City building games

Group Description

City Building are games which identify the primary gameplay as the construction, development, administration and management of a city, town or similar venues where the player takes the role of a governor, ruler or similar roles to successfully achieve the aforementioned goals.

This managerial strategy hybrid was initially popularized by games such as the SimCity series and Caesar series and traditionally was identified with an isometric or top-down visual perspective. Gameplay also is usually real-time.

City building games usually are identifiable by one or more of the following traits:

• Main gameplay map is the city or town itself;
• The city or town mentioned are usually already owned or may only be developed by the player;
• Any form of opposition usually is located off-map;
• Manual strategic placement of roads, structures or other buildings;
• Manual management of citizen demands;
• Trade and taxation, usually micro economics;
• Upgrading options for structures and buildings;
• Manipulation and exploitation of surrounding resources.

Limitations
City building must be identified as the primary gameplay of the specified game. Not to be confused with common RTS (Real-Time Strategy) games or other strategy games, where building does occur but as a secondary part of gameplay (e.g. for warfare purposes, although still an important part of the gameplay). Thus, such games should be excluded from this game group (simply put, you play the game primarily for city building purposes).

Examples of aforementioned games not to be included: Age of Empires, Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Railroad Tycoon, etc.