http://caesaralan.co.uk/index.htmlis a very very good site to visit. pretty much anything can be found on here if you use the search feature, and if you still can't find the answers your looking for then just ask, the guys around here are wonderful at answering questions.

Except Alan's site which is the one I visit most, you might want to have a look on these two places too:
http://caesar3.heavengames.com/
http://www.geocities.com/caesar_jan/

I suggest starting a new career which is the easiest way to understand the basics. The first two missions are tutorials and I can tell that Caesar3's tutorial maps are much more profecionally designed than Zeus's. Since you are an expert player on other CB games you will find many things in common. But Prosperity is calculated differently and instead roadblocks there are gatehouses. Also you can't give orders to markets. Therefore many players prefer building blocks seperated from each other.

Housing data tables from Alan's site and this Desirability Cart (on reply 15) could be saved or printed for easy reference.

[This message has been edited by philon (edited 07-12-2004 @ 10:45 AM).]

Good idea Nefermenu. I think the best and most democratic way would be to make a list of the threads that people like here. I'll start the list, and others may add to it by adding to the thread. I will copy the links others provide and keep editing this post.

I tried to restrict myself to topics that aren't already discussed in detail in the fansites, but repeatedly pop up in the forum when novice or not so novice players run across a feature, and focussed on the longer threads with multiple posts. I also left out the threads that can easily be found by using the search facility, such as info about Lugdunum. Scanning over just the thread titles may give you good keywords to perform a search too.

There are currently 177 pages to go over, here are just the threads active more recently, i.e. the first 60 pages, but after say page 40 there are hardly any threads worth including. It appears those have been bumped up already.

Challenges:
The Century of Palaces Club
Highest Population With One Fountain
The Tiny City Challenge
50,000 club
108k RSW city is done

Events:
Have you ever seen an invasion in December?
Blessings scripted?
Neptune's wrath
Timing of disasters

Housing Blocks:
Flexi-Block for Caesar 3
Housing Blocks
Large Insulae Blocks
9 by 9 housing block
Housing block discussion
new luxury palaces
Palace Blocks Galore

Production:
Raw material/workshop production, trade, markets, & farms
Fishing production quantified
Let's Go Fishing!
Good news for high efficiency food production facilities(southern wheat,fishing wharf,etc.)

Ratings:
9 prosperity in first year
a desperate search for finding a rule for prosperity/profit
Everything you ever wanted to know about Prosperity - and then some!
Peace Rating
Wages: prosperity bonus

Walkers:
How do you "create" forced walkers?
Forced walkers
Walker behaviour
Explanation about Labor Access
Garden? Roads?
Now just how many tiles will a.......

Miscellaneous:
The four phases of city-building
birth
Desirability
2x2's, Black Holes, Cheats and Hidden Engineers
Disconnected Warehouse Bug
Taracco in the year 2000
Caesar's Tribute
Gladiators, lions, chariots in battle or defence
Tricks & Tips
Lugdunum Cliff Dwellers

I added the Challenges section, because it functions for this game as formula one racing for city car design. Many features of the game that can be used in standard career play were found in challenges or contests. You may check the CBC contest forum or their feature page.

The Miscellaneous section contains everything that I haven't categorized yet, I'm missing good military threads. Most threads on military tactics suffer from a low information density it seems, and much info is available elsewhere.

Disclaimer: Note that not all the information in these threads is checked and double checked, and even if it is you will see there is ample discussion. The only way to find out whether the advice given is viable is to try it, prove it wrong, and bump up the post.

[copied link from Philon (07-12-2004)]
[copied links from Afterburner, Nefermenu and Philon (07-14-2004)]

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 07-14-2004 @ 04:37 PM).]

Walker behaviour
The four phases of city-building
Raw material/workshop production, trade, markets, & farms

Thanks for all the great answers! I knew I could count on you guys (and gals)

Although C3 is quite an old game, there are still some newcomers who might find a thread like this useful. I have used the Search function, but I may not know what to ask! Some things just don't occur to me.

Anyway, I found this: Smiley's Housing block discussion.

I'm more or less finished with my list above, others may want to add links to it. If anyone wants to go over the remaining 2/3 of the available threads that would be greatly appreciated.

