#gameoverview

ok so this one I obviously did not play as a teenager, haha. It is a historical based game though so it was interesting to me and was introduced to me via a friend as a game that while it had potential combat, that was optional. woo optional combat.

Crusader Kings II is a medieval dynastic simulation game with a focus (which is easily ignored) on the sorts of weird military alliances that came with the actual crusades, and includes occasional calls by religious leaders for holy wars against different faiths as well as plenty of normal territorial wars. The reason the combat is easily ignored is that there’s a lot else going on with marriages, inheritance, unexpected deaths, assassinations, the plague, etc etc etc. Lots goes into the simulation part of this. You begin as the ruler of some sort of territory, you can pick what level from count to king, and play through their life and then when they die you play as their heir so on until you either have something happen so that your family has no more title to land or your dynasty dies out for you hit the end date for the game (14-something). The goal of the game is largely self defined.

this is the final of the three ancient city builders I played back in the day. Emperor came out on 2002 and I diffidently did get it until after 2003 so this one I played in college. It’s my favorite and the one I’ve played the most.

This may seem a bit different from ancient city builders from the late 90s, but there is weirdly a tenuous connection: Stardew Valley was inspired by a late 90s nintendo game I played on gameboy color, called Harvest Moon. So while this is a different game, many aspects were very familiar to me and the nostalgia factor is still strong. Planning out a farm is not much like planning a city but if you squint in the dark while hanging upside down there are a few similar features?

If you don’t know, despite the popularity especially in 2020, Stardew Valley is a farming simulator with additional social aspects including dating options. The main character is the grandchild of the late owner of the farm who quits their job in the city to fix up and run the farm while (potentially) marking friends with the local people. There are community events and a mild conflict between the JojJo cooperation and the local economy which the farmer can take sides in. There are plenty of choices to be made and a lot of freedom in gameplay. There are 12 locals available for dating and even ultimately marriage, 6 women and 6 men. However, neither marriage nor dating are required and there is no end deadline to the game.

I play this one on mobile for streaming purposes though I have and have play the desktop version. I prefer toe mobile version for streaming because of the auto-combat feature--I have serious anxiety and having to do combat myself is far less relaxing (and is why everyone is glad I am not doing commentary for the desktop version haha that would involve too much panicked noises for anyone’s ears).

Pharaoh is an ancient Egyptian city building game and Cleopatra is the expansion that brought it through the Hellenistic period. There is a new version in the works that I’m excited about!

The Caesar III CD I had included a demo version of Pharaoh and I absolutely played those maps to death. I don’t remember when I got the actual game, but I think it was probably closer to 2003 than 1999 when the game came out just because I didn’t play for as many hours as I played Caesar despite, in a way, preferring it.

Though to be fair as I didn’t notice the pyramid speed off option for years means that possibly I might be remembering wrong and actually waiting for all those pyramids to build made things....less fun....

Pharaoh had a few gameplay introductions like being able to control how much of the warehouse had what in it, that made organization easier and more logical.

Like Caesar, I didn’t get that far back in the day, though I do think I played more maps than in Caesar, including attempts at some of the Cleopatra maps, though without playing through all the way in order for those. So I am glad to be going back to this game as I left a lot of it untouched.

Caesar III is from 1998, there were previous Caesar games, thus the III, but this is the first one I played. Possibly in 1998 though definitely by 2000. It’s also my first Impressions City Builder. I was a young teenager then and would get stuck on the beginning maps forevvvverrrrr.

As you might expect, Caesar III is an Ancient Roman game. In it you get promoted to different areas in the expanding Roman Empire (*) and have to balance increasingly complex requirements for each city. Everything is based on Roman history, tweaked for the game of course, but featuring real cities and real events. From what I can tell it was decently researched at the time actually, though should not be taken as a historical resource :-P

This is also the hardest of the three I will be playing for me because of a few features of gameplay like less warehouse control and other organizational issues that aren’t present in later games.

I start on the easiest setting for all three city builders but anticipate this one being the worst for me to try to keep playing through on harder levels....