Caesar

Caesar, known as Caesar 1, is the first city-building simulation game of the Caesar franchise. Developed by Impressions Software and published by Sierra, it launched for DOS in 1992. Players take on the role of a Roman provincial governor, tasked with building Roman cities on undeveloped frontier lands while managing civil livelihood, trade and military defense to complete imperial assignments. The game adopts a two-layer management system. In city view, you place roads, residences, aqueducts, markets, temples, amphitheaters and other buildings. You must balance citizen happiness, taxation and workforce. The province overworld map controls trade routes, resource transport and border defense. Citizens have happiness metrics. Heavy taxes or insufficient public services can trigger riots. Barbarian tribes launch raids, so players need to raise Roman legions for defense. The expansion pack Cohort II adds standalone tactical battle scenes. It features a series of progressive missions. Meet governance goals to gain Caesar’s approval and unlock harder provincial assignments. The isometric pixel graphics support VGA and EGA modes, with audio compatible with AdLib and Sound Blaster sound cards. Based on the city-building concept of SimCity, it adds ancient Roman history, military defense and imperial evaluation, establishing the core gameplay formula of the whole Caesar series. Modern players usually play it through DOSBox emulator. It is a landmark DOS strategy simulation game from the 1990s.

These games get the keyboard directly — the controls are whatever the game itself defines, usually in its own help or options screen. Gamepads are detected automatically. On phones you get on-screen buttons.