I’m talking about computer games from 1998, 1999 and 2000, so they don’t have all that super-duper-fantastic 3D graphics in a super-omfg-high resolution. Instead they feature fixed isometric perspective. But it was, and still is, amazing how they managed to cramp up such details on such a small surface – on maps, buildings, and people – so that everyone could easily figure out what it is and appreciate the details.

I have yet not experienced such appreciation of details and addiction of a cleverly designed game since that time. They don’t make games like this anymore.

The games

Not until quite recently I discovered that most of my favourite strategy games were part of something called the city building series, which is a collection of city-building computer games developed by Impressions Games (++) and published by Sierra (++). They started with their first game Caesar (1992), followed by Caesar II (1995), Caesar III (1998), and Caesar IV (2006), all set in the Roman Empire. Other games were Pharaoh (1999) set in ancient Egypt, Master of Olympus – Zeus (2000) set in ancient Greece, and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (2002) set in ancient China. They all share the same structure, gameplay, building basics and structuring assignments and campaigns with some differences aside the setting. They all focus on city planning, building and managing, although there is some military and war going on.

Of the city building series’ 10 games so far, I’ve only played a few. Two of them I really enjoyed when I was younger; Caesar III and Pharaoh (including its expansion), the third and fourth game in the series. The other games worth mentioning in here are Settlers III, Age of Empires II and finally Civilization IV (which is a newer game I’ve sneaked in here).

Caesar III

Caesar III was released in 1998, published by Sierra and developed by Impressions Games, the third game of their city building series. It’s a real-time strategy game set in ancient Rome. The game features fixed isometric graphics, but you can turn the map in four directions.

The residents’ dwellings develop from tents and shacks up to luxurious villas, depending on your structuring and services, food, trade goods and desirability. All buildings except residents produce a citizen walking the streets, offering their service to whom they pass; which you can right click and read their opinion of the city. You’ll have to manage residents wishes in order for them to develop, religion, entertainment such as theater, colosseum with actor colonies and gladiator schools etc, health care, education, structure care to prevent fire and collapse, law and taxes, market goods, workshops and raw materials, military if your city are being invaded by others, trading routes with other cities, the Caesar’s liking to you by answering his occasionally call of gifts or military help, and the citizens overall mood by providing them safety, entertainment in order of festivals and blessings from the gods.

Caesar III was the game when I was younger, the one I really played the most in the beginning of my teens. Not only because my German father only allowed me to play “somewhat sensible” games and didn’t allow any even-close-to violent games. (I didn’t tell him about the military part) But still, I guess I’ve inherited the love of order and structure from my my father’s German family, and Caesar III rewarded just that. All cities had to be somewhat sensibly structured; residents, food, trading, buildings and even roads had to be carefully placed if the city was to function well. And I loved it.

My screenshots of Caesar III:

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is the fourth game of the city building series, right after Caesar III. It was released in 1999, published by Sierra and developed by Impressions Games. Pharaoh, and its expansion Cleopatra (2000), are real-time strategy games set in ancient Egypt. The graphics are, as Caesar III, fixed isometric, and has, in my opinion, slightly better graphics than Caesar III. If you have played Caesar III, you will find Pharaoh easily understandable and very similar. There are somewhat similar buildings, requirements for the city to run smoothly, and the residents are as demanding as in Caesar III. You trade (different goods though), organize your city and protect or go to war just like in Caesar III.

I like Pharaoh less than Caesar III mostly because of poorer (and more difficult to plan) road and building structuring; all entertainment venues must be built over an intersection, thus making it more difficult to get it all nice and compact. But the game has improved and added many functions and features I missed in Caesar III. So that kinda makes up for it, I guess. In addition, Pharaoh includes monument building – in some scenarios you are required to build mastabas or pyramids of different sizes.

My screenshots of Pharaoh (including Cleopatra):

Settlers III

Settlers III is actually a German (yes, of course it comes in English) real-time strategy game released in 1998. The game was published by Blue Byte, developed by Phenomic Game Development and features isometric graphics, but, unlike Caesar III or Pharaoh, you can’t turn the map in any other directions.

