We won’t be getting that fourth Roman city-builder after all.
No official word on the reason for the cancellation. Originally slated for a 2006 release, it was supposed to be released later this month, but there hadn’t been a gold announcement so another delay would have been likely. Was the game just not finished yet? Did Paradox or Deep Silver not like what they saw? Deep Red’s website is “undergoing reconstruction” which is never a good sign for a developer.
To be fair, I feel like the Romans have had their day in the sun; I’d love to see more games focus on Eastern civilization, or better yet, South American civilization. I mean, what’s not to love about cities of gold?
Well okay, now that I think about it, the human sacrifice thing was a bit… non-traditional, but it isn’t like the Western civilizations were all that keen on human rights either.
I agree with you completely. There are lots of other settings worth doing. I was hoping that Tilted Mill’s “Immortal Cities” thing would continue beyond the original Nile Delta and lead to places like China, Meso-America and India. Now that they have done Caesar IV, I think there’s a lot less pressure to give us what we’ve had before.
I’ve been thinking that for me the entire city building genre may be fading in interest: none of the latest builders have been particularly fun. (Although I’m not saying they were disasters either). They’ve just been so…familiar.
Maybe some new perspective on what a builder might portray without locking the city into some predestined Roman or Greek or Egyptian setting would liven things up. Perhaps the gamer’s choice of site (river, sea, grassland, etc.), crops raised, livestock kept, resources, temples built, could enable us to customize a somewhat unique “civilization” each time: one could have a militaristic society (with strong defenses, and a city geared to producing weapons, and training troops), or a powerful priest-caste (with temples dominating the town center and most of the population living outside the city) or a mercantile culture (with traders, markets galore, caravans entering the town) and each city orientation would have its own requirements for keeping the populace happy.
Or something different. I’d hate to see future builders content with just improving graphics. Well, I wouldn’t hate it if Dwarf Fortress were slightly prettier.
I think you’re on to something, Jonathan, and if we are willing to sacrifice a little in the way of graphic fidelity, Spore could show the way by unveiling the power of procedural content.
Dwarf Fortress is an interesting model, too, though the interface is the big barrier for me. It took me forever to figure it out, and I think I’ve forgotten it all already.