or three things out of one construction.
The following are some hints you may need if you were not
successfully building any permanent settlement up to this
point:
- water fountains only yield a range of 3 tiles instead of
4; this may inflict your buildings as follows: instead
of 9x9 tiles build 7x7 tiles (with roads around included)
so that all houses still receive water
- try importing clay which will net you with pottery;
the more buildings evolve, the higher the prosperity
- if you would like to try an alternative starting point
go to the centre of the map and move to the east until
your view centres above a piece of map featuring wheat
(farmland) areas, lake water, sea water and some rocks.
This will be the centre of your new city. Build
iron mines at the rocks (three for a beginning), housing
nearby, but not adjacent, farms (fruit mainly, some olive
farms should be able to fit in too), prefectures - at least
two per housing area, granary and market nearby and a
reservoir near the sea. Also include your basic trading
buildings, like dock and a road directly
connecting your warehouse (you still have to build) -
after this read on below for general hints during this
mission.
- After having all your wharves equipped with ships,
eradicate the shipyard you need to build ships (from
the construction menu - the hammer icon namely) and
build another wharf - this way you can maximize the
resulting food harvest from the sea
- Have a lot of weapon workshops around; since you
will need quite a bit of money to supply all the
necessities for a working city (not: town, village,
outpost...) you will have to export a lot of
your goods; since food exports however only yield
minium venues and manufactured raw materials always
(like in real life) cost more than the raw
materials themselves, exporting weapons is the best
you can do (aside from morality problems you may
develop <scrn, g>).
- Have 32 to 64 legionaries and at least two auxiliaries
as soon as possible - generally what is wanted from
you is to take advantage of around 10 years of peace
and then have enemies running over your city - if
Mars does not send another guardian spirit, try
this strategy: to the point when the first enemies
attack do not provide festivals dedicated towards
Mars however have enough temples to satisfy him -
when the first enemies have been killed, dedicate all
festivals to Mars until he sends a guardian spirit;
when the enemies attack - usually with an army of
at least two legions - have the guardian spirit do
your work - entertaining to watch.
But beware: This spirit does not always awaken in
time or when you should be in need of it. Because of
that this strategy may be used additionally but never
as your sole defensive maneuver; this way however
you are protected the best way you can make out,
aside from moving to more peaceful country..
- As you can see from the chronicles, Caesar will
want two types of exports to be sent: furniture and
weapons. Rarely he requests meat in form of fish
or fruit and olives too, but this is probably a
chance in the vincinity of happening to 1 out of
500 games. So, stick to producing as many
weapons as possible (10 weapons shops is quite
good but the more the better - have some warehouses
as well!). When Caesar starts requesting weapons,
you know the requests will come continously from then
on. Build a timber yard and furniture workshop and
stockpile it. When Caesar requests furniture,
deliver it and release the stockpiling to trade --
within and outside of the city. This enables
evolution of some of the houses and also generates
some funds. When Caesar starts another request
you can still restart stockpiling, but remember
evolved houses will rely on a continuing stream of
furniture, so cutting their access may cost you
more than would building more timber yards (and there's
enough woods out there, y'know?).
Sticking to these hints should make it easy surviving the
first two enemy assaults. From then on, things get really
military. Should you now be able to cope with around hundred
and more people on your screen, choose another scenario.
Later in the game I had invasions of around 200 to 300
people at once. Although I had maxed out my legions by
that time, it was still hard to cope with all of them, since
coordinating all the troops was hard. In effect having
one of Mars' nice guardian spirits at hand always puts the
advantage on your side, and you'll need it.
We shall however concentrate on warfare in this level now.
Here are some guidelines and - as always - keep an eye out for
whatever problems may arrive by having the "T" overlay
(problems, risks) checked every now and then (5 minute
intervalls are just right, if you may wonder what I mean).
I have had two forts with legionaries and one with
javelin auxiliaries which made myself pretty much
invincible - given you use the right strategies whenever
enemies appear. If you are not familiar with strategical
planning of attacks, you probably should get more
legionaries and mounted auxiliaries as well. Aside from this
I found a neat little thing-o in the game: Compared to
the strategies described in Caesar's "de bello Gallico"
(about the Gaulish War) the same strategies work in
this game; very well! I also employed some modified
tactics which I am going to teach you throughout this file.
One for example, as mentioned earlier, would be to
place the long range fighters to the back. Another
one is to take advantage of the formations offered by the
game. Right-Click on the the legionaries (or other units)
and assign the most appropriate formation (described
in a box below below). Do not select mop up formation
if you are attacking an enemy army that just appeared
on the screen.
Another thing to notice is the formation of the enemy.
Many times the enemy will wait for you at the position you
give to your legionaries, but sometimes he will not.
When some of the legionaries or soldiers of the enemy
escape your army, have at least one legion to cover
your city. In other words: Do not send out all armies
to fight your enemy. Depending on the size and layout of
your city (roads!) have at least on legion (legionaries,
not auxiliaries) on reserve. This is important,
as straying enemy soldiers can lay waste to a city just
as well as an army - they need longer, but as the game
says: "they're gonna drop in for a sip of wine, or what-
ever else comes to their minds." - Be sure that
wasting your city IS on their minds.
One problem you may also encounter may be crime. Seriously
this can affect your whole city in less than a year.
It takes around two to five months to develop (I watched
it several times and it took two months when I had the
worst conditions).
Reducing crime is not quite easy. Start out with
dedicating the biggest type of festival (in this case
a large festival) to Venus. Build more temples,
meaning, build more temples for each god, so that you
have a mean number and do not show anyone you like him
or her (that should be her or him, wouldn't it?) better.
This mainly is meant to increase your status with the
gods, and thus with Venus who will instantly cure
your city with a "bless of goodwill". However, if this
does not happen a short time after your festivals -
you can check the Religion advisor: if it shows "exalted"
with Venus and she does not react that is - immediately
start out (or better: start out while people are
preparing for the festival) to reduce taxes to as low
as you can manage. Do not get below 2% if possible, because
most cities need some taxes for people to stay "reasonable".
I had five citizens start playing terrorists and
spreading vandalism when I reduced my taxes from 9% to
0% because I had too much crime. If you can afford it,
try it. If it helps, it will help even better since it
will also increase the image of your city reflected in
the amount of people immigrating. Aside from this
have a look at problems. Are there areas with no
or too low or too primitive water supply? Do you have
enough workers for water supply? Do you have roads
set up to all occupied housing space? Does everygone
get something to eat (SOMETHING means: you cannot
eat furniture!) etc. Also try hitting T while in main view
to activate the problems view. This will show you
any facilities with too little laboreres and of course
those receiving not enough raw materials. Also have
a look at your "summing up the others" advisor. He will
tell you whether you have got problems with food
and food distribution. The latter is more important,
and harder to achieve to be on a high level of
satisfaction. Since distribution is made true through
markets, you may as well try and build as many markets
as you can afford, but heck - the consume desirability,
cost workers, and probably will not be stocked enough.
Have a granary instead with far away housing areas
(that is: far away from your farms or wharves) and
set it to getting goods. Two markets should be plenty
with your cities' 7x7 tiles housing spaces. It may
well happen that this is too much, but don't worry.
People will not complain about too much food - at least,
they never did with me.
Another final thing for winning this scenario relates to
see born trade. Since ships have a certain potential they
can carry when they arrive (12 units of any kind of
trade item), you should have those 12 units whenever
a ship arrives. Initially they will not buy for
example more than 15 units of weapons in one year
(as shown by the trade advisor on the empire map
when clicking on the respective city) - but later they
may go buying up to 25 units. This way two ships may
appear simulanteously. Don't worry. The second one
will anchor and wait if you only have one dock serving
the second ship. Since a year takes quite a long time to
pass even in the fastest speed setting you may experience
that ships come and go without buying even if you have
a 30 units of weapons in your warehouses. Now this is
(or may be) because you already have sold what they
are willing to buy. Usually you will have done
so around July already, but don't worry. This is good,
because it shows your trade route works really well.
I just the maximum buying spring from 25 to 27 units of
weapons per year without a message. - noted later
The peace rating will jump to 100 when there are no
further attacks to be expected.
Choice #2 (Mediolanum)
Objectives: population of 7000 citizens
prosperity rating of 25
favor rating of 30
culture rating of 40
peace rating of 40
Chronicles:
Initial Money
DN 7000
Highest housing level
Grand Villa
Trading
Massilia (land route) - 600 Dn to open trade route
sells
Capua (land route) - 400 Dn to open trade route
buys 25 weapons
sells 25 clay
sells 15 meat
Jan 220 BC The level begins
Requests
Oct 215 BC 10 timber
Aug 210 BC 10 timber
Aug 205 BC 10 timber
and so on
Invasions
Apr 218 BC one army, one or two elephants
Aug 217 BC two armies, three elephants
Mar 216 BC three armies, five elephants
Sep 215 BC three armies, seven elephants
Mar 212 BC four armies, ten elephants
Mar 206 BC two armies, five elephants
Mar 203 BC two armies, three elephants
Mar 196 BC two armies, three elephants
Price Changes
May 215 BC Furniture price increased by 20 Dn
Jul 210 BC Weapons price increased by 10 Dn
May 200 BC Clay price increased by 35 Dn
Jul 200 BC Iron price increased by 40 Dn
Other events
Mar 205 BC Marsillia now buys 45 iron
May 205 BC Capua now buys 15 weapons
Quite interesting this level puts you on a really big amount
of new things. First thing you may notice is the extreme
spreading of the land. There are a lot of things an
expert player will notice and some planning is an absolute
must. If you thought you can go out and start building; well
you can try, but the same effect will be reached if you start
out planning beforehand - besides you'll save time with
thinking before going to work. Since you will learn bit by
bit on trial and error in the non-thinking-before-playing
type of game, we will stick to the more convenient and
effective type of playing.
First of all have a look at the terrain. It's huge, it's
vast. Things you may notice:
- There are wolves in this terrain (in the far north, for
instance). These will hunt and kill (among eating) your
inhabitants, so try to keep away from them. Legionaries
can kill them if you have installed the update - where
to get this? Look at the Appendices for more information.
- There is not sea around. Contrary to Miletus, you do not
have to worry about feeding your people. There is so
much wheat around, you will be done for a long time -
you could probably have 10000+ people around and still
produce much more food than you are eating (thus
being able to export meat for instance - this brings money,
and money will be needed A LOT during this level).
- You only will have to deal with land routed trading
caravans; because of this, be sure to include gatehouses
for them should be build walls around the city.</pre><pre id="faqspan-4">
- There are not birds above the water tiles, so don't
bother building wharves (which are not even available).
There are other things, but these are pretty much straight
forward.
Another interesting fact is appearance of native people.
This will be the first assignment map where you are going
to feel almost the whole potential of the game. Aside from
not having sea born trade or anything connected with
the sea and not having certain other buildings, you are now
able to build a hippodrome, the biggest building as
entertainment goes. Also, you are facing native people, whom
you have to persuade and civilize by building a mission post
on their grounds. You have read "their" grounds, because
the claim some of YOUR map terrain as theirs. You can
have a look at the size of this "lost" space with
the "risks-native" overlay. Do not build anything on this
terrain, because the instantly would destroy it. Natives
are a problem we are going to deal quite late in this game,
because right now, we have far bigger concerns.
If you however handle them right, they will allow building
stuff on "their" land and even start trading with you.
Note however that this feature is not that important in the
beginning. The biggest nuisance still awaits.
