Caesar II

When the game begins the Roman empire extends no further than Italy. Players have the opportunity to civilize adjacent barbarian provinces, eventually reaching the entire Roman Empire at its height. When a province is civilized it unlocks the surrounding provinces. A computerized rival also completes missions both preventing the player from civilizing that province and allowing them to civilize the provinces adjacent to it (the computer has been known to civilize a province it could not have selected when it successfully civilized the last, meaning it is a randomized event, rather than AI).

Unlike Caesar III, or Pharaoh, the province and city are separate spheres, as is the military. The player builds primary sector facilities (such as mines or farms), trade facilities (such as roads or docks), and military facilities (such as forts and walls) on one map and builds their city houses, secondary sector facilities (such as wineries or potters), and tertiary sector facilities (such as fire stations, police stations, bath houses) on another (represented as four squares in the center of the provincial map). Also unlike later games walkers are not required to bring services to people, which is instead determined by one buildings distance from another. Invading Armies differ from later games as well, in that Barbarian towns exist within many provinces from which Barbarian armies can emanate.

Initial reception of the game was positive. Arinn Dembo writing for Computer Gaming World gave the game 4 stars. A reviewer for Next Generation deemed it "an innovative mix of SimCity-type building strategy and wargame campaign." He said the game's strongest point is how it expands from a city-building simulation into nation-building and wargames, but also highly praised the graphics and simple, easy-to-grasp interface. He scored the game 4 out of 5 stars.

Caesar II was a runner-up for Computer Gaming World's 1995 "Strategy Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to Command & Conquer and Heroes of Might and Magic (tie). The editors wrote that Caesar II "surpassed the original with SVGA graphics and an actual combat module", and noted that it "could have won had the competition not been so strong." PC Gamer also nominated Caesar II as the best strategy game of 1995, although it lost to Command & Conquer.