The game features a perfect mix of of exploration and town management, allowing players to build multiple cities on different islands and create trade routes between them. Settlers II is very different to modern Settlers games, and focuses more on the management and city-building side gameplay, offering increased depth in lieu of a faster pace.Īnno 1404 (or Dawn of Discovery as it is known in the United States) is a favourite amongst more competitive city-building fans. Settlers II ranks high amongst city-building fans, although the game has since forgone town management in favour of combat. Retaining all the charm of the Sims universe, the game is still the best in the franchise. SimCity 4 was Maxis’ best game in the SimCity franchise.Ī fairly modern entry, the game features all the best mechanics of the SimCity series without any of the annoyances and hindrances some titles possessed. The game has been been well-received and is regarded as the best recent city-building title. Paradox Interactive, a studio renowned for their work on complex titles such as Crusader Kings and Pillars of Eternity, turned their sights towards the city-building genre and created Cities: Skylines, expertly filling the gap left by the latest SimCity. The game is the most highly-rated out of all the Impressions Games city-builders and takes the top spot on this list.Ĭities: Skylines is the most recent revolution in city-building titles. The campaign sees the player building cities in various locations and can present quite a challenge to new players. The game is set in the ancient Roman Empire, and the player is a governor in service to Caesar. N.B. Metacritic rankings are not an accurate measurement of games released before the year 2000.Ĭaesar III is the biggest success of all the Impressions Games ancient city-builders. We have unearthed some of the greatest city-building games of all time according to their GameRankingsand Metacriticscores. Most major city-building games were developed by experienced city-builder specialists such as Impressions Games or Maxis. The genre has seen a few different approaches to tycoon mechanics, although there hasn’t been much variety in terms of developers. Nothing showcases this more than Paradox’s Cities: Skylines, which brought the city-building genre back into the spotlight.Īfter SimCity’s failure to launch, Cities: Skylines graciously stepped in with a revolutionary city-building game that featured a ton of new content. The vast quantity of PC games on the market means that some relatively niche genres can gain strong support.

Anno 2070 metacritic