How to Run Caesar II in Windows XP

Playing Caesar II from within Windows XP can be an issue. The following steps will help you get the original DOS version of Caesar II running under Windows XP. If you do not already have a copy of Caesar II go get one then come back here. Thanks to Thomas Crowe for putting this step-by-step together.
 
Step 1: Ensure that Caesar II is Installed
The standard location for the Caesar II install is in a folder in the root of your c-drive named “caesar2″. Confirm that Caesar II is installed to this location, or copy the game files from the CD to that folder.
 
Step 2: Download and Install DOSBox
 
Step 3: Start DOSBox and run the command “mount c c:\caesar2″
This will only work if you have your game files in the “caesar2″ folder.
 
Step 4: In DOSBox Switch to the c-drive by typing in “c:”
 
Step 5: In DOSBox Type “call c2.bat”
Once again, this will only work if you have your Caesar II files in the folder “caesar2″ in the root of your c-drive.

 
Step 6: Select Option 2 (Hit the spacebar)

 
Step 7: Enjoy the game!
Also, please let me know if these steps work for you.

40 Comments »

1. Make sure you use the DOS version of Caesar II (Caesar 2 Version 1.0) or else this will not work.

   Comment by Daniel — December 31, 2007 @ 3:52 pm

2. Gracias!

   Comment by Gonzalo — February 11, 2008 @ 5:09 am

3. Hi! I have done all the 5 first steps but when i type call c2.bat, he said:”Illegal command:c2.bat”

   If you can help me this will be great because i like this game..

   Thanks.

   Comment by Kostas — February 18, 2008 @ 9:01 am

4. Kostas, it sounds like this may be from trying these instructions with the Windows version of the game. Are you using the Dos version or Windows version of Caesar 2?

   Comment by Administrator — February 18, 2008 @ 10:33 am

5. I think that i am using the Windows version of Caesar 2….
   I hope that there exist a solution for this. In any case, thank you very much!

   Comment by Kostas — February 20, 2008 @ 4:26 am

6. Kostas - there are some additional instructions that may be helpful to you. I sent them to your gmail address.

   Comment by Administrator — February 20, 2008 @ 11:10 am

7. Thank you very mutch, Administrator!

   Comment by Kostas — February 20, 2008 @ 11:37 am

8. No problem. Hope it helps.

   Comment by Administrator — February 20, 2008 @ 12:10 pm

9. ok, thank you Administrator .It works with the dos version of Caesar 2.

   Comment by Kostas — February 20, 2008 @ 4:45 pm

10. I too have the “llegal command:c2.bat” problem.
    Can you help? I used to play this all the time when I had a win98 version.
    thanks.

    Comment by vaccyn — February 23, 2008 @ 6:22 pm

11. Hello, I installed Caesar and run it with dos box, I also choosed hard disk only, but I cnnot fight battles (some file is missing) thanks for reply

    Comment by plati — March 11, 2008 @ 1:41 pm

12. Hi, I also have the Windows version of the game - how do I get it to run properly?

    Comment by Michael — March 13, 2008 @ 12:53 pm

13. ok. I still can’t get it to run. I have Dosbox, I have the file dos version, and it is definitly in my C drive, but still, it doesn’t recognize the c2.bat. help please

    Comment by vaccyn — March 13, 2008 @ 4:01 pm

14. Hi! I have done all the 5 first steps but when i type call c2.bat, he said:”Illegal command:c2.bat”

    Comment by Mari — March 17, 2008 @ 8:53 am

15. I’m having the same “Illegal command:c2.bat” problem with my windows version of Caesar II. I tried having my computer run the program with the compatibility wizard, but nothing happens. I put the cd in, and a screen pops up asking if you want to play. I click yes, and it says the program isn’t found. I click install, and nothing happens. If you can help, I would greatly appreciate it.

    Comment by Sarah — March 19, 2008 @ 1:24 pm

16. Vaccyn, Mari, and Sarah - the error you are getting is probably because you are using the Windows version and not the Dos version of Caesar II. In order to use these instructions you need to start with the Dos version of Caesar II.

    Comment by Administrator — March 19, 2008 @ 3:11 pm

17. I have the same problem as Vaccyn, Mari and Sarah. But I don’t understand how we can start with the Dos version of Caesar II. Because when I was using it with windows 95, it would automatically shut down the pc and go to dos. Now with windows xp, it doesn’t automatically do that.

    Comment by Stella — March 21, 2008 @ 9:29 pm

18. Stella, there is not a guide yet for how to run Caesar II with the Windows 95 version in XP (or Vista) but I will send you some additional details that may be helpful.

    Comment by Administrator — March 22, 2008 @ 9:18 am

19. Thanks for the email. I was trying to run the game by copying the game files from a cd version of caesar2, which turns out to be a windows version. So I got the dos version … extracted the files into my c drive and repeated the steps above. Works perfectly! Thanks a lot!

    Comment by Stella — March 22, 2008 @ 5:28 pm

20. Hey there. I downloaded a free version of the game and I just run it from my Dos Command Prompt in the Accessories file in Windows XP. I don’t have any real problems with gameplay EXCEPT for 2 things:
    1) It doesn’t play any music, just voice and and occasional music during events like Invasions.

    2) The game crashes whenever I chose to take command during a battle. It says there is a problem with a file, but I don’t know the name of it off-hand.

