Looking for a city building game

[Peasant Phill]

My fiancée is a bit tired of the console games right now and wants to play something more strategy like. She used to play Caesar years ago and really liked the city building aspect of it.
In short she wants to build stuff and and that up close but I doubt she wants a tycoon type of game. What would you recommend?

Thanks in advance
PP

[frogbeastegg]

IMO there are three golden standouts amongst the modern city builder.

Tropico 3. Set up your own banana republic in sun-drenched lands. Features customisable dictators, catchy music, and humour which manages to be funny. Oh - and great gameplay. This is such a perfect lazy Sunday afternooon game. Get it with the add-on pack, Absolute Power, as it adds loads of goodies.

Anno 1404. A medieval city builder come trading game come colonisation sim. So big you can get lost in it! It's practically endless, and filled with layer after layer of things to tinker with. That said, if you don't want to delve deep you can float on the surface and aim for pfun cities instead of production powerhouses. Absolutely recommended; IMO it's the best in the genre at the moment. The expansion is not that important and is arguably detrimental. Anno 1404 had the Ubisoft DRM patrched out so if you buy the vanilla game and patch it you don't have any worries. If you apply the expansion the DRM is back.

Grand Ages: Rome. As the name implies, it's a Roman city builder. It's a bit different in that it gives you selectable bonuses when you complete maps so you can start future ones with boosts that fit your play style. It's unique in having a military aspect which doesn't feel crammed on and which does not stink. You can send units (think TW style multiple men in one unit for ease of management) out to conquer barbarian settlements and force them under your wing. It's kind of like a modern day souped up version of what Zeus did except you're in control instead of relying on a random number generator. The expansion for this one is nice if you feel like adding a bit more to the game.

[Meneldil]

Froggy pretty much covered all the modernest titles. I'd add Caesar IV and Imperium, as they both seem pretty similar to Grand Ages: Rome. From what I remember, all three games got mostly similar reviews, with - strangely - Caesar IV being a bit lesswell received than the other two.

But in all honestly, I have been reinstalling and playing the old Sierra's builder games, and I have to say they're still pretty good. I think Pharaoh and Empire: Rise of the Middle Kingdom don't pale in comparison with the newest city builders. No shiny graphics, but a better gameplay IMO. Zeus is a bit less good than the two others (mostly because it scraps the monument building aspect), but it is still a great game.

[Monk]

IMO there are three golden standouts amongst the modern city builder.

Tropico 3. Set up your own banana republic in sun-drenched lands. Features customisable dictators, catchy music, and humour which manages to be funny. Oh - and great gameplay. This is such a perfect lazy Sunday afternooon game. Get it with the add-on pack, Absolute Power, as it adds loads of goodies.

The Absolute Power expansion is a must, it eliminates a ton of guess-work on your part and allows you to see in numbers the output of various buildings, when and how you're going to get money and a ton of infrastructural improvements that really needed to be in the base game. Either way, well worth checking out.

[frogbeastegg]

I'll add a thumbs up for Imperium Romanum. It's the second in the three game series of which Grand Ages: Rome is the third. They are quite different in gameplay. IR doesn't have the upgrades, research and bonuses, and its military aspect is different. You get objectives assigned by tablets, which lets you advance the win conditions at your own pace. They're different enough that I have both co-existing on my HD. Still good, and very cheap these days. AG:R seems to be more popular out of the two; IR didn't seem to click with as many people.

Ugh, I hated Caesar IV. Such a disappointment, such a missed chance! It was like the developers put together a list of everything which made their old games fun and then one by one made sure they did not enter the new game.

Mention of Caesar IV reminds me of another worth mentioning - Children of the Nile. It's a very different style of city builder and if you can get your head around how it works it's fantastic. It's not about the buildings, as with all other citiy builders. It's about the people. It's not about slapping down a farm and then managing the food that is produced. It's about making sure your farming family can meet all of their needs and do so efficiently so that they can go grow you food, which will be distributed where it's needed without any input from you. Kind of like a mirror image of a standard city builder. For an older game it's still pretty. Again, available very cheaply. The free expansion adds some good stuff; the paid for one isn't important.

[Peasant Phill]

Thanks for the quick responses.

After reading some reviews about the names you suggested, I think she's going for anno 1404.

Again thanks.
PP

[Mailman653]

I'm checking out Grand Ages, it looks pretty neat! I like that historical aspect they put into the game. Unlike Caesar 2-4, where usually the person you were working for was just a picture and a voice.

[A Nerd]

I'm a little late, but I would like to second Children of the Nile. I am a city builder novice, but found this one fun and easy to play. I also found it rather inexpensive (in my opinion on Steam). All my city layouts look like crap, but it is fun to watch all the little people run around going about thier daily lives!

[Gaiseric]

Sim City 4 is still the best modern city builder after all these years. The community forums are still strong and there is literally millions of user created content that you can downloaded and add to your cities.