The Truth about CivCity

As the name of the game suggests, CivCity is a game simulation that tries to use the Civilization universe. As every city simulation, CivCity allows you to construct cities that can please their residents, attract newcomers, satisfy the demands of Rome, develop palatial residences, and sometimes even fend off or conquer enemies.

The campaign will allow you to build all this. The difficulty will increase as you advance into the game and will try to follow Rome's ascendancy. Near the middle of the game, the path forks into military and peaceful paths, depending on the style of game you want to play. Just like Caesar.

To succeed in your mission, you must complete some objectives. Send some goods to Romes, sell an amount of a certain good, build upgraded houses and so on. For all this you will need money. Although loans are available from the Senate (the amount depends on the difficulty), you must develop high-level residences to generate tax income. Elite residences are the prime cash cows, paying vastly more taxes than basic hovels, but demanding an expensive array of goods and services that increase your costs. Without these houses, however, a large population is impossible.

Not everything is bad

CivCity has some realistic features. The main thing in the game is the population. Your citizens are not abstractions; they are actually people going about their daily lives. They have needs, they complain about the lack of houses and if the unemployment is high. At the same time they are glad if you give them double or triple rations or shorten the day work. You can