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Caesar IV Q&A Feature
Derek dela Fuente
06/07/2006
The Caesar series is back later in the year as TVG takes a look at what Tilted Mill Entertainment have in store...
Stretching back as far as 1993 and gaining popularity on the PC and Amiga, the Caesar series by all sense and purposes was based around the SimCity concept, but one that added military aspects and a Roman theme.
Eight years after the last title in the series and from the ashes of the former developer, Impressions Games, many notable employees helped to establish Tilted Mill Entertainment in 2001, who have been working away on the fourth title in the Caesar series. Promising to continue a new trend in city-building games and switch to a fully 3D engine, TVG spoke with a collection of the development team, Titled Mill, to find out more about the game.
On behalf of Tilted Mill Entertainment: Chris Beatrice (CB) Lead Designer, Caesar IV President, Tilted Mill Entertainment; Tony Leier (TL) Senior Designer, Caesar IV; Mat Williams (MW) Producer, Caesar IV and Matt Zimmitti (MZ) Designer, Caesar IV.
Firstly, can you please tell us about the development team Tilted Mill, and what you have worked on before?
CB: Many members of the Caesar IV team played key roles in prior games in the Caesar series, and other Impressions/ Sierra titles. I know it sounds like a cliché, but there really are too many credits to list them all here... but for example, I (Chris Beatrice, lead designer) was the lead designer on Pharaoh and Zeus, and creative director / general manager on CIII, supervising designer on Cleopatra and Poseidon, and art director on Caesar II; Tony Leier (senior designer) was the lead designer on Poseidon, one of the designers of Zeus, lead tester on Pharaoh, tester on Caesar III, and supervising designer on Emperor; Keith Zizza (composer) wrote music for Pharaoh and Zeus, and even did some sound work on Caesar II, the art leads on C4 were the senior artists/ leads on Caesar III, Pharaoh and Zeus; Caesar IV's lead programmer was the lead programmer on Pharaoh and Zeus; our development support manager was a producer on Pharaoh, manager on several other Caesar series title, etc., etc...
"Other similar games... feel either like hardcore simulations or strategy-less, gameplay-less toys by comparison."
What kind of continuation does Caesar IV have from previous games as many gamers may not be au fait with the brand and how would you best describe Caesar IV? To add, the first Caesar games were extremely popular so what do you put some of the initial success down to?
CB: I think the Caesar series has been so successful because it is a unique blend of strategy gameplay and "living people." Other similar games, such as the city simulations proper, or tycoon games, feel either like hardcore simulations or strategy-less, gameplay-less toys by comparison. It seems paradoxical, but a lot of the reason why your cities in the Caesar games have always been so engaging is because they are alive, have personality, and are challenging to build. On top of that, as the series developed, particularly with the Caesar III generation, most of the internal systems were brought to the surface, so you could see them directly as they functioned. For example, when a delivery of some goods passes a home, you see it upgrade to a new level. Lastly, I think the graphical look and feel of these games has always been somewhat unique, or at least uncommon. The Caesar games have never been dark, always light, and somewhat humorous even.
With Caesar IV of course our main imperative was to make sure we captured those basic dynamics, while creating new and cleaner systems to drive the gameplay.
The player will be presented with the choices to build and manage new cities and prepare existing cities for war at different points in the game. Do both of these requests offer alternative ideas and tasks, and does the game have a progression line that will ensure you feel very much part of the expanding Roman Empire?
TL: To clarify, you are almost always building new cities. At each stage in a campaign, you can choose between an economic or a military focus scenario. The gameplay between the two choices is the same- the difference is in what we make the scenario's challenge and tone. For example, in an economic scenario, you may have to build a city to support a large population of wealthy people, while having basic defences against small groups of barbarian raiders. In a similar military scenario, you would build a city to support a moderate population of middle class citizens, while building strong fortifications and some cohorts to defend against numerous Carthaginian invaders.
In addition to inspiring the basic game model, the history of Rome also provides inspiration for interesting scenarios and situations. We've put the campaign scenarios together in a timeline that basically follows the expansion of the Roman Republic and Empire. We are not trying to strictly follow Roman history; we're creating a historical setting from which you can create some history of your own. So yes, you will feel like you are a part of the growth of Rome.