    Any ideas how to address these problems?

    Thanks!

    Comment by Adam — March 23, 2008 @ 4:45 pm

21. Hey,
    what are those “game files” exactly?
    Thx!!!

    Comment by Lisa — March 27, 2008 @ 11:49 am

22. I sailed through all the steps. it worked like a dream.. the only remaining issue is the sound setting which is not covered in the steps.. I have run “setsound.exe” from the game directory and chosen the first 100% compatible and automatic configuration.. the program says it is done successfully but on running the game still dont get any sound.. I have XP platform. can you help please? ..thanks

    Comment by tony — April 5, 2008 @ 12:58 am

23. I got the answer to the sound problem: just run the setsound program from caesar2 directory and put these values : A220 I5 D1 T3 P330. by choosing to manually put the port details.. it worked for me.. although the auto configure program always returned a success result but no sound was coming. just using the manual configurations solved the problem.. I didnt even have to change the values they were already set to recommended 220, and 5 etc.. here is the link to the site with more details in part 6 about this topic.. http://www.dosgames.com/xphints.php .. take care

    Comment by tony — April 5, 2008 @ 3:04 am

24. I have the same problem with “Illegal command:c2.bat”, because I probably have the Windows version of the game. What can I do?

    Comment by Karin — April 5, 2008 @ 8:00 am

25. Karin..If you having a windows version is causing a problem then I can send you the DOS version of this game in Zipped form. I hope the admin wont have any problem with that. if you want me to send you the game then I suggest you make a temporary email account and post it as a comment here.. I will send over the game to you..it is working for me on my laptop and it will surely work for you, regards

    Comment by tony — April 5, 2008 @ 12:08 pm

26. Missing combat part: guys.. is anyone else missing the combat at provance level like me? I game closes if I choose to take charge of the battle

    Comment by tony — April 5, 2008 @ 12:11 pm

27. about combat issue: the exact error reads … ” Error Loading battle data - RO2SWDA.PL8 not found”.
    I didn’t read comment number 20 which is stating the same problem like my comment 26. sorry about that. so the missing file is “RO2SWDA.PL8″

    As far as the sound issue is concerned I will say run the setsound program and enter the A220 I5 D1 T3 P330 settings by choosing the manual configuration instead of auto detection. the sound issue was resolved for me by following this step. regards

    Comment by tony — April 6, 2008 @ 4:03 am

28. Illegal command issue: Please don’t forget to “change drive to C:\” before running the game with c2.bat.. you will get this error every time when the active drive is Z:\ ..(Admin.. my appologies for flooding the message board)

    Comment by tony — April 6, 2008 @ 4:09 am

29. Thank you for the additional details Tony. To get rid of the error “Error Loading battle data - RO2SWDA.PL8 not found” please download this file to the same directory as the rest of your game files:
    RO2SWDA.PL8

    Comment by Administrator — April 6, 2008 @ 8:42 am

30. First, I’d like to thank the administrator and everyone else. Without you all, I wouldn’t have known how to begin to run this game.

    I, too, get an error message when I choose to take charge of a battle, but mine says “RO2SPRB.PL8 not found.”

    Comment by Joseph — April 11, 2008 @ 11:47 pm

31. RO2SWDA.PL8 is not the only file the game can need for a battle.
    There is a PL8 directory in the Caesar 2 cd, he contains 18 Mo of data.
    They are surely dont all needed (when you read names) but i have just
    put all the folder in my Caesar2 directory, cause am lazzy lol.

    Comment by Jean — April 12, 2008 @ 12:33 am

32. i have the same problem with the illegal command cause i have the windows version.
    but where can i find the dos version?please help me.i love this game

    Comment by yiannis79 — April 18, 2008 @ 2:15 pm

33. I am having the same problem. When I go into battles it says “RO2SPRB.PL8 not found”. If someone could help me that would be awesome because I would really like to play it some more.

    Comment by Kris — April 20, 2008 @ 4:20 pm

34. Hi, I can’t even get the game to install on my vista computer. Any advice?

    Comment by Sean — April 21, 2008 @ 4:08 pm

35. How can i get caesur 3 to work?
    Running xp.

    Comment by Scott — April 23, 2008 @ 10:05 am

36. I’ve too the message illegal command c2.bat… I think that I’ve the dos version and I don’t understand why It doesn’t work..
    Thank a lot for your help

    Comment by Ben — April 24, 2008 @ 6:59 am

37. Search DosBox on google.
    I have vista and i play the Dos version with Dos Box.
    For the battles, if you want to be sure a missing file dont crash the game, put the PL8 folder of the win version in the same folder of C2.bat =]

    You can find the entire CD here : http://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=787&fic=liens

    (french) But try “House of the underdogs” on google, you will find a site with huge ammount of old game in english, i am pretty sure Caesar 2 CD is in them.

    Comment by Jean — April 26, 2008 @ 5:53 am

38. Sorry : not the folder, but all .pl8 files in the same as C2.bat
    (sorry i am not english)

    Comment by Jean — April 26, 2008 @ 5:55 am

39. Hi! i also having the same problem with Stella. Could you also email me the game file? thanks.

    Comment by kerwin — May 6, 2008 @ 5:49 am

40. Hi! I am also having the same problem as of most of the people who commented on this page, Everytime i type in call c2.bat it comes up with Illegal command. Ive been trying to get this game to work for months and have had no luck PLEASE HELP appreciated.

