CIV-CITY: Rome... wtf is this game?

[Jonny]

No, it's still here. Unless CC:R gets really good reviews, I'll probably wait for Caesar IV instead...

[asleepathewheel]

CCR

[Skanky Burns]

Credence Clearwater Revival.

[Locutus]

I was a tester for CivCity: Rome, here's my thoughts on the game in case anyone cares. It's a fun little game, probably not the best city builder ever (but I haven't played all that many to be honest so I wouldn't really know), but I enjoyed playing it.

I like the concept of gathering resources to upgrade to a new housing level, that was new to me. The fact that citizens will only walk a limited distance to get what they need makes for some interesting strategy even if the economic model itself isn't horribly complicated (which IMO is a good thing: less is more). Especially upgrading to an Insulae [sic] is just the coolest thing: you can place them on top of existing shops. The highest level of houses are quite hard to achieve and maintain though, it gets a bit tedious to be honest (but fortunately you rarely actually need those to win, you can usually settle for a lower level) -- but maybe that's just because I suck at controlling the flow of goods.

It's cool that they added research as a game element, I don't think (m?)any other city builders have that. I also like how it has controllable disasters -- not sure how common that is in this genre but in the games I've played there either aren't any disasters at all or they're completely random. In CivCity there are things like fires, riots, disease, wild animal attacks -- all of which can be prevented by building the right buildings in the right places. There's also lots of flavour in terms of random events, the Civilopedia (which is very, very detailed and accurate, lots of interesting information on life in ancient Rome), featured buildings and resources, citizen comments, music (which is fantastic!), etc. The game is quite lively: ambient sounds everywhere and it's great how you can follow your citizens go about their daily business (whether inside or outside of buildings). It really feels like you're in charge of a Roman city, something I've seen other city building games do much less well. Even Civilization could probably learn a thing or two from CC:R in this regard.

The military elements are plain crap though, way too simplistic and the military UI sucks donkeyballs. The builder User Interface OTOH is for the most part quite good, it gives you all the information you need and unnecessary clicking is reduced to a minimum (there were still a few minor bugs and issues with the last build I played but that wasn't the version that went gold (not even close) so I hope/assume they fixed most of that). The one thing I thought was still missing were keyboard shortcuts, hopefully they still added those.

The tech tree and wonders in the game feel very civ-esque, the prestige system is roughly based on the score system in Civ (though unlike in Civ it actually has a big impact on gameplay), and the game has the same light-heartedness as the Civ games: some of the comments you'll get from your citizens are quite funny (and certainly sufficiently varied so that they don't get old too fast). Other than that it's a lot more like Caesar (or so I've heard, never got around to playing it) than like Civilization though, it's really a builder game with some of the same flavour as Civ than a merger between Civilization and a builder game as it's advertised to be.

If you're a die-hard city builder, you will definitely want to pick up this game. It's not the most complex or challenging game of its genre, but above all it's fun. If you're a die-hard Civver but not much of a fan of city builder games you should probably skip this one, it just doesn't have enough 'Civ' in it to justify you buying it. If you like city builder games but aren't a hard-core player, I say it should probably depend on what your budget for games is and what other types of games you like, there may well be better titles out there, in this genre or others (now I've played this I certainly plan to give Ceasar IV a try as well). You may want to wait until the price drops a little. Personally wouldn't pay €40 for this but it's definitely worth €20, maybe €25-30 depending on how much was changed between the last build I played and the release version.

[Adagio]

I have played for about an hour, it is a bit fun, but not the best city builder game around. So far all my settlements has remained small, so I haven't seen that much yet (just started on the campaign)
'
The research part so far seems a bit pointless. As far as I have played you've alway got enough money to research everything, and all research is done very fast. In screenshots I've seen, you see a tech-tree kinda like civ (where you can see which techs you get access to by researching the different techs), but I haven't seen that in the game yet. In the game you can only see the techs currently avaliable for research, you can't see what you have researched, and you can't see what other techs you can get access to
I don't like it that you have to research everything all over for each new map you get to play in the campaign. IMHO the campaign would have been better if you only got to do a little research for each game, but all the techs you got in one map would follow you further in the campaign. This could probably give the campaign some more replay-value, while also being a bit more realistic

