Confused on Steam Play and Proton? Be sure to check out our guide.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Open source modern Caesar III game engine 'Julius' has a fresh release up

By - | Views: 37,013

Get ready to build a city with the classic Caesar III, as the developer behind the open source game engine Julius tagged a big new release.

Some nice new features were added this time with a new full-city screenshot feature set to Ctrl+F12, it will be a big file of course but it's such a fun feature. A good way to show off all that time you spent. You can also now enable a monthly auto-save, to ensure no lost progress.

There's an "Accept none" option for granaries and warehouses added, a new configuration screen to enable/disable options, the game will start up faster due to delayed loading of audio files, if you get fired the Emporer will voice his dissatisfaction with you out loud, buttons going to the correct advisor were added for some messages you get, roads lead into granaries to indicate where the granary entrance is plus a good bunch of UI improvements and bug fixes.

Real pleasure to watch another open source re-implementation like this quickly advance. There's so many great old games out there that could be made playable again like this—brilliant stuff.

You can find it on GitHub, the developer provides a handy AppImage for Linux to get you going quickly. However you do need the original game assets, which you can grab easily with a DRM-free copy of Caesar III on GOG.com.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
7 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
5 comments

mao_dze_dun Feb 17, 2020
I all I want is roadblocks. Pretty please...
silmeth Feb 17, 2020
Quoting: mao_dze_dunI all I want is roadblocks. Pretty please...
There’s a fork of Julius that adds roadblocks (and few other improvements) here: https://github.com/Keriew/julius

You can watch how it plays out in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9hJ2WRU_og

Unfortunately, I don’t think the author of upstream Julius is willing to accept gameplay changes (like addition of road blocks) – afaik they only improve UI and fix obvious bugs (but not gameplay bugs – so graphical glitches get fixed, but bugs affecting gameplay don’t), focusing on full compatibility with original Ceasar 3, so no roadblocks there.


Last edited by silmeth on 17 February 2020 at 2:15 pm UTC
Ketil Feb 17, 2020
Quoting: silmeth
Quoting: mao_dze_dunI all I want is roadblocks. Pretty please...
There’s a fork of Julius that adds roadblocks (and few other improvements) here: https://github.com/Keriew/julius

You can watch how it plays out in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9hJ2WRU_og

Unfortunately, I don’t think the author of upstream Julius is willing to accept gameplay changes (like addition of road blocks) – afaik they only improve UI and fix obvious bugs (but not gameplay bugs – so graphical glitches get fixed, but bugs affecting gameplay don’t), focusing on full compatibility with original Ceasar 3, so no roadblocks there.
They even confirmed it: https://github.com/bvschaik/julius/issues

I do think caesar 3 benefits from improvements, so I kind of hope they will allow the improvements back in if they become optional and if they are implemented in a maintainable way. E.g. a classic ruleset that stay true to the original, along with a slightly improved ruleset that mostly stay true, but fix weird bugs and add roadblocks.
silmeth Feb 18, 2020
Quoting: Ketil
Quoting: silmeth
Quoting: mao_dze_dunI all I want is roadblocks. Pretty please...
There’s a fork of Julius that adds roadblocks (and few other improvements) here: https://github.com/Keriew/julius

You can watch how it plays out in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9hJ2WRU_og

Unfortunately, I don’t think the author of upstream Julius is willing to accept gameplay changes (like addition of road blocks) – afaik they only improve UI and fix obvious bugs (but not gameplay bugs – so graphical glitches get fixed, but bugs affecting gameplay don’t), focusing on full compatibility with original Ceasar 3, so no roadblocks there.
They even confirmed it: https://github.com/bvschaik/julius/issues

I do think caesar 3 benefits from improvements, so I kind of hope they will allow the improvements back in if they become optional and if they are implemented in a maintainable way. E.g. a classic ruleset that stay true to the original, along with a slightly improved ruleset that mostly stay true, but fix weird bugs and add roadblocks.

That’s what the Keriew’s fork does – in the options you can turn on and off things like: roadblocks, global workers pool (so you can have workshops far from housing areas), fix for immigration glitch on very hard, etc. (I wonder if that fork is going to reach compatibility with the other Impressions games too – since it does implement at least some features of Zeus and Pharaoh already).

I’d like the upstream Julius to do optional improvements too, but the author is very explicit that they want the project to be exactly a modernized engine for Ceasar 3, fully gameplay-bug-compatible with the original, that is, cities saved in the original must behave exactly the same in Julius.


Last edited by silmeth on 18 February 2020 at 10:12 am UTC
Redface Feb 18, 2020
Quoting: silmethcities saved in the original must behave exactly the same in Julius.
Putting it like that makes sense.

I played some of the followups a lot back in the day like Zeus, Children of the Nile and Emperor. I just looked through my old boxes and no Caesar there, so maybe I get the gog version.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.