    Comment by Debra — May 6, 2008 @ 7:44 pm

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Download Caesar II (For Free)

What good is a game advice site when some of the visitors don’t even have the game? Not as good as it could be. So, in an effort to improve the situation, here is Caesar II as a free download. Yes, that’s right. For a limited time only… download Caesar II (Caesar 2) for free! This is a free download - Not just the demo version - the full game!

So what are you waiting for? Download Caesar II Now!

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Building Pics

Small Size Housing (1×1)

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Medium Size Housing (2×2)

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Large Size Housing (3×3)

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Other Buildings

Land Value Requirement Guide for Non-Housing type Buildings

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Worship Buildings

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Forums

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Water

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Other Structures

Remember that Markets are not affected by land values, but by the amount of housing and businesses that the market traders pass by. See the Managing your Industries section for details.

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Hints, Tips, Cheats, and Links for Caesar II

Getting Caesar II to run in Windows XP can be tricky.
This simple step-by-step guide on How to Run Caesar II in Windows XP
should help you get it working.
 

Your army is victorious!

The enemy lays scattered across a vast, blood-covered plain. You parade your troops throughout the land in celebration of your success when yet another would-be conqueror sneaks up on your southern border. With very little time to spare you once again dispatch a tired yet enthusiastic legion of your finest men.

Caesar II was released in 1995 as the follow-up to 1993’s Caesar. It had an engaging way of blending the genres of city building with good old-fashioned fighting - a method that has been repeated many times since. You can read more on Wikipedia about the history of the Caesar game series.

When it arrived, Caesar II drew comparisons to the original SimCity. And rightfully so; In many ways it mimicked SimCity. But it also stands on its own. One big difference? Caesar II’s battles! If you liked SimCity, there is a good chance you’ll enjoy Caesar II. And if you hated SimCity, perhaps the battle elements of Caesar II will be just the thing to draw you in.

Having long been out of circulation, Caesar II has been considered abandon-ware and is available for free download from various sites, along with its predecessor Caesar. The download sites come and go, but Caesar II can also be purchased used on Amazon.com for around a buck plus shipping.

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City Walkthrough

Starting Off

This is more of a step-by-step procedure than a hint section.

• If playing in campaign mode, consider doing the following steps, but this cannot be done if you’ve just started a new game.
  1. Load the file "lastyear".
  2. Once your city has loaded, wait for your soon-to-come promotion. If you made any last minute changes to your province before being promoted, and you think that the change might have affected the emperor’s decision to promote you this year, than make these changes now, and wait for your promotion.
  3. Once you are promoted, select your next province to govern.
  4. If you are not satisfied with the new river layout, than go back to step one.
• An appropriate site for a Defense type of city is a river running from the bottom of the map to the right, or symmetrical equivalent. A city built for Population would have a river of an irregular shape, covering the highest amount of space possible. A Mercenary city governor can have any type of river.
• I recommend pausing the game before proceeding. Begin construction by making water available to your city. I recommend building one reservoir and one fountain beside the reservoir. These essential structures should be built alongside the river of course. Beside the reservoir and fountain, build a hospital, rhetor and market in a single row, still building alongside the river. Behind the market, and beside the hospital, build a prefecture. Now, make a cane-shaped road that will reach all of these buildings. On the other side of the street, build a bath house that faces the middle of the row located on the other side of the road. Beside the bath house, build a grammaticus, theater, and two fountains on the corners of the (purple) pipe access/water square. See the Money Saving Tips at the end of this document for an explanation why you should build these (fountains).
• Build a block of housing behind the 2×2 building row (The grammaticus, theater and bath house row). Make it small enough for the walkers to access, but big enough to create good population growth. I recommend block sized four by ten squares, the longer part being alongside the 2×2 building row.
• For every 5000dn remaining, consider building a basilica. Temples carry half of that (2 500dn) and shrines carry even less (app. 1 000dn), so build those structures if you do not wish to get a robbery.
• Here’s more or less what the finished product should look like:
  
• Once February hits, the pleb requirements are going to go up fairly high, so prepare yourself by increasing pleb welfare to about 15dn per month. Expand progressively, but fairly slowly. Remember that the more housing you build without adding new land-value-increasing structures, the more your current housing will suffer. Add the occasional entertainment structure and keep up with demand for everything. Prepare yourself for riots and other problems. Once you get your treasury stabilized, proceed with developing your province.
• Some people have been complaining that even with the speed at ten, it will still take three or four minutes to go through one year. A simple way to beat this is to go under the speed menu and select accelerated time and sit back and relax. Each month will take about 15 seconds to go by, and the time will resume normal speed whenever a message appears ( i.e. an invading army, stolen Dn., end of year statement, etc.) -The Warlock

Land Values

Here you see two large palaces. The land value here is 64, the required amount to construct this type of housing. Notice that the palaces are close to a grammaticus, hospitals, a library and a market. The palaces also have their own forum, baths, shrines and water supply. When managing land values (especially higher ones), keep these thoughts in mind:

