Blocks!: Julius Caesar Reviews

Summary: Fun light war game with a low barrier to entry both in terms of the interface as well as the ease of grasping the rules. Recommended for fans of light war games or those who enjoy games with "fog of war" such as the Columbia blocks system games. So far, I am enjoying this game with 3 campaigns played. This is the conversion for the Columbia Blocks system game "Julius Caesar" which is highly rated on Board Game Geek. This game simulates the Caesar vs. Pompey Roman Civil War campaign. The rules are easy to grasp. You play a card each turn that allows some combination of moving and levying units, with a handful of cards that "break" the rules in some way. Initiative is determined by the movement value of the card played, whether or not a "special" card was played, then finally Caesar as the tie break. The variety and strategy comes into play with playing the cards at the right time and experimenting with unit combinations. The blocks system simulates "fog of war" since you can't see your opponent's units, and each block is used to mark the damage by turning 1/4. Visually here, the blocks just have "notches" that shows damage marked off, which works well. There are special blocks like leaders and Cleopatra. The PDF they include with the game is well laid out and clear, and the in-game tutorials are nice. Columbia has a PDF of the physical game rules which might help as well. The only thing I need to read through again is the part about levying units, since it seems like you are restricted as to what you can levy where but I am sure I can find this out easily enough after a re-read. Overall, the interface is nice and smooth and intuitive which lowers the barrier to entry. The controls are easy to use, and the board is nice and clear. You can zoom in so that it is easy to see the roads and how much damage is on each block.

Although the units on the map do not represent historical accuracy, the game allows the player(s) to experience the deadly struggle between the two factions. The strategic movement, recruitment and naval power simulates the historical struggle quite closely. Tactical battles, although following a very simplistic system, perfectly complements the strategic system. This is a grand strategy game, not a tactical simulation. The tension level in the game is high; every turn is a nail-biter. It is a quick game and worth every minute. It is fun and everyone walks away smiling at the end.

This is my one of my favorite block games. When I purchased it, I have prepared for bad AI. As much as I understand Avalon Digital's limited operations, this Digital version is disappointing. There is still some bug (e.g. Caesar should have initiative on the very first round, but it is still counting the card initiative), and the interface is also not excellent (e.g. Event / Special card is not written clearly as the original cards; you need to shift+click manually to move units through the same border, otherwise it counts as a movement of a single block, with the rest coming as reinforcement; undo-ing will reset the whole round).

There are bugs to this game and they don't seem to be fixing them. I stopped buying "Blocks" games because of this game.

You have to understand, this is a serious wargame. You put your hand on a piece, you move it -- like chess. You have to think through your moves. Now there's a slight glitch in the way the game plays, so this is a fair warning. When you move a group into a territory to attack, all the units coming down one road have to be selected together, otherwise, if you send them in one at a time, one will attack in round one and the rest will arrive as reserves. For those who know this game, that's not right. You just have to remember to group your units to avoid the glitch. I know they're all coming down the same road, but the program cannot tell unless you move them together, as a group. Okay. Do that and everything works great. Perfect. Just like the game. It's a class game, by the way. You gotta love it.

Just bought this unfortunately without reading many of the reviews, intention was to play against my friend online, but the bugs in the combat phase cause the game to crash and happen frequently enough to make it difficult to commit to trying to play PvP. Also as has been previously pointed out the AI is particularly weak and does not provide much of a challenge. I hope patches will be forthcoming as I would really like to play and enjoy this game, but in it's present state it is very disapointing

Based on actual PvP "game play" and review of forum responses by the developers, I do not recommend this game. It has some value as a solitaire version of a great board game, it is not worth $25. I, personally, will not buy or recommend any of Avalon Digital's versions of great Columbia games until this one works PvP online as represented

To start off with, "Julius Caesar" is an amazing game from Columbia Games. It ranks high in my game collection. When it was released by Avalon Digital, I had to have it. I have played six games, three first as Pompey and three playing Caesar. I played the games in all AI settings. I am quite sad to tell you that I beat the AI six times in a row. It wasn't bad enough that I won the six games, I won the six games quite easily. At this point I will even say that it was a "cakewalk". So if you are planning to buy this game to be challenged don't bother. If you like to beat your computer opponent quite easily then this is a must buy for you. A quick note to my good friends at STEAM. With a game like this you need more than two hours of play test time to figure out if a game is good or not. For the record I asked STEAM to refund my money after three hours of playing which was rejected by STEAM. I have not bothered to count the number of games that are in my STEAM library but I can say it is substantial and this was my first attempt to return a game.

Please don't waste your money, the game is incomplete and abandoned by the developers and publishers. Check out the discussions

Been a fan of these tabletop games for years, very nice to see them come to digital. Played my fair share of Julius Caesar at the table, I don't consider myself the greatest player. Played first game as Pompeii on easiest level and destroyed the AI handily. Played second game as Caesar on medium difficulty and won fairly easily. Will play my next game on the hardest level, hopefully more challenging. Regardless, i'm more interested in online play and don't mind the easier games vs AI to keep me fresh. Also picked up Richard III.....a game i've never played yet but look forward to learning. Praying Hammer of the Scots (one of my favs all-time) is in the works. Great to see these in digital format Avalon Digital! Job well done. :)