A couple rather good city building games (cheap and on steam)

[Sylandras]

I'm a bit weary making these its own thread, but I'm really enjoying both. 

What they are (My Colony and Antiquitas), are city building games that are on steam but mobile ports. The creator(s) have other mobile games, but not on steam and no idea what they are like. Before that scares you away, it isn't like playing a mobile game at all but kinda like an economic simcity 4 city builder. There are no microtransactions or pay to win at all. There aren't exactly timers, though there is waiting for people to arrive from launch pads (my colony, but you can build a bunch of launch pads for faster colonists) or houses "breed" people in Antiquitas. And there is waiting to get enough resources to do stuff, and can take time to progress because of that. Definitely both are a more slow paced kind of game with building up slowly (a lot more so in Antiquitas, My Colony is a lot faster). Though the regions (Simcity 4 style and they all semi-interact) are big enough that you can have regions entirely focused on industry/resources and it speeds up as city grows)

Antiquitas (3 USD) -
https://store.steampowered.com/app/935750/Antiquitas/

My Colony (5 USD) - 
https://store.steampowered.com/app/964130/My_Colony/

My Colony is a space colonization game, and I'm positive you can colonize other planets though I haven't reached that part so I'm not 100% sure on that. It says there is space features, so I assume so. You build pretty fast compared to Antiquitas, get huge amounts of people and even has an optional online mode. There is no battling (same with Antiquitas, no rts/strategy stuff). Antiquitas also has no multiplayer currently and not sure if there will be put in), but for My Colony its all co-op stuff helping each. In My Colony you can join federations and be part of a large player group, or one of the AI federations. And singleplayer too of course for those not wanting the online aspects. 

My problem with My Colony is things seem to...not look as good as far as the city goes. Its a lot harder to make a beautiful city than Antiquitas. But it is possible, just harder for me so could be a personal issue. You consume a lot more resources, and need power, much bigger and more population buildings and things tend to get cluttered in my regions. In both games you do get regions as I said above, and its good to specialize regions to different things and that helps a lot. But My Colony is still great, and both games have a lot of neat features I haven't seen in a city builder before.

My Colony has 3 races, Humans (two factions), Draconians (evil aliens) and Zulag (insect/hive race kinda ant-based). Draconians are newest addition and haven't been fully developed yet, the creator is making a tech tree for them though.

Antiquitas is based on ancient period with Rome, Egypt and Gauls currently. Gauls being new and not fully developed yet. I suggested they add carthage at some point, as I think that be a good addition. Its much slower paced and slower to grow, more of starting with a village and slowly getting to city stage (I played a few hours and not even 100 people yet). But it is the ancient times, so things are smaller in scope than futuristic based My Colony. I like this one a lot especially because you can make such a beautiful city/village

Here is my small village in Antiquitas https://i.imgur.com/4SLv53n.jpg

 

My city in My Colony https://i.imgur.com/lFWZ6Mo.jpg

 

There isn't any pay to win or cash shop what so ever. Its actually a legit game, and the ports are good.

My friend has a 4k monitor he uses (basically he just uses a huge tv monitor) and they work just fine, so to me that is a good port especially from mobile origins.

For the cheap price, and continual quite often updates its definitely worth it. Both games are updated a lot and to me that surprised me a lot, the creator(s) put in a lot of substantial updates without too long periods of no updates. Though some people find the lack of in-depth tutorial the game can be confusing. I figured it out easy enough though, but everyone is different in that regard. Since you got to build certain units to get new resources to unlock new buildings+research technology. It doesn't really flat out tell you what to do in that regard.

[YourFriendlyDragonborn]

i prefer tropico series, any game of that series. 

[Sylandras]

12 minutes ago, YourFriendlyDragonborn said:

i prefer tropico series, any game of that series. 

Yeah, Tropico is a lot of fun. I like that one a lot. Super addicting, can stay up all night playing it and forget the time. Anno is good too, though haven't played the newest one.

Though my personal 2nd favorite is probably the older settlers, though not sure if that can be classified a city builder or not. I liked simcity 4 the best though, that one played so many hours over the past many years its been out lol. I still play simcity 4, its great with some mods added

 

Another favorite are the Impressions game series, probably my 3rd favorite games. They are actually a bit similar in some ways to the games the topic is about.

But they are all pretty different from each other. Though overall not too many city builders style games out there. 

[Sylandras]

Here is how Draconians look in My Colony. They are super hard to figure out, but the gist with them is they need to trade/import/export for their economy. Won't give spoilers, but you have to buy resources to unlock new stuff. Online mode its a ton easier once you get the grand exchange (not called that) but it allows you to sell and buy resources on a much better deal for both. And their big source of money is selling things, but I recommend starting on abandoned world for them because you get a special (and very valuable) resource only draconians can get on their abandoned world

 

They also get a lot of immigration (so far mostly humans, haven't had zularg/insects show up yet). Which is interesting. Though draconians themselves don't need to work, so you can focus on getting draconian citizens and not worry too much that their is more population than jobs. Since draconians are actually lazy and don't like to work, so they don't get unhappy about it.

 

But here is my city

 

https://i.imgur.com/AzbjwqC.jpg