f13.net

I finally got around to buying a couple of new games this week and I picked up Sierra/Tilted Mill's Caesar IV (http://www.caesariv.com/us/).  I don't consider myself a competent game reviewer type d00d but I thought I'd talk about it a bit because I seem to recall someone asking about it and the rest of the history sims that came out recently (CivCity Rome, Glory of the Roman Empire)


Good:

- There's enough eye candy to satisfy without killing your rig.  I have the settings on what amounts to "high" and it looks pretty clean, nothing earth shattering though.
- The game play is a bit more fast paced than most city/econ sims. (Which is to me a good thing.) I'd say on par with a Tropico or Total War for learning curve, but nothing as complex as a SimCityXX.
- The overall feel of the game in regards to being historical enough is there, at least for me.  Caveat that I'm an ancient history buff so maybe I'm looking for love in all the wrong places.  Sounds, textures, animations, menu navigation all suitably "Roman".

Bad:

- The deal breaker.  The UI is ATROCIOUS.  Not only is it unintuitive, at times expanded menu elements can actually obstruct you from seeing parts of what you're working on.  I've gotten over it just because I'm so bored with my PC game selection of late, but I won't try and gloss the fact that the UI is so glaringly bad.  Odd in a game that otherwise is put together pretty well.

Misc:

- Dropped to desktop on my first run, immediately had to go get a patch from the official site.  No tech problems since then however.



Summary:  Worth buying if you really like builders or history schtuff, but nothing to make it a standout game you must have in comparison to other games of it's genre out right now.  I'm sure it will get lost in the shadow of Medieval: TW by the end of the year.  Overall I'm glad I bought it over the other two Rome sims, and I played it non-stop last night for four hours.  Worth the money so far. 

It might have been me that asked about it.

Anyhow, thanks for the heads up. Seems like the general consensus is that Caesar IV is preferable to CivCity and and Glory (which is  supposedly total crap).

Well if the reviews at the mainstream gaming sites are any indicator (for lack of any other sources) it seems to be Caesar > CivCity > Glory.  CivCity not having the UI flaws but lacking some depth, and Glory being just a mediocre turd. 

One thing though is that the "players" score for Caesar was generally higher than the score the official reviewers gave.  Which I agree with since the game is fun despite its flaws.

The new Anno game is on my list. I struggled with the first and second one, but after checking the forums for some starter strats, I got into the second one for a while. Pretty cool game series imo. A little exploration, a little simcity, a little tradesim, a little combatsim.