• Check out the "Caesar’s Pics" to set development goals.
• The larger housing (Villas and Palaces) only need to have all their needs satisfied on one third of the squares that they occupy. For example, a palace only needs an entertainment rating of 9 on three out of nine that it occupies to maintain an entertainment rating of 9 for the whole structure. Sometimes, you may get away with having all the needs satisfied on only one square, but this does not always work.
• Prevent the Population Dip at all costs. The dip can cost you your expensive housing and can even eliminate some of your housing.
• As you can see from the picture, the palaces have automatic coverage at all times by land-value-increasing buildings. In order to develop higher land values, you shall need this strategy. Keep the baths, forums, schools, hospitals, libraries and worship buildings close, but keep markets and prefectures at least three squares away, but not too far away (More than five or six squares at most) Walkers have pretty short lives and their effects are eliminated quickly once they pass by housing, so don’t rely entirely on them!
• Remember to have all your housing accessible by road. Speaking of road access, remember that hospitals, libraries, and buildings that produce walkers need direct road access at all times to function effectively.
• Make sure to prevent disasters in the area, especially riots because they reduce land values drastically by creating rubble. Even riot presence in the vicinity could lower land values. See the Dealing with Problems section for advice on dealing with these disasters, and how to prevent them.
• Romans hate open spaces. Strongly avoid building housing blocks near empty land. This is one of the major causes of the Population Dip.
• Land values for housing and land values for non-housing (Multiple stature) buildings are different. These non-housing type buildings are affected by much fewer limiting factors than normal housing, and the limiting factors that do act upon them only affect their land value slightly. For example, you can easily bring a basilica up to a high stature (Let’s say with a land value rating of 53), although it has no external security and is in the proximity of a business, just by placing some plazas around it.
• Use the query tool often to check what residence wants if they are shrinking or not growing.
• Never leave rubble lying around and if you can afford it build roads out of plazas and build grammaticus because they are cheap and really please people.

Managing Your Industries

Your industries can be an important source of income for Mercenary city governors. They also make good use of provincial industry.

• You will probably begin to build industries later in your city development. If you have a lot of expensive housing, consider building the industries in areas already limited in growth, or in areas that have many non-housing type buildings.
• Make sure that a market is beside each of your industries. This will eliminate any problems caused by the short-term effects of walkers.
• The effects of high Industry Taxes are evident when all of your industries have production reductions at the same time. The diminished production caused by taxes is explained with the "insufficient city-wide demand" comment. Check out the Treasurer section in the Forum page for information on managing your taxes.
• Placing housing around your industries in the effort to provide decent workforce is a seemingly logical, yet risky idea. Housing placed both near an industry and on the edge of city limits will cause riots in the area for sure. Unrest, strangely enough, will not rise in such housing so rioting generally cannot be predicted. Avoidance is quite easy:
  1. Build industries in the inner-city area, but beware of the associated wide-spread limiting factors.
  2. Surround your workers’ housing with another type of building. Temples usually work effectively. This is my recommendation.
  3. A road that surrounds your industrial community will reduce the risk of a riot slightly.
  4. Consider building your workforce housing right beside a river.
• If you wonder why you cannot make raw materials available from your province, see the Trade and Industry section on the province level page for information.

Protecting Your City

Internal Security is good at any time. It will minimize the chance that riots will occur, and stop riots if by any chance they do occur. The presence of vigils will also raise land values. Vigils also take care of invaders if they reach your city, like soldiers. Please keep in mind that vigils are quite "shy" though, so they let invaders come to them instead of running after invaders like soldiers do.

External Security is only necessary if you are building in City-Only mode, or if you are a governor that builds for Defense. Installing external security is also a good way to spend excessive money if applicable.

• If you are building a wall to protect your city from invasion rather than to simply allow land values to go above 42, than do not build the wall on the edge of the map. If you do build a wall at the edge of the map, than invaders will not be hindered by its presence.
• Barracks are used to stop an attack once an invader is inside the city. Towers, on the other hand, will help stop an invasion before it reaches the city. Try to build more towers than barracks: It’s cheaper and more effective.
• One option is to wall off your entire map along the outside as an expensive but instant security system.

Dealing with Problems - Unrest and Riots

Rioting will probably be the most common problem that you’ll experience. The usual cause for rioting is unrest, but it’s also partially caused by the Population Dip (Described later in this document).
Unrest is caused by factors such as conscription and limiting factors, but is amplified by taxes. To make things easier to understand, think of this: You’re listening to music that has multiple instruments playing at the same time, each playing at a different volume level. These instruments are like different levels of unrest. If you turn up the volume, every one of the instruments will play louder. The volume is like tax. If you increase taxes, every housing unit that already has unrest will now have more unrest, and maybe some of the housing that did not have unrest before will now have unrest. Higher difficulty levels make unrest more likely.

