These Romans are crazy, always immersed in traffic, they take hours to travel a few kilometers on modern motorized chariots equipped with MP3 players, explosive steering wheels and reclining seats. You should then see them when on the weekend they try to reach a meadow or a beach for the classic picnic with friends ... but what are three hours of traffic compared to a rancid sandwich eaten on a three square meter lawn occupied by a thousand screaming people (who then regularly leave filthy that not even snails on a mirror)? Where do the urban planning and traffic problems of the capital come from? Imperium Civitas III allows us to find out while having fun. Actually no, but we can say that some districts of Rome have grown following the same principle that is followed at the beginning of the game, when you do not know the controls well and try to create our first city, or rather randomly. Let's joke it is, never (who writes the article is Roman, so don't give yourself crazy joy with insults), also because to do worse than building speculators it takes some and then in Imperium Civitas III there is a handy tutorial that allows to become familiar with the interface in a practical and fast way, therefore it allows you to develop skills that are not required to administer a city today.
In the shoes of a Patrician family of one of the most powerful and vast empires that earthly history has known (perhaps on Alpha Centauri there was a bigger and more powerful one, who knows), we will have to build and expand cities located throughout the territory. conquered by the Romans. Said so it seems easy, in reality there will be more than a few complications to deal with that will force us to carefully plan our every move, whether it concerns the architecture of the city, whether it concerns military problems.
Build, build, build
Starting a new campaign and choosing the place to build our first city, we will find ourselves in front of a desolate map with indicated the resources and with only a few basic buildings to serve as the foundation for our future glory (if that is glory). Without delaying too much, it is necessary to examine all the key points necessary to ensure a decent life for the inhabitants, that is, where there are water sources to build an aqueduct, raw materials to be extracted, workable fields to accumulate food and piers to build marinas for fishing. Having understood in what direction to expand the city, we must begin to populate it by building housing for the plebeians, the real engine of every economic and military activity that we intend to develop. The interface is very convenient and is practical after a few minutes of play: from a circular menu, the building you want to build must be selected, first looking for the category to which it belongs. For example, to build a barracks we must first select the set of military buildings and then the structure of our choice. Each buildable building has one or more functions, which can be activated by selecting it with the left mouse button and clicking on the items in the internal window that will open. Army management is also very intuitive, but more on that later. We begin by occupying the plebeians in the art of deforestation (for the collection of timber) and in that of working the land (they will have to be eaten). Having built the first district and some economic activities, we embellish everything with a fountain, which can be useful above all to make citizens discover hygiene. Is there no water? We extend the aqueduct and we are fine. Everything goes so smoothly that when the first fire arrives we are almost disappointed.
Barbaric humanism
The slow start actually hides a whole series of pitfalls and problems that will soon have to be addressed and which are typical of sandbox games since Sim City: is the population unhappy? We build a beautiful amphitheater to have some gladiators slaughtered for the joy of the people. Is there discontent? Here is a beautiful temple ready that he will explain to the people, just out of a nice bloody massacre between beefy men and proud beasts (the values of the past, these unknowns) who is to blame for the poor fishing (of Neptune, of course) and for rampant delinquency. Unfortunately, television networks cannot be built, so to dazzle people you have to be content with what goes through the convent. We could continue with the examples, but I think it is clear that every need of the population corresponds to a building to be built to solve it. Not that solving all problems is that easy, but complications aside, this is the base. Obviously, with the expansion of cities, problems also increase and with them the things to do to solve them.
Among the various factors to consider, there is also the military one, that is the defense of the city from external and internal dangers. Are there any tribes of barbarians on the doorstep of our nest? Let's send troops and forget about it. We know, they were there before, but we are human beings too and we like to kill to affirm our virile power, what can we do? Military management is very simplified and there is not much to do but create armies to be thrown in bulk at enemies. Fortifications and unit leveling add a bit of spice, but nothing that makes you cry miracle or tear your hair (which is hardly there any more).
Ups and downs
Compared to other titles of the same genre, Imperium Civitas III looks good from a visual point of view, with detailed buildings and a good complexity of the scenarios. Without exceeding the system requirements, it manages to be pleasant and can be appreciated for some touch of class, resulting fluid on every occasion. It's nice to watch your creature in full splendor, with buildings in action, discreetly modeled humans scurrying around and flames burning buildings left too long without maintenance.
What interests most of a strategic / management video game, however, is certainly not the technical aspect, but the substantial one, that is the level of complexity of the simulation. From this point of view Imperium Civitas III represents an excellent compromise between complexity and usability, thanks above all to the well-designed interface that guarantees painless access even to the neophyte. It takes little to learn how to play and little to master the different sectors, even if the intelligent construction of the campaign guarantees increasingly complex scenarios and a longevity of many hours. One of the biggest flaws is the unwillingness to take the genre a step further by choosing instead to stay in known and already widely beaten territories. Even the military part is rather weak and superficial, giving the idea of a not too thoughtful addition rather than an indispensable feature to the game's economy. Not that it is completely to be thrown away, mind you, but compared with the management part its inadequacy is evident (practically you build troops and send yourself against the enemy until you have eliminated it). Of course, it is probably very difficult to combine the micro management of a city with the management of troops and battles, but then it would have been better to automate the latter by making it one of the other elements of city life.
Comment
By virtue of the budget price and the undoubted quality of the management part, Imperium Civitas III deserves a full promotion. It is definitely worth playing with, also because it is able to give long sleepless nights in front of the monitor and can be used to pick up the curvy neighbor to show her your latest discoveries in terms of Roman history.
For
- long-lived
- The management part is excellent
- Moderate system requirements
- Superficial military part
- Not at all innovative
Minimum requirements
- Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or equivalent
- RAM: 1 GB
- Video card: from ATI Radeon 9600 and from GeForce 6600 or higher with 256 MB of video memory
- Operating system: Windows XP, Vista
- DirectX: 9.0co superiori
- Hard Disk: 2,9 GB
- Sound card: DirectX 9.0c compatible
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
- RAM: 3 GB
- Video card: GeForce 8800 GT
- Operating system: Windows Vista
