ash12181987
Squire
This is partially a delima on my part, and partially a overview of the entire genre, but here we go:
I'm currently being sucking into the swirling vortex that is City building games. My fiance loves them, infact its all she'll play. The problem is we've played through "Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile" and beaten it to the point we need a new game. An aside if you will. So, for the last two weeks we've been looking up demos, playing through tutorials, and otherwise picking apart mechanics to see what is good and what isn't. So everything aside I wanted to see if the community had any suggestions I hadn't looked into yet.
Thusfar these are what we've played and appropriate "reviews" (All my opinion).
The Settlers series: published by Ubi soft, the last two in the progression have been "Rise of an Empire" And "Heritage of Kings". I've played through them both and they both seem to have the makings of a good game between them, but seperate they suffer from a number of flaws. RoaE has a more complex commodity based economy system, state organized maps, avatar centralized gameplay, and to be frank it's incredibley pretty (which may I mention is something, I really don't care at All about graphics: it's That pretty). While HoK has a simplistic rock-paper-scissors combat system (Which is a good thing), material driven economy, sandbox maps, and generally is what you would expect if Stronghold 2 and Ages of Empires had a child. Mind you all of the aformentioned things are what I consider good about the games. My problem is that while each has it's strong points the weaknesses of one are countered by another. So: While RoaE has amazing NPC management and trade with pathetic combat and resource management: HoK has Wonderful combat and resource management with pathetic trade and NPCs.
Anno 1602,1503,1701,1404: Sunflower interactive (Formerly) Now Ubisoft, as of 1404. I've had 1503 for years, and to be frank I LOVE it. Even attempting to get a copy of the expansion from a British store. Frankly there is little I can say against the series as a whole. The combat is a bit buggy and the CPU opponents are typically dumber than a bag of hammers, but what flaws there are are made up for by the Deep economy and wonderful city construction. The problems in the game are rather universal to the genre as a whole: Lack of personalization within your cities, trade-offs between complexity of one aspect for another... but as I said these are universal gripes that may never be silenced.
Imperium Romanum, Glory of the Roman Empire series: With the current installment being Grand Ages: Rome, this Haeimont developed series is a very intriguing dip into classic roman culture. Not much more than a dip though. Imperium Romanum and Grand Ages are the two I've played (not counting previous Haeimont titles like the Celtic Kings saga which was pure gold), and between the two Grand Ages is about as immersive as a puddle of stagnant water. Imperium Romanum shines as the better of the two, and while Glory may include free sex in it, I can only speak for what I've played.
For the sake of space I haven't included the ones I already have like the old Impressions games titles, the stronghold series, and a couple others. But, what is the opinion of the aformentioned series, and or others I haven't mentioned?
I'm currently being sucking into the swirling vortex that is City building games. My fiance loves them, infact its all she'll play. The problem is we've played through "Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile" and beaten it to the point we need a new game. An aside if you will. So, for the last two weeks we've been looking up demos, playing through tutorials, and otherwise picking apart mechanics to see what is good and what isn't. So everything aside I wanted to see if the community had any suggestions I hadn't looked into yet.
Thusfar these are what we've played and appropriate "reviews" (All my opinion).
The Settlers series: published by Ubi soft, the last two in the progression have been "Rise of an Empire" And "Heritage of Kings". I've played through them both and they both seem to have the makings of a good game between them, but seperate they suffer from a number of flaws. RoaE has a more complex commodity based economy system, state organized maps, avatar centralized gameplay, and to be frank it's incredibley pretty (which may I mention is something, I really don't care at All about graphics: it's That pretty). While HoK has a simplistic rock-paper-scissors combat system (Which is a good thing), material driven economy, sandbox maps, and generally is what you would expect if Stronghold 2 and Ages of Empires had a child. Mind you all of the aformentioned things are what I consider good about the games. My problem is that while each has it's strong points the weaknesses of one are countered by another. So: While RoaE has amazing NPC management and trade with pathetic combat and resource management: HoK has Wonderful combat and resource management with pathetic trade and NPCs.
Anno 1602,1503,1701,1404: Sunflower interactive (Formerly) Now Ubisoft, as of 1404. I've had 1503 for years, and to be frank I LOVE it. Even attempting to get a copy of the expansion from a British store. Frankly there is little I can say against the series as a whole. The combat is a bit buggy and the CPU opponents are typically dumber than a bag of hammers, but what flaws there are are made up for by the Deep economy and wonderful city construction. The problems in the game are rather universal to the genre as a whole: Lack of personalization within your cities, trade-offs between complexity of one aspect for another... but as I said these are universal gripes that may never be silenced.
Imperium Romanum, Glory of the Roman Empire series: With the current installment being Grand Ages: Rome, this Haeimont developed series is a very intriguing dip into classic roman culture. Not much more than a dip though. Imperium Romanum and Grand Ages are the two I've played (not counting previous Haeimont titles like the Celtic Kings saga which was pure gold), and between the two Grand Ages is about as immersive as a puddle of stagnant water. Imperium Romanum shines as the better of the two, and while Glory may include free sex in it, I can only speak for what I've played.
For the sake of space I haven't included the ones I already have like the old Impressions games titles, the stronghold series, and a couple others. But, what is the opinion of the aformentioned series, and or others I haven't mentioned?
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