If you’re unfamiliar with the preventative measures for high unrest and riots, here are a few:

• Avoid exposing your housing to the major limiting factors such as lack of baths, forum access or full water supply.
• Keep a low population tax, and balance it out with an increase in the industrial tax.
• Increase the number of luxuries (temples, plazas and entertainment). One idea is to replace your roads with plazas. Another idea is to use entertainment and worship buildings to fill in the squares where limiting factors reside, instead of putting housing in those areas.
• I have found that if an area of houses or a house, turn red (threat of riot), and you cannot figure out the immediate cause, just destroy the house (houses) and immediately place new houses in the same spot. This usually takes care of the problem for the time being, gives you more time to make adjustments and is cheaper than a riot. -Anonymous

Sometimes, no matter how many precautions you take, a riot will occur. If a riot does break out, it usually begins in large housing blocks, near the edges of your city limits or "filler" housing (Housing placed among many non-housing type buildings to fill in empty space.) Here are some strategies when dealing with riots:

• Build a tower in front of the rioter. This will hinder the rioter’s progress considerably. Sometimes the tower might even produce a soldier, who will eliminate the rioter immediately. Otherwise, the tower will slow the progress of the rioter long enough for vigiles to be able to intercept them.
• If there’s only one vigile in the area trying to intercept a riot, but he cannot because a building is in his way, than you may consider cutting him a path through some housing in order to facilitate access. If larger buildings must be destroyed in order for the vigile to access the rioter, or if you simply don’t feel like wrecking things, than try to rotate the map a couple of times and see if the vigile goes around his obstacles to intercept the rioter. In most cases though, the vigile will automatically circle the obstacles and take care of the rioter.

Population Dip

The population dip is an undocumented problem that can affect your city at earlier stages of development. The basic definition of population dip is "Invisible Unrest". A population dip does not create riots or any other type of physically apparent problems, but its effects can seriously harm your city.
The population dip reduces land values in your city considerably, often for no evident reason. Sometimes, you may be thrown into debt because of it ; Other times, you might lose some of your (previously thriving) housing blocks. Here’s some causes of the population dip, and associated solutions: Most of the causes listed below have a general solution: Progressive expansion. As long as you build or improve your city continually, you can usually avoid the population dip.

Cause: Open Spaces; Housing placed near city limits is likely to suffer from population dips.

Solution: Surround your city with a wall, road, or other type of inexpensive structure. Also try to keep your housing on the inside of your city, while other buildings stay on the outside. This method could use up more money though, since less housing is affected by a single beneficial structure.

Cause: Limiting Factors/Unrest; Lack of entertainment, bath house coverage, etc.

Solution: See the Riots/Unrest section above. The solutions are practically the same.

Cause: Lack of Funds; Prevents you from fixing problems, expanding, and generally making life easier for your people. This makes your residents move out!

Solution: Cheat if you have to. Another solution is to resist the urge to build too much. Set a minimum amount of money to have at all times. My recommended amount is 5000dn or more.

Cause: Unruly Population; Some provinces simply have a bad population from the start.

Solution: Avoid these provinces if possible; let ‘ol Pompous have them. The province description will tell you if the province’s populace behaves bad. If you decide to take these provinces on, than be very careful. There’s no easy solution for this one.

Cause: Wandering Walkers; If people don’t see walkers in their neighborhood often, they will move out.

Solution: Split up your city into smaller communities by removing road pieces in some places. Read the third tip in Money Saving Tips for details. You may also try setting up a single possible path for walkers by making a single long road for them to follow.

Money Saving Tips

When it comes to providing water for your citizens, than keep in mind that only bath houses and fountains must be placed inside the underground piping range. Housing only needs water from a fountain to receive a normal water supply: it does not need pipe access. Please remember that water that comes directly from a river or well will only create a primitive water supply; only fountains do the job right. An anon person adds: If you place a fountain next to a reservoir and the fountain won’t fill with water, try placing the fountain directly on top of the little green plants (bushes), in the grassy area of your city. This should fix your problem.

Also concerning water: you can save yourself some time, money and space by allowing multiple aqueducts to feed off a single reservoir. This is great if you don’t want a maze of aqueducts running through your city, as you may end up doing when it will come to providing water for areas that are distant from the river. Even if three reservoirs draw water from a single initial reservoir that is beside a river, all three will get a full water supply.

A nice thing I found out in CII: When I first began playing, I thought all of the sections of one’s city had to be physically interconnected by roads - after all, that’s the case in real cities. This means that your "walkers are liable to wander aimlessly, thus decreasing their range of effectively. In the game, though, you can create numerous enclaves with their own short road system and facilities … and the shorter your roads, the easier it is to get good market, forum, prefecture coverage, etc. Pretty handy.
For instance, Are you tired of that annoying Robbery message because you forgot how many temples you had? Then, you have to scan your city to find space near a forum to plunk down another temple. Well, now, I create a separate area for just temples, hospitals and libraries. It can be anywhere… All it needs is road connection to a forum! –Glen Homan

Glossary

Defense City: A city built for defense is a city where one’s primary goal is to keep invaders out. This kind of city is appropriate if:

1. You are building in city-only mode, and are experiencing many attacks, or want to prepare for attacks if they do occur.
2. You find no need for a cohort. Most of the attacks that you do experience are minor and do not affect other structures/cities in your province, therefore you can easily repel an invasion (in the city view).
3. Your city is placed so that your troops will not be able to intercept the enemy in time if an attack does occur. Usually this is necessary if your city is very near a "To: Someplace" sign.
4. You want to ensure the maximum level of security possible, just in case. Usually you want to do this if the province description mentions that there are many raids in the area, and your troops are not ready to fight yet.

A defense city should have a river that runs across the corner of the city map. This is to minimize the chance that invaders will enter your city limits at a place where structures are built. If structures were placed alongside a river that ran straight across the map, invaders would have a better chance of reaching a populated area, no matter from what side they attack. A city placed in the corner of the map would allow your soldiers and vigiles to respond to an attack without having to run through a maze of roads in order to intercept, and the attackers rarely actually get to the populated area because of the additional distance to travel (If they begin at a corner or side opposite to the city).