I know there are some relevants threads missing, such as the info that the wage in the prosperity calculation is the average over the whole year, posted by Catilina if I recall correctly. If anyone has references to those kind of links, that would be welcomed too.

Wow, great list, thank you Now all we need is some Angel to make it Sticky. I'm sure this list will be useful to newcomers, and many experienced players will find useful stuff there

It's nice when people are still playing a game as old as Caesar 3 and even starting to play it

edit: would that thread about the wages and prosperity be this: Wages: prosperity bonus?

[This message has been edited by Nefermenu (edited 07-14-2004 @ 03:40 PM).]

I'm back playing Caesar 3 (after some years' absence) and I can't find a great strategy document that was once on this website (I think). Where could it be? I remember that the author walked the reader through all the detailed advance planning he did at the beginning of a scenario. Based on his goal population, he calculated how much food they would eat, then how many farms and markets that food would require, and how much pottery to supply, therefore how many clay pits, etc. He laid out the complete road system, planted gardens, built aqueducts and opened trade routes before he even built a single house. He kept saying, "Still no houses!"

Does anyone know where this is?

tropos,
Please don't repeat the same question in multipe threads. I tried to answer your question in the thread you created. (I suggest that anyone who has a better answer also reply in that thread.)

For new players, I think this is a very helpful link. In any case, I want to be able to find it easily in the future myself.
city mood at "very hard" level, limit at 200 population?

[This message has been edited by xoria (edited 07-10-2007 @ 07:38 PM).]

iI just started playing caesar 2 and i need help with this. At the tutorial i can't figure out wat a "pleb" is. I know this is probably a noob ? but i cant figure it out. A warning kepps said "need more plebs" but i dont know how to build one. Please help.

Hi sir nooblet, welcome to Caesar III Heaven.

Please do not put off-topic posts in existing threads, especially "sticky" threads like this one (which is for links to the threads that forumers consider the most useful). If you can't find an existing thread which is relevant to your topic (in this case, help with Caesar 2), just start a new topic.

I haven't played Caesar 2, but some of our regular forumers have. If you start a new thread on Caesar 2 (or reply to an existing thread about Caesar 2), I'd guess that someone who knows the game will be able to help you.

A welcome to you Sir Nooblet to our humble abode here at HG

Please forgive my impertinence, but methinks thou aret posting in the wrong thread and the wrong forum. We simple servants are discussing the most relevant, in our honest opinion, threads pertaining to Caesar III. It might be an idea milord, but I am only suggesting of course, to start a new thread, with a title indicating that thou wants some information on the illustrious games of Caesar II.

Anyhow, now I'm here anyway: I don't know about CII, but in CIII and CIV pleb is short for plebeian, or working class citizen. You need more workers, probably building more houses will do the job. Hope this helps.

(edit: appears we crossed Brugle, sorry for the double post)

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 11-22-2007 @ 11:34 AM).]

Ask your questions at my e-addy mklatt@versatel.nl. I will enlighten you. This game is a bit old, but I have played it for 5 years on a regular basis and can help you out.

http://caesar3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/caeforumscgi/display.cgi?action=ct&f=2,3266,0,365

Most of the previous links are broken .
Caesar Alan's can be found by the wayback machine here :
http://web.archive.org/web/20020915225706/caesaralan.co.uk/index.html

I have written a walkthrough for this old game, since I've played it extensively for some time. Since another remote-site was included in this thread (which is now defunct,) I do not consider this spam. Please inform me if it is and how I can make my walkthrough useful to people who are looking for guidance in building a city.

Guide to City Building

Hi theinkandpen, welcome to Caesar III Heaven.

I took a quick glance at the Culture section of your guide and found some errors: it said that Culture is affected by amphitheaters and colosseums and access to buildings by a large portion of the population.

For accurate information about Culture, read the opening post in catilina's Culture thread.

I took a look at various sections and, I'm afraid, found several more errors and inaccuracies, including a number of values given for desirability of different buildings, almost all of which are wrong.

I don't mean to judge your efforts harshly - you've obviously put a lot of work in. If you'd like some help improving the accuracy, just shout.

