When it comes to city-building games, it's hardly surprising that ancient Rome has often been the prime source of inspiration. It had probably the most impressive empire in history, had stunning buildings and also knew how to make roads straight and chariots run on time.

Last year alone saw the release of CivCity Rome and Glory of the Roman Empire, and now Titled Mill and Sierra have brought out the sequel to their 1998 hit, Caesar III. The goal is essentially the same as before, to play as a provincial Roman governor under orders from Caesar to build a city while meeting specific targets. These usually revolve around five success indicators; Culture, Security, Prosperity, Favour and Population.

Your citizens are divided into three classes. The Plebeians are your labourers and have fairly basic needs; the Equites are the middle class and provide all city services, as well as acting as tax collectors and judges; and the Patricians are the noble aristocracy who have high demands but are the only ones to pay taxes.

It's easy enough to satisfy the Equites so long as you can produce wine and furniture and house them in a moderately attractive neighbourhood with better than average housing and decent running water. The Patricians, as you'd expect, insist on luxury goods and high class service, plus the best living accommodation and top rate entertainment. To supply much of this you have to trade, and this means establishing extensive trade networks with outlying towns and cities.

There is an option to progress your career more along military lines than economical, but as this isn't principally designed as a strategy game, the combat side is weak and unimpressive.

The real challenge is to micromanage the 1,001 demands made on you by the citizens, the ruling council of advisors, and Caesar himself who's perpetually making raids on your supplies. It's a sort of Catch-22: be successful and you get promoted, fêted, and given harder challenges which are likely to make you fail and be fed to the lions.

A certain amount of leniency is shown at the beginning, as you start with a generous amount of money and fairly humble targets. You can even make use of any of the five Gods by building them temples, and they'll offer you favour in return.

Although the 3D graphics are colourful and sharp, much of the gameplay is spoilt by the interface, which manages to cover about half the screen every time you want to add or update a new feature.

Placing objects is frequently frustrating, with several clicks of the mouse needed for an object to 'stick'. Loading times are lengthy and the online facility is a simple comparison with other city builders to see who's best. Despite these drawbacks, though, there's still plenty to keep the dedicated fan fully absorbed.

If you can overcome your irritation at the intrusive interface and problems with positioning objects, this is a challenging, creative and addictive city-building game that will help you appreciate how complex and fascinating Roman society was.