Caesar IV - Fall 2006!

[Keith Heitmann]

It was just officially annouced today on the Caesar III forum at VU Games that they have contracted with Tilted Mill to develop the next citybuilder "Caesar IV".

Tilted Mill consists of many of the former Impressions Games staff that developed the citybuilder genre back in the 1990 starting with Caesar, Caesar II, Caesar III, Pharaoh/Cleopatra, Zeus/Poseidon, and finally Emperor.

Doom and gloom hovered of the fanbase in June of 2004 when Impressions Games studio was closed by VU Games. Prospects for a much requested Caesar IV seemed to fade forever until today.

You can visit the official Caesar IV website here. The new VU Games Caesar IV forum is up and so is the one at Tilted Mill forums.

The website has some information and screenshots already posted.

Now for the long long wait...fall 2006!

[Keith Heitmann]

Linden Game Engine

Tilted Mill has developed its own proprietary game engine to provide the perfect visual experience for the next generation of city-building and RTS games. The "Linden" engine has been built from the ground up utilizing the latest in shader technology, and can provide detailed views from as far as falcon’s eye to as close as the cracks in the cobblestones of a city street. But Linden is not just for the power user -- it efficiently tailors features to maximize a user’s performance and provide as rich a visual experience as possible whether on an old “clunker” or the most cutting edge machine available. The Linden engine will first be used for Tilted Mill's upcoming title, Caesar IV.

[Phil Walker]

Glad to see and hear the news!!! The new engine does sound appealing as well. MAYBE VU will learn and MAYBE another 4th will come, eh Keith ;D?! (Don't think I need to say more!!!)

Sincerely,
Phil

[Keith Heitmann]

I suspect a lot of that will depend on how successful Caesar IV is.

[Phil Walker]

TRUE!!! None the less, you know me ;D!!! The ever opinionated optomist !!!

Sincerely,
Phil

[Redbirdy]

Well it sounds great but I hope the new engine is more in line with the old city-builder games than it is with CotN. BTW, are you lined up for beta testing this one Keith?

Redbirdy

[Phil Walker]

Hey Redbirdy!

Hate to tell you but THINK you're in for a disappointment as it is my thinking it will be more like CotN, BUT the new engine has more to offer. From what I hear "walkers" are out, but you'll need to look into it for yourself. Here is the Tilted Mill homepage link:

www.tiltedmill.com/

From there you can click on the picture to view the C4 pages as well, and even enter and if you like join in on the forums. Up to you of course, but that way you won't have any doubts, and don't say I didn't warn ya ;D!!!

BTW: The beta isn't up yet, and YOU can try if you like!


Sincerely,
Phil

[Keith Heitmann]

jwin said:

Well it sounds great but I hope the new engine is more in line with the old city-builder games than it is with CotN. BTW, are you lined up for beta testing this one Keith?

Redbirdy

Not yet, they won't be looking for beta testers until next summer at the earliest.

As far as the game play, they say they are drawing some things from Caesar III but improving on them, but the overall play will probably be closer to CotN than Caesar III. I'm sure there will be many new ideas as well and things that they couldn't do with Caesar III era computers.

The local economy will function much like CotN where people shop for their needs and don't have it delivered to them as in Caesar III.

The new game engino is supposed to be adaptive to the players computer so there may not be the performance issues that people had with CotN on marginal lower end machines.

Right now they say the minimum CPU processor target range is between 1-2Ghz, and the minimum graphic card examples give are ATI 9000 series and newer or the Nvidia 6000 series cards or newer.