You may have heard about Hannibal. Most of you may know
the A-Team. Their leader is Hannibal, and he is known for
his plans on dealing with strong foes. Same thing here,
although vice versa in some aspects: Hannibal of the
Carthaginans created the image of the "genius-plan-maker"
not the one from A-Team. But don't bother to think about
this if you are not _very_ interested, this is just an
interesting glimpse of information.
OKay; so the main story of this paragraph was: you are
dealing with the historical Hannibal a general of the
Carthaginan army. And this one is tough as steel and
witty as McGyver - if that tells you something.
Caesar tells you he will not dare to cross the Alps and
attack your city, but that as history reminds, Hannibal
did so in real and he will do it here. Second thing which
may sound surprising: He's bringing is battle elephants
with him. Carrying those across the Alps really
endangered the Roman Empire, but this time you are in the
middle of this. Expect armies of the 100-people size and more.
Amongst elephants, this will really a WHOPPING battle
assignment. ("extremely dangerous assignment", you may
remember, yes?)
Keeping all of this mind may sound hard, because it's
hard to start once you are getting the big picture.
But do not worry. We'll start out quite normally.
Since you can export iron and weapons and need them
for your armies, you will have to build *many* iron mines
and *many* weapon workshops. This will be, aside from
markets, farms and water supply, among prefectures and
engineers' posts your main industry for the time being.
Later on we will add others, but these shall be the
most important and as far as I can trust my guessing I would
recommend a ten iron mines and twenty to twenty five
weapon workshops for the whole assignment. When to build them?
Whenever you can afford it, people-wise, money-wise,
time-wise etc.
Let's get down to it from the theoretical part to the
practical part. Reset the map to Northern regions to the
upper screen border and go to the left border (western).
A street with a red flag is there. Follow the street to
where there is water and farmland nearby. Here's
the starting point. Another advantage aside from farmland
and water is the inland situation and the many rocks around.
The protect you from being overrun, both timewise and
people-wise.
One thing you may find out is, that you do not have
to have any prefectures in this assignment. There is not
threat through fire other than by rioters. If you do not
want them, do not build them. However you still need the
maintenance done by engineers, so build their posts around
the city.
Also, you should save often. Wolves invade your town
regularly if you do not cut them off by walls. If you want
you can install prefectures to have useful first-aid
attackers fencing off minor troubles. Also if rioters start
prefectures should be there (imagine sending in the
military against harmless .. well, okay,,... they DO do
that!). Prefectures are still needed if you have trouble
from this direction. Otherwise don't bother - you can
also go against the wolves with hit squads made of
mounted auxiliaries. Have three or more together and go
hunting wolves. It's like in Dune 2 when you go hunting for
the harvesters - great fun. But beware to be back in town
when enemies arrive. Having your cavalry ride straight through
the map still takes time, even if they are very fast riders.
Okay; I just found out having two armies of legionaries
is by far not enough. This made me rethink a few strategies,
and I think I need to share them here. The first three attacks
almost constantly are more or less preparing for what will
be coming at your doorstep very soon. The first attack
will be made up from an army of around 16 people. The
second attack two, and maybe the third. From then
on the attacks will get more and more until you have got
a two each month. At this time, elephants will start
appearing.
If you do not have an army to outmatch your enemy in all
types (position, number, type, morale, health,...) you
will fail. Probably not. But most probably you will.
See? It's as easy as that: Have at least TWICE the amount
of soldiers and you will be fine. Have them go out and
meet shortly before the enemy. Then, you when you got
them concentrated, hit hard and fast. Forget about auxiliaries,
if you still have some. They are meant to stop them from
running inside your city at uncontrolled spots (far better
than the prefecture type security - aside from producing
less low desirability and space - amongst care..). Place
those (mounted auxiliaries preferred since they at least
stay a chance at fighting elephants) at weak spots of your
installation. Be sure to have them in a defending
formation - this allows a formation bonus during fights -
moreover this is already a hint towards their use: they
are used for defensive maneuvers.
This would more or less waste their potential.
Usually you can wait for the enemy to attack,
but remember, the faster you hit them, the better the morale
will stay (which will even get lower as you stay in the
fields and enjoy the (though scarcely seen) sun).
OKay, you had your fun, now to the down deep part. Build
walls in following situations:
- enemies are coming nearby and your armies are frightened;
this will raise the morale a bit and even allow otherwise
unguarded cities stay intact a long time - triple thick
walls are minimum against the elephants, and double
are minimum for building towers
- you are facing more than one attacking army - from
different directions that is
These two situations are very dangerous. The first one
already features a perfect number one crisis, because
elephanted (..) troops can lay waste to your city in a
minute (if below 5000 citizens) - the second one does
not happen that often, but if it happens you are in deep
trouble. Given the place where I suggested starting out
your installation this time, you should be able to reduce
the possible attack ways to two - which renders building forts
at two positions and easy consequence. But have them
balanced. Javelin auxiliaries on one side and the rest
of it (e.g. 7 legionary-armies etc.) on the other is NOT
balanced. This is dangerous stuff to play with and
if you do not like strategics, you probably want to select
the other (less dangerous, yet still challenging) assignment.
Some information on trading should be applicable by now.
You may have mastered the first assaults and may be
wondering why your trading is out of luck. First of all:
Do not dedicate any festivaly to Neptune. Since you do not
have any chances for sea-born travel nor trade at all
you will not be depending on his benevolent smile :-).
Aside from this there are some interesting spots to notice:
Build a weapons market, as mentioned before. But also
concentrate on building some marble quarries. They will
net you with marble, which you will need to build oracles.
These in lift spirits add to your favor with the gods and
the culture score rises a lot (or a bit, depending on
how much better the overall situation gets through building
them). Somewhere between the first few assaults Caesar will
start requesting goods. First may be timber, so do not
neglect building timber yards amongst furniture workshops.
Since you can export furniture for 200+ denarii, this is
important! Have an own warehouse for each type of wares
you export and do so as much as possible. Having more
than 10,000 denarii should be possible if not easy this
way. Expanding your city is also important. The better
your trade works, the more legionaries you will be able
to train and the more secure your city will be - and
elephants in the city definitely can ruin your peace rating!
You are probably wondering whether there are any special
tactics on how to manage the enemies in this assignment -
there are.
If you have build your city to where I have described
above, you should not have a problem doing so. To the west
build walls of around 10 tiles thickness to wall facing
your city being towers between two mountain ranges
very close together. Build your city nearby and the forts
immediately next to the walls. Also, build a thin wall to
whereever enemies could start accessing your city -
strange enough they will not try to attack the thin wall
but immediately will head for the one closer two your
city - now be sure that's going to be the towered (..)
wall (the thin wall can be far off your city, as long as it
connects to mountain ranges and cuts the enemy off from
your city completely!).
Note: Five elephants and twenty Carthaginian soldiers
alone can know down your walls PRETTY soon - which will
be happening quite some times. But that is not a problem!
Whenever the break through have some four to six armies
of legionaries storm against them in the leftmost
option of formation. They cannot get into your city,
and javelin auxiliaries behind the legionaries can
kill them easily. If you are fighting near or inside
the path they cleared to break in, you are supplied
with help from the towers and patrolling prefects and
legionaries on the walls, too. So this way, the enemy
in this assignment (and, well enough for this strategy)
most others can be overcome. Carthaginians are, aside
of Caesar's pretorian guard among the strongest enemies
(masses of troops, elephants to reckon with!) - so deal
with them like there's no tomorrow.
Another thing concerning military stuff will be the
empire service that you will be confronted with in the second
or later part of this assignment. Really not a matter of
danger if you are well equipped. Preferably send javelin
or mounted auxiliaries because others will take a long time
to get to help and most likely will fail in doing so
(you can check via the map view) -
note: after assigning empire service in the military advisor,
you have to dispatch them via the emperor advisor.
They WILL NOT be available during any threats until the
return. They can be defeated and if so, there is a
chance that you will not get the whole or at all any
legionaries back - so be careful. Always send few but
not too few legionaries accompanied with at least
two auxiliaries of ANY type. And watch the fun!
One nice thing which may arise from this: If you send enough
armies (or strong enough ones), you will receive the
gratitude of Caesar (favor score rises a lot) and a
building crew for constructing a triumphal arch. This
building enhances desirability of the surroundings
somewhat, so use it some places with crime or if you have
any new settlings around which are not fully developed
yet (which should be easily attainable in this level)
build the arch there!
Be careful when errecting the arch though: its facing
seems to be completely arbitrary but you can use to
your advantage and have streets run through it. Wait or
only slightly move your mouse to change its facing if
it is "against" your street layout. As soon as you
have it the way you want - click!
Also note, that you cannot destroy it and then errect it
again - Caesar sent building troops once. You cannot
expect him to send troops whenever you feel like
wrecking your city..
In addition to this, the mood will rise like if you were
blessed by Venus (exalted in religion advisor would be the
needed effect then). This can be very useful against
crime as well. Although your army may lack of soldiers
because some died your barracks should be supplied with
weapons to the teeth and ready to train soldiers in
record time (I had mine re-supplied with seven men within
a minute!).
Do not forget that you only can have six legions that is
six armies in your city. You should maximize your attack
power as soon as you can - I had a 12000 denarii
additionally to six armies and immediately build out
city in connection with all trade routes being used
(not completely, though - I did not import all the goods
the others had to offer).
If you would like to compare your city to someone else's
I will be glad to send out mine; but please do not ask
for it more than once, because even save games DO have
a size in KBytes. For instance also caesar3.heavengames
(a website, address search for "heavengames" within this
file - internet section with links is far below from
this ection) offers pre-saved games where you can see
other people's cities. Some are well built but some show
bad examples of strategy, which I am definiteily not
going to discuss in this FAQ unless it is pertinent to
any part of it.
By chance you may fall below and emperor's favor score of
35. This for instance happens when you are constantly in
debt, over do it with no-gifts-for-the-emperor or not
help a Roman city in danger. Also not sending in demanded
goods is a bad idea.
Should you get the message "Caesar wants to arrest you,
get favor score above 35 in one year or be done with." you
need the following to keep on playing:
- nerves
- a nice big army (2 forts of legionaries, two of
javelin auxiliaries)
- time
- money
The basic goal is to wipe out Caesar's army of legionaries.
If you do so, favor will get positively influenced to a
level of 25 or so. One year later another army may strike,
recycle those as well <scnr>.
After you have dealt with them or alternatively send NO
expensive gifts to Caesar. Fulfill all requests, do not
have debts, have at least one or two colosea (coloseums that
is..) and nerves of steal because usually a bad favor score
can crush your career because Caesar likes to attack
during other enemies' attacks. And that's sometimes
a bit heavy on your shoulders (I had 15 elephants, 100s
of Carthaginians and Caesar's army on my back; it took me
around 1 minute to click on File - Load and be back one
hour of playing..). There is one more thing: If the score
drops to nil, do NOT send any gifts, because they will
not have any effect. You will have to battle Caesar then,
no matter whether you send gifts or not, 0 cannot be
decreased..
Since you are dealing with really heavy foes if you dare
to select very hard in the difficulty setting, you should
try to find a nice tactics with wall building. I adapted
and changed the one of caesar3.heavengames.com slightly
(see there).
With your start start out in the eastern most corner. Go left
one or two screens to the western shore of the nearby lake.
There, built a reservoir and get your city going. Build
a second 7x7 tiles are to the north and to the east of the
mountain range between these mountains and the map edge.
There also build six to nine iron mines and same or more
weapons workshops, two or three warehouses and your forts to
the north, but south of the horizontal mountain range. Leave
some woodland for timber yards and build five of them.
