Hello,
Here is a list of ancient and medieval city building games for anyone interested in exploring the ancient city building genre more. The list starts with the original ancient city building series by Impressions Games and Tilted Mill, followed by links to the latest 2d and mobile versions as well as other related game series, and includes independent games in various stages of completion.
There are many excellent scenarios that continue to be made for these classic games, but I haven't seen that many major mods or attempts to create new games within the existing games, this may be because of the games inherent limitations or some other reasons. So it will need to be determined if it is possible to mod or use the existing games to create new ones, after (or if ever) they become public domain in that context.
There is still much potential in the ancient city building genre, for examplehere is a list of historical ancient city building civilizations for which games haven't been made yet. There have mostly been many Roman, Egyptian, Greek and European themed games. If anyone is familiar with other languages then maybe you can search for games in other countries and contact any developers that may be interested in working on their own version of an ancient city building game and release localized language packs.
I also posted a similar threadhere in Simtropolis about modern city builder games. As you can see, it seems there have been more attempts at independent projects for modern city builder games than ancient city builder games. I figure there is a cross-over between these games in terms of history, development and interest so if anyone has any ideas for new ancient city builder games as well any relevant entries and links, please post them here or message me and I will add them. Lastly there is a section for links to forums and discussions.
On the Tilted Mill forum there were many threads with people posting ideas about what city builder games they would like to see be made. It seems the most popular requests were for more Roman, Egyptian and Greek city builders, presumably in 3d. These don't interest some of us as much as making games using unexplored ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Arabia, Persia, India, North and South Native Americas, Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe. I think by now, 10 years later after the last 2d game Emperor (2002) was released, we should have the ability and potential to make our own 2d city builders based on the classic ones. There is much untapped potential in new historical settings. Below is a list of the original 2d games, new versions, and independent attempts at creating similar 2d city builder games. Feel free to mention any relevant games I may have missed or am not aware of and I will add them to this list as a historical reference. Please feel free to copy this post or link to it elsewhere.
Ancient and Medieval city building games:
Caesar 2 (1994)
Caesar 3 (1998)
Knights and Merchants (1998)
Pharoah (1999)
Cleopatra expansion (2000)
Zeus (2000)
Poseidon expansion (2001)
Emperor (2002)
Children of the Nile (2004)
Alexandria expansion (2008)
Medieval Lords: Build, Defend, Expand (2004)
Caesar 4 (2006)
Glory of the Roman Empire (2006)
Arabian Lords (2007)
Imperium Romanum (2008)
Grand Ages: Rome (2008)
Grand Ages: Medieval (?)
Villages and Cities (?)
Various new 2d, flash, browser, mmo, social and mobile versionshere
Various new mmo browser versionshere
Independent projects:
Widelands (2002)
Unknown Horizons (2008)
CaesarIA (aka Open Caesar 3) (In progress/?)
Other related city builder and economic game series:
Anno series
Patrician series
Settlers series
Alien Nations series
Cultures series
Port Royale series
Tropico series
SimCity series
Various new/mobile 2d versions
Various merchant and trade-oriented games
Related game and mod links:
Heavengames Forums
Sierra Chest
Tilted Mill Forums
Anno Fans
Settlers Forum
Stronghold Forums
Patrician, Tropico and Port Royale Forums
Simtropolis Forums
SimCity Societies Forum at Tilted Mill
City Builder Games Forum
Game Mod Database
Indie Game Database
City Building Games at Wikia
City Building Games at Wikipedia
Chronology of City Building Games at Wikipedia
Mobygames Videogame Database and Forum
Related Projects:
Caesar 3 Mod Squad (2008, ?) - incomplete, some ideas continued by others here and also discussed here.
Ymir Online (2011, ?) - in progress
Discussions:
Compatibility of future TM CBs by Son of Moose (8-23-2004, Tilted Mill forum)
Caesar 3 Mod Squad by Crashe (6-17-2009, Tilted Mill forum)
Is Tilted Mill working on anything new? by gamester (6-6-2011, Tilted Mill forum)
Legality of making a game clone by cyberfish (11-13-2011, Cprogramming forum)
Making your own city builder game by DenSomKastade (11-20-2011, City Builder Games forum)
Caesar 3 Mod Squad new phase of project by RandomEd and gaddas (1-15-2012, Caesar 3 Mod Squad forum)
The possibilities for new 2d city builder games by alincarpetman (1-19-2012, Heavengames forum)
A list of original and new ancient city builder games by nuyokcity (4-25-2012, Simtropolis forum)
The possibilities for new city builder games by alincarpetman (5-17-2012, Tilted Mill forum)
List of related rts and city builder projects and discussions:
-0 AD (2000, ?) - an ancient military rts game, sort of a Age of Empires 3d "remake" but better, is open for game testing and will have the option for custom modding.
-Glest (2004) - is a game engine for fantasy rts games.
-Zero-K (2010) - is an open source futuristic military rts game.
Related thread lists
These game lists have been cross posted on related gaming forums:
A list of ancient city builder gameshere, here, here
A list of modern city builder and global civilization builder gameshere
A list of fantasy and sci-fi rts and city builder gameshere, here, here
So some options for new city building games may be the following:
- port the classic 2d games onto new systems which will give the developers money for new projects
- mod the existing games in some ways such as the Open Caesar 3 project for something different
- try to get the original 2d game info to make new games in a similar style independently using the old versions
- create new games independently from scratch which will take time if funds and talent is limited, but is certainly possible
- it's up to gamers to post on various forums, social networks, and game mod websites to generate interest and potential collaborations
- ideally an open source version of a city building game can be made where anyone can go in and mod it to add any historical time periods and civilizations or completely new settings, including ancient, medieval, pre-industrial, modern, post-industrial, alternate history, fantasy, scfi, alien, custom, any specific historical time/culture/location, etc.
Here is a list of ancient and medieval city building games for anyone interested in exploring the ancient city building genre more. The list starts with the original ancient city building series by Impressions Games and Tilted Mill, followed by links to the latest 2d and mobile versions as well as other related game series, and includes independent games in various stages of completion.
There are many excellent scenarios that continue to be made for these classic games, but I haven't seen that many major mods or attempts to create new games within the existing games, this may be because of the games inherent limitations or some other reasons. So it will need to be determined if it is possible to mod or use the existing games to create new ones, after (or if ever) they become public domain in that context.
There is still much potential in the ancient city building genre, for example
I also posted a similar thread
On the Tilted Mill forum there were many threads with people posting ideas about what city builder games they would like to see be made. It seems the most popular requests were for more Roman, Egyptian and Greek city builders, presumably in 3d. These don't interest some of us as much as making games using unexplored ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Arabia, Persia, India, North and South Native Americas, Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe. I think by now, 10 years later after the last 2d game Emperor (2002) was released, we should have the ability and potential to make our own 2d city builders based on the classic ones. There is much untapped potential in new historical settings. Below is a list of the original 2d games, new versions, and independent attempts at creating similar 2d city builder games. Feel free to mention any relevant games I may have missed or am not aware of and I will add them to this list as a historical reference. Please feel free to copy this post or link to it elsewhere.
Cleopatra expansion (2000)
Poseidon expansion (2001)
Alexandria expansion (2008)
Various new 2d, flash, browser, mmo, social and mobile versions
Various new mmo browser versions
-
-
-
These game lists have been cross posted on related gaming forums:
A list of ancient city builder games
A list of modern city builder and global civilization builder games
A list of fantasy and sci-fi rts and city builder games
So some options for new city building games may be the following:
- port the classic 2d games onto new systems which will give the developers money for new projects
- mod the existing games in some ways such as the Open Caesar 3 project for something different
- try to get the original 2d game info to make new games in a similar style independently using the old versions
- create new games independently from scratch which will take time if funds and talent is limited, but is certainly possible
- it's up to gamers to post on various forums, social networks, and game mod websites to generate interest and potential collaborations
- ideally an open source version of a city building game can be made where anyone can go in and mod it to add any historical time periods and civilizations or completely new settings, including ancient, medieval, pre-industrial, modern, post-industrial, alternate history, fantasy, scfi, alien, custom, any specific historical time/culture/location, etc.
[This message has been edited by alincarpetman (edited 02-08-2015 @ 10:18 AM).]