Now that I think of it, it might even be longer than that...

I got my first PC when I was 11 or 12, I don't remember exactly. It was a Pentium MMX 233Mhz: not exactly a beast, but it was the way I started to interact with computers. The first thing I did with that PC was to write and print a message to my mother with MS Works and added a Clipart. There was no Internet where I lived (that came when I was 19 and moved to another town), so I relied on a limited number of CDs for entertainment.

My first game was Age of Empires, and I spent countless hours on it; I knew that game inside out, I memorized unit costs, tech trees, sight radius... Sometimes my dad came home with a gaming magazine with one of those CDs with demos and free games, and that was it. Later, I got Civilization: Call to Power, and many more hours went there as well, forging my future taste for gaming entertainment.

There was, however, another title I owned, I had fun with, but have NEVER beaten. That game was Caesar III. I remember it being not incredibly long (10 missions total, maybe?), but I never made it past the sixth mission. Getting a villa was already an achievement, and every map with invading enemies would screw me over. Not even tinkering with the config file helped me. The game came in a yellow cardboard box, I think it was a budget edition, and it had a thick manual that I used to bring when I went on vacation and car trips with my family, and I read it several times to learn what buildings did and what every screen said. You know, you have to pass your time while travelling.

A couple days ago I visited my mother's house, and while in my bedroom I saw the CD case for Caesar III. It still runs on Windows 7 64bit, so I decided to pick it up again. I don't know why. I hate thinking about my past, there are not many pretty things back there; summoning memories from the past hurts a bit, but people keep telling me I have to do that in order to feel better about my life.
Anyway, I decided to boot it again and see if, at the "old" age of 25, almost an Engineer, looking for a job, I can summon the citybuilder in me and beat what I left unfinished ten years ago.
I have "better" games to play. I have Bastion ready to go, I'm a hour into The Witcher 2, I bought Portal and still have to install it... so why Caesar? Am I doing this to prove something? Is it the younger me I try to repress, emerging from the murky water of the past? I don't know.

I completed the fourth mission (2 tutorial + 2nd "real" one) before I wrote this. I'll keep you updated.

Edit: Post #17 contains update.

11 years ago*

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AoE? Rogan?

11 years ago
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tl;dr: he's going to beat Caesar III.
Or something... I didn't really read much of it.

11 years ago
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I suppose this one Caesar III

11 years ago
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I believe in you. I think that you are just trying to make yourself feel better.

11 years ago
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Let me know if you beat it.
Sometimes those games mean a lot to you. Like when I go to my cousins and we play PES 4 on his PS2. One day I'll get Fifa 99.. countless hours spent on that

11 years ago
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It is the dumbest games that stay in our hearts for the rest of our lives, isnt it? :D 1602 A.D is my first PC game.

11 years ago
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Road Rash and some other classic games. I have some on disk. But I have other games to play if I didn't I would try to buy them. But I think they cost a lot.

11 years ago
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Road Rash was one I played on the computer, but I dont count it usually as my first PC game since I was 4 and it was my brothers. I also played Duke Nukem 3D and Redneck Rampage. :/ Redneck Rampage controls are horrible. :D

11 years ago
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It's just an unfinished game which you may or may not beat. Good luck with it though. Oh and don't listen to 'people' unless they're giving you real instruction on how to deal with your past, help yourself or get professional help. Good luck with that too. :)

11 years ago
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You regress and find happiness in childhood habits and memories to try to regain the innocence you once felt. True story bitches.

11 years ago
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Reading this may or may not have made me want to finally finish the original Dink Smallwood. I was young and didn't know a word of english at the time I played it, so I never finished it... well, maybe.
Good luck with Caesar, hope you figure out what good hidden memory has made you come back to that game.

11 years ago
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Awww so you weren't challenged to do something by a ten year old :(

11 years ago
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Ah, unfinished games from childhood? I had that happen while clearing my backlog, for example with 3D Lemmings.

11 years ago
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Caesar III is an awesome game! :D

11 years ago
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What a sweet story.

11 years ago
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AGE OF EMPIRES FTW!!

11 years ago
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UPDATE

In the last few days I moved on to the fifth and sixth missions, picking for both the peaceful choice.

Miletus
A few steps from winning (waiting on Prosperity) and sudden plague reduces to half my population and forces me to spend an extra hour fixing the mess.

Lugdunum
Some people say this is one of the hardest missions due to space constraints, but I don't like war and Carthago is scary, so I tried this anyway. Wrong initial placement (southeast, too far from main farmland), I grow to 4000 people but prosperity won't go over 40. I start to struggle with warehouses that fill with the wrong goods (there is no way to tell them "Fill up to 1/4" like in Pharaoh), so houses keep upgrading/downgrading keeping Prosperity (again) under 48. Then Venus decides to curse the city, population falls down to 1400 and I have to spend a couple hours to fix it. Finally I beat the mission and I've never been this far in this game.

The fact that I'm having a very hard time making the borked AI do what I want is worrying, and I suppose peaceful missions will require more and more prosperity, warehouse troubles and hours I should spend doing something else...

11 years ago
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Closed 11 years ago by ilborghi.