Building Rome in a day...or two.

Since Streamyx is moving at this pace:

I've had to resort to other things apart from blogging, downloading songs or surfing the net from random whatevers. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm back to my favourite Roman addiction: CAESAR III!

Ah yes, Empress Moo Moo is slowly building her empire. I'm currently ranked Quaestor (I think I've got four more levels before I finish). What can I say...I'm a sucker for building cities. But this one beats SimCity any day. Caesar (who else?) will instruct you to build cities at each level, each one with different requirements (higher peace rating, more citizens etc.) First, you choose what kind of gameplay interests you:

I'm wimpy so I always choose a relatively peaceful region but with more demands on other ratings ( a higher population count or more favours for Caesar). But as you go further into the game, 'relatively peaceful' is just a nice way of saying 'You don't get attacked as much'. So you still have to get your troops ready. But you really can't expect much if your Prima Legion is called The Rabbits. Seriously. I hate doing this bit. I get all panicky.

And while you're busy protecting your fellow citizens, don't forget to worship the Gods: Neptune (Sea), Venus (Love), Mercury (Commerce), Mars (War) and Ceres (Farming). Woe upon he who forgets to build a nice temple or throw a festival for EACH God every few months.

Ha. See? If you piss Neptune off, He'll give you a nasty storm and your fishing villages will suffer as will your trade routes that rely on the sea. Tsk tsk. But when you make 'em happy, Mars, for example, will crush your enemies the minute they arrive at the gates. Hurrah!

The game, needless to say,is really addictive. You just keep building and building, while making sure your people don't get sick or move to another city. And you get to build theatres, Colisseums, lion houses, warehouses, bath houses, schools, perfectures, olive farms, barracks etc. And make sure people pay their taxes. Oh, and keep sending Caesar gifts every 12 months. So much to do...So few hours in a day! Sigh. Maybe I'm a bit of a control freak: Finding simple pleasures in running and managing a city, with every man at my mercy, muahaha. Syok oh. And the best bit is, when something goes wrong...Restart! I know I'm addicted to something when I kill the last few moments before I drive off to work by turning on the PC and telling myself, "Just five more minutes..." In fact, I can't wait to get home to complete this level. After Rome...THE WORLD!

But can someone tell me why the Romans have a British accent?