News Archive: January 2000

More scenarios for download!

Posted on January 31, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Angel Monty’s Monkey has the following for you today:

For the final day of January, I thought that I’d add some more to the Caesar 3 downloads section. We have nine new scens up there for downloading, and my inbox is just about empty. One extra note: Would the author of “Crumblia” please send me an e-mail with a new description – I seem to have lost your original!

There’s only 1 place where you can get over 200 scenarios…it’s the Caesar III Heaven downloads section.

Bathing the Roman Way

Posted on January 31, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Ever wondered how the Romans went about building their buildings? Well, here’s something which might be of interest:

Two thousand years ago, Roman engineers created magnificent cities, buildings, roads and monuments throughout their vast empire. But of all their architectural achievements, there was one building that stood out from all the others – the public bath.
NOVA strives to recreate this palace of luxury on “Roman Bath,” airing on PBS Tuesday, February 22, 2000, 8:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) as part of SECRETS OF LOST EMPIRES: A “NOVA” SPECIAL PRESENTATION.

More info on that can be found here. Thanks go out to Angel Draco for pointing that one out :).

Strau�?

Posted on January 30, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Well, not quite, this version of the Blue Danube is a scenario by one of the masters: Pontius Pilatus. The introduction begins quite evocative:

Around 435AD, Attila, the “Scourge of God” became the leader of the Hun nation, a warlike nomad tribe with it’s origin in Mongolia.
The Huns swept all over the Eurasian continent and made all ancient empires tremble as they went.
For centuries nobody could stop them and now they are ready to crush the Roman Empire.

If you want to know more, just follow the link

Evolution of a fountain

Posted on January 28, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Yes, they do evolve and this is where you can read more about it.

We also celebrate the return of the surfing sheep. A phenomenon I haven’t seen for myself, but I have it on good authority…they do exist…
Want to know more?

Can there be enough quizes?

Posted on January 27, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Stepping into ET’s (oversized) boots, word juggler Caesar Alan is planning to expand Which Word to the level of variety found in the old Where in the World quiz.

To help him jumpstart the quiz, he’d like you to send him some questions, either with a graphical link, or in the well known 3 clues format.

Interested? Have a look here.

Londinium Lament

Posted on January 26, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

I just now watched another of those Time Team episodes on Discovery Channel (Europe). They are shown every weekday at 18:00 CET and last an hour.
This time Tony Robinson (of Black Adder fame) was in London, looking for the ford the Roman soldiers must have used to cross the river Thames. It’s amazing what these people find.
Not all episodes are based on Roman ruins, but quite a few are and even the others are well worth watching.

On popular request I’ll try to breath some more life back in to the download statistics. I will change the time period so I can process one file at a time and won’t be updating the total statistics anymore.

Pontius, I think we’re still going strong 🙂

How do I build a fort?

Posted on January 25, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Here’s a nice starter question.

My wife just bought the game and she’s being consistently killed off attackers because she can’t figure out how to build a fort. Is there something else you need to build first? Are forts denied to you in the early scenarios?

There’s also something called a Mediolanum Circus that showed up in the Game Help forum.

Care for a housing layout, anyone?

Posted on January 24, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Together with a lot of help from one of our regulars, the incomparable Crassus Pauper, I added a page that should help you create the little layouts we’ve been using on this site. There are some examples here and you can find the actual tool here.

Remember we’re still chasing out the gremlins in there, so if you have any problems, please contact me

Follow-up from yesterday

Posted on January 22, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Just in case anyone out there is into Scenario design but didn’t take a look at the thread I waved about yesterday, but are still wondering about the “Rome raises wages” setting, here’s an answer:

I have no idea on the exact value it can rise to. The worst I’ve seen is 52 denarii a year.
Even if you allow wages to both rise and fall, there is no guarantee that they won’t constantly go only up or only down. Seen that in a couple of maps I designed.

Bob the Lethargic posted that – if you can elaborate, then the thread is here.

Is Rome getting generous?

Posted on January 21, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Seems like someone’s remembered that we have a Map Editing forum :). Anyway, here’s the post (here’s the thread):

I’m at it again, a new scenario is on it’s way.
While playtesting an old question sprang to mind again.
If “Rome raises wages” is set, what kind of raise can be expected? Anybody have some figures on this?
I ask this because it is really random and at my last playtest the rate was really frightening: in less than 2 years it went from 30dn to 40dn. At this rate the scenario could turn out to be unwinnable after say 10 years.

