City Building

SimCity 3000

Manage your city or destroy it in the third game in the long-running SimCity series.

Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience.

From the makers of the Cities in Motion franchise, the game boasts a fully realized transport system. It also includes the ability to mod the game to suit your play style as a fine counter balance to the layered and challenging simulation. You’re only limited by your imagination, so take control and reach for the sky!

Banished

Banished is a one man project city simulation.
In this city-building strategy game, you control a group of exiled travelers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland.

The objective of the game is to keep the population alive and grow it into a successful culture. Options for feeding the people include hunting and gathering, agriculture, trade, and fishing. However, sustainable practices must be considered to survive in the long term.

SimCity 2000

Manage your city or destroy it in the second game in the long-running SimCity series.

SimCity 5 (2013)

SimCity 5 (2013) is the latest installment by Maxis in the SimCity series.

The game focuses on smaller building plots than previous games while increasing interaction with neighboring cities. The game saves are purely cloud based, and the game requires a constant internet connection. The game is described as a city-simulation MMO, although I am not sure you could consider a maximum of 16 players an MMO. The game can be played as a single-player but this still requires an internet connection and all saves are still cloud-based.

Towns

Towns brings a fresh new take on the citybuilding/management genre by introducing many RPG features. Drawing inspiration from games such as Diablo, Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress, the game has you managing a settlement on top of an active dungeon. Instead of playing the hero who delves deep into the dungeon, how about playing the town that houses and caters to the hero's needs? Both the RPG and strategic aspects will be fleshed out over a series of sprawling dungeons.

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom

Emperor: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom is a game about politics, trade, and city design in ancient China. In Emperor, players progress through 3000 years of Chinese history, facing ever-changing economic, military, and diplomatic challenges as each Chinese dynasty waxes and wanes.

Anno 1701

Anno 1701 revolves around building and maintaining an 18th century colony in the "New World". It is part of the Anno series of games, the sequel to Anno 1602 and Anno 1503 and was followed by Anno 1404, which is known in the United States as Dawn of Discovery.

Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile

Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile is an expánsion pack to Pharaoh, an isometric city-building game set in Ancient Egypt created by Impressions Games and published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows-based computers. It involves the construction and management of settlements and cities in ancient Egypt, and is the first such themed game in the City Building series. Both the original game and expansion pack are commonly referred to, and may be purchased as one, under the title Pharaoh and Cleopatra.

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is based on the same game engine as Caesar III, also by Sierra Entertainment, and operates on the same principles, but has many improvements and exceptions. The game has little AI, relying instead on a high level of micromanagment from the player. All scenario objectives must be met before the next city in a campaign can be used and played. Each mission sets five targets for the city, each being a value on a rating scale. A higher target along the scale represents a higher difficulty level for the city.