Two of the most successful strategy franchises are Civilization and SimCity, founded by legendaries Sid Meier and Will Wright. While Civilization games model the race between competing nations from the stone age, to first launch a spaceship or exterminate the enemies, the SimCity series has been a solo-player simulation in a contemporary setting, without a defined goal. The City Building series, with titles such as Pharaoh and Caesar, has been an interesting re-interpretation of SimCity, in an ancient context. In 2006, Firaxis released CivCity: Rome, based on Caesar, while the relationship to Civ was in name only. Now, Firaxis presents a new game named CivCity with a much broader scope, not restricted to a single era.
So, where do we start? For a customized game we choose a script-based map, with any starting year from 3000 BC to AD 1800, in Europe, North Africa or the Middle East. For more glamour and recognition, we could play a Historical Scenario featuring millennial cities such as Rome, London, Cairo or Constantinople, including pre-written events. There is also a Sandbox mode, where money, crime, disease and other challenges can be switched off.
Many city-building games have a serious flaw: a small town’s tax base is weak, barely able to provide for basic services such as law enforcement and water supply. The lack of money for expansion causes a catch-22, where the city cannot grow. Another problem for beginner players, is the overwhelming amount of available buildings and decisions. CivCity has an elegant solution to these problems: the Sovereignty ratio. The default starting condition is as a colony, with a Sovereignty rate of zero, which means that a nearby capital city sends troops, resources, immigrants and some financial subsidies, in exchange for trade monopoly, some high ground for an outpost fort, and control of most policies. The player can improve Sovereignty over time by building up a citizen army and training scholars, getting access to more buildings and decisions, finally reaching 100 per cent.
The capital, as well as other non-player cities on the World Map, are ruled by different AI personalities, Doves and Hawks being the most common. A Hawk generously lends his expeditionary force to stomp out crime, but strikes down attempts to raise Sovereignty above 50%. This might force the player to fight a glorious war of independence; the RTS element in the game is simple, ripped off from Age of Empires and other genre classics. More experienced players can choose to start at any Sovereignty rate. Playing as a County Seat, with Sovereignty rate from 50 to 75%, is a good trade-off for a peaceful player. A 100% sovereign city is more difficult, though more interesting, to play. Among other things, it needs a military defense to hold back enemy invasions. A defeat does not mean game over; the player just loses some tribute, or some sovereignty. This goes the other way though, as a player can subdue other cities, through diplomacy or force. One good reason to build an empire of provincial cities, is the improved access to exotic resources, each with their particular bonuses.
While SimCity games have several classes of zoning, CivCity has only three: Estate, Urban and Industry. While Estates contain farms, plantations, huts for the workers, and villas and gardens for the landowners, Urban zones allow multi-story housing mixed up with shops, and Industrial zones make room for tanneries, smelters, waste dumps and other foul-smelling buildings. The plumbing system is more difficult to lay out properly. Although citizens can survive on water fetched from wells and rivers, a system of aqueducts, reservoirs, baths and sewers lengthens their lifespans, and boosts farm output. Waterways are also important to the economy, as citizens independently build small general-purpose boats for fishing and freight, and the sea connects rather than divides. If not at a river, most maps at least have a narrow stream.
Shanty towns are a factor that is largely outside the player’s control, to display people’s individual struggle for survival. Shanties spawn in unzoned areas, wherever citizens can find a livelihood: be it hunting, farming, working for landowners, begging or stealing. Shanties are prone to crime and fires, but nevertheless contribute to the city’s economy. They can be removed by soldiers or town guards, but that makes them pop up somewhere else. When it comes to public buildings, the Classical Age is an early pinnacle of the game, with Basilicas, Amphitheatres and Hippodromes. The Medieval and Renaissance ages introduce Mosques, Cathedrals, Universities and Opera Houses as new centres of power and glory. The seven classical Wonders of the World (with the Ishtar gate as a realistic stand-in for the mythical Hanging Gardens), as well as seven newer ones, are available, each within a small time-frame. While minor service buildings are popped down instantly, Wonders and major government buildings take much time and labour to be completed.
As most strategy games, CivCity has a technology tree. To reduce clutter, research is automated by allocating a number of scholars to different faculties, much like Europa Universalis. With sufficient technology the player reaches the Industrial age, allowing Factories. They attract thousands of workers, with shanty towns spilling out to the edges of the map, combining tremendous wealth with all the troubles of working-class slums. Even though railroads, steamships and automobiles are absent, the Industrial Revolution brings a lot of drama.
The historical scenarios have their set win/lose conditions, as well as unique scoring criteria, such as counting the number of boats in the Venice scenario. Custom game success is rated by population, sovereignty, empire size, technology and wonders. Though the architectural variation is small (basically Roman/Frankish or Middle Eastern), and the abrupt ending at the industrial revolution might feel as an anticlimax, CivCity is very replayable.