Fountain evolution

Posted on January 20, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

In Game Help, there’s this post asking about fountains and their evolution:

Hail fellow governors,
It has been brought to my attention that fountains evolve through a series of stages. I knew of the first evolution because I’ve seen it when my housing gets nicer. Granted I am a relative newcomer and have never achieved housing beyond Grand Insulae, so I may be missing some steps that evolve the fountains further when homes reach Villa and Palace levels. I think I heard that the fountains go through four stages. 1) Is this true? 2) Also what are the desirability effects of the four stages? 3) Is there an increase in the needed workers as the evolution progresses? 4) And does the evolution require more than one fountain grouped together? For example does a 2×2 tile of four small fountains become one large 2×2 fountain? If anyone can shed some light on this subject I would be really grateful.

BtL on fishing

Posted on January 19, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

It’s a fairly old post, but its contents are as good as ever and it’s been revived recently. Here’s an excerpt of Bob the Lethargic’s excellent fishing post:

Anyone who has played Caesar 3 for awhile knows that central and southern wheat farms produce twice as much wheat per month as northern wheat farms, pig farms, or vegetable farms. A wheat farm in a central or southern scenario produces 19.2 carts of food a year while other farms only produce 9.6 carts per year. Each cart equals 100 food units and your population eats 0.5 food units per month per person (or 6 per year). Therefore using central/southern wheat halves the cost in workers to feed the same amount of people. In a city of 10,000 people for example, 32 wheat farms will feed all the people while 63 fruit farms would be needed. A great savings in workers.

Want to be confused?

Posted on January 18, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

If you do, then take a look at this thread in the Community forum. Seems like the current quiz mania over at Pharaoh Heaven (whch seems to be abating slightly right now) has found its way over here…

Viking visit

Posted on January 16, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Another couple of hours and I’m off to the land of the vikings for a week. Let’s see if I can find some game news before I leave.

Olivia Chillia would like some help with the way the cheats work on the Mac. Now I’ve tried to make them up, but maybe anoyone out there can actually tell her how they do work?

There’s also a nice little essay on warehouse management. Have a look. Should you have problems with the gods and their moods, go and have a look here.

The Community forum has some musings on alternate titles for Impressions to consider. Here‘s where you can add your 2�.

More, more and more downloads…

Posted on January 14, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Angel Monty’s Monkey has added 13! scenarios to the Ceasar 3 Downlaod pages.
Now who was it that said, C3 HEaven would die a silent death once Pharaoh hit the shelves?

Marcus Lindicus would like some help with the gods. He’s already gotten some great adivse, so if you too are looking for answers have a look.

The return of the gatehouse

Posted on January 13, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

It all started with a simple question: To Gatehouse or Not? It seems we’re still not unanimous, but the thread seems to be helpful. Here’s what Questor Marcus Lindicus has to say.

Wow this thread really did help Theodoeraus! I remember reading it when it came up and not really comprehending it. Of course then I was playing Brundisium and Capua and didn’t really need them (guess that’s why they weren’t available). Now that I am in Syracusae I don’t see how I was doing it without them.

Syracusean Blues

Posted on January 12, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

There’s a nice thread named the Singin’the Syracuse Blues. What started out as a request for help has now turned into a discussion on the ins and outs of cartpushers and resource management.

Bob the Lethargic offers some advice on how to get the cities from our download section to work.

Following a download of a map file, you must unzip it and copy the files to the directory where your Caesar3 program is located (default directory of c:/Sierra/Caesar3 if you did not change to another drive or directory during installation).

Have a look here for more.

Oh, and my apolgies for missing yesterdays news…I’m a fraid I was stuck in Sauty 🙁

How to control a palace?

Posted on January 10, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

This question is asked and answered in the Game Help forum. Here’s a bit of the answer.

The way I’ve always done it is by limiting barber access only to the blocks I want patricians in and keeping the rest of the population at medium insulae housing level.

Downloads Update

Posted on January 10, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

A message from Angel Draco:

7 cities were added to the DL section of C3H. Plus, I added 5 new Star Wars wav sounds to the WAVs section from Tim the Great.

Troubling Tarsus

Posted on January 8, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Cut and paste time ;):

I’ve studied the walkthrough I have a good concept of how to develop the city, I just can’t seem to keep out of debt, which is the result of having to build quite a lot of buildings to get my exports up and running, to get my houses to upgrade to about small casa, to get myself enough of a military force to deal with any invasions, to keep the gods happy, and to meet Caesar’s requests (all of which are for iron).