A defense city should have at least one barracks unit, and as many prefectures as possible. The areas that are close to the edge of the map should have a wall protecting them.

Population City: A city built for population is one that has logically positioned buildings and roads for maximized land value, as well as a happy population and decent economy. The general point of building a city like this is to feel dedicated to your people rather than to anything else. This kind of city is appropriate if:

1. You are planning to manage a long term city-only game.
2. You want to work mainly on improving your culture and prosperity ratings.
3. You want to see the palaces "In real life."
4. You are trying to get the highest population you can

This type of city should have a long and swerving river that takes up the highest amount of space possible. This is to make it easier to provide water to the outer limits of your city (later in the game).

Population cities have plenty of land value raising buildings, relatively low taxes and much housing. An industry here and there will also contribute to the growth of this type of city.

Mercenary’s City: A city built by a mercenary city governor is one that has relatively high taxes and many industries. The general point to built a city like this is to make as much money as possible. This kind of city is appropriate if:

1. You want to jump from province to province quickly, having a good personal savings account to back you up along the way. A large surplus of money could allow you to build (freely and quickly) what is necessary in order to advance to the next province.
2. You want to experiment with the prosperity rating, or want to see how far up you can push taxes; how many industries you can build before your people go crazy.
3. You find that it’s easier to get your more money from industry and taxes, not luxury homes.

Any type of river is appropriate for a city like this. Preferably, though, a river similar to that used in "Population" cities is good for future city expansion possibilities.

The primary source of income for a Mercenary’s city is industry. In order to have a properly functioning "Municipal Industry Base", your province must be well developed first. Most of the housing in this type of city can be classified as "worker’s housing", housing that has low stature and is used basically to support the production of industries. Tax revenue, as mentioned above, is also an important source of income ; primarily industry taxes, of course. Do not increase your population tax too much, for a Mercenary’s city is probably a city with plenty of unrest.

3 Comments »

1. Is there any way to import a city (city only mode) to a province?

   Comment by Louise — March 3, 2008 @ 3:48 pm

2. How to import a Caesar II city made in city mode to a province save game? That is a good question. I have wondered about that too, but I don’t know if it can be done.

   Comment by Administrator — March 3, 2008 @ 4:32 pm

3. how do i get external security???

   Comment by patrick — April 28, 2008 @ 8:16 am

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Cheating

So you’re gonna cheat, eh?

This page deals with the topic of how to cheat in the game. It includes information on how to cheat, when it’s a good time to cheat and the problems that cheating can bring.

Note: The cheating methods described edit the quantity of money that you have. If you find a way to edit other things (Number of trained soldiers and their morale could be a good one), then let me know about it please.

A word about cheat codes: Everything I’ve heard and read seems to indicate that there are no cheat codes in the game. (I’ve seen some information out there about cheat codes. But the results seem to be a mixed-bag at best.)

How To Cheat

There are essentially two ways to cheat:

1. By using a money editor such as Csrbucks for Windows 3.1 or the Caesar II Denarii Editor for Windows 95 by Robert Pippen.
2. By directly editing the Save Game files using a Hex Edit Utility.

Both methods have different problems & advantages, but both will basically give the same thing: More money.

Money Hack Utilities Versus Hex Editing

• Money Hack Utilities can be faster than Hex Editing - No need to look for offsets or Decimal-Hexadecimal conversions: Editing is automatic. But… Hex Editors offer the user more control on what parts of a file are edited.
• Money Hack Utilities have a more convenient, easy to use, friendlier, and generally simpler interface than Hex Editors. But… Hex Editors provide a more deep, informative, and manipulative interface than Hack Utilities that advanced users may like.
• Money Hack Utilities are smaller simpler programs. But… Hex Editors offer more features such as file comparing and multiple file manipulation. You can say that they have more "Bang for the byte".

Also consider that Hex Editing is often more reliable than using Hack Utilities. When you let a program do the work there’s always a chance that a hack utility will change the wrong byte. That doesn’t mean, though that Hex Editing is 100% reliable. There’s always a chance that something will go wrong no matter what you do. So always back up the file before you try and edit it.

Instructions on How to Hex Edit Save Game Files

If you don’t already have a Hex Editor, than you need HexEdit (for win95).

1. First, find offset 35FC0 and 329E0. The money amount that you currently have could be in one of those locations, or both. If it’s in both, then modify both offsets when you’re going to hack in the amount you want. Here’s where to look in the offsets mentioned above. The column where the amount is written is the same for both locations:
   
   

   0000

   0000

   0000

   0000

   0000

   0000

   AMOU

   NT00

   
   Note: The display may vary from one Hex Edit Utility to the next.
   The amount that you currently have is mirrored (ex: 37F8 would be written as F837 in the save file.)

2. Type in the amount you want (in hex) in "AMOUNT". If you don’t have a Hex/Dec calculator, than here is a Hexadecimal/Decimal Calculator. Don’t forget to type in the mirrored amount (ex2: 10,000dn (2710 Hex) should be typed in as 1027).
3. Save the file, and run Caesar II.
4. Load the Save Game file, and you should have the amount that you hacked in previously.

