Caesar II questions

[Sorin CRISTESCU]

After playing Caesar II for many hours and reading the manual twice, there
still seem to be unclear things for me : the city sim. seems quite weak, with
very few ways of getting it right : basically, all you have to do is to cover
as many squares as you can with the benefic influence of your public
institutions. Once you find something that works, there is no reason why you
should change it and you basically build the same city over and over again,
with only slight variations due to the river on the map. At province level, in
the french version at least, shipyards doesn't seem to work, I really don't see
any benefit from them. Another thing is this "mysterious" Pompous Maximus which
conquer provinces twice as fast as you do. I suppose in the end there will be
no provinces left and ... what next, do you get to challenge him in combat
(like the real thing) ?

The greatest part of this game are graphics, which are a real pleasure to look
at. The gameplay itself is enjoyable but not terrific. Is there a faq somewhere
? I wasn't able to find one in the games domain. Some other questions are : how
do you get to see cavalry ? What good is the "surrender" option in combat (I
did it once, just to see what happens, and all my men were killed) ? Etc.

--
Sorin Cristescu (cris...@horus.ens.fr)

[Drew Fudenberg]

--
Drew Fudenberg
email: fude...@fas.harvard.edu
http://fudenberg.fas.harvard.edu

[Chris Smith]

Sorin CRISTESCU <cristesc> writes:

After playing Caesar II for many hours and reading the manual
twice, there still seem to be unclear things for me : the city
sim. seems quite weak, with very few ways of getting it right :
basically, all you have to do is to cover as many squares as you
can with the benefic influence of your public institutions. Once
you find something that works, there is no reason why you should
change it and you basically build the same city over and over
again, with only slight variations due to the river on the map.

Yes, but I still haven't found anything that works to my complete
satisfaction. The markets and factories aren't quite happy, or
the forum coverage is too light, or always I put in too much housing
so that unemployment skyrockets.

At province level, in the french version at least, shipyards
doesn't seem to work, I really don't see any benefit from
them. Another thing is this "mysterious" Pompous Maximus which
conquer provinces twice as fast as you do. I suppose in the end
there will be no provinces left and ... what next, do you get to
challenge him in combat (like the real thing) ?

I think I noticed a substantial increase (probably double) in the
goods coming from the port when I built a shipyard the first time.
One of the tips in the online documentation is to watch where the
ships hit the coast and build two ports, one on each side. I haven't
tried it yet but perhaps ports will become better than trading posts
if you do that. They certainly should, given what it costs to build two.

The greatest part of this game are graphics, which are a real
pleasure to look at. The gameplay itself is enjoyable but not
terrific. Is there a faq somewhere ? I wasn't able to find one in
the games domain. Some other questions are : how do you get to see
cavalry ? What good is the "surrender" option in combat (I did it
once, just to see what happens, and all my men were killed) ? Etc.

Maybe you can hire cavalry as auxiliaries? I tried surrendering once
as well and the same thing happened.