The city-building genre has seen a number of recent releases and Rome appears to be very popular with future releases, so what do believe are the real innovations on offer with Caesar IV?
CB: It's hard to reduce C4 to a set of separate bullet points or innovations, because by its very nature the game is about a holistic experience. Our challenge in making this game runs very deep. It is about integrating a very wide range of systems, player actions, buildings and characters that all "sing" together in real time. It's about building and tinkering with a living machine, overcoming challenges, and trying to achieve specific goals on top of that. When you build and manage a big city in C4 you are like a conductor with your orchestra. We did not approach the design by asking ourselves, "what can we do that has not been done before," but more like, "how can we better realize the promise of the Caesar games? How can we make what is fun about them MORE fun, and more accessible?"
Now, to try to answer your question more specifically, I'd say the main innovations in C4 relative to its predecessors are:
Intelligent citizens (people have needs, and seek to fulfil them). This extends throughout the game, where factory retrievers, for example, fetch raw materials for factory workers to manufacture into finished goods. Prior games used a "push" (delivery) system which resulted in resources not always going where you wanted them to. In C4 there are NO "stupid people," no random wanderers.
C4 also features three separate social classes: plebes, equites and patricians (lower, middle and upper class, respectively). Each depends on the class(es) below it (and plebs obviously has no one to depend on).
There's also, of course the graphics engine. I'm overjoyed with how the look of this game has turned out. I don't think there's anything else like it out there.
How detailed and elaborate will trading be and how easy is it to build up the basic economy?
TL: The difficulty in building up the economy varies between scenarios, depending on what resources you have available in the scenario and what the terrain of the province is like. There are a lot of interactions and parts of the economy. However, we've set up the economy so it's clear and easy to figure out its components, and the game is therefore a matter of steadily building up the economy and utilizing the profits well, rather than figuring out the obscure tricks of the game systems, which is sometimes the gameplay in simulation games.
Trade is part of the detailed and robust economic system, and there are a lot of interesting strategic economic decisions to make with trade. However, trade in itself is simple- it's the exchange of money for goods (as well as the management of trade buildings).
Success is about balancing the wellbeing of the population - its prosperity, culture, security - along with each household having a rating for a number of facets. Can you tell us how this process works, what part will religion play, how the classes work?
TL: Those are 3 huge questions there, so here are the basics.
Rome and Caesar measure the quality of your city by looking at the city's population, and its ratings: prosperity, culture, security, and favor. Prosperity is a measure of the wealth of a city. The culture rating is based on how well the population has access to entertainment, healthcare, education, and religion. Security is how well defended and crime free the city is, and favor is a measure of what Rome and Caesar think of you personally. Raising one rating or population often makes it harder to raise other ratings- for example, adding more homes to increase population means you have more homes that you have to protect to keep your security rating high, and more people you need to reach with various services to keep your culture rating up.
Religion plays many parts in the game. For one, it is a measure of culture. Religion is also desired by patricians before they will improve (evolve) their homes. If you have a lot of people worshipping a deity, then you will get some benefits from having a strong cult to that deity - for example, if the church of Ceres is strong, then you get some agricultural benefits from their knowledge. Finally, whatever deity is the most worshipped in your city has a change of granting you specific boons.
Social classes are quite important in Caesar 4. Each social class requires different things to be content, and each social class has a different role in the city. Plebs, the lower class, work in harvesting and industry. Their needs are modest- food, clean water, and a good wage. Equites are the middle class and are the skilled workers of the city, such as doctors, entertainers and priests. Equites require more clean water, more kinds of food, and basic goods. Patricians are the upper class. They do no work and require everything that the lowers classes do as well as additional luxury goods. Patricians pay taxes, which makes them quite important to a good governor.
What kind of micromanagement/resource management does the game offer that you believe extends the genre and does success open up the game to be even more expansive? Early on how do you gauge success and what are some of the starting parameters for the player?
