It's not like the game is unplayable with a bad framerate - it is just a city builder afterall - but it's not always fun. The issue is more that those players without great computers are going to be in for some framerate issues.

Check out the comparison pictures below for a better idea of what the game will look like after the options are turned down. Thankfully the effects and options can be turned down for a much better, but not perfect, framerate and the game will still look decent. When the heavy rain effects come pouring down on the city it's frustrating as hell to play the game at all. It can take three or four clicks on a building option to get the game to recognize the selection. The slowdown can cause enough delay that the game won't recognize mouse clicks either. It seems like a 3GHz processor 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 7800 (not the best computer, but not a chump either) would be enough to run the game at a decent framerate with settings on high and 1280x960 resolution. Unfortunately, that pretty pop comes with a hefty price. Plenty of effects like bloom make the world pop in 3D like these games used to when they were sprite based. Buildings are colorful and factories are lively with animations when active and idle. Tilted Mill has done a wonderful job making the visuals lovely as well. My version of an ancient Roman society may be a bit more ordered and grid-like than their own, but I love it just the same. As houses rise and cart-pushers, citizens, and workers begin going about their business a small city becomes a large one and suddenly it's a lively bustling well-oiled ancient metropolis. It's really something else to take an empty spot of land and build something glorious from the ground up. Even with the problems, it was nice to get back into Rome for a bit of city building.Ĭity building can be a very rewarding genre.

Caesar IV is definitely good in some respects but has just missed some important aspects of user interface design and hasn't exactly mastered the technical aspect of engine design.

Now that we have the final, we're less happy than we were, but not cursing at the gods either. After seeing initial screens and then builds of the game we were even happier since the game looked to be moving along swimmingly. We're big fans of Impressions' old city building classics like the Caesar series so hearing that some of the old Impressions guys at Tilted Mill were taking another shot at that venerable series got us pretty excited.

Caesar iv any good