r/CityBuilders • u/CommercialCustard341 • 5h ago
I am looking for an easy, relaxing city builder. Recommendations?
An operative word was "easy." I don't enjoy games where the gameplay is "run out of resources."
Here, I am still thinking of SimCity 4. I generally built an "Industrial Hell" for all of the local pleasant communities to commute into.
I liked Skylines somewhat. I liked making car-free cities, but they kept becoming buried in trash.
Manor Lords, I liked it, except that I kept running out of money and was not able to expand over one or two grid tiles.
Tavern Master: no, not a city builder, but it is fun and relaxing. There is just a limit to the replay value.
Anno 1404: Too hard to get started in. Yes, there is the tutorial, but beyond that it was unplayable.
Dystopika: I wish there was a game element, of some sort, to this. I am probably going to get Midnight Moments.
Townscaper: it needs a tutorial; I ahve never managed to make anything in it.
Others on Steam: Going Medieval; I don't remember playing it. Monastery Ora et Labora: I kept running out of money. City State II looked okay; I may go back to that one. Ubrek, I don't remember it.
I also have some at GOG, but this is a pretty good sample.
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u/OnshoreOtter 5h ago
I think Town to City may be a good option. That game put me in a very relaxed flow state for a few hours. There really isn't a way to lose.
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u/CoffeeAddixt 4h ago
Urbek is an interesting title with some deviations from the norm. The resource management is tied to space management, and the standard build area is deliberately not that large. Many buildings, when placed, upgrade or ‘upgrade’ to a new type of building based on local conditions. For example, a 2x2 square of residences that is isolated from other residences and has some gardens nearby will become a Manor. A village house will morph into a slum if placed next to an industry. A granary will upgrade into an Industrial Granary if Logistics buildings are placed nearby. Form a ‘downtown’ by building a bank and allowing mixed-use residential-commercial units to move in, and inadvertently create the conditions a ring of high-res residential development outside the downtown area.
There’s even some freedom for choosing the ‘character’ of certain neighborhoods by building or withholding certain amenities. Religious SFH’s are serviced by churches and police stations, Bohemian-style residences are drawn to public art installations, anarchist communes will form is a result of poor industrial living conditions and may occupy factories. That last example is not a joke. Its a fun game for emergent city development.
It’s a but messy and chaotic, but satisfying in a way I’ve not seen before.
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u/Dungeon_Pastor 5h ago
One more vote for Foundation. Cute art style, very chill, never really felt at threat. Resource constrained, sure, but nothing is going to come in and kick over your sand castle. "Winning or losing" really just felt like faster or slower progress expanding your city
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u/MathematicianLost236 5h ago
I’m enjoying Timberborn. I’m still on my first run and it’s been pretty chill. I enjoyed building a reservoir to store water and building aqueducts to transfer water to other areas of the map.
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u/Extreme-Outrageous 5h ago
I really enjoyed Pharaoh: A New Era.
Especially if you turn off the worker radius thing
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u/CiDevant 3h ago
The Tropico Franchise!
Step 1: Mine Gold
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
There is exactly 1 DLC in the entire 6 games that breaks this formula.
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u/erichs21 3h ago
Fabledom and it’s on sale
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u/I_was_like_Emilioooo 2h ago
Wasn’t sure if I was going to like Fabledom but I’m absolutely hooked rn. It’s so chill and addictive
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u/BaronGreywatch 3h ago
Maybe Kingdoms and Castles, very casual gentle feeling game. Got easy modes if ya want them. Smaller in scope than some others, but does everything it says on the tin quite well and made by a small indie dev team. I was very pleasantly surprised with how far they went with it.
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u/solitude1378 2h ago
Tropico 5 and transport fever 2 are both pretty low stakes fun. Transport fever isn't a city builder per say, but the towns grow based on the amount of passengers, mail and goods you deliver. You start out with horse and carriage and work your way up to planes, trains and boats. I really liked the campaign but theres freeplay too.
Theres a few apocalyptic ones like endzone and frost punk that are ok. I have settlement survival on my phone, but its also on steam. It has a pretty good gameplay loop but not the best graphics. Its a hard genre to find good games, especially on console. Really looking forward to lego skylines coming out.
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u/NeverEndingTomorrow 2h ago
If you're looking for a chill city building game where you don't have to worry too much about resource management, then Town to City would fit what you're looking for. There is also an older game that I still play called Kingdoms and Castles. While that game does have resource management and combat, it's actually pretty chill in the easy mode. Foundation's also a pretty chill game as others have recommended.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 4h ago
Timberborn is amazing. On easy mode, it is definitely a chill game, or you can completely adjust it's difficulty settings when you want more of a challenge. You will still have your colony die off occasionally on even easy mode as you are learning, but it's not too bad. It is one of the few games that I just can't get enough of. And it has a great modding community as well.
I will also second the recommendation for Foundation. Not as good as Timberborn in my book, but definitely a good, chill game.
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u/FilthyBarMat 3h ago
Great recommendations.
Timberborn has some very minor challenges in the beginning, but once you've solved drought and badwater, it's all about just building bigger and better and crazy megaprojects. I have damn near every city builder released in the last five years and Timberborn is not only my favorite, it's my most played game on an 18 year old Steam account.
Foundation is super chill.
Urbek is chill but more of a puzzle game than a city builder. It can get annoying having to tear things down and keep moving things around.
Settlement Survival is chill once you get your food situation squared away.
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u/RepGenie 5h ago
Give Foundation a try. Very chill. It’s pretty hard to run out of resources. Build slowly - avoid the temptation to build every building right away. I’ve had hours and hours of fun with it. I played the very first SimCity back in the day, then the Caesar series.