So far the game is what I expected it to be (I had low hopes for this game), I hope Caesar IV will be better
But I'll reserve my final judgement until I've spent more time with the game

[Lul Thyme]

You guys are talking about Caesar and games that are linked together.
Did you that that the Original Caesar could be linked with Cohort II to fight the battles??
I had both games

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(video_game)
"At the same time as Caesar, Impressions developed another Roman-themed game, Cohort 2, a game which allowed the player to direct Ancient Roman battles in a style akin to a crude precursor of the Command & Conquer series. Impressions included a feature in Cohort 2 which allowed players of Caesar to load their saved files and play out the battles from Caesar in Cohort 2. Later, Impressions released an updated version of Caesar which automatically launched a version of Cohort 2 whenever the player engaged in battle. This version was released under the title Caesar Deluxe in 1994."

The main problem with this was that Cohort II sucked.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Adagio
I have played for about an hour, it is a bit fun, but not the best city builder game around. So far all my settlements has remained small, so I haven't seen that much yet (just started on the campaign)
'
The research part so far seems a bit pointless. As far as I have played you've alway got enough money to research everything, and all research is done very fast. In screenshots I've seen, you see a tech-tree kinda like civ (where you can see which techs you get access to by researching the different techs), but I haven't seen that in the game yet. In the game you can only see the techs currently avaliable for research, you can't see what you have researched, and you can't see what other techs you can get access to
I don't like it that you have to research everything all over for each new map you get to play in the campaign. IMHO the campaign would have been better if you only got to do a little research for each game, but all the techs you got in one map would follow you further in the campaign. This could probably give the campaign some more replay-value, while also being a bit more realistic

So far the game is what I expected it to be (I had low hopes for this game), I hope Caesar IV will be better
But I'll reserve my final judgement until I've spent more time with the game

Research becomes more useful in 'full' games, when you actually have to decide between one thing or another thing, because you have a long research tree. The opening campaigns are basically just a simple tutorial (that lasts for a long time... )

[DrSpike]

To cover lack of any real content?

[Kloreep]

From Locutus' review, this game frankly sounds like Caesar III w/ a tech tree thrown in.

Considering I have all of Impression's Caesar III-Emperor era city builders and haven't covered even a quarter of the content in them, I don't think I'll be getting this one anytime soon...

[donarumo]

It is like Caesar III but it really takes it to the next level. First, there is the tech tree which does add an element not found in Impression's games. Next, it is true 3D. Being able to zoom in and out and rotate at will add a level of freedom.

The graphics seem to be better on a number of levels. Not only do the buildings seem more detailed but you can see what's happening in each area and the anmations are great. For instance, you can watch your goat farmer club a goat, skin it, then place the meat on a hook. The butcher then runs down, gets the meet, takes it back and carves it up. Just sitting back and watching give the game a great ant-farm element.

So if you liked Impressions releases, I would recommend CivCity, it takes the genre to the next level. Now, we'll have to see what happens with Caesar IV which, based on the screenshots, looks like it takes it to the next level as well.

[rjwoer]

It's definitely not the best game ever, but I've had fun playing it for a few hours, whenever I force myself to take a break from Warlords.

Life is tough

I have very little experience with city building games, so I don't feel equipped to "review" the game. I don't agree with Gamespy that the graphics are ugly. I heard another player call them "uninspired" and I think that hits closer to the mark.

[Arrian]

Hmm, I may have to pick this up at some point (like when it drops in price ). I enjoyed Caesar III (which had its faults, no doubt!).

-Arrian

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Arrian
Hmm, I may have to pick this up at some point (like when it drops in price ). I enjoyed Caesar III (which had its faults, no doubt!).

-Arrian

Ok, I enjoy SIM CITY and Stronghold

Would this be an investment I would enjoy perhaps?

Thanks, to each their own I would say my good friends

[Adagio]

Am I the only one where targeting is WAY OFF? When running the game in 1280x1024 it's impossible to select the correct building (deleting roads is a nightmare). At 1024x768 it's much easier, but the game often selects the wrong building, but at least deleting roads/buildings is easier

[DrSpike]

I read that the problem goes away if you uninstall the game.