too many city builders
oh god am i a city builder guy?
Ultimate goal for this list is to include a note for each game including the elevator pitch (one or two sentences covering its core appeal/differentiating factors) and some other notes - downsides, important caveats, things you might want to know going in.
This list assumes you know the difference between colony sims (small populations, typically survival-heavy and resource-focused) and "traditional" city builders (less focus on individual people and more on building up structures and systems that allow your city to scale effectively).
only adding games that i've played
because the lines here are fuzzy, i'm not really worrying about scale. villages and small kingdoms count, tycoon games don't
Ultimate goal for this list is to include a note for each game including the elevator pitch (one or two sentences covering its core appeal/differentiating factors) and some other notes - downsides, important caveats, things you might want to know going in.
This list assumes you know the difference between colony sims (small populations, typically survival-heavy and resource-focused) and "traditional" city builders (less focus on individual people and more on building up structures and systems that allow your city to scale effectively).
only adding games that i've played
because the lines here are fuzzy, i'm not really worrying about scale. villages and small kingdoms count, tycoon games don't
95 Games
Hands-down the best way for a new person to experience Dwarf Fortress now that it's available. Still feels a little inscrutable at times due to its simulational complexity but the tutorial is good enough that a new player isn't going to starve to death unless they pick a particularly challenging environment. The actual level of direct interaction you have with your dwarves isn't anything more complex than something like Rimworld, but all the behind-the-scenes stuff - skills, relationships, moods, art/culture - goes so, so, so much deeper than most other games would be wiling to, and every system is like that.
While there are technically reasons to play this over the Steam release, they're not really relevant to a new player and only really qualify as QOL for long-time players. Play the new one instead
Probably the best AAA city builder to come out in recent years. This game is all about supply chains with some Victorian/early Belle Epoque style.
It's gorgeous and well-designed and watching your city get more glitzy and glamorous as you become better at weaving together supply chains is truly a reward, especially since the game lets you walk around in first person if you so choose.
It's not as strong when taken as a sandbox experience but it's strong in so many other ways that it hardly matters - multiplayer offerings, a coherent creative vision, enough variables to keep things interesting on subsequent replays, and minimal micromanagement really put this thing at the top of its class.
It's gorgeous and well-designed and watching your city get more glitzy and glamorous as you become better at weaving together supply chains is truly a reward, especially since the game lets you walk around in first person if you so choose.
It's not as strong when taken as a sandbox experience but it's strong in so many other ways that it hardly matters - multiplayer offerings, a coherent creative vision, enough variables to keep things interesting on subsequent replays, and minimal micromanagement really put this thing at the top of its class.
the premier (modern) transport sim?
if you don't want to mess around with supply chains you can just set up passenger routes. includes vehicles from 1850-present, you can ride in first-person, you can zoom way in on the cities and watch people walk around, it's a gorgeous game (way more detailed than it needs to be!) and while the environments aren't super varied, you're forced to engage with your surroundings in a way that makes you appreciate what's there.
if there are significant strikes against it, they're economy-related: profitability is hard to gauge ahead of time and is still more opaque than it should be on established routes, making it hard to determine if a route you've created is completely unsalvageable or just needs a little tweaking
if you don't want to mess around with supply chains you can just set up passenger routes. includes vehicles from 1850-present, you can ride in first-person, you can zoom way in on the cities and watch people walk around, it's a gorgeous game (way more detailed than it needs to be!) and while the environments aren't super varied, you're forced to engage with your surroundings in a way that makes you appreciate what's there.
if there are significant strikes against it, they're economy-related: profitability is hard to gauge ahead of time and is still more opaque than it should be on established routes, making it hard to determine if a route you've created is completely unsalvageable or just needs a little tweaking
More comparable to Mini Motorways than most "standard" conceptions of a city builder, but by distinguishing between highways and lower-throughput streets it ends up feeling like a more robust simulation despite its very simple gameplay
Begins as a single-person RPG and lets you recruit larger and larger groups of people until you're effectively running a village. The scale here is pretty small no matter how you look at it, but I think that ultimately ends up being a good thing due to the way you interact with each person - the automation tools present simply aren't good enough to let a village run completely unattended.
Served as direct inspiration for a lot of colony sims and, as a result, it feels a little lean when compared to some of its imitators who opted to include more systems and mechanics. It's still a great simplification of the Dwarf Fortress formula, though, as you won't be asked to deal with Z-levels or worry about magma-safe and economic stone, etc. I'd still recommend this as an entry point into the colony sim subgenre
A city-builder with a run-based structure, in which you settle a town in the wilderness and try to set up a supply chain/assign jobs to keep everything running smoothly despite the perils that come with being so far from "civilization".
Doesn't really suit my personal tastes but that's mostly because you never hit that endgame satisfaction of looking at how much your city has grown - this is essentially the first 20-30 minutes of every other survival-focused city builder over and over again.
Doesn't really suit my personal tastes but that's mostly because you never hit that endgame satisfaction of looking at how much your city has grown - this is essentially the first 20-30 minutes of every other survival-focused city builder over and over again.
Elevator Pitch: The modern day successor to SimCity - managing municipal budgets, creating zoning plans, providing services to your city.
Other notes: This is what most people will think of when you say "city builder". It doesn't do anything truly innovative, and it doesn't really need to. If you want exactly one game about building a modern city from the ground up, play this.
Other notes: This is what most people will think of when you say "city builder". It doesn't do anything truly innovative, and it doesn't really need to. If you want exactly one game about building a modern city from the ground up, play this.
a post-apocalyptic city builder in which survival does still involve resource management, but also involves some political maneuvering. just as important as running the big space heater at the center of your city is your ability to balance your citizens' needs, desires, and your resource pool. it skews much closer to a narrative-focused experience than some post-apocalyptic political sandbox, but this only makes it stronger: it's tuned very carefully so you're making tough decisions from start to finish, leaving you feeling like any emergency action you take could be the thing to knock down the first domino
Another colony sim that brings back Z-levels but otherwise keeps things pretty simple. It tries to be a little more nuanced when building vertically than something like Dwarf Fortress does, and as a result it can be pretty clunky to try to navigate these spaces in 3D, but I think the strong concept is enough to carry a lot of the experience. Hard to pinpoint the target audience here because I think colony sim fans would probably rather play something they already like, but it's still a little too complicated for new players.
Very similar to Foundation in a lot of ways but leans towards survival elements where Foundation would choose sandbox-style gameplay.
By this I mean you're getting a city builder that focuses on a specific historical kind of medieval village and tries to simulate its dynamic. Like Foundation all "roads" are desire paths, like Foundation you can mess with placeable structures by dragging them into irregular shapes. Your citizens are hard to please though and if you don't have your shit together by the very first winter you'll be in deep shit.
And for the last comparison to Foundation: it's coolest feature is in the housing system, where if you build your citizens' houses big enough they'll build a garden which satisfies a good chunk of their own food needs (but not all).
By this I mean you're getting a city builder that focuses on a specific historical kind of medieval village and tries to simulate its dynamic. Like Foundation all "roads" are desire paths, like Foundation you can mess with placeable structures by dragging them into irregular shapes. Your citizens are hard to please though and if you don't have your shit together by the very first winter you'll be in deep shit.
And for the last comparison to Foundation: it's coolest feature is in the housing system, where if you build your citizens' houses big enough they'll build a garden which satisfies a good chunk of their own food needs (but not all).
picture this: a city builder in which you build multiple small towns that support (and are supported by) industry in the countryside, with one small catch: everyone either walks, or they take a train - not a single car in sight.
a city builder in the same sense that something like Kingdom Two Crowns is, but the zoomed out perspective gives a sense of scale more comparable to traditional city builders. scratches more of a tower defense itch but hey, it's still a kind of city builder i guess
an interesting little thing in which your structures will transform based on their surroundings, e.g. houses can only become fancy houses if the right amenities are placed within a specified distance of the house
Elevator pitch: The grandpa of the latest wave of survival-focused city builders. Fend off the weather, sickness, and hunger without getting too into the weeds: no complex supply chains; a very manageable number of goods; and a very steady, fair difficulty curve.
Downsides: There are plenty of games on Steam right now that are inspired by Banished (right down to the aesthetics) that have made interesting changes to the formula, so it can feel a little basic when coming back to this game in 2023. Its simplicity also hurts it in the late game, because once you've created a city that can scale with its own population then you're probably fine for the rest of the game.
Downsides: There are plenty of games on Steam right now that are inspired by Banished (right down to the aesthetics) that have made interesting changes to the formula, so it can feel a little basic when coming back to this game in 2023. Its simplicity also hurts it in the late game, because once you've created a city that can scale with its own population then you're probably fine for the rest of the game.
"Idle" here mostly comes from waiting for research, since most of your building is pretty front-loaded - you build things and you may re-arrange them later, but for the most part you're trying to create the densest possible self-sufficient town
Probably the best entry here at portraying the irregularity and organic nature of a lot of medieval settlements - roads are just well-trod desire paths, and your farm's fields are painted with a brush instead of being placed in neat little squares. Hardly a simulator but I think that works for the best here, since I'm not aware of another city builder with this focus that's trying to lean into the sandbox experience.
(Ostriv exists but is perhaps more difficult than some would like)
(Ostriv exists but is perhaps more difficult than some would like)
mixed-use zoning YEAAAAA
Demo
In terms of mechanics there's not too much that it does to stand out, BUT
Roads don't snap at all except to help you create an intersection. Small plots of available land and this building system mean that you're actually playing around your town's landscape, instead of just being occasionally inconvenienced by it. Border expansion is also pretty neat in that your town's guards carry border stones (a manufactured resource) further out to expand your town's borders. It's neat!
In terms of mechanics there's not too much that it does to stand out, BUT
Roads don't snap at all except to help you create an intersection. Small plots of available land and this building system mean that you're actually playing around your town's landscape, instead of just being occasionally inconvenienced by it. Border expansion is also pretty neat in that your town's guards carry border stones (a manufactured resource) further out to expand your town's borders. It's neat!
a more cartoony option than something like Theotown if you're looking for mobile game city builders, and this sequel actually beats the pants off its predecessor by including things like pollution, traffic, etc. if the last pocket city was a sandbox, this is a little more structured since you've got more meters to balance. uh, it's also got a bunch of weird bloat features if you want to customize a little mayor and steal people's cars
Elevator Pitch: Hex-based city builder in which you create a settlement on Mars, managing both domes (small bubbles full of humans and structures to support them) and external logistics systems that mine resources, explore the planet, generate power/water/etc.
Downsides: This is for the most devoted of logistics people - there are a LOT of resources to manage and playing through all the tutorials in a row can be very underwhelming as you manage work shifts, drone ranges, building maintenance, resource stockpiles, etc.
Downsides: This is for the most devoted of logistics people - there are a LOT of resources to manage and playing through all the tutorials in a row can be very underwhelming as you manage work shifts, drone ranges, building maintenance, resource stockpiles, etc.
you don't really build a lot in this one but you still make minor changes to the landscape of the city and manage multiple buildings. its my list and i make the rules
not a good game, but I don't really know of anything else that tries to cover so many elements of this particular fantasy. it's part business sim, part life sim, part dynasty management, and it's got a bit of politics thrown in there as well. it's essentially a game about trying to become the medici family
not a good game, but I don't really know of anything else that tries to cover so many elements of this particular fantasy. it's part business sim, part life sim, part dynasty management, and it's got a bit of politics thrown in there as well. it's essentially a game about trying to become the medici family
Demo
Very well tutorialized - my main issue with this is that the 45-degree tilt (like classic isometric games) makes it difficult to tell how "marking" resources works - think cutting down trees or foraging.
Other than that I don't have any major complaints. The game is gorgeous and has a decently large selection of buildings. It would be nice if the name were transliterated so you can develop an attachment to your citizens, but I think the work involved in implementing this would far outweigh the benefits for the average player
Very well tutorialized - my main issue with this is that the 45-degree tilt (like classic isometric games) makes it difficult to tell how "marking" resources works - think cutting down trees or foraging.
Other than that I don't have any major complaints. The game is gorgeous and has a decently large selection of buildings. It would be nice if the name were transliterated so you can develop an attachment to your citizens, but I think the work involved in implementing this would far outweigh the benefits for the average player
Elevator pitch: Turn-based, tile-based roguelite city builder in which you place buildings on tiles and select which tiles should have a person assigned to work there each day in order to stave off increasing hardship
Downsides: The audience for roguelite city builders seems to be on the smaller side because you will (at some point) have your settlement destroyed instead of just experiencing endless growth. This game uses meta-progression to remove some of that frustration and runs can be a decent length but I tend to prefer games whose difficulty represents a more steady decline instead of big spikes (from the events that occur)
Downsides: The audience for roguelite city builders seems to be on the smaller side because you will (at some point) have your settlement destroyed instead of just experiencing endless growth. This game uses meta-progression to remove some of that frustration and runs can be a decent length but I tend to prefer games whose difficulty represents a more steady decline instead of big spikes (from the events that occur)
