Caesar

Caesar is a building strategy game in which the player founds a Roman city in a newly conquered province and tries to keep its population happy, its treasury full, and the barbarians at bay. The game is split into two layers. On the provincial map, decisions concern the development of the whole region, its roads, trade with neighbors and military campaigns, while the city portion is a classic building game where, tile by tile, a network of streets, houses, wells, baths, temples and theaters takes shape.

A properly built city is an organism. Dwellings transform on their own from shacks into decent houses and eventually into villas, but only if they have access to water, food, safety and entertainment, so placing services correctly is the game's main puzzle. Warehouses, markets and workshops need to be built for this, tax collection must be watched, and care must be taken that dissatisfied citizens don't abandon the city. The other half of the game is defense. Barbarians come from the edges of the map, and the city needs walls, towers and a garrison that can be reinforced with hired troops, and sometimes it's necessary to march out into the field even beyond your own territory. Success is measured by career advancement within the Roman administration, so the player moves from smaller provinces to richer, more demanding ones.

Technically, Caesar is restrained: a clear bird's-eye map, iconic interface elements, and music that tries to evoke an antique mood without heavy pathos. The game's charm lies in watching a handful of houses gradually become a sprawling city with a forum and aqueducts. At the time, it was one of the first successful city builders with a historical theme, and the series continued with further installments, the third of which in particular influenced the entire genre of antique city builders. Today the first Caesar is more of a historical document, but it has its own calm and clarity that later, far more complex games never managed to replicate. Anyone wanting to see where antique city building on computers began will find here a surprisingly playable and still legible foundation for everything that came after.