Get all going. First wall to build: To the west of the
mountain range in the tight valley. Make it double thick,
make towers of the whole wall, leave a spot for a gatehouse,
and lay streets before and behind the towers. Do the same
to the north of the towers adjacent to the northern streets.
Do this three times and have them all equipped with
balistas. If you are doing good, no enemy will choose
to come in here. If some still want to or cannot decide
send all military forces you have south of the towers and
wait. Usually they will choose to move straight through the
rest of the map and to the other open spot where you can
build similar walls but also have your city more easier
expanded; the trick should be:
do not expand to the northern part of the map but to the
western.
Also: Build three auxiliaries, rest legionaries. Build
two horse auxiliaries or two javelin auxiliaries. Build
the auxiliaries first, build a large Mars temple or
have a festival dedicated to him early in the assignment.
This usually renders you with a guardian spirit and
lets you have time for constructing the walls with
positive credit left. (BTW: a reason for auxiliaries-first
is, that they are built MUCH faster, need NO weapons
(which you may like to export) and move faster).
Let's get back to the walkthrough. Bascially you should
manage the rest of this assignment very well and without
much trouble. If you are not able to do so, try
using ALL trade possibilities you have got. There's not
anything else I probably could hint you at here.
Assignment 06 - Choice
----------------------
This time there is - of course - a choice to be made. However
you cannot select a province, where there will be no war
at all. There is Carthago, which would be the dangerous,
hard, warfare scenario (and if you enjoyed the Mediolanum
one, you probably would skip Carthago..!), and there's
Lugdunum, one of the cities seen in Asterix comics.
Take your time, place your choice and then let's go get
the barbarians!
Choice #1 (Lugdunum)
Objectives: population of 5000 citizens
prosperity rating of 50
favor rating of 45
culture rating of 65
peace rating of 50
Chronicles:
Initial Money
DN 5000
Highest housing level
Trading
Jan xxx BC The level begins
Requests
Invasions
Price Changes
Other events
Perhaps you have heard of Lug the god of thieves, known
especially to the Gaules of that time. This god is said
to be the patron of Lugdunum the city of thieves. And
when you have got one or another Asterix comic at home,
you probably meet Lugdunum and its entertainig flair
quite a few times (Asterix - Tour de France for instance).
The first problem of this assignment happens to be most
difficult if you cannot find a place where to start. This
time you are sent to a map where there is one large street
without much sense (and space, amongst resources) of
building any housing or buildings of other type there.
Follow the street and you may reach the north-western
edge of the map. From there go straight east (not south!),
crossing the mountain range that runs in the northern
part of the map and eventually crossing a stream. From
there move to left and a bit to the north (please excuse
the mixup of north and left - these are more common sense
instructions than exact definitions).
After you have reached a small island on the eastern edge
of the map you are ready to start. You can easily identify
this island by eradicating it of trees; the correct one
has some farmland on the ground.
Build a farm or two, pigs and wheat if possible, and
a bridge to connect the island to the southern island.
Clear this one of trees as well and build a housing cell of
7x7 tiles (see V. SWATs).
Have this one maxed out in evolution as far as possible
(large hovels for instance are quite good). If you seem
to not be able to get more citizens into the houses because
you cannot import certain things and alternatively you
need more feeding space, go to the other island, where
a senate should have found its place, and build another
7x7 tiles area there. This should also happen if you are
running out of money literarily. Build three weapon workshops
(or more if you have the money - increase their number up
to seven if you like, more's not senseful here) and enough
iron mines to supply them with raw iron. After this,
a warehouse and your 7x7 tiles area. Wait for the things
to come. Now should be the latest to build a mission post
somewhere into the natives territory.
This can be found by activating the risks-native overlay.
Do not build anything else on this space because they would
destroy it (and 2500 DN hippodromes are a whopping financial
blow out!). When the natives start trading (some of them
will get carts into your city and to the warehouse, able
to trade 2 units of whatever you can export to other
cities - do not do so just yet, do it when you constantly
have more than two of the things you can export, this
will save the money for trade routes and max out trading
far better! - for now you should probably read the beginning
of the sentence one more time <g, scnr>) build more
marble quarries and iron mines and weapon workshops.
If your trade is running and you have around DN 5000, the
wolves are all killed, we will add more features to your
city. Gradually however, you should add some of the following
in the meantime:
- temples (one for each god should be plenty, if you have
more than 750 citizens, build another)
NOTE: spread them around town, since all citizens
need religion access (..) to evolve from
shacks to hovels
- if you can afford it and have the space (do NOT leave the
island by now!) build entertainment arrays; for instance:
actor colony and theaters - you probably won't have the
space or money for a hippodrome and chariot trainer.
You are ready for further expansions when you have used
up all the resources of these islands - you need to, because
you have VERY little space in this assignment, but need a
city two thirds as large as the last you built. With all the
mountain ranges around we will face importing goods very soon.
The following are hints you may find usable during the
time you are constructing your city.
- Wolves: Build up at least five prefectures for each
7x7 tiles area and have the prefects hit the
wolves. There should be three prefects for each
wolf in the city. Gradually they will stop to
enter the city - you can increase the speed
of this by hovering over the map and looking for
stray bands. Wall them in. (See V. SWATs)
- Native: Once you have brought Latin culture to the
natives they will commence trading with you.
This will be visualized by a guy with a cart
moving to and fro your warehouse. He can buy and
sell two units of any good for trade (and most
of the times does buy them).
When the goods start to make your warehouse
full, expand your trading possibilities by
opening up all trade routes as soon as possible.
III. Frequently Asked Questions
Please note: Some questions of these section are directly taken from the
online help, because some questions asked via email were
practically the same as in the online help. Because of this I
entered their questions here, but left the original answer.
One very nice question I received the other day:
Q: Is Caesar III year 2000 ready?
A: (honest) Should you ever reach the year 2000 A.D. (in-game)
you may as well celebrate your 200th birthday, but don't forget to
invite your kids' kids' kids' kids.. :)
Q: One fine big fat sheep just sat flat on one of my roads. What
can I do?
A: Quite actually if you cannot frighten it away using civilization,
you are victim to a bug in the game. You cannot make steaks
out of it, unfortunately.
There is however a chance that the following strategy works:
Use the shovel icon somewhere near the sheep and probably it
may move away (works around 90% of the time!).
Q: Why aren't immigrants moving into my vacant housing lots?
A: You probably have one or more of these undesirable conditions..
- high unemployment
remedy: Remove some job places, e.g. remove a second granary
or every house that has lower employment than 50% of its
actual needs; note with granaries and warehouses: empty
them first before you shovel the goods into the river.
To do so, select them with the right mouse key and then
click on special orders - there click on the button(s)
until all show "empty warehouse" or "empty granary"
respectively.
- high taxes
remedy: If you think you cannot afford a 10% tax instead of your
whopping 20%, you may be wrong. You will not be able to
afford having no one who is paying taxes, so reduce them
to around 5% and then slowly (each year 1% at maximum,
better two years between increases) increase taxes
again. Never raise them higher than 12% permanently or
higher than 18% for a very long time. 18% will scare
the most content people away, if you are trying to
get more immigrants, set very low taxes. To switch to
low taxes visit your finance advisor.
- low wages
remedy: Set higher wages using the labor advisor. Higher wages
than in Rome (displayed there) raise the mood, lower
wages than in Rome decrease mood status and will
result in more crime and less immigrants.
- insufficient food
remedy: If you are facing a famine be prepared to little
reserves in your money pocket to build some farms.
Another way is to throw peoples out of your city so
less people are consuming something. This is not very
much cheaper and generally a bad idea because the
people will not likely come back (and it seems there
are limited numbers as to how many immigrants are going
to be appearing in your city!).
Read about the mood concept for further details.
Q: I can't attract immigrants because I don't have enough food, but I
can't get enough food.
A: Use the labor allocation panel to briefly reassign the workers that
you do have. If there's food in your granary, but you lack the workers
to distribute it, make commerce your no.1 priority for a minute or
two. If the granary's empty because your farms aren't working or the
granary has no staff, make industry no.1. Don't skew these priorities
too long, or you risk fires and riots. As soon as you see immigrants
arriving, return your priorities to normal. If your people are really
mad, try putting taxes down to zero for a while, and maybe even bold
a festival to cheer them up.
Q: Why won't my farms or mines produce anything?
A: Assuming that you haven't turned them off with the senate's trade
panel, they probably lack laborers. Try building housing closer to your
industries, or assign a higher priority to industry on the labor
allocation panel.
Read about employment for further details.
Q: Workers with a full carts are just standing around. Why don't they
get to work?
A: They would like to, but there is no place for them to deliver their
produce. Make sure you have free space in your warehouse and granaries,
and that they have enough employees to function properly.
Read about industry for further details.
Q: How come all of my water supply buldings keep flashing on and off?
A: They need laboreres. Take a look at the labor allocation panel. If
the number of actual employees is less than the number required, then
your harried water workers are doing their best to spread water
coverage througout the city, but can only do so sporadically. Assign
a higher priority to water supply or increase your overall workforce.
Q: I need money! What can I do?
A: First, ensure your people are paying you taxes. Use the commerce
tax income overlay to spot any areas which are not covered by a
tax collector, and build a forum to send collectors past those
dwellings. Make sure that you have allocated enough labor to
government so that the existings forums and senate send out their
collectors. Consider putting your tax rate up. You can get away
with quite high rates for a short while if your people aren't too
angry already. Second, start to sell exports, and try to stop
importing any goods you can do without. Trade is a very important
source of funds for most provinces.
Q: How do I get trade working?
A: First, use the empire map to open a trade route. Second, make sure
you have a commodity your trade parnters want stocked in a warehouse
or empty warehouse space if you are trying to import good. Third,
use the trade panel to specify a commodity for import and export.
Finally, if the route you opened is a sea route, you must have a
functioning docks. Check out the trade entry for more details.
Q: Riots keep breaking out. How do I keep my city from going up in
smoke?
A: To prevent riots from occurring in the first place, remedy the cause
of crime, which is bad mood. You should have received multiple
warning you of the problem; try to start fixing the problems as
soon as you start to receive twarnings. Lowerings taxes will help,
as will raising wages to more than Rome pays, reducing unemployment
and ensuring everyone is supplied with food.
If the situation is very bad, though, lower taxes to zero until your
citizens relax a little. The cost in taxes lost will probably be
less the cost of repairs after a riot. Just don't forget to
raise the taxes again when your people in in a better mood.
Make sure your people are fed, even if this means importing food.
Ensure that the markets are working properly and distributing food
to all the houses which need it. You can use the commerce food
overlay to see if any houses need more food.
Hold a festival, too. Your people are usually cheered up by a good
festival. For a possible blessing from Venus, hold a festival
dedicated to this goddess.
Limit the spread of fires by building prefectures near the source of
trouble (and make sure there's housing nearby to provide labor). If
your prefect's bucket brigades can't keep up with the fires, destroy
some neighboring buildings to create a fire break. Fires won't
spread across empty land.
Read on mood concept for long-term solutions.
Remember that when something isn't working right, you can almost
right-click on it to find out why and find the appriopriate
help entry.
Q: My housing is stuck because I can't get pottery, but there's pottery
in my warehouse and the houses have market access. What am I missing
here?
A: Make sure the market can get pottery from the warehouse. If it is too
far away, the market's buyer will not visit the warehouse, or will
spend so much time in transit that the market frequently runs out of
pottery. Build a warehouse closer to the market, and use special
orders function to move pottery to the new warehouse.
