5punk

I don't think there are many modern games of this type but I shall try my best to explain what I'm after.
I'm not a huge fan of Sim City but I enjoy similar games where you have to build towns or whatever. One I really enjoyed was an old Sierra game called Pharaoh. It would take bloody ages to build a Pyramid and I found the whole thing generally enjoyable. I also loved the Theme Park games.
Although not the same genre I think I recall seeing some games similar to the city builders but included battles? I think it was called Anno or something.
I don't want the majority of focus to be on war but if it includes it that's fine.
I already own Civ4 but again, it's more the building part I'm interested in.
Any ideas?

Have you tried one of the iterations of The Settlers? I always rather enjoyed the way all the different buildings interacted. Just a shame they always end up as tank rushes.

Why yes, yes I have. I found it to be quite similar to Age Of Empires, although it focused more on the building. To be honest I could be tempted to branch off into space if there are any games like that. Would help if I knew exactly what I wanted.

Space Empires IV is supposed to be quite good. Might be a bit fighty.

Caesar IV
http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/caesar4/index.html

CivCity: Rome
http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civc ... index.html

Glory of the Roman Empire
http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/glor ... index.html

Imperium Romanum
http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/impe ... index.html

Ah nice one Grimmie. DP, Space Empires interests me so I'll check that out, but it would satisfy a different area

No, god not Caesar IV. Caesar III go.

Also, Populous III.

And Settlers 2 was definitely not a tank rush, it's much better than the rest of the series.

Neither was Settlers 1, but they're both old as JockGit. I think it was 3 I was playing and I ended up having to stop in my tracks because I just got swamped by so many enemies I ran out of resources.

Settlers 1 and 2 were slow builds and territory gains. I still play the first as it's wicked and on my computer.
You've just reminded me to obtain the 2nd.

There's a modern remake of it ("10th anniversary edition") which is the same but shinier.

I know, I think my brother bought a copy. I'll grab that at some point.

Might look that up. The original was quite good.

Settlers Rise of an Empire is number 6 I think. You spend more time building than fighting. It looks quite pretty as it's a 2007 game but is a bit bugged - I got to bit when it crashed and had to reinstall and replay to get past it.

Empire Earth II is much more fighty, but the expansion has Ancient Egyptians. Empire Earth III was bugged to brokeness.

For pure building there are the Rollercoaster Tycoon games, and for building secret lairs there's Evil Genius.

Sim City Societies and Tycoon City New York weren't very good.

I quite liked Evil Genius. Has that TEEF feel about it. Certainly good enough for me to play through to its conclusion.

Anno 1701: Dawn of Discovery released last year is basically Sim City set in 1701.

Hmmm many choices. Think I'll download a few and the ones I like I'll buy properly.

There's also OpenTTD, a shiny free version of the good old Transport Tycoon.

FatherJack wrote:and for building secret lairs there's Evil Genius

NEVER EVER forget Dungeon Keeper.

Also in OP

Imperatore wrote:I think it was called Anno or something.

I used to play Anno 1602 for a bloody long time, tis old but it was good.

Baliame wrote:There's also OpenTTD, a shiny free version of the good old Transport Tycoon

Also, it's basically made of crack, I once spent almost a week, just playing it.

My week in games.

Recalling this thread, I checked out the City Building Series. Another reason was reviews of Grand Ages Rome I'd recently demoed hinted that while pretty, it had learned nothing from the last ten years of the aforementioned series. Intrigued, I set to find out why.

I only went back as far as 1999 with Pharaoh, but it actually surpassed so many of its descendants, I'm tempted to delve further back into the older Caesar's.

Pharaoh is pretty basic by modern standards, but the gameplay is spot on. There's a very useful voice tutorial and it keeps it nice and simple to start with, introducing new concepts at a comfortable pace. At no point was I left wondering what to do next.

Master of Olympus - Zeus was a rather more hectic affair. It assumed I'd played Pharaoh a lot I think and rather dumped me in at the deep end, with constant attacks and little guidance even in the supposed tutorial.

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom was more pleasing, but still a trifle fiddly and hard. It probably represents the pinnacle of the GUI in a 2D sprite-based game, but there are a massive number of options which overwhelm you.

Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile is the first 3D offering, and actually rather swish, even by today's standards. The tutorial is extremely comprehensive and lengthy, and while still fun my time was up before I felt I'd really got anywhere.

Caesar IV has a lot in common with Pharaoh - it's the only other one recognised by XFire and also the only other one needing XP compatibility mode. Visually it's massively superior, but gameplay wise it dumps a lot of info on you in a very short amount of time.

If pushed, despite its antiquity, I'd have to say Pharaoh was the best game and modern game makers could really learn a lot by playing it.

All of them though, have compelling gameplay and excellent tutorials with voice feedback throughout. Some modern games seem thrown together by comparison, these games properly sell themselves to you and want you to learn how to play them. Stagnation or game-locking due to resource shortage just didn't occur in any of them, which was pretty much an inevitability in the demo of Grand Ages Rome I played. In that, the reviews I read were spot-on. While pretty, Grand Ages Rome is an utter dog to play and really should have taken leaf out of any one of these game's books.

I still have urges to play Pharaoh some times, but them I remember..

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