MZ: Early on, you will spend time working with limited resources in an effort to elevate your people as much as possible. As play continues, you are given more resources to work with, but the challenges in the scenarios will become increasingly difficult. Based on how you lay out your city and how you delegate your labor, you have a lot of control over how resources are produced and distributed. In the bigger cities this is key. Gauging success is easy... you need only look around at your city. Your citizens will upgrade their homes if you provide for their lavish tastes. Even with all the tools for success, prosperity can be difficult to accomplish. It's not simply a matter of what is available in a given scenario. Your ability to manage your resources is what makes a great governor.
How sophisticated and pivotal is the game's AI and how hard is it to create living vibrant communities?
TL: One of the innovations mentioned earlier is in figure AI - the intelligent citizen. You can build a food market and know that the workers at the market will go retrieve food from storage in granaries for the market. These workers will go to the closest place they can to get what they want.
You also know that the people that live in the various homes will travel to the food market and purchase food when they need it. In other words, the intelligent citizen AI makes the buildings of a city work like they would in real life, making the interactions and the feedback easy for the player to grasp and work with. That pushes the gameplay onto being a governor and deciding where and when to build things and managing finances, and away from trying to decipher how an obscure game system works through trial and error.
With the introduction of a 3D engine what do you see as some of the technological features within the game, as Caesar has never been a brand that is cutting-edge or sold on its look?
MW: Graphics cards and technology have for a long time been focused on the needs of the first person shooter, i.e. up close high-detailed, often static environments. These are in direct opposition to the look and feel needed for Caesar IV's expansive landscapes and numerous highly detailed, unique buildings. We've overcome these limitations to create some pretty astounding visuals. You don't see other games with a free camera and the number of individual objects that have the plethora of visual features we have such as a full day-night cycle, weather effects, bump and specular mapping, light bloom, reflections, and shadows. It's hard to point at one particular thing, but the sum total is a lot more than what's been done in the past. The long city shots at sunrise and sunset are particularly impressive - they've been described as looking at a watercolor on a monitor.
Tell us about the interface; the focus to ensure its intuitiveness and any other distinguishing features!
MZ: The UI has certainly gotten a lot of attention over the course of development. Its general layout is simple, allowing you quick access to what you need for building. We've also layered it in such a way that finding more detailed information is easy and straightforward. Players of previous games in the series will quickly recognize some classic elements in the UI (overlays, advisors) that are very familiar. Still, we have made sure to improve on everything (and I mean everything), building off the knowledge gained from our previous endeavors. Buildings are categorized with play in mind and all the most vital information is easy to get a hold of. You could learn how to play Caesar IV just by looking at the UI.
The move to 3D clearly has brought about its own specific changes to how you interact with your city. Overall, you really get a wonderful sense of scope when you zoom in and out of your cities. You could spend a few minutes watching some plebs crush grapes at a winery then zoom all the way out and see that that winery is in the shadow of a coliseum that happens to have a gladiator match going at the time. The sound embellishes of this as well, making the experience feel like you are building a real city, rather than just looking at a picture of one.
How much factual research goes on into the settings/scenarios and were there any facts that were thrown up that surprised the team during the development of Caesar IV?
MZ: A lot of factual research does go into the creation of the scenarios, but it is an interesting and organic process to mold that into a coherent campaign. Generally, we try to take a small piece of what made a particular city important or memorable and build off that concept. You may see an easily recognizable layout of geography. You might see familiar foes who want to raze your city to the ground. All in all, each city needs to be unique in terms of the play experience and that is what we stay focused on.
Here's a little historical tidbit. There was an exotic plant called Silphium that was once grown near the city of Cyrene. For whatever reason it could only be grown in that tiny area of the world and the Romans used the plant as a sort of miracle cure for just about every ailment you can think of. It eventually was over-harvested and became extinct. You'll be able to trade for it as an exotic good in Caesar IV for a while, but at a certain point in the last campaign it is no longer available.
What kind of editors will the game include and how 'moddable' will the game be?
CB: We're intending to ship the game with a fairly robust campaign and scenario editor (the same one we use to make scenarios). There is also a scripting language that more advanced users can tinker with to make their own custom scenarios.
Finally, any thoughts you'd like to share with our readers?
CB: Just that we are absolutely thrilled to continue working on the series. It's been too long!!
TVG would like to thank the team at Tilted Mill Entertainment for providing this insight into the game. Caesar IV is slated for an October release, so keep an eye out for further coverage soon.
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