Other Hex Editing Possibilities

You can set your own personal wealth by editing offsets 35FE8 and 35FE9 (eg 50,135dn =D7 C3) Great for big gifts to Emperor. You can reduce any current year construction costs to Zero by editing offsets 32C24 and 32C25 to 00 00. Great for turning an annual profit. - Thanks to Mark Devine for this great tip!

2 Comments »

1. I found that if you use the time-speed control to slow things to a crawl when an enemy attacks, you can then quickly build a wall in a full circle around their army. Then, as they work on that, start training new cohorts. Once that’s underway, build a few more obstacles. It usually took three or four walls to get a decent army raised, one that would numerically crush the invaders.

   In this way you can save money by not spending it on maintaining high troop levels.

   Comment by Aaron — May 8, 2008 @ 3:22 pm

2. Aaron, that is an interesting approach. I am assuming that you are talking about the Caesar II game speed and not something in DOSBox? It would seem that a few layers of wall should cost much less than paying for unused troops all the time.

   Comment by Administrator — May 8, 2008 @ 3:29 pm

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The Forum

Oracle

• The Prosperity rating is very hard to increase if you have high operating costs at the beginning of province development. You have to have a surplus in order to get promoted.
• The Empire rating is probably the easiest one to increase. All you need to do is connect your city with other towns and build a trading post or two, and your rating rises to 40%. I use the Empire rating to get my average rating up to the required mandate.
• It’s easy to move the culture rating to "As high as it can be for your city’s current size" by building a whole bunch of basilicas along the edge of your city, and maximizing entertainment in at least a third of the city.
• The more you fight (And Win), the higher your Peace rating will rise. Building walls (Both on the City and Province levels), as well as cohorts will also get this rating to go up. The Peace rating will also rise naturally over time. The prosperity rating also grows naturally over time.
• When building in campaign mode, first develop your city then when you have enough money develop your province for fastest promotion. Sometimes you don’t even need to develop your province -Pendragon

Plebs

• Adjust Pleb welfare in 5dn increments. This will allow you to get the plebs you need more quickly, and will provide some extras in case of emergency.
• How to get free slingers: You can simply take plebs from the province level, where they work in industry and train them for a month as slingers. After the battle, back to work! So this actually cost you nothing, provided at that time you have about three industries running you train (e.g. 60 as slingers and let 30 to run the ind. at 33% capacity, it won’t kill you) –Sorin Cristescu
• Provincial Work pleb quantities do not always have to meet requirements, especially at easier levels. Often, you may get away with providing 25 plebs per industry while maintaining maximum production.
• If you pause the game while building, the pleb requirements might go up significantly once you unpause, so prepare yourself by having idle plebs ready at all times.

Centurion

• If you lose some of your auxiliaries in battle, they will not be replaced automatically when they return back. Move the spending done on them up by one and then down by one, and the problem will be solved.
• The Centurion will increase your total operating costs dramatically. It’s important not to start off with spending more than 20dn a month. The soldiers take time to train anyway, so high salaries will do nothing but reduce your prosperity ratings. It is of course safer to give them high salaries when your budget has more surplus.
• If you haven’t figured it out already, the "Major, Minor, etc." settings designate soldier distribution in your cohorts.
  • "Major" Cohorts have many soldiers, and their readiness is excellent.
  • "Minor" Cohorts have little soldiers, and their readiness is reasonable.
  • "Normal" Cohorts have a number of soldiers that’s between the "Major" and "Minor" Cohort types, and their readiness is high.
  • "Demobilized" Cohorts have no soldiers at all, and the flag representing the cohort is immobile. The soldiers’ readiness is unfit.

  It’s important to set the soldier distribution settings before your soldiers are trained. You cannot "transfer" soldiers between cohorts by changing the distribution setting.

• Auxiliaries are less likely to be available on islands or in provinces with much water.

Treasurer

• If you cheat, set the taxes to zero. If you want to make plenty of money, set the population tax at 5 or 6%, and the industrial tax at 8%. For a happy populace, set the population tax at 3 and the industrial tax at 6%.
• If you monitor the budget table regularly, consider removing the Construction Costs from your calculation. This will give you a general idea of how much you could be making, and you’ll be able to figure out how much to spend on construction in a year without losing money.
• Industries don’t riot. Set the industry taxes at a higher level than the population taxes. You’ll know if you set it too high when all production across the city goes down at once.
• Taxes usually only cause unrest among poorer communities, especially those near industries. If you develop a city full that’s of rich people, increase taxes. If you have many industries and/or poor communities, lower them.
• You could raise pop. taxes gradually month by month until the population growth changed from Extremely Good to Quite Good, then crank it down a point. A note of warning: You have to re-check the pop. growth (Good, Poor, Quite Good, etc.) periodically after raising taxes. The people will tolerate tax increase for a while, but then they change their minds. I have finally come to the conclusion to just leave it at 5%, period!

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Province Tips

Starting Off

Here are some tips that deal with development of a province at earlier stages of the game:

The recommended province to start any game with is Illyricum. This province is quite peaceful, has plenty of resources, offers much room for provincial development and has loyal people. My second choice would be Corsica and Sardinia: it too is easy to manage, but is very small compared to the others.