Installation:
Q: My virus detection program found a virus! It says that
lionTr_great2.wav is a virus.
A: This file does not contain a virus, though some programs see
data in it that looks like one. Also, a .wav is not an executable
program, so a virus cannot work from a .wav anyway.
Q: I have downloaded the 1.1 upgrade and the installation tells me
that c3.exe is not a valid previous version and will not complete
the upgrade.
A: Make sure that you have the correct upgrade version (the North
American version of Caesar III is different from versions in other
countries.). As of this writing, the 1.1 upgrade will only work with
the North American version; however, a non-North American version of
the 1.1 upgrade is forthcoming. Also, the upgrade looks for the
original version of the c3.exe, so if you have installed a trainer
that has modified c3.exe (or modified the file in any other way),
the upgrade will not work. You must reinstall Caesar III before you
can install the upgrade.
Q: I downloaded the map/assignment editor but it will not install
correctly.
A: The file was probably not downloaded correctly. Try a different
site or a different download program.
Q: I downloaded a map made with the assignment editor but the trade
routes do not work and the empire map is strange.
A: You must have the updated c32.emp included with the map editor.
Many sites where map downloads are available will have the updated
c32.emp file available too.
Gameplay:
Q: The game seems to pause for a few seconds at the end of every month.
A: The game updates various items at the end of each month. On enormous
maps especially, the terrain update can take a little while,
causing the pause.
Q: I can't change to a windowed screen.
A: To use a windowed screen, your desktop resolution must be set
higher than the resolution that you are playing C3 in. If you
happen to switch to a windowed screen at an inappropriate resolution,
you may experience extreme graphical corruption of your desktop.
Switch back to a non-windowed mode (use F7) to resolve the problem.
Q: The mouse is twitchy and jumpy, especially with text panels and
when videos are playing.
A: Update your mouse drivers and confirm that you are using DirectX
6.0 (or higher). Some animated cursors can cause also problems.
Change the mouse pointer setting through the control panel.
Q: I'm having trouble with sound in the game. For instance speech is
slow or there is some background noise.
A: Generally updating your sound card drivers and using DirectX 6.0
or higher will solve the problem (also refer to the general trouble
shooting tips). If not, then your specific card has some
sort of conflict, contact the card manufacturer. Also, be sure that
you have enough RAM for the program. Close all other applications.
(Use Ctrl-Alt-Delete and close everything but systray and explorer.)
Q: The status.txt file says that some .wav files are missing
(prefecture.wav, eng_post.wav, well1.wav, etc).
A: These files were taken out of the final game. There is nothing
wrong.
IV. Game concepts
There are various concepts in the game. Be sure to be familiar with them.
Since they are described very well in the online help, you may just need
to read this help in order to be informed. There is a lot of information
in this help, although I think the help system itself is a bit awkard
of design. But no problem either way. Before playing try to familiarize
with yourself with some of the concepts by actually reading them.
Yes, Caesar is a game where there may be some reading necessary, but
beware that this reading may even entertain you.
Very soon you will see the emphasis on mood in the game. And this tells
you a key to winning the game: try to keep mood high at all times.
For this reason, I have assembled some hints and tips. Aside from what
is told in the help, you should also read these tips here.
You should always try to do the following things in order for your
city to bloom and flourish.
- sheep and zebras can only be frightened away by building
something nearby; see SWATs section
(see game alterations in Appendix K)
- sometimes sheep or zebra (only seen with sheep though)
will not away even if you build a palace or more dangerous
to their health a Coloseum next to them; I actually
had them encirceled with Colosea (plural of Coloseum) just
for fun, but they did not even move - perhaps a bug
- when you surround a set of housing with a wall, the housing
will disappear after several seconds; use gatehouses
to provide necessary access to the rest of the city map
when fortifying residential areas
- there are wolves in the northern reaches of the Empire,
better not try biting them (i.e. they will attack
Roman people)
- cart pushers usually wait for you to build a new
destination if the old one has vanished
- you may build an unlimited number of reservoirs linked
together by one or more aqueducts
- plan your first residential area well; have access to
farmland, raw materials and water at a minimum
- keep the road network simple
* low number of intersections
* straight roads
- build no more than two residential areas initially
- housing may expand into gardens, but not into statues
- get a trade route started quickly
(ensures good growth rates and keeps your purse filled)
- lower your taxes in the beginning, slowly raise them
later in the game
- do not build too many gardens or plazas
- build small low rent communities near areas where you are
having labor problems
- leave open spots in residential areas for expansions
or additions like baths, libraries etc.
- cover wages with taxes no higher than 10%, make it 8%
ideally, never go below 5%
- build farms at the edge of farmland
- only one tile of housing or baths needs access to water
- specialize in commodities
- place docks near where trade ships enter the map;
build one dock for each seaborne trade route you open
- minimize cart pusher travel time by building granaries
near farms and markets near granaries (i.e. farms -
granaries - markets)
put workshops near their raw material suppliers, best
would be adjacent, warehouses near workshops, markets
near warehouses
(i.e. ideal chain: farms - granaries - markets -
warehouses - workshops - raw material suppliers)
- Neptune's wrath can only affect you, if you are
near the sea
- evolution increases with desirability rates;
this is graphical only, their function does not change
- best defense offers a wall of towers, that is no
simple wall, just towers, leaving open some gates
- instead of relying on just your towers also
have some army units handy; recommended are at least
one cavalry, two legions and two or three javelin
auxiliaries
- a strategy common from Command & Conquer: meet
your enemy with armies in range of your towers and have
long range behind hand to hand units
- build a legion every two years, from year 10 upwards
get military even more
- save often, always a thing missed during real life,
saving is what keeps you from redesigning your city
many times over
- something for those rioting people are decreased taxes
- never let unemployment exceed 20%; quick jobs are made
with extra hospitals
- always have some 5-10% of unemployment so you can
quickly call on people's workforce if needed (extra
legions, for instance)
Proposals on design and layout of city building; these are mainly
input from other people. These are their styles, and some are useful,
some are just fun. I will however tell you which are just for fun.
- The main residential district started as a 9x9 square
of road, with the inside 7x7 square filled in, two squares
deep, with lots. The very center was the fountain
(eventually), and the 3x3 square around it filled in
with gardens. The road was then covered completely with
plazas. (by Aaron Jensen,
[email protected])
Comment: This seems one very senseful layout, although
too many plazas, I'd presume. You should
probably keep it with plazas at intersections
only.
Comment for later assignments: Place those plazas (all
around the housing) when the mood gets uglier,
or when you have problems with development -
usually this helps a lot.
On favor ratings
Aside from this Caesar seems to change his favor quite arbitrarily.
But there is a logical scheme these changes. For one, he will
decrease his favor rating whenever you run out of money and do
not get up to positive (or at least neutral level) within a given
time (usually 12 months and another 12 months). While you usually
start out with 50 favor points, they can be easily wasted if you
are not very careful. When Caesar requests something, you should
try, above all else to fulfull this wish (if enemies are raiding
your city, you probably will have to face this first, but aside
from this, I cannot imagine a lot more problems than this - not
even the gods' wrath is as hard as Caesar's. He's your chief-in-
service, your personal god. His wrath can end the game for you,
the gods' wrath can only make it difficult, or more difficult).</pre><pre id="faqspan-5">
If you fail to do so, the favor rating will drop to ten and then
(after another 12 or so months) to nil. At this time you are
given 12 months to raise your favor rating beyond 30. Otherwise
you will be arrested. This may be very difficult, because usually
you are facing a situation you cannot easily cope with. Money may
be low, trade ships will not buy from you, because enemies are
near or you cannot produce enough weapons because you need
them for equipping your soldiers. Yet still, being arrested by
Caesar means GAME OVER. But let's get back to the scaling of the
favor rating. After fulfilling a request your favor score will
rise by around 20 points if you are fulfilling it after he
has complained and only by around 10 points if you do in the
first twelve months. I cannot say what scale is applied in the
first six months but I seem to get more points if I deploy the
goods within the first three or two months. I have not had that
many chances to check this, but I seem to get five extra points
for that (any hints on that are very appreciated). Also, gifts -
even the lavish ones - may cost but will not have any effect
on the favor rating. Especially this is true, when Caesar is
angry, for instance when you are not able to fulfill requests
or are negative on money for more than 12 months. Do not give
any gifts to him, but put all your money to use in the city
treasury, meaning you use the "give to city" option as often
as possible. A positive budget is always something that pleases
Caesar; why? Because then he sees that he gets something out of
investing an initial 5000 to 10000 denarii into your city - and
ultimately that will raise the favor rating by some points.
Of course each year with positive budget will add up to your
properity rating. Should you be wondering why you cannot reach
a good prosperity rating while you are on the edge between
positive and negative budget all the time, here's the answer..
On buildings
There is variety of buildings in the game. Basically they are what
you are able to influence. All other things are not basics, they
are features which may vary from simulation to simulation. Especially
this can be visualized when you think back to games like Sim City.
Buildings and various types of buildings have always been there.
The buildings available in Caesar 3 of course differ from those
available in Sim City since you are not able to by skyscrapers in
a town of 200 B.C. On the other hand there are also beautiful and
sometimes even nicer buildings available. Looking at the heart of
a developing Caesar 3 city fills you with the assuredness that
you are building something decent. On the other Sim City always
looks like on of those Metropolis cities. You cannot have the
skyline of New York. But you can have beautiful temples and
villae. Aside of this Sim City (2000 and 3000) offer both
different pictures for their buildings even when they are on the
same level of evolution. Caesar 3 does the same, but the difference
is easily seen: With Caesar 3 most of the pictures are similar,
whereas Sim City (2000 or 3000) offer different types of buildings
at the same stage of buildings.
The following is a list of buildings available, including a
description, hints and some information on its values, costs,
inhabitant, abilities and needs. I try to get as neatly to the
point as possible, but sometimes numbers may be wrong, so please
inform me (in order to contact me, please write to
[email protected]). Thanks in advance.
Roads
Description: One of the most primitive types of "buildings" is
a patch of roads. These, as constructed in ancient
Rome, where of course the pulsating core of each
village, town and city. Whatever else you are going
to build, all of them need access to roads. Building
avenues is not recommended, since your citizens
will wander around and take a wrong turn if there
is a wrong turn (and you can have cartpushers going
circles for quite a number of times if you let them).
Okay - probably it's not that bad, but things can
easily get worse if you do not plan on your road
layout. Since this will determine what type of city
you are going to build, the layout should be though
of very carefully. Also remember, that a building
only needs one (1) patch of road adjacent to be
reachable. On the other hand, usually making one
straight road is hard and thus many of your buildings
may be surrounded by roads.
Historical Information: Roads where, at least as far as our
knowledge about ancient Rome reaches, one of the most
renowned things Rome brought forth. Roman roads were
the superlative of luxural travel. Whereas German
roads were practical non-existent aside from raw paths
drawn around the countryside. Roman roads consisted of
a complicated fundament, including chisels, sands and
stone plates on top. The overland roads featured
flatter stone plates, sometimes bigger plates than
in the cities to allow fast travel. In the cities
the plates may have been smaller. Sometimes blocks
stood out of the ground. This was sort of a pedestrian
crossing - the blocks were placed in a way, so that
they were standing out of the plates. Wagons, carts
and a lot more were built in a way, so that their
wheels would exactly match the pattern of the stones.