To begin with you need to build wood cutters, sawmills and stone cutters in order to achieve materials needed to build structures. Then you can build several different food production structures that provide each other with necessary goods, mines that produce iron, gold or coal but need food to function, resident buildings that produce more settlers and workers, iron or gold melters and tool- and weaponsmiths to provide your settlement with tools needed to occupy certain structures and weapons to train soldiers. To expand your land you build watch towers that need to be occupied by a certain military swordsman. Eventually you will explore the world and find other settlements with their own land defined by their watch towers. When you have trained enough soldiers, you go to war by taking over the enemy’s watchtowers. When capturing such an enemy watch tower, the land ownership is transferred, and all enemy buildings in the newly owned land are destroyed.

As opposed to Caesar III and Pharaoh, you can’t plan roads for workers to use in Settlers III, you can only place the structures. As enough workers walk roughly the same way, some kind of path appear. I never find the carriers efficient enough, neither in getting their asses off and go carry something nor the actual walking there and carrying between buildings. It takes time for a free settler to realize ‘oh, there is something needed done over there’, and when they do, they walk slowly. You can’t select nor move carriers or settlers and make them do stuff, you can only sit and wait, and get frustrated whenever a settler actually is too far away to find work to do.

My screenshots of Settlers III:

Age of Empires II

Age of Empires II (for PC) from 1999 is developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. The expansion The Conquerors came in 2000. The game is a real-time strategy game and features isometric graphics.

You manage villagers to collect resources such as lumber (chop down trees), food (farms, sheeps or hunting), stone and gold. When you have resources for it, you can build structures that create a selection of different military units, monasteries to create priests, watch towers, resource buildings, houses and buildings which upgrade technologies. At the same time you should explore the map for more resources and locate the enemies. In this game, as opposed to Settlers III and Civilization IV (mentioned next), there is no defined borders of your own land. Instead all units are free to walk anywhere as long as there is a passage through and it doesn’t get killed by wild animals or enemy units. You may build walls to confine yourself behind with gates that only open for you and watch towers to protect you from your enemies, but the more walls you build, the more stone you need.

Sadly the AI of enemies find it clever to periodically send in one or a few enemies into your building centre and try to make havoc (in case I don’t have military units to kill them). I have made it a habit to quickly advance in ages, send workers everywhere on the map to collect all resources before the enemies; especially stone. Already in the beginning I start to create walls with watch towers behind so the enemy units are killed before they even reach the wall and try to destroy it. When I have walled myself in completely, I no longer have to worry about the random, periodically enemy attacks. That’s when I can focus of developing military units, create a huge army of horse-units, siege units and petards (units that explode themselves next to enemy units and buildings).

Screenshots of Age of Empires II (thanks to Google):

Civilization IV

The series of Civilization from Sid Meier is well-known among (turn-based) strategy-gamers, starting with the first Civilization-game already in 1991. Their last game, Civilization IV was released in 2005, published by 2K Games and developed by Firaxis. It also has two expansions; Warlords in 2007 and Beyond the Sword in 2008. The Civilization games are, as opposed to all of the previously mentioned games, turn-based strategy games. Because Civilization IV is quite a few years more recent than the above mentioned games, the graphics are in 3D instead of isometric.

Basically in this game you found cities to take over land, and have to take care to include important resources spread around the map such as food (rice, pigs, bananas, etc), materials (iron, copper, uranium, oil, aluminium etc), goods (gems, spices, ebony, etc). You can construct a large selection of buildings (or wonders) inside your cities which takes a certain amount of turns depending on the city’s population and access to resources around it. The cities can also construct units such as workers who improve the land by adding farms, roads (later on railroads), mines, windmills etc; settlers who are used to found a new city and a large selection of military units. The game slowly progresses in centuries as the turns go by, providing newer technologies and units. A Civilization-game will normally include a number of enemies with their own cities, conquered land and religions, and you can trade, make military deals or go to war against them. You take over a enemy’s city by marching your military units to it and overpower their defense and military force within that city.

My screenshots of Civilization IV: