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Kaiser was released in 1984 by Ariolasoft. It is completely in German, and without knowledge on the German language you will not be able to enjoy it. However, the story of the game is the following: You own 15,000 "Taler" (currency units) and 10,000 units of land. You have to provide your people with food, must adjust taxes and buy mills and markets in order to start your economy. You also may buy cheap land and sell it for lots more money, because the prices for land and food change every year. The game begins in the year 1701, and the main task is to become "Kaiser" (emperor). Therefore, you must be promoted eight times, and you must fulfill certain criteria in order to get to a higher rank.
You also may begin a war in order to destroy the other player's cities, mills, markets and to take land.
To be promoted to "Koenig" (king) you must complete a palace, and the criteria for becoming "Kaiser" (emperor) are:
- 25,000 units of land fully equipped with mills and markets
- complete palace
- complete cathedral
- 100,000 units of money cash.
Anyway, when your performance is too poor, you may be fired for a year, or if you owe too much money, you may be taken away most of your properties.
Up to nine players can play, and except for a war, each player does his turn for a year, and then the next will do his. Each turn consists of these steps:
- land / food auction: buy or sell land or food, decide how much you will give to your people.
- status report: inhabitants, income from mills and markets.
- tax: income tax, customs etc. values can be altered.
- map: you see your ground with all the buildings, inhabitants and your cash.
- buildings: buy buildings, look at standings, care about military, end your turn.
Overall, this game can be played alone or with friends for very long times in order to optimize the performance, i.e. to become emperor as soon as possible (my personal record is 14 turns ;-) so you can play it again and again and it hardly becomes boring.
Downloads: Music
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| GRAPHICS - 5/10 |
Easy ASCII with altered sympbols, no sprites, but old-fashioned style fonts.
No disturbing effects, colours are well chosen and good readable.
When being promoted to emperor, a great ceremony awaits you with pretty good
graphical effects.
| | SOUND - 4/10 |
During the game, the most distinguishing sound is the music when being
promoted. Most of the sound consists of beeps when you adjust values, buy or
sell something. Again, the emperor ceremony is lots better (music playing)
| | PLAYABILITY - 8/10 |
Once you get what all is about, you licked blood and want to be better and
better. This may result in starting after dinner and being surprised by the
next morning's sunrise. As you can play it with up to nine people, you can
satisfy a whole bunch of people.
| | OVERALL - 7/10 |
A nice simple game like many others, but in German. One game with two people
may take up to four hours, so you might need a pretty lot of time to play.
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