Short:
| | * * * * | |
| | |
| | |
`---> pavement
| |
`---> blocks, raised from ground level
|
`---> holes between blocks to let carts
move through (using special axis'
lengths)
More detailed information can be derived from Caesar's
writings for instance. He says, the Roman army was
much faster than most of the other armies because of
well built road network.
Function: Pretty obvious, if you ask. In the game all buildings
must have roads access in order to function. Sometimes
roads will evolute to nicer style (from the brownish
dirty look to stone plate paved gray look) which
indicates the evolutionary plus of the area.
Hospital
Description: Aside from what the name suggests already (latin:
hospes: the welcomed traveller) you may wonder
what hospitals were doing in ancient Roman Empires.
Now, first of all: the graphics look like the
ancient Senate building on the Forum Romanum in real
life Rome. Of course there were clinics (see there
for more details) and there were hospitals.
They nurse those people who are not covered by your
doctors, and, if epidemias break out usually can
save you from a dying population (60% died within
two months with me being governor - shame on me..)
A big advantage of hospitals to clinics is,
that they also have doctors. This makes them take
over a few patients and in advance take up more
jobs - if you have high unemployment or riots because
of unemployment (anything above 10% longer than
two to four months causes riots because of
unemployment), you should try to find a few spots into
which you can place hospitals. There is however
absolutely no reason to place them side by side.
Save your space if you can, and try to place
entertainment or education facilities (that tenth
hippodrome in your backyard should do the trick.. <g>).
Historical Information: There have been hospitals in ancient
Rome, but they were somewhat different from what we
may connect with hospitals nowadays. æ
Clinic
Barber
Bath House
Reservoir
Fountain
Well
Description: Although the Roman water distribution system (you may
know the technique of aqueducts) were highly developed,
even they had to start once in a while with simple
wells. Aside from this, no tent will develop to
any better state than - as said - being a tent if
you cannot manage to install the most primitive of
all water supplies; a well respectively.
However, wells create extreme negative desirability,
so replacing them with fountains (which of course
must be sustained by a reservoir) is highly
recommended. If you are really good the fountains will
soon develop to more fancy styles. See "Foutain"
for more information on fountains' development.
Wells are, for their primitivity still quite efficient.
They supply water to a 3x3 tiles area, which can be
very much for a small city. During the first few
assignments you may see that you are not able to
build fountains, or, if you are, they are not needed
to win the assignment. However in later assignments
(approximately from the third onwards) you will
encounter extreme problems if you are using wells only.
Wells can be a first-aid solution to supplying water
if your local reservoir was destroyed by some cause,
but rebuilding the fountain-reservoir or fountain-
aqueduct-reservoir-... system is better in almost all
the cases I can imagine.
Historical Information: As far as I know wells were, and still are
a very primitive but effective type of water
supply. Since they can be used almost everywhere -
their productivity only depends on the depth you have
to delve into the earth - even desert cities may
depend on them. Miletus (Milet in the English language)
had its first water system installed and run only
by wells.
Function: Other than supplying water, which will be done
automatically once they are installed, wells can be used
to execute a cheat built into the game. For more
details on this, please consult the SWATs section
farther below (V).
Aqueduct
Port
Forum
Prefecture
Fort - Legionaries
Auxiliaries - Javelin
Auxiliaries - Mounted
Barracks
Military Academy
Senate
School
Academy
Library
Theatre
Amphitheatre
Coloseum
Hippodrome
Actor Colony
Lion House
Gladiator School
Small Governor's Palace
Medium Governor's Palace
Large Governor's Palace
Small Statue
Medium Statue
Large Statue
Gardens
Plaza
Ship Yard
Wharf
Engineer's Outpost
Granary
Farm - Fruit
Olives
Wheat
Vegetables
Raw Materials - Iron Mine
Clay Pit
Marble Quarry
Timber Yard
Workshops - Weapons
Pottery
Furniture
Oil
Temples - Small Temple
Large Temple
Oracle
Wall
Tower
Gate House
V. Secret Weapons and Tactics
Although there already are a lot secret tactics and hints on how to play
and win (among a walkthrough you may have noticed if you read straight
through down to here) the game, some SWATs are explicitely found here,
because I found they were the most interesting and effective ones.
IN-GAME CHEATS
These cheats only work if you are on the main map of any assignment.
In order to enable the cheats you must right click on a Well, then press
[ALT], K.
1. Instant Victory
[ALT], V
2. Get Money
[ALT], C
Works only if you have below 5000 denarii.
3. Evolution of house types in relation to desirability/infrastructure
(by Aaron Jensen,
[email protected])
Basically the following table shows what is needed for a specific
evolution type - which in fact means more capacity and more
desirability, thus more productivity and less tension (unrest) -
to be achieved. "Requirement(s)" denotes which things you must
achieve, build or get in order to have the evolution done to that
point. Note that some of these are incremental: E.g. the medium
insulae can only be reached of entertainment is there (from the
small insulae evolutionary step AND clinics, hospital and furniture,
AND some of the things before the small insulae!). On the other side,
you do not need to have a well AND a fountain nearby any building,
because the fountain simply is an improved variant of the well.
This is a bit complicated but should get straightforward after a few
rounds of playing.
- "Cap." means capacity of citizens able to live in the structure/..
- the number in the round brackets e.g. (one) denotes how many
different (!) buildings of that type you need. For food it means
how many different types of food you need.
Structure Name Requirement(s) Cap. Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Empty Field Nothing 0
Vacant Lot Player declares it available 0
Small Tent Immigrant 5
Large Tent Water (any) 7
Small Shack Food (one) 9
Large Shack Temple (one) 11
Small Hovel Fountain Water 13
Large Hovel Entertainment (one) 15
Small Casa School or Library 17 1
Large Casa Bathhouse, Pottery 19
Small Insulae Entertainment (two) 19
Medium Insulae Clinic or Hospital, Furniture 20
Large Insulae School and Library, Barber, Oil 21 2
Grand Insulae Entertainment (three), Food (two) 21 3
Small Villa Temple (two), Wine (one) 10
Medium Villa Clinic and Hospital 10 1/2
Large Villa Academy 10 4
Grand Villa Food (three), Temple (three) 11 1/9
Small Palace Wine (two) 11 7/9
Medium Palace Entertainment (four) 12 4/9
Large Palace Desirability? 11 14/16 5
Luxury Palace At least 'average' in all ent. 12 1/2
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1: At this point, I had a severe problem with plagues, and had to
re-build quite a bit of the residential district several times.
This is because clinics and hospitals had not been required yet.
2: Buildings from this point on only come in 2x2 size.
3: Here, it seemed that desirability rules changed somewhat. Everything
inside the residential district was maxxed in desirability, but
buildings across the street weren't, and this restricted advancement.
4: Buildings from this point on only come in 3x3 size.
5: Buildings from this point on only come in 4x4 size. The 'aura of
desirability' is much larger here. Also, there didn't seem to be any
specific demand to reach this point, other than that desirability.
4. Scaring sheep and zebra
As if you did not have enough problems with managing a city those
moving steaks seem to provide even more problems. Now one way is
to click using the shovel icon somewhere nearby. Best would be to
click something with just a patch of grass as content, since you
do not have to pay anything, but strange enough, the tiles'
graphics change i.e. you changed something using civilization - the
sheep move away. Contrary to the wide spread opinion sheep do
not move away if you try to scare them using civilization this
works 90% of the times.
5. Multiple barracks cheat (from caesar3.heavengames.com)
The computer won't recognize the existence of your barracks until it
has employees. So you can create as many as you want, until one of them
gets an employee. This is very useful if you're recruiting troops for
more than one legion at a time. I believe each barracks will service
a separate legion. I also don't know if the patch has fixed this.
6. Faster academy-training for troops (from caesar3.heavengames.com)
Train a legion of javelins until they're 2 or 3 guys short. Then start
a legion of heavy infantry. It will take priority over the javs
(if you have stocked weapons). Train it until it's two guys short.
Then build your military academy. The last couple of members of each
legion will bring them up to full perfect in all categories.
Considerably faster than running each of the 30 men through the
academy individually.
7. Market Desirability
(by Omar Ruiz,
[email protected])
To elude the detrimental effect of the markets, I put them one space
away from the road and then another road going there. A garden in
front of it and some plazas around will upgrade them.
8. Out-Of-Bounds Tactic
If you would like immigration or trade sped up while you wait,
you may try scrolling to the edge and beyond the map. This way,
the screen where the main view (i.e. the map itself) would be
displayed will gradually go black, leaving behind the menu and
the toolbar to the right. Now click the arrow in the top right
corner and wait. Usually the computer's resources are taken
up much less than while viewing the map's busy events. So this
way you can save time and make money faster than usual.
9. Anti-Sheep, zebra and wolves
Wonder how you can get rid especially of the wolves just waiting
for new immigrants? Put them, if they are in clusters into walled
areas (build walls around them - best to be not on farmland) and
have them out of the way for the time being!
10. Against elephants we shall move
Actually you should not! Have all your strong infantry and
your horse auxiliaries staple together in two rows, so that they
stand on each other - more or less. Have the javelin auxiliaries
behind you (also stapled) - this way a lot of enemy soldiers
will be killed in a short time. And best of this: You will not
have to fight the elephants because the lag behind because of their
low speed.
11. Wiggle-Waggle
This technique should be used if your legion is severely shaken
(not in moral, but in men) or if you need time to build up your
tower defenses (including getting balistas on the towers) when
the enemy soldiers, armies and elephants have already entered your map.
Start out with send soldiers to the entry point (there should be
as little as possible) nearest to the enemies. Especially send
all legionaries there. When they change their path to another
entry point have all legionaries be positioned there. This will
cause them to more or less stay put between two entry points and
renders more time to you.
OUTSIDE CHEATS
These cheats only work by altering files outside the game. You may try
to use them during gameplay by swapping to the Windows desktop and then
trying to alter files, but this may well mess up your system.
Quitting (and saving beforehand if necessary) would be way better.
Please read cheat #1 if you are going to edit a file called C3_MODEL.TXT.
It teaches important techniques necessary in order to make no mistakes.
While I included a list of meaning of the letters I only will explain
chaning them with one letter (T).
1. Playing with C3_MODEL.TXT
(by Paulette Straub,
[email protected])
Higher Taxes
You will have to edit C3_MODEL.TXT for this cheat to work. It is
based on the fact that each and every building renders your
city with a specific amount of taxes once it appears on your map.
Now these values may be changed, as I lined out already a bit
during the introduction (see the files section, search for C3_MODEL).
After you have opened the file using Notepad or other editing program,
note that it should not be Word for Windows or similar DTP (desktop
publishing program) - they may add some unseen layout data which
the program during startup would not be able to compile and as such
would cause the game/program/system to crash - search for "ALL HOUSES".
It should be below a line of "-" dashes. The following is an example
of how it should look like:
----------------------------------------------------------
ALL HOUSES
Now after you have found this section, there should be something like
this below:
House 1 - Tents (and so on)
Following the word "Tents" should be a lot of numbers as below:
,{,-99,-10,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,25,5,5,1,,,2.5,,,,,,
These are the initial settings. You may use this line for
experimenting and recovering later. Any input on what the
many positions relate are very appreciated.
Now for our purposes we are going to change the letter T. This may
sound strange, but I am taken the description Paulette Straub
described to me and which is partly also implemented in the
initial description of the file; which you should read if you have
not done so yet.
Please note: Data (and so does counting the letters) starts after
the "curly" bracket "{" and ends after "}".
T would refer to the 20th position in this row. This sounds
complicated? It is not. First of all, the numbers are made like this:
number,number,number, and so on
After each specific value a "," is inserted.
