''City Building'' is a series of historical

city-building game A city-building game, or town-building game, is a Video game genres, genre of simulation video game where players act as the overall planner and leader of a city or town, looking down on it from above, and being responsible for its growth and man ...

s developed by

Impressions Games Impressions Games was a British video game developer founded by David Lester. He sold the company to Sierra On-Line in 1995, who was then bought out by Cendant and eventually, Vivendi Universal (now known as Vivendi SA). Impressions speciali ...

, BreakAway Games,

Tilted Mill Entertainment Tilted Mill Entertainment is a video game developer located in Winchester, Massachusetts. It was founded in 2002 by former Impressions Games lead designer and general manager Chris Beatrice, business manager Peter Haffenreffer, and designer Jef ...

(following Impressions' demise), and published by

Sierra Entertainment Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher founded in 1979 by Ken Williams (game developer), Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is ...

. The series began in 1992 with ''

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war. He ...

'', set in the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, and consists of twelve games to date, including

expansion pack An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion, is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game, collectible card game or Miniature wargaming, miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules ...

s. In the ''City Building'' series the player is put in charge of providing goods and services to the populace of their town, ensuring crime is low, and reducing the risk of disease, fire and building collapse. The player must also strike a balance between imports, exports and taxes to keep their town financially strong. The player is also responsible for defending their town against invasion by building a military. The series covers four ancient civilizations:

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

. Titles released up until

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

used the same isometric view

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

, although progressively tweaked and modified according to the theme of the game. Subsequent titles use

three-dimensional In geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values (''coordinates'') are required to determine the position (geometry), position of a point (geometry), poi ...

graphics engines.

Games

The series includes: *Set in the

: **''

'' (1992) **'' Caesar II'' (1995) **''

Caesar III ''Caesar III'' is a city-building game released on September 30, 1998, for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems, Mac OS, developed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra On-Line. It is the third installment of the Caesar (comput ...

'' (1998) **''

Caesar IV ''Caesar IV ''is a city-building game set in ancient Rome, developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment ( Vivendi Universal Games). The game was released on September 26, 2006, in North America. The game featur ...

'' (2006) *Set in

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

: **''

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

'' (1999) ***Expansion '' Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile'' (2000) ***Remake '' Pharaoh: A New Era'' (2023) **'' Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile'' (2004) ***Expansion ''Children of the Nile: Alexandria'' (2008) *Set in

ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

: **'' Zeus: Master of Olympus'' (2000) ***Expansion '' Poseidon: Master of Atlantis'' (2001) *Set in

ancient China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...

: **'' Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom'' (2002) *Set in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

: **''Medieval Mayor'' (TBA)

''Medieval Mayor''

''Medieval Mayor'' was an announced city-building game set in the

by Tilted Mill Entertainment for the PC and tablets. Unlike the previous two games by Tilted Mill Entertainment, ''Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile'' and ''Caesar IV'', the game would not use a 3D engine but return to the 2D engine, because Tilted Mill thought "2D works better in terms of players being able to tell what’s going on at a glance". Walkers would once again be limited by roadblocks instead of the more recent radius-based or pseudo walker systems, and players would focus more on building a few cities to great heights, rather than restart a new city after each mission. There would be no multiplayer, but Tilted Mill was planning integration with

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

. As of October 2013 ''Medieval Mayor'' was put on hiatus due to funding challenges and other project commitments. In later interviews,

Chris Beatrice Chris Beatrice is a video game designer and artist noted for primary creative development of popular historical strategy games, including ''Lords of the Realm'' series and the '' City Building'' series. Beatrice worked at Sierra Entertainment's ...

expressed both his continued desire to eventually make the game and reticence to start development.

References

External links

Official ''Medieval Mayor'' website
*
Top 25 Most Underrated Games of All Time
' from

GameSpy GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1999 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for Quake, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

(#25) posted on rome.ro {{Activision Activision Blizzard franchises Video game franchises introduced in 1992