The company line on Caesar III is that it's SimCity set in the Roman Empire. That's only partially true. You do run a city (or, rather, a series of cities) in a fashion somewhat like the classic urban management game, but the game mechanics of Caesar III are more akin to Blue Byte's Settlers II. Unlike in SimCity, you do not simply zone your territory and sit back while your city prospers or fails. Instead, you are commissioned to perform a much wider array of tasks, ranging from setting up efficient production lines to maintaining a military force. Caesar III is a much better game than Settlers II, and combines some of the best elements of both that game and SimCity. But it manages to suffer from Settler II's most glaring shortcoming: the combat system. What's worse, it finds a shortcoming of its own with some problems that make efficient management often more difficult than it should be. And both of these serve to slightly hamper what is otherwise a very enjoyable game.

Caesar III is mission-based. In each progressive mission, you are assigned certain goals, usually a target population and target scores in the various categories in which your performance is rated, including the prosperity and culture level of your people and your favor with the emperor. To its credit, Caesar III gives you two territories to choose from at each subsequent level. In most cases, the difference between these two areas is how much hostility you will face, allowing those who want to concentrate on development to stick to the peaceful provinces, and those who want to battle it out with the game's combat to venture into the war-torn areas.