",," has the meaning of a position of say "X,Y,Z" which all are empty.
I hope you understand this system, if not, please contact me, or
if you think you have a better way of explaining it, please send the
alternatives so I can change it to the better.
If you are going to change this, do it to whatever value you like;
experimenting should be best. The higher the better, but do not
go higher than around 500. Gameplay sucks with unlimited money.
And 500 denarii from a tent is quite enough.
"Give me money if I buy something" Cheat
This will change the actual cost of something you are going to buy
to a negative value which means you will get money if you buy
something. You will need to change the letter "B".
For example:
39,Gardens,{,12,3,1,-1,3,0,0,0,},
^^ -> change to whatever amount of denarii you want to
give (e.g. 5) or receive (e.g. -1000).
Playing with the other letters
There are other letters described in the initial part of the file.
Here are some basic guidelines to follow:
- negative numbers: write "-10" not "- 10"
^-> space!
- the list of letters researched on so far:
A - Cost of structure or of one tile of a structure (for walls..)
B - Initial desirability value
C - desirability step (in tiles)
D - desirability step size
E - max desirability range
F - Number of people a building employs
G - future expansion
H - future expansion
T - tax revenues
- in the HOUSES section the following letters relate to what is
described below: (DES=desirability)
A - DES level at which the house will devolve
lowest: -99
B - DES level at which the house will evolve
lowest: -99
C - future expansion; the higher the more likely the evolving
D - water supply needed (1=yes, 0=no - for all following letters)
E - religion; the lower the lower religion eeded
F - education; same as E
G - 1 means: can devolve, 0: cannot devolve
H - barber; same as E
I - bath; same as E
J - health building; same as E
K - food access; same as E
L - pottery; same as E
M - oil; same as E
N - furniture; same as E
O - wine; same as E
S - number of people to occupy that building
VI. Appendices
Appendix A - Legality Statement
This document was written out of free will and may be distributed
only without any payment received. This includes any royalty fees for
copying, shippings. No money may be taken for giving it away. You may
make as many copies of this document as you wish. There is no limit
as to how many people you give it to. However, there are some limits.
These are including, but not limited to:
- seperating part of the text from this document and resassembling
it into other documents
- splitting the file
- renaming the file; allowed to official distributors only
There is absolutely no warranty of whatever type or for whatever reason.
If you would like to put it on any mass distribution system including
but not being limited to homepage viewing, please notify me prior to doing
so. You do not need written consent, but you need myself knowing it.
If you are planning on putting it on a CD-ROM or likewise distribution
form which is not electronical, you need my written consent if you are
going to spread it beyond one copy for backup.
Only verbatim copies of the original document may be distribued in their
latest version which may be obtained from all official distributors.
If you need the newest version via e-mail, please contact me via
e-mail.
All rights are reserved regarding whatever things may concern this
text file. The copyright is established in 1999 and lasts for an unlimited
period of time.
Portions of the names and statements used in this text are subject to
rights other parties may have, which have been acknowledged fully and
completely.
Should you have a comment on this legality statement, please contact me
at
[email protected].
Appendix B - About FAQs/...
FAQs are generally what is known as Frequently Asked Questions. Files
with the extension .FAQ or the denotation as being FAQs usually
inhibit these questions. These files are valuable addition to any help
you may receive when buying some product, because most of all FAQs
are created on user input which sometimes also companies themselves
edit and thus include with newer versions or new games.
SWATs are Secret Weapons and Tactics, which generally denotes hints,
tricks, cheats and nice little gadgets you may easily overlook.
Some of these will be assembled in this file, if you have input on
this, please contact me.
Walkthroughs finally are what one player needs to complete the game.
Basically this is how to win the game. But winning the game and
enjoying it are two different kinds of things. The road all by itself
is way too long for just running over it. There are a lot of side
branches you will like to take in order to see more of the game. And
exploring is one of the most fascinating things with fantasy games.
Imagine your are wandering through Disneyland, never have been before
there, and are to wander straight from the entrance one complete
circles moving over all paths and then exit again, with your head
bowing down, your ears stuffed with wax and your feet running.
Impossible, you may say - it is. For one, you will need to have a
look where you are going, which reflects to game play as you
may have to watch that some branches may be quite important
to have a closer look at.
Two you will sense the need to have a look at what is happening around
you - otherwise you may miss the world's biggest fun you've ever
could have had - and remembering why you bought this game: for fun,
wasn't it? A little? Some?
About the sensefulness of walkthroughs many documents and essays have
been written in various philosophical styles. If you need help a
walkthrough can be read up to the point where you do not know how to
go on and then read as much as you need to go on. Maybe on the way to
this point in reading you find some things you have missed. If you
try to get these things working maybe you do not need any more reading
than just to where you already got. If you would like to discuss the
sensefulness of walkthroughs you may always write mails to
[email protected]. I am eagerly awaiting your opinions.
Appendix C - Official Distributors
Official Distributors of this file include the following people/sites:
Address Contact person Updates
http://www.gamefaqs.com CJayC daily
INofficial, illegal distributors who MAY NOT carry any version and WILL
NEVER get the newest version include; the actually get money with
publishing information they are not allowed to handle with in this way.
Please do NOT help them by visiting their sites but dispromote their
site!
Address Contact person Updates
http://www.thecheatersguild.com Webmaster's name unknown none
Appendix D - Rumors
There have been and perhaps always will be rumors about this game
because there are a lot of possibilities one may find rumors in.
Aside from UseNet messageboards and chats are usually the biggest source
of rumors. I for myself have tried to eradicate false rumors
as neatly as possible, but some simply emerge and do not get disproved
easily or cannot be. If you have some juicy or interesting bit of rumor
about Caesar III, please inform me as soon as you can, so I can test it
and if correct enter it into the file as fact (otherwise as disproved
or not testable rumor) - if you like so. If not, please still send them
in as I am curious what types of cheats may be lurking in this game.
My contact address is shown at the top of this document.
Recent Rumors have been among the following:
"Time Freeze"
From a person named Al at GameFAQs exists a small secrets file which
shows two cheats. One of these is "Time Freeze".
The background to this: Older versions of Caesar III had the spacebar
implemented to be the pause/break key. This has been moved to the P
key. With space bar pressed you do not get any time freezed. I just
tried it. I was in the 4th assignment playing from the beginning I
pressed space bar one time. Time should freeze according to his
statement. This does not happen. After Jan 270 BC came Feb 270 BC.
This rumor has been disproved.
"Carry Over"
Also a cheat prolonged to be working from Al from GameFAQ's secrets
page. However, there is a slight logical error in this. Rumor said,
a building you do not have access to in the subsequent assignment can
be got if you just place your mouse cursor on it during you're fired
you restart. I tried with the first assignment. To be fired I
built some housing, a street and some wells. Some citizens moved in,
I had them built their tents and when the first had caught fire
I clicked on the building called prefecture. Now then I wasted all
the money I had by eradicating everything (trees) in the area. I then
added as much housing as I could. I had a minus of 11000 denars in the
end and was fired after a twelve months, then again twelve months
and finally again six months of trial period from Caesar. I restarted
the assignment but did not have access to the prefecture (I had it
selected when I was fired).
This rumor has been disproved.
Aside from this Sierra claimed there has been a similar possibility
on cheating inside the first version of the game. I tried this
but could not manage to do it using the above instructions. This
indicates that although a cheat may be in existence in older versions
(which has most clearly be eradicated with the enhancement package, the
place I derived this information from) but with a different
approach.
"Wolf Bug"
Wolves marching through walls and aqueducts. Not proven.
Numerously more rumors can be found on the official Caesar 3
InterNet site. I am not going to extract all of them here, just
the most interesting. If you would like to contribute a rumor,
just write to the address stated on the top of this document.
Go to the site, click on communication and then on any forum
related with your problem, or, if you would like it this way,
the type of gossip/rumor you would like to hear about.. :)
Appendix E - Credits
There have been some people contributing to this file. All of these
and the future people I will take care of to be added to this section.
I hope I do not let out anyone, people you know who you are - please tell
me if your name should lack in this section - thanks to everyone
for making this file possible.
Thanks go to in arbitrary order..
GameFAQs (Webmaster) .. for initially waking my interest in FAQ
writing and reading
Web-Page:
http://www.gamefaqs.com
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Kao Megura .. for a nice inspiration, and for helping me
find some nice tidbits in Final Fantasy 7
Web-Page:
http://i.am/kao
E-Mail: unknown or none supplied
"Al" .. for some rumors/cheats I could disprove and
add to the rumors section
Web-Page: unknown or none supplied
E-Mail: unknown or none supplied
Paulette Straub .. for information on C3_MODEL.TXT (see there);
for making me aware I had named the file
C3_MODEL.INF instead of .TXT.
Web-Page: unknown or none supplied
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Aaron Jensen .. for information on the evolution of house types
in relation to the desirability (and manual
errata on that subject)
for having some proposals on how to design
your city "blocks" (see SWAT section)
Web-Page: unknown or none supplied
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Stephen Lowe .. for information on permanent events from
his walkthrough files
Web-Page: unknown or none supplied
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Omar Ruiz .. for a technique on eluding the detrimental
effect of markets and having them advanced
Web-Page: unknown or none supplied
E-Mail:
[email protected]
unnamed/unknown people:
Since I am surfing the net on a daily basis
I sometimes retrieve information without
any "written by" information attached to it.
I would like to thank all those unnamed
people in advance for their work. If I am
publishing information which should be not
be published because of copyright
infringement, please tell me so. Unless
I am told I cannot find out whether
some information is copyrighted.
************************************************************************
THANK YOU
************************************************************************
If you would like to have your Web-Page or E-Mail address shown or
hidden, please tell so I can change it.
Alternatively if you should know any E-Mail addresses I am missing,
please tell me. Also please tell if some of this data is outdated
and should be changed. Thank you in advance for your help.
The file itself is managed by myself (
[email protected]).
Some information from this file was taken from the online help and some
information was taken from the README.TXT supplied with the game
Caesar III.
Also, some information has been taken from the informative popup
(README.TXT) for version 1.0.1.0 of Caesar III.
Appendix F - Upcoming implementations
I am planning to expand this file. The following things are planned
to be added/changed/.. very soon and with regard to feedback new
things will also be incorporated and added. Please tell me, whatever
you would like to change or add concerning this file. My address is
shown at the top of this document.
- searching for newsgroups on the net including CAESAR3 ones
- map editor instruction manual
- details on historical information in reference to the game's
information ("see historical information" - links in help file!)
Appendix G - Resources
More resources on Caesar III are as follows:
Address
http://www.caesar3.com Webmaster's name unknown unknown
http://www.sierra.com Webmaster's name unknown unknown
- click on the "interact" button at the top of the page
- choose "message boards"
- click "strategy and simulations" under "technical and
customer support boards
- read the messages that will be displayed
Sometimes you may find a similar problem which has already
been looked at by technical staff or programmers from the
people who developed this game.
http://www.sierra-online.co.uk Webmaster's name unknown unknown
http://www.sierra.fr Webmaster's name unknown unknown
http://www.sierra.de Webmaster's name unknown unknown
CompuServe United Kingdom: GO UKSIERRA
CompuServe France: GO FRSIERRA
CompuServe Germany: GO DESIERRA
If you need to contact Sierra via surface mail or want to
call them, use the following information:
United States
Sierra On-Line Returns
4100 West 190th Street
Torrance, CA 90504
Sierra On-Line Fulfillment
4100 West 190th Street
Torrance, CA 90504
U.S.A. Sales Phone: (800) 757-7707
International Sales: (425) 746-5771
Hours: Monday-Saturday 7AM to 11 PM CST,
Sundays 8AM to 9PM CST
FAX: (402) 393-3224
Sierra Direct
7100 W. Center Rd
STE 301
Omaha, NE 68106
United Kingdom
Cendant Software International Limited
Main: (0118) 920-9111
Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Fax: (0118) 987-5603
Disk/CD replacements in the U.K. are 6.00 pounds,
or 7.00 pounds outside the UK. Add "ATTN.: Returns."
