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Ready for more classic city-building? Caesar 3 is a wonderful game from the late 90s and thanks to Augustus (a fork of another project, Julius), you can get a more modern experience with it.

It's a game engine reimplementation, meaning it provides a new game engine for Caesar 3 that works across modern systems including Linux. Not only that, Augustus provides zoom controls, road blocks, a global labour pool, increased game limits and much more - whereas the Julius reimplementation aims to be accurate to the original.

Augustus 3.0.0 and 3.0.1 quickly after bring in some huge new features and changes to the project, making it possibly the best time to get into the classic Caesar 3.

The changelog for the 3.0 release is massive. A little too large to show everything so here's some highlights:

  • Added tavern, a new entertainment building. Requires wine to work, provides extra entertainment with meat.
  • Added arena, a smaller version of colosseum.
  • Added unused bird chirping ambient sound.
  • Added a cheat to unlock all buildings.
  • Added rotated small statues.
  • Added horse statue.
  • Added two types of hedges. They adjust their graphics based on adjacent hedges.
  • Added an option to disallow roamers from skipping corners.
  • Added colonnade.
  • Added tooltips to roadblock controls.
  • Added lararium, a small shrine to lares and ancestor spirits. It functions as a tiny oracle, providing coverage for 20 people to every god and providing positive desirability.
  • Added nymphaeum, a building dedicated to the nymphs. It functions as a large oracle, providing coverage for 750 people to every god and providing a positive desirability.
  • Added small and large mausoleums, functioning the same way as oracles and nymphaeum, except providing negative desirability.
  • Added watchtower, a small building that shoots enemies with arrows and sends out two sentry walkers to patrol the streets against the enemies.
  • Added garden wall gates.
  • Added new cursor icons.

Plus absolutely loads more, so do check out the changelog.

It's a truly incredible project, showing what a few dedicated coders can do for older games and give them a new life.

You do need the original game assets, which you can grab easily with a DRM-free copy of Caesar 3 on GOG.com or Steam. Get a copy of Augustus itself on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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7 comments

Rooster May 18, 2021
Anyone who plays both this and Nebuchadnezzar? I would be interested in their take on both and comparison.
junibegood May 18, 2021
QuoteAdded tavern, a new entertainment building. Requires wine to work

I must be tired. When I read this, my first thought was "Why didn't they make it Linux native instead ?"
ssj17vegeta May 18, 2021
Quoting: RoosterAnyone who plays both this and Nebuchadnezzar? I would be interested in their take on both and comparison.

Two months ago I would have said go for Caesar III without thinking twice, since Nebuchadnezzar was missing several key features. But the thing is, Nebuchadnezzar is quickly catching up (recently added crimes, fire management, clickable workers, and the initially sorely missed sandbox mode).

So for now :
- Ceasar III has : religious and culture buildings/management, architects, a bit more "life" with plenty of clickable citizens to immerse yourself.
- Nebuchadnezzar has control of employees and designable worker "routes", which ensure that your goods are delivered in the citizens' homes.

Then again, with the Augustus team fully committed on adding features, Caesar III should be interesting too.

If you're not familiar with the genre, your choice could be based on the setting (roman/persian).


Last edited by ssj17vegeta on 18 May 2021 at 2:19 pm UTC
Rooster May 18, 2021
Quoting: ssj17vegeta
Quoting: RoosterAnyone who plays both this and Nebuchadnezzar? I would be interested in their take on both and comparison.

Two months ago I would have said go for Caesar III without thinking twice, since Nebuchadnezzar was missing several key features. But the thing is, Nebuchadnezzar is quickly catching up (recently added crimes, fire management, clickable workers, and the initially sorely missed sandbox mode).

So for now :
- Ceasar III has : religious and culture buildings/management, architects, a bit more "life" with plenty of clickable citizens to immerse yourself.
- Nebuchadnezzar has control of employees and designable worker "routes", which ensure that your goods are delivered in the citizens' homes.

Then again, with the Augustus team fully committed on adding features, Caesar III should be interesting too.

If you're not familiar with the genre, your choice could be based on the setting (roman/persian).

Thanks :)
Liam Dawe May 18, 2021
Quoting: ssj17vegetaBut the thing is, Nebuchadnezzar is quickly catching up (recently added crimes, fire management, clickable workers, and the initially sorely missed sandbox mode).
Correction: crime, fire and diseases are coming to the 1.2 update for Nebuchadnezzar, it's not in yet and no ETA on when.
Purple Library Guy May 18, 2021
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: ssj17vegetaBut the thing is, Nebuchadnezzar is quickly catching up (recently added crimes, fire management, clickable workers, and the initially sorely missed sandbox mode).
Correction: crime, fire and diseases are coming to the 1.2 update for Nebuchadnezzar, it's not in yet and no ETA on when.
Without context I'd be quite amazed by how much everyone seems to want fire, crime and diseases!
Tchey May 18, 2021
I’m quite amazed, Caesar 3 is one of the game i played the most back at its time.
Il really has aged well (with Augustus for large screen etc), even given all the "sim games" released since then and being 2021 and all.
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