Caesar 3 Reveals Its New Clothes Thanks to the Augustus Mod
The first in a long time update to the Augustus project, a mod refreshing Caesar 3 and enriching it with new elements and mechanics, has been released.
New version of the excellent open-source mod Augustus for Caesar 3 has just been released. It's a project refreshing and improving the classic strategy game by Impressions Games. The latest edition is marked with the number 3.0.1 and brings a lot of changes. Many new types of buildings have been added (e.g. a tavern or a small gladiatorial combat arena), the list of monuments has been expanded and the mechanics concerning cultural aspects has been thoroughly refreshed.
This year, Caesar 3 will celebrate its 22nd birthday, but the game still enjoys considerable popularity. Currently, the fan community plays mainly with the Augustus mod. Thanks to it we get full compatibility with modern PCs, we can play in high widescreen resolutions and enjoy numerous gameplay improvements, as well as use improved music tracks. The project also removes most technical bugs.
It is worth adding that Augustus was built on the foundations of an older mod called Julius. That's where most of the fixes and improvements in graphics were implemented. However, the authors of the mod decided not to change the gameplay. They simply refreshed the classic game to fit modern PCs, while remaining faithful to the solutions implemented by Impressions Games.
Project Augustus is created according to a different philosophy. Its creator decided to improve Caesar 3, introducing significant changes in gameplay and expanding the game with many new elements. The creator was guided by suggestions from the fan community. Thanks to that mod offers, among others, roadblocks, option to change limits of various elements of city development, special orders on the market, expanded pool of workers, the ability to partially store supplies in warehouses or more control over the camera.
The changes are big enough that while Augustus can load saved game states from Julius, it doesn't work the other way round, which is worth bearing in mind if you have any old saves with big virtual cities.