So, if Tarsus is your thang, then you can give help in this forum thread.

Zenny, Zenny Boy…

Posted on January 7, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Only 1 more original title for this piece of news to think up now.. ;). Anyway, here’s a note Angel Zen asked me to pass on:

If you are getting “Error 500: Internal Server Error” messages while accessing any part of the forums, please refresh the page a minute or two later. Please note that if you were posting/replying you might get a message about “duplicate messages being detected”. That’s normal – your post made it. If it still gives you the same message, please write an email to Angel Zen ( zen@heavengames.com ), and include in the email which forum you were using, and what you were doing at the time of the error. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Playing the numbers game

Posted on January 6, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

I remember back in what one might call the good old days of C3H, there used to be loads and loads of forum threads dealing with the numbers behind the game. Well, if anyone can recall the findings of those threads, then take a look here:

1- What is the maximum distance in road squares between housing and working industry?
2- How much food does one square of housing use per year, i.e. how many farms per how many housing squares?
Thanks for helping me. 😉

One for the partisans here…

Posted on January 6, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

If you’re in the know about all matters military in C3, then this forum thread will be of interest to you. Here’s the question:

Hail fellow rulers,
I need some helpful advice. I have a stint in Tarentum going right now and am having a few problems. I have three iron mines and six weapons workshops going. I have a warehouse set up only to accept weapons. I have no warehouses accepting raw iron. I have one trade center warehouse that initially imported weapons but I have since set it to export them beyond six units. My barracks has no weapons, though I have 4 units sitting in a warehouse set to empty goods, and therefore I have no legions. It seems I need a refresher on how to get weapons to my barracks. If anyone wants to give an in depth discussion of the hows, whys, and other inner workings of the weapons industry I would welcome that also.

Want to do something on the web?

Posted on January 5, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

If you do, and like writing news, then today is your lucky day. Fellow GameStats affiliate GameGirlz are looking for a newswriter. Here’s more info:

Lead Editor Wanted Are you good with words and have lots of spare time? GameGirlz is currently looking for a News/content editor. Basically the job will require you to read through the GameGirlz.com main news page several times a day proofing and editing our site, along with editing the GGz’ reviews etc as they are posted. If interested, please contact Aurora ( aurora@gamegirlz.com ).

1 year ago today…

Posted on January 5, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

You can always tell when there’s nothing going on in Rome when the newswriter does a “This Time Last Year” feature ;). Still, here’s what was happening in this corner of Heaven exactly 1 year ago, on 5th January 1999:

Well, I’ve been surfing the Impressions’ Site for any news on the Beta Patch…but no luck. Patience is the key here as you watch your Prefect ignore a fire leveling his own office, the market matron do all but deliver the goods and balista turn tail as the enemy continues to drill holes in your defenses.
I must admit that some of those bugs are fun though. Like the one where you build a set of two walls well away from your town to ‘confuse the AI cat’. One is at the bottom of the far steps leading to a plateau and the other at the top. The enemy closes on them, seems to understand it has been duped and then decides to head north to the only other open spot to your real town walls. About halfway they figure they are getting too far away from any form of built up area, decide to ignore that they were on a roundabout route to your town and turn back and head for the nearest structure. Yep, the ‘chew toy’ walls again. They repeat this indecisive behaviour until you dispatch a legion to put them out of their AI-loop generated misery. When you are good and ready of course. 🙂 Even if the dummy walls are as far away as 15 hexes from your town’s furthest extension and there are no roads or houses for miles, an occasional sentry will appear on those isolated ramparts!

While you’re waiting for the patch (judging from above, I think I know why it’s taking so long :-)) why not contribute to our ever active forums? The matter of Caesar’s age is a live wire again in the General Forum as it heads to the 100+ posts number! Learn from Angel Draco’s learned discourse on how farms and markets work (I’ll be darned if I know) and stare in wonder at those naughty bath maidens.

Of course, that writing style could only be down to 1 Angel – Angel Alexander I.

If you like reading old news, or if you’ve just got here and are wondering exactly what you’ve missed for the past year and a half, then you can always do so in the Caesar III Heaven News Archives.

Scenario news

Posted on January 4, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Just in case you haven’t visited the Scenario \ Map Editing forum this millenium, then here’s something you might be interested in:

The second scenario in the low lands series, Venlo, is available for download from:
http://www3.50megs.com/heinomynous/
The scenario takes a mximum of 5 years.

Congratulations! You have earned your promotion to clerk. It is often a necessity to build up new cities quickly, and you have shown you are able to do so.

The new task I have in mind for you is quit daunting – really to much for a clerk. I must admit I feel sincere doubts that you will be able to handle the next task at all…

I appreciate all comments.

If you pick up the scenario and want to make comments, then this is the thread you need.

Problems with Miletus

Posted on January 4, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Another Game Help forum post:

I’m presently working on Miletus, and would appreciate a little expert help.
The biggest question I have is how to lay out my city. I can’t seem to fit any of Grampus’ city blocks very well on this map. I have my industrial neighborhood to the far eastern corner of the map (on the other side of the farmland), fishing wharf lining the entire coastline, a dock for exports/imports, a couple of forts near the empire road, and a housing block near the middle of the map. What I can’t figure out is how on earth I’m going to get 5,000 people into my city with this kind of map. I mean, there’s only so much manufacturing of finished goods that you can do before you end up producing more than you could ever use or export. I’ve only gotten as high as medium insulae (I think) and already I’m so far into debt that Caesar’s threatening to lay me off, and city sentiment is very low due to high unemployment. And yet I have no more need for workers. If I build more docks, can I export more goods? I’ve been playing this game since March and have done pretty well with other more difficult missions, but I just can’t seem to get this map to work for me. I would appreciate any suggestions.

If you can give some help, then you can do so here.

You never let me down;)

Posted on January 3, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

Well, once again after I’ve made a little plea for something, you chaps have delivered. This time, we have a mini-burst of activity in the Game Help forum, including this great post by jasoncowgill on how warehouses and warehouse workers function. Here’s a snippet:

Alas, the most ignored worker in the Roman Empire has got to be the poor warehouse cart pusher. Most new players do not even realize that each warehouse (and granary for that matter) possesses a humble worker that can move goods around the map to alleviate all the player’s trade and goods problems. Since most of the new players seem to have a problem with goods distributions, maybe I should take a second or two to explain goods distribution networks.
When you develop a city, most new players look at warehouses as simply a method of storing goods delivered to it. It takes awhile before they realize that the warehouse cart pushers can be used to distribute goods between different warehouses, freeing up dock workers and workshop cart pushers from making long trips across the map to deliver goods to a distant warehouse. The magical command that can make all this happen is the GET command.

Where is everybody?

Posted on January 3, 2000 by Angel Reckless Rodent

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself these past few days. I know that lots of former C3H regulars have now got Pharaoh and are making the move over to Pharaoh Heaven, but that’s not the whole of it. We still seem to be getting loads and loads of visitors here (at least that’s what looking at the site’s stats tells me).

However, the forums seem to be getting increasingly dead. Sometimes when I go there I expect to see dust balls rolling down main street and to hear the clack-clack of saloon shutters ;).

So, if you are one of the silent majority, then please be silent no more! For one thing, it’ll make a certain newswriters job a lot easier ;)…

So what else is new?

Posted on January 2, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

Apart from this year, that is.

Most action is on the Community forum. We seem to have another Birthday thread and our next birthday child will be on the 5th of January.

News flash

Posted on January 2, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

The forums are up again. Angel Zen has been working on them for hours on end and they’re back to stay.

Thanks Zen!

Forum still down…

Posted on January 1, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

As I write this it is approaching mindnight Central European Time and the forums, that were shut down to double-check if all was Y2K compliant, are still down.

We apologise for the loss of signal and hope the services will continue soonish.

Twelve hours into the new Millenium

Posted on January 1, 2000 by Angel Jayhawk

The clocks haven’t stopped, the PCs still seem to be working and the world looks pretty bright for something that was supposed to have ended twelve hours ago.

In the past 1000 years we went from the middle of the Dark Ages to the middle of the Internet Age.

From a world that for many people was a big as they could walk in a day, to a world that seems to be trying to become a true global community.

From a time where people were killing eachother because of skin colour, creed, or just because the other person was in the way to a time where…err, I guess there still are a few things we need to work on.

Let’s see, if a thousand years from now, one of Heavens angels updates the news in that Virtual Reality City Building environment can finish this statement and say:
“…to a universe where people, in all their diversity, can live together in harmony.”

From all of us, to all of you,
Have a marvelous millenium!