You will usually start off with building your city, and then proceeding with developing your province. This method will prove to be logical once you start building at a low budget (At harder levels of difficulty). When beginning to develop your province, I recommend that you do things in the following order:

1. Connect your city to the nearest town(s)
2. If a border town is near, connect your city to there as well.
3. Beside the town, build a trading post, and as many warehouses as possible (Or as many as your budget permits you to build.)
4. Build a port if possible. Make sure to build it so that it will be able to “Catch” ships that come in from other provinces or trading routes. If your budget permits, build a shipyard. Don’t forget to build warehouses to store trade goods.
5. Build a cohort fort somewhere near your city
6. If your province has very many tribes, than build a wall around your city, leaving out a space for a road to connect your city other towns and structures.
7. Build some farms, mines or quarries if you wish (and if you can!).

Campaign games are harder than city-only games. Don’t try to fool yourself by thinking that you’ll be just as good playing at the “Normal” difficulty level in campaign games as in the “Normal” difficulty level in a city-only game.

Trade & Industry

• Usually you won’t need to build farms, mines or quarries. They are expensive to maintain because they must use large quantities of plebs to function properly. You can be quite profitable simply by building ports and trading posts.
• If you choose to or have to build farms, mines or quarries, than you just need to satisfy their pleb requirements by slightly more than two thirds. Production will be high enough to supply one or two industries at the city level.
• Refuse the “Build Warehouse?” offer when constructing industries. Build external warehouses instead. This method will get goods to your city faster.
• Build all industries far away from tribes. Attacking tribesmen try to destroy everything between them and your city. Later, when the tribes are conquered, you may safely develop the surrounding areas.
• Don’t Forget: A gate can cut off access between your city and provincial towns! I’ve seen this error made in city depository cities.

Province Defense

• Placing buildings in front of an army will not slow the attackers. Invading parties will just demolish them. Placing them as “bait” will not work either, as invaders go straight to cities.
• If a certain army is heading straight towards your capital city (No structures/other cities in the way), than consider letting the invader enter the city. This will lower your ratings for a while, but it’ll save your whole army for a more threatening attack. Once the invading party enters your city, they become as harmful as a rioter (Point: Easy to eliminate).
• Note in the picture above the problem that one can encounter. The attackers are going to destroy a building, and then head for the capital city. That’s bad. Since one of your buildings will be destroyed anyway, place your army between the city and the structure instead of waiting on the shore like this.
• When you have two armies attacking your province, you should attack the smaller army because it will cost you less men compared to the larger army and it will boost the morale rate to a higher level. You should let the larger army hut your city because the army is equal to a rioting force. –Anonymous
• If a strong invading army is heading for a provincial town, do not stop them. After the town has been captured, you will find that the invading army has turned into a much weaker local tribe. The town can easily be captured.
• Province Walls can be built unconnected to a Cohort fort if 2+ sections are created by dragging. -Robert Bognar
• On the provincial level first build a cohort and roads to your barbarian tribes. Then from the forum assign 60-200 plebians to army duty and 400 heavy infantry. When this cohort is all hired and trained, hire all your auxiliaries and wipe your tribes out. After your tribes are gone fire your auxiliaries and plebians -Anonymous

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Online Store

Caesar (Caesar 1) - Free! The one that started it all. A dated classic - interesting to play, even if just to see how far things have come.
Caesar II (Caesar 2) An oldie but goodie. Get it on Amazon for cheap! "No way", you say. Well, how "less than a buck" sound?	Caesar II Official Strategy Guide Used copies of this handy guide are for sale on Amazon starting with prices at 2 cents!
Caesar III (Caesar 3) Like Caesar 2, only newer, and with better graphics.	Caesar III Official Strategy Guide An Amazon reviewer said that this was more helpful than the Caesar II Strategy Guide. My guess is that the Caesar II guide was not helpful at all for Caesar III Players. Call me crazy…
Caesar IV (Caesar 4) Can you believe it? Another one! And with each version the graphics keep improving. Time will tell if we can say as much for the game-play.	Caesar IV Official Strategy Guide So shiny and new. What would the game be without a handy dead-tree guide to help you along? It’s not like you can find any information on Google.

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Caesar II Links

Caesar2 Strategy Guide
The Best Caesar II FAQ/Guide.

DOSBox MSDOS Emulator
This program will allow you to run the DOS version of Caesar II in Windows XP. If you need help getting it working, take a look at our step-by-step for How to Run Caesar II in Windows XP.

Caesar2 Cheats from GameSpy
Yeah, I know: “There aren’t any cheats in Caesar 2.” And there aren’t. These “cheats” are not all that great.

Caesar II Overview from Theodor Lauppert
Short overview of Caesar 2 and the technical requirements to run it and the other Caesar-series games.

Answers.com Caesar 2 Review
Includes a nice game overview, rankings of various game qualities, and the original DOS game credits.

CD Mag Caesar II Review
Good overview of the game and one of few reviews I’ve come across.

Emperor Vaustein’s Caesar II Page
Home of The Water Trough Method, Emperor Vaustein’s effective strategy for maximizing land value. He also has a small amount of good Q/A material.

Other Caesar Links Lists
The "Official" Caesar 3 site is long dead, but their old links list lives on at The Internet Archive. Also, Keith Heitmann posted a nice list of Caesar 2 and Caesar 3 links on the VU Games Forum.

If you have you own Caesar II page or know of more links, and especially if you notice links that don’t work, please let me know!

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