2 Beacontree Plaza,
Gillette Way,
Reading, Berkshire
RG2 0BS United Kingdom
France
Cendant Software International Limited
Phone: (01) 46-01-46-50
Lundi au Vendredi de 9h - 19h
Fax: (01) 46-30-00-65
Parc Tertiaire de Meudon
Immeuble "Le Newton"
25 rue Jeanne Braconnier
92366 Meudon La Fort Cedex
France
Germany
Cendant Software International Limited
Tel: (0) 6103-99-40-40
Montag bis Freitag von 9h - 19Uhr
Fax: (0) 6103-99-40-35
Robert-Bosh-Str. 32
D-63303 Dreieich
Germany
If you are not satisfied with the game, you can return it
within thirty days within purchase. Simply send it back
via mail; even retail bought software. But tell them what
was wrong - valid in North America only.
To replace your disk(s) send only disk #1 or CD and a copy
of the receipt. 90 days after purchase add $10.00 for
handling. For documentation replacement include $5.00 0for
handling and a photocopy of disk #1. No credit cards.
Finally, if you would like to contact Sierra technical
support, please read the appropriate section the README.TXT.
There are specific numbers for different countries to call,
and different addresses to write to. Since some of these
services are not free of costs, they are not included here.
Appendix H - Mailing List
I have created a mailing list for information on updates of this file.
If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please send a mail to
[email protected] and tell me you would like to be added. Currently
there are 12 user(s) registered to this mailing list service.
If you would like your name and address published in this document,
please tell me. You could easily exchange information via this.
(Please read appendix I on discussion lists).
Appendix I - Discussion List
Said discussion list was voted against by 1 vote for it, against
all others against it in the way of not voting. Since one vote
can communicate with me directly, please do so. If you should like
me to install a discussion list, please tell me by writing to
[email protected]. I hope many people get interested in
discussing what's happening around the game. It's not the
walkthrough alone that is important, it is also the details and
small other news that may create quite a lot of interset.
If there is already a UseNet group I would like to know, please tell
me.
Appendix J - Revision History
08 January 1999 - revised complete document
started Q&A section
appendices A-G written
18 January 1999 - revised complete document
added appendix K
started SWATs section
02 February 1999 - revised complete document
many paragraphs rewritten
style corrections
type error correction
05 March 1999 - revised document partly
added some more game concept information
Appendix K - Game Alterations & News
News from www.caesar3.com
I am visiting the website constantly on a periodical basis and am
reviewing the most up to date information within this file.
As of 08 February this section exists. Since 19 January 1999 there
have not been any news. This is described in the first two lines that
follow this paragraph (which is an introduction and "how to read").
19 January 1999 - Technical FAQ released; I inserted parts of this
FAQ into this file
08 February 1999 - no news
20 February 1999 - original music from the game released
"PAVED ROADS" - a theme from Caesar 3 was released
as free (of payment) CD quality MPEG Layer 3 file.
If you need further information on MP3 files or
their capabilities, please visit www.mp3.com or
similar site; approximate file size is 5.27 MBytes.
May be acquired from www.caesar3.com directly;
Download speed may vary but stays around 2-5 KBytes/s
28 February 1999 - music MP3s released for download; quite actually
only one MP3 named "Paved Roads" has been released
for free-of-cost downloading from the site
www.caesar3.com - follow the download link and
right click (save link as..) on the filename or
"Paved Roads" link. Probably you need the
utility named UnCook 95 which re-prepares MP3
files for playing. You can also get it from this
site but alternatively may try
http://www.mp3.com.
Aside from this incorrect downloading may be
avoided by holding the shift-button on your keyboard
when downloading ZIPped MP3 files.
05 March 1999 - soundtrack music has been added to the download
section: "DIRT ROADS" and "MARCHIS MAXIMUS"
Movie Alteration
In the SMK folder of the Caesar III installation directory,
exchange any two .SMK filenames (data before .SMK) to switch display
of movies when events happen.
Map Editor
Visit
http://www.caesar3.com for an assignment (i.e. map editor) for
the game. This editor will let you design completely new assignments,
i.e. new quests. You may place your own scenery and stuff among a lot
of other details. This is a 400 KBytes download.
Enhancement Package (i.e. update to 1.0.1.0)
Also available from
http://www.caesar3.com is an enhancement package.
After downloading you will have to install the update to version 1.1,
as the file is called c3up11.exe you may expect an update!
But do not worry: neither is the file big nor will the changes
not mean anything to you - right away there are huge differences most
of which are useful and maybe used by about anyone playing the game.
It fixes some problems and adds some nice features I would already
have made input on to Sierra. This is a 11000 KBytes (11,0 MBytes)
download. The name of the file is "c3up11.exe" (without double quotes).
Here is what the update file will fix:
- There is now a warning when the building sprite limit is reached.</pre><pre id="faqspan-6">
A very large city can reach the maximum number of buildings allowed
by the game. When the limit is reached, any new construction attempted
results in a brown 'hole' appearing where the building should have
been built. A warning has been added that indicates that the maximum
has been reached.
Hint: Aqueducts, gardens, walls, and roads(plazas) do NOT count in
the limit. All other buildings do. Try replacing statues with gardens.
Try to find buildings that are not being used or are not necessary and
delete them. Each 1x1 house counts as a buildings, so try to create
more 2x2 houses. Try deleting a whole subdivision and rebuilding it to
be more efficient.
- The governor's name will no longer be reset to 'The New Governor' or
take the name from a previous game when changing games or maps. This
will work from any new saved games (not old ones.)
- There is no longer a charge for building plazas on top of plazas.
- Governor's palaces and oracles no longer state that they have poor
access to labor (they need no workers.)
- Buildings can no longer be carried between maps by selecting a
building to construct and not deselecting the building before changing
maps. Buildings not available in a scenario could be built this way.
- There is a warning when housing is built to far from a road (
more than 2 squares).
- There is a warning when housing is cut off from the 'Road to Rome'.
The map view is centered over the houses that will soon disappear due
to being cut off. The delay before the houses disappear has been
increased.
- In certain cases housing with two different, unique road accesses
would disappear due to lack of 'Road to Rome' access when only one
of the road networks it touched lacked 'Road to Rome' access. This
has been fixed.
- Prefects passing by a fire that they have not been assigned to will
now stop and fight the fire. The possibility of fires in the desert
has been reduced a little.
- The combat strength of prefects has been increased some.
- A trade city no longer wishes to buy zero fruit per year in the
Caesarea scenario. Marble can now be imported in the Damascus scenario.
- The number of places where docks and wharves could be illegally placed
has been reduced. Placing these structures in certain locations would
result in an inappropriate 'Low bridge is blocking access' message.
In fact terrain features (islands generally) were blocking ship access
to a structure.
- Building walls adjacent to a ramp will no longer corrupt the ramp
i.e. make the ramp disappear.
- Warehouses requesting a good will no longer take the good from
another warehouse that is requesting the same good.
- A Market trader will no longer return to her market when the
market's food stocks are exhausted but the market still has
goods (pottery, furniture, oil, and wine.)
- Occasionally granaries or warehouses can become 'linked' to
other granaries or warehouses. Changing special orders of one
building changes the special orders of the other. Now saving and
reloading the game will unlink the buildings and reset one of the
buildings to its default state (all accepting.)
- The prosperity report of the Rating advisor could sometimes
incorrectly state that 'Prosperity is rising' when that was not
the case. This has been fixed.
- Goods that the emperor requests now come out of warehouses that
are 'requesting' that good last.
- When sending requested goods to the emperor, a confirmation box
pops up with a check and 'X' button for confirming or cancelling
the dispatch. The 'X' now correctly cancels the dispatch.
- Gatehouses can now be built upon plazas without graphically
corrupting the gatehouse and making the gatehouse impossible
to delete.
- Market buyers would sometimes try to buy a good from
a nearby warehouse that they could not reach
(lack of road connection). The market buyer would then disappear
immediately after exiting her market. Buyers will now only try
to go to warehouses that they can reach.
- Cohorts would not return to their fort when using the
'Return to Fort' button on the cohorts right click panel when
their formation was set to 'Mop up'. Cohorts will now return to
their fort.
- A bug was fixed where a gladiator's school was attempting to send
gladiators to an amphitheater that was not road accessible. These
gladiator's schools would then not send gladiators to buildings
that were road accessible.
- Scenario win conditions set using the map editor now display
correctly when choosing the map in the City Construction Kit.
Formally win conditions would appear even if the condition
was turned off.
- Scenarios built with winning or losing time win conditions would
display the remaining time in red text on the game screen. This
text has been made more aesthetic.
New Features introduced with version 1.0.1.0
- 4 new difficulty levels have been introduced (in addition to
the original.) Difficulty can be changed through the options
menu at any time. (Difficulty level is not stored in a saved
game. It is a global game setting, so you must change the
difficulty manually any time you load a saved game where you
want a different difficulty.)
The difficulty levels change the following:
Starting cash, rescue loans, and tax income:
Very Easy - 300%
Easy - 200%
Normal - 150%
Hard - 100% (original setting)
Very Hard - 50%
Starting favor and mood and happiness settings:
Very Easy 80 70
Easy 70 60
Normal 60 50
Hard 60 50
Very Hard 50 40
- Wolves are not as strong at lower difficulty levels.
Enemy invasion strengths have been scaled to difficulty level.
- God events can be turned off and on at any time through the options
menu. Gods will not bless or curse you while this is off. The gods
opinion of you works normally, they will still become angry at you
(see the religion advisor) but will not do anything about it. Temples
are still needed for housing evolution and for increasing the city's
culture rating.
- Saved games can now be deleted from within the game. Use the Delete
game option under the File menu.
- The 'Home' and 'End' keys are now hot keys for rotating the map.
- Wolves now show up as black pixels on the radar map.
- Military units and towers can now be used to kill sheep and zebras.
- A market buyers now indicates what item she is going to buy in
her right click panel.
Technical FAQ
This file is available from www.caesar3.com. It offers detailed
information and help on problems when installing and configuring the
preferences. Some of the questions also appear in the Caesar III FAQ
(this file). Basically you go there and have to read the text online,
you cannot "download a file" literarily, but you may as well save
the HTML file to your harddrive and later on read it. There are quite
a few questions and you may to scan through them quite exactly.
Appendix L - Manual Errata
- contrary to the manual, the lack of a governor's
residence does not limit the potential prosperity for a city
- the manual is misleading about the requirements for the Luxury Palace,
the best house in the game. Only three kinds of food are needed, not four,
and only three temples, not five. Everything else about it is correct,
though. I tried adding the last two temples, and importing vegetables
(the only food I hadn't brought in yet). The palace residents didn't
care about the temples, and the markets had a hard time just selling
the veggies to them (not that it mattered once they did buy them). So
why does the manual say everything's needed? (pg 45, Scribes Note) Oh,
and the requirement for the Entertainment Advisor window.
Upgrading the ratings in all the advisor windows to 'Perfect' didn't
have an effect either. (by Aaron Jensen,
[email protected])
Pg. 16: There are 10 levels (promotions) after the Citizen rank. The
Emperor Advisor shows the correct pay levels.
Also note that should you slip in and out of debt
several times, Favor is not penalized for each time, but
your prosperity will suffer if you can't maintain a
positive balance.
Pg. 19 & 45: Elevated terrain is not more desirable. Note
that since aqueducts can not cross ramps or rocks,
water availability will be very limited on raised ground.
Pg. 26: Citizens normally walk on roads, but may cut across
gardens, rubble, or the parade ground of a fort.
If this becomes a problem, small statues can be built to
block entry to gardens. Forts are highly undesirable,
and should be built away from housing if at all possible.
Rubble is also undesirable, and should be cleared as
soon as possible.
Pg. 27: No dwelling can draw water from a river or lake.
Wells are needed, at a minimum.
Pg. 29-30: Trade should be an early consideration,
and some trade should be underway well before your
city reaches 1000 people. You don't need to build a
dozen workshops at once, but build enough trade facilities
that you can staff adequately and open trade routes early.
Pg. 38: If your own military cohorts have a chance of defeating
Caesar's legions, by all means fight! If you give up,
you'll be arrested, and if you lose the battle you'll be
arrested, so why not try? While Caesar's legions will
wait for one year outside your city gates, they will attack
if you attack them (including ballistae or sentry attacks!).
You only need to raise your Favor to 35 in that year to
prevent an invasion.
Pg. 63: It is suggested to set "Security and Fire Prevention"
as top priority in the Labor Advisor in order to keep riots
under control. This should be done under "
Prefectures" since "Security and Fire Protection" does
not exist.
Pg. 72: Some maps that have waterborne trade do not have flotsam.
Waterways that aren't rivers (coastline, inner harbors)
do not have flotsam but can still be utilized for sea trade.
Pg. 75: The manual states that it takes three cartloads of timber to
build fishing ships. No timber is required.
Pg. 80: Schools educate 75 children each, not 50.
Pg. 108:Governor's residences only have desirability
affects. Ignore everything else about paying from personal
savings, and effects on prosperity
Pg. 119:"Request Food" is now "Getting Food." "Maintain Level"
is now "Getting Goods." Both have the effect of having the
inherent warehouse/granary cart pusher go out and get
the requested items to bring back.
Pg. 136-7: Reservoirs do NOT need labor and hence do not
receive orders from the labor advisor. Aqueducts CAN
intersect and cross each other. Aqueducts have no
effect on desirability.
Pg. 142:Towers need to be placed on a double thick wall (
four-square unit).
Pg. 144:Gatehouses do NOT need road access.
Pg. 145:Soldiers do NOT draw their pay from the treasury or have
any effect on anything (except enemies).
Pg. 146:Barracks try to collect 4 cartloads of weapons to keep
on hand.
Pg. 166:The Commerce: Labor overlay is now the Risks: Problems
overlay.
Pg. 184:The space bar does not pause the game, the 'P' button does.
You cannot build anything while the game is paused.
Building Summary Table errors (pg. 201-212)
Academy: Cost = 100
Aqueduct: Desirability effect = 0,
can link any number of reservoirs together
Bridge, Ship: Minimum length = 5 tiles
Dock: Engineering building
Fountain: 4 laborers needed
Gatehouse: No road access, no laborers, cost =100
Governor's Residences: No laborers and no prosperity effect
Granary: Cost = 100
Hippodrome: Laborers = 150
Hospital: Cost = 300
Military Academy: Cost = 1000
Mission Post: Is an education structure
Oracle: Cost = 200 + 2 units of Marble
Reservoir: No laborers
Shipyard: Engineering building
Statues: These have no effect on prosperity.
Statue, Medium: Cost = 80
Statue, Large: Cost = 150
Temple, Large: Cost = 150 + 2 units of Marble
Well: No laborers
Wharf: Engineering building
Appendix M - Frequently Asked Questions WITHOUT answers
If this sounds strange, well it is! These are questions I frequently
receive or ask myself. I am looking for answers, and if you find any,
do not hesitate to send them in to
[email protected]! TIA.
- In what scale does Caesar increase favor score in relation to how
fast you actually deliver goods he required? (i.e. he requires e.g.
fruit and you deliver that instantly compared to you need xx months).
- Sometimes sheep cluster together in just a few tiles - is there
any significant meaning to this?
- When do the bookmarks in SIERRA.INF come into effect?
Appendix N - Known Bugs and Errors
Any bugs fixed with the enhancement package are listed under
"things fixed" in the section on the enhancement package and were
removed from this listing. Those that remain are shown here.
- After assignment #03 being Tarentum choosing Tarraco will lead you
to a briefing saying you will need to get less citizens into
your city - but actually it's the same amount as in assignment #03,
2500 respectively for each city.
- Sometimes sheep cluster together on a stone in the beginning of
an assignment; you cannot frighten them away with civilization (as you
can usually do), you cannot build mines nearby.
- During the Miletus assignment it happened that my dock did not serve
any boat although it was fully staffed, the trade advisor was set to
export above 0 (export whenever there are goods in the city) and there
were 54 weapons, 4 oil and 20 meat (fish) in the city. It did not help
to reload or to rebuild the dock.
- After assigning a part of the map to a key (using Ctrl-F1 for instance)
and changing the direction you are facing the map (i.e. rotating
the map) you will be transported to a false position. This happens
because you are placed on the same coordinates relative to the center
of the map, but not on absolute coordinates of the map. So, to
make it clear using an example: Say you had your Senate at point A
on the map, and three screens to the right and one up (approximately..)
you place your map Ctrl-F1 bookmark. Now you switch to South view
for instance instead of East view.
Although the Senate has changed its orientation you are still
transported three screens right and one up from the Senate's position,
which will NOT bring you the saved position but elsewhere.
Following is the graphical interpretation:
X
|
A---
A = Senate
X = saved position
You now would switch directions, e.g. facing North instead of
West. Normally you would have to be transported to a map piece like
this:
A---
|
X
However, the scheme for transportation stays the same as in the
first graphical interpretation - you are transported only relative
to the Senate's position without taking heed of your current facing.
Probably little people are using this nifty feature but aside
from vary fast scrolling, going out-of-bounds (see SWATs) can
be very handy! Also a quick check where enemies usually appear can
save you time since you do not have to press PAUSE and scroll around
the whole (sometimes a little huge) scenario map.
- do not have any write protected files with .sav extension in the
installation directory - this will hinder the game from saving correctly
- contrary to the online help there is no green cursor when you are
(h)over on a water supplying installation
- Although you may have free housing space, incoming immigrants seem
to reserve them, becaus ehaving eighty immigrants in front of your
city walls will make the general advisor say "lack of housing prevents
immigration" while you still have twenty housing spaces free (for
instance..).
- Sometimes rubble space is called "nowhere" instead of the description
you find when right-clicking on it.
Appendix O - Searching for Caesar III topics on the interNet
There are, among various well known sources a load of internet addresses
where you may retrieve new or old information. It would be impossible
for a single person to keep track of this FAQ and in fact keep up with
all the news that may be out there on a the globe of the Earth.
Because of this I decided to release my resources on the game Caesar III
to the public, meaning I will display a lot of the internet addresses
I more or less regularly visit to find out the latest things on the
game. If you are not completely familiar with web addresses or how to
surf the web, gopher or archie the internet, please do not contact me.
Although I am experienced in these areas my spare is much too small
than to yield enough space for explainations on archie, gopher or
likewise utilities. If you need assistance ask your local computer guru,
or, alternatively, if such is not at hand, please call your PC vendor.
Should she/he not know anything about how to help you finding
retrieving information from the addresses shown below, please consult
any other help file you find. Only in the worst case, if you are sure
that you have tried everything ask me about how to use archie,
veronica or any other internet service aside from world wide web (which
I may gladly explain to you, if you need assistance). World Wide Web
FAQs and information are primarily distributed through providers
or - if you cannot find any, try
http://www.w3.org. This site
provides most comprehensive information on HTML and all things
related to it. You probably will be able to find a Q&A file to your
specific question. And usually there are tons of other users willing
to help you. So much for the promotion of this website.
http://www.gamefaqs.com Distribution Site CJayC
GameFAQs is renowned and well known site carrying loads of hints, tricks,
FAQs, descriptions, cheats and more on games of about all the platforms
you may think of. There are console (videogame) cheats among PC
cheats and arcade machine cheats. If you ever need help this should be
your number one stop.
Also, there the newest (i.e. most recent, if you like) version of this
file released to the public will always be retrievable from this site.
http://caesar3.heavengames.com
Offers a lot of information among small walkthrough assistance.
http://www.prima.net/panther/caesar3.htm
This site, mostly private I believe, offers a trainer for unlimited
money, unlimited granary items and level skipping (NOT tested)
http://www.gamepower.com:3030/games/html/5750demo.html
Cheats, Demos, Downloads, Patches, Walkthroughs, Videos
Inofficial Caesar 3 related fan sites
Caesar III Heaven
http://caesar3.heavengames.com
Caesar III Unlimited
http://members.tripod.com/~Caesar398/index.html
Caesar 3 HomePage
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/2713/
Caesar 3 Fan's Club (Chinese)
http://caesar3.zg169.net
The Caesarea Scenario Club
http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/barnsbury/31
Caesar 3 Map Archive
http://members.xoom.com/caesar_map
Caesar's Senate
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~sos/
The Preatorium
http://members.xoom.com/constantn
Caesar III & Lawmaster5
http://welcome.to/lawmaster5
The Colloseum
http://underworld.fortunecity.com/jedi/409/
German Caesar III Homepage
http://home.t-online.de/home/Vera.Herzog/
Caesar III Music Player Page
http://users.aol.com/dheitm8612/test.htm
The Gaming Vision
http://www.homestead.com/gamingvision
Caesar III Senate
http://caesar3senate.webjump.com
Cobra's Caesar 3 Page
http://caesar3.cjb.net
Alles ueber Caesar III (German)
http://home.t-online.de/home/muckel.simi
Appendix P - Fun Facts
I've just found some fun things in Caeasr 3:
- a missionary named "Crescitus Amorus" (creator of love)
- an actor with the name "Circus Duglus"; may that be Kirk Douglas?
names like "Robertus Rubervadus", "Burtus Renoldus" and so on -
sounds familiar, non?
Also, Robin Williams has hit the Roman roads: "Robinus Viliamenus"
Aside from these, who does not know "Patricus Stuartus"?
- legionaries with the names "Mortuus Timemus" ("we fear death" in
Latin)
- probably one of the best names is: "Vorfus Clingonius" for a
prefect stating "I'll fight to the death!"
- an engineer known as "Refector Defectus" ("grow back structural
integrity")
- a tax collector called "Impudensus Lenus" ("impudens" = the one
without patience)
- an engineer called "Montgumurs Scottus" (from ST:TOS)
- an engineer named "Semperius Paratus" (always ready)
- a tax collector - behold this one - "Vampirus Sanguinsanus" (sanguinic
vampire)
- a priest called "Vinus Veritus" (probably you know the phrase
"in vino veritas" - there's truth in wine..)
- an immigrant with the name "Germanicus Lupus" - this probably needs
a bit of explaination: germanicus means "German", and lupus means
"Wolf" - German wolf...
- a priest with the name "Gustibus Disputandus" ... means "you can
fight on tastes"
[END OF FILE]
