Caesar III is a strategy game rather original and fun. Based on the classic gameplay mechanism of Sim City, we are supposed to take on a public office management job in the ancient Rome and we have the development of a region where we must set up a city in our hands. The resemblances with Sim City end up there and what really belongs to Caesar III starts here, a strategy game fairly well built with a large amount of options available, this makes it very addictive.

With correct graphics and a suitable soundtrack, the interesting thing of this game is the system of menus and the options available there, like in any other strategy game. The controls do not need many explanations, we simply use the mouse for everything. Maybe we can have an outlook of the game itself instead: the objective of each stage is founding a Roman colony whose target can be either commercial or defensive. Then an estimated number of population must be reached; we always start on a virgin field which only disposes of a road where inmigrants come when the city is attractive and where emigrants go out when the city is suffering a crisis. First, there must be built some little huts along the mentioned via, which must also have a clear access to water (first the dirty one of a well, then the clean one of a deposit, so we must construct aqueducts here and thereby); near of the huts we have to place engineering posts and prefectures which avoid collapses and destructive fires; and also, as a basic measure, we have to create farms and fields for variated growings which markets or warehouses will distribute in the area.

But these are only the basics. Huts will become small hovels, then big hovels, then houses, etc. and so on up to more than 20 different sorts of housing buildings, but only if there are the resources required for a housing building to evolve. Therefore the industry must also be developed: sawdusts, clay shafts, mines and quarries, etc.; and there must be available not only raw material but also elaborated products from those materials which will only be distributed if they arrive first to a near warehouse and then to a near market and if there are workshops where they accept a specific raw material; we can also import raw/elaborated material if we open commercial rutes with other cities; we can pay either in cash or in kinds; the naval industry will have to be developed for such a thing, then ports will have to be created, and docks, and the existing fleet will depend on our good or bad management.

Besides, we must beware of gods. Temples dedicated to five gods are necessary because if they become angry they can ruin our growings or make people be in bad mood or increase violence and emigration. If we make efforts to maintain a god in a good mood we obtain the opposite effect: we can discover hidden ware in the warehouses, see our farms generating double harvest or even receive a protector spirit who retains the enemy outside our city. Because not like in other strategy games, Caesar III is not prominent on account of the military side. In fact, if our management is awful each year once and again and the Caesar perceives from Roma that we only waste his confidence and money, we are likely to suffer an attack from an imperial legion which will punish us (in other words, game over).

We must also construct theaters, amphitheaters, circuses, colleges for kids, academies and educative/training centres to bring up gladiators and actors; baths, general or local hospitals, gardens, statues, etc.

The really fun point of this game lies in the decisions we must take as: Is it better to import or to export, and where (from), can or can't I produce this material? Which sector should I create employment for? Is that neighbourhood so populous that it is becoming unattractive? Should I fortify the city now or wait for having a better budget? What do people need? Where should I invest money?

Some details give the game a special taste: for example, the translation into Spanish is really cool above all in situations like when we click on a citizen and they tell us, still walking on their own way, their opinion about our town or city. If there is too much unemployment, violence, taxes, etc. And each citizen will rate us as who they are: kids, a merchant woman, dockers, barbers, or the mythic breeder of Leo, the lion of the beasts' house.

Caesar III is a game very very enjoyable and all the lovers of strategy will like it. It is enormously long, because we must found more than 10 colonies and each one can last several days; and a bit monotonous if we have been much time playing and we play advanced stages with that terrible level of difficulty. But it worths playing it and an evidence of it is the fact that we fancy repeating another game from the beginning after some time without a game at all.