"An excellent upgrade from Caesar III!"

Caesar IV is a city simulation/combat real time game. Caesar IV as you have probably guessed takes placed in the Roman days back in 400 B.C. and up. This game focuses on building a great city while introducing some military activity as well. You build houses, water structures, justice systems, entertainment, food, bridges, docks, etc. All of these factor into how you accomplish your objective in each map. Each map has a set objective on what you must achieve in your city to move on to the next map. Weather it be 3000 population or 25 favor, or a combination of favor, population, prosperity, and more, you must maintain all of your ratings and get them all to the required level in order to proceed.

Caesar IV is the next in line after Caesar III an older and very similar game. Caesar IV has some of the best graphics yet but you need a really good computer to be able to max everything out and see the glory in the graphics. I personally have a really good laptop and run everything on medium-high and I think it looks fantastic. The graphics are an upgrade from Caesar III for sure.

The sound in this game is also alot better, the music sounds great and the sound effects are great. Another great improvement is the citizen speech, Caesar III had funny speech but this is much more improved now.

Gameplay in Caesar IV is also much better, you do not need to setup roadblocks to stop citizens from going somewhere you don't want them to go, instead they get to their destination regardless and don't get lost. Citizens also go further and are more efficient at their jobs. In addition to all that was in the previous Caesar game they added even more resources and items to make in your city which adds more complexity to the game and makes it more interesting.

Controls in this game are about the same as they were in the previous Caesar, there are no gripes about anything, left click is used to place buildings and objects and right click rotates the camera if you hold it down and also backs you out of the building or object you were going to place. Something to note in Caesar IV is that there is a 360 degree camera not just north, south, east, and west like in Caesar III and you can zoom in if you wish.

Overall I rate this game a 9 and that is because it only adds on to Caesar III. There isn't anything mind-blowing that has been added but just improvements to the third one which was a great game. Someone who is new to the Caesar series may rate this lower because they do not know what they are really playing but any Caesar fan will definitely love this one and if you are new to Caesar then by all means get this one!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/06