Sure thing, it is not about judgement at all and never be afraid to speak out if something is wrong. I will actually double check the errors you pointed out, and if determined to be inaccurate they'll be fixed. I think you can post a comment anonymously on the site.

Bear in mind that guide is compiled with information straight from the manual, which does mention that those factors affect the culture rating.

Quoted from theinkandpen:

guide is compiled with information straight from the manual,

That explains it. From what I heard, the C3 manual went to press before the game was finished. (It is also possible that there were errors in the manual when it when to press.) Some old posts in this forum show people making the same error: repeating things from the manual as if they were true. (I might have been guilty of that--several times I mistakenly said things that were wrong, but I don't remember exactly why.)

I think it did go to press before, though I quite like the scribe's section still despite inaccuracies. Catalina's guide is pinpoint accurate by the way.

From what I understand religious structures actually play more of a part in the culture rating than theatres do? Although theatres, and structures such as the colloseum or hippodrome are supposed to favourably affect your culture rating. I am honestly going to go back to the game and experiment a bit (I also have Master of Olympus which I am still playing!)

Regarding the desirability, whenever I've played military structures do affect desirabilty in a negative way. Plazas do the opposite. As far as I know I haven't omitted anything, though please post here or send me a pm as I do not want the guide to be inaccurate. Thanks for your time guys.

No, the general comments about desirability are valid, but in one section (section 8) you give some actual numbers. On re-reading I think maybe the numbers are obtained from the building summary in the manual, where you seem to have interpreted '++' as '+2' and '---' as '-3'. That being the case, your numbers are not incorrect, but I would suggest that using those numbers is confusing (it certainly confused me!).

Correct desirability data, using the numbers used in-game, can be found in reply #15 of this thread

Also the statement "Generally, the bigger a building is, such as a colosseum for instance, the higher and more prolonged the effect it has on a residential district" is not really valid (even though the manual says so). A colosseum has the same properties as, say, a lion pit or a military academy.

As for culture - up to 30 points are available from religion and 25 points from entertainment. The religion element can include both small and large temples as well as oracles but the entertainment element includes only theatres (not amphitheatres). This is confirmed in the manual.

One other quibble - in section 3 you suggest that health affects the Peace Rating. It doesn't. It is possible that fumigation, resulting in the destruction of houses, might do so, but I don't think so (Brugle will no doubt come in if I'm wrong)

[This message has been edited by Trium (edited 03-04-2011 @ 07:39 AM).]

Quoted from Trium:

It is possible that fumigation, resulting in the destruction of houses, might do so, but I don't think so (Brugle will no doubt come in if I'm wrong)

I don't know whether fumigation affects Peace, but my guess is that it doesn't.

Unlike Trium, I have only read a small part of theinkandpen's guide. These examples are near the end of the "The Peace Rating" section:

Build plenty of doctor clinics per housing-block

As far as we can tell, the number of clinics doesn't affect city health. City health is affected by the fraction of people that have clinic coverage (passed by a doctor recently).

Poor areas, ... are likely to always have problems but as long as there are only a few such areas your peace rating will not suffer.

Peace is not affected by the number of poor areas or the number of areas with crime problems. For details, see Peace Rating, one of many useful threads linked from this thread.

it is generally expected of cities to have at least some criminal activity particularly if it’s a medium to large settlement

This is not necessarily misleading--it depends on what you mean by "generally expected". Some players may usually have crime in their cities. Other players (including me) usually do not have crime in their cities. Beginning players often have problems avoiding crime (just like they may have problems supplying food), but a player who has learned enough to build a medium to large settlement may have learned enough to avoid crime (and to supply food efficiently).

Of course, it isn't necessary to avoid crime. A player who doesn't care much about crime might not take the trouble to eliminate it.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 03-04-2011 @ 12:13 PM).]

About Peace rating , remember that any 12 buildings destroyed when invaders on the map ( except some like prefectures , towers etc ...) low peace rating , no matter what destroys them ( invaders , fumigation ,earthquake or your own deleting ...).

Edit Maybe best opening a new thread to keep this one clear ?

[This message has been edited by Senseisan (edited 03-06-2011 @ 08:50 AM).]