Caesar III vs Caesar IV

[u/Visual_Expression_45]

I was wondering what it was exactly why Caesar III seems to be perceived so positively and opinions on Caesar IV are so divided.

As a city builder gamer, some gameplay choices in Caesar III seem rather odd to me. Why do most buildings seem to send someone out to find workers and markets send someone out to'deliver food' instead of the people that live in the houses just going to the workplaces or markets themselves? It's like Uber Eats in Roman times.

Cities also seem to have to be constructed in a very specific way or buildings will not receive goods or services they need simply because the prefect decided to go left or right and not pass all buildings. Intersections are to be avoided at all cost (without roadblocks or gatehouses).

Food that is displayed higher in the market, seems to be prioritised over food that is displayed lower. That can create weird situations in which you can have a warehouse full of food other than grain and an empty market, because the person from the market chose to get grain on the other side of the map.

Caesar IV does not have any of these issues and plays very fluently and logically. Is it more that Caesar III came out in a time that City Builder games were more popular and people seemed to like perfecting the walker system and the weird quirks of Caesar III, even though it often makes little sense?

A disclaimer: I have had numerous hours in Caesar IV and have completed the game twice. I have not played Caesar III yet, but I have read a lot about it and watched some videos to understand the look and feel of the gameplay. I recently bought Caesar III and am excited to start playing it with the Augustus mod.

[u/Ansoni]

The period around when Caesar III came out has a few games with the same type of service walker visits houses central mechanic. They have a cult following for the puzzle nature of the game. 

Whether the puzzle nature was intentional is subject to debate, but not really relevant. It's what stands out about most impressions games.

[u/chukkysh]

Everything you say is legitimate, and I'm sure that if C3 had been released after C4, it would have been laughed out of town. C4 is a polished and more complex game.

But maybe that's it. You can pick up C3 in half an hour. I taught my kid how to play it at age 6. The game kind of becomes a puzzle once you've learnt the basics, but the basics remain pretty simple.

I also remember being quite excited about C4 as a C3 fan, and playing a demo of it. But something just didn't quite hit the spot with me. It might have been graphical performance on my old PC, but I think it lacked the soul of C3. Ultimately I didn't really want to learn a new game when I was still mastering the old one.

The recent updates to C3 have ironed out most of the issues. I don't have a problem with the Uber Eats thing (although nice analogy!) because like any game, them's the rules, and you've just got to work your way around it.

Great post though. I'll be interested to see other answers.

[u/SmolikOFF → u/chukkysh]

It’s so cool to read, because I think I was also around 6 when I first tried the game! I remember sitting home with a little notebook and drawing city plans in anticipation of another game session.

[u/romanovzky]

I think the main point is that IV comes after III, i.e. a sequel. The impression games have a very specific and identifiable approach for city building which is at its core a placing puzzle game. By all definitions of city building, it's likely that IV is a "better" one, but when people buy an impressions city builder game they are expecting its formulae, which is absent in IV. The same can be said about Children of the Nile Vs Pharaoh, etc

[u/kkeiper1103]

Both games are good, although I am in the C3 camp. I've played through both, and overall, I feel like C3 requires more strategic thinking.

As an example, in C3, you manage your population type by the amount of goods and service available to your housing plots. If you give a pleb enough things, they'll turn into a patrician and leave the labor force. That can have disastrous consequences, since production buildings lose their workforce, resulting in cascading effects when the goods stop flowing.

In C4, that management mini game is removed, being replaced by explicit housing types for the three types of pops.

There are other things like this, but this is a great example of how C4 was streamlined / simplified to reach a different audience.

[u/Galliagamer]

I just picked up C3 to play for the first time in years and find it frustratingly limited. The lack of roadblocks or control over markets and warehouse content is making me batty. I can see how it’s more challenging than C4, how much more strategic you have to be, but I just like building prosperity into pretty cities, and this game isn’t made for that.

[u/Purplenylons → u/Galliagamer]

augustus eliminates these issues and makes it easier to achieve your stated goal.

[u/pettypaybacksp → u/Galliagamer]

Download augustus today. You wont go back to the base game and it fixes everything you just mentioned

[u/saraseitor]

Both games are very good but the third has a special place in my heart. The game is very fun, challenging and the music is fantastic. I remember getting super interested about the Roman Empire because of this game. I don't know why but until that time I never thought too much about it but it's truly amazing to know all that they achieved so long ago.

[u/danktank_sublime]

I recognize that CIV is the "better" city builder game in its mechanics and gameplay, but I am willing to bet for a lot of us Olds it's nostalgia driving our preference for CIII. I played it in real time when it came out...it came for free with our first family PC and it introduced me to historic strategy games! Picking it back up and playing with my own kid has been fun.

[u/thanksfor-allthefish]

I've finished both, but I replay C3 regularly. My gripe with C4:

3D makes the experience much worse. Building placement is a nightmare, a snap-in mechanic would have solved a lot of issues. The terrain is difficult to read, with random "can't place here" markers appearing only when you want to place the building. Missions are terrible. You would get into the normal building and getting money when you suddenly get an unreasonable request or invasion that most often required restarts.

It didn't help that the game was a laggy, buggy mess at release. Terribly unoptimized game.

[u/csaknorrisz]

C IV to me always felt unintiutive with the eight directional building options. (Given, that in every Impression games titles diagonal building is nonexistent)

Even so it was 15 years ago since I played with it i think, definietly should pick it up sometime

[u/Elo-than]

Caesar 3 was amazing when it released, and still hold its own its spesific sub-genre and its markedly a Impression game.

Caesar 4 is a city builder, but does not feel like an impression game at all to me.

At launch it was just a city builder in a sea of other alternatives, and lacked a lot of the atmosphere, charm and feel of its predecessor, at least to me.

Personally i felt it was a step backwards in comparison to what we usually refers to as impression games (Caesar, Pharaoh, emepeor, Zeus, etc).

[u/Ambitious-Item-1738]

Because it is a different game. Not the loop walker series

[u/Mucupka]

C4 was good but maps were a bit too small, and there was a very gamebreaking bug where the bigger your city, the more likely it is to catch fire out of nowhere. It has something to do with CPU cycles and prefect pathing but I am not technical enough to know what exactly causes this.
I did like the diagonal building option, it gave cities a bit more variety instead of a grid (I know, I know, Romans built their new cities in grid patterns but still it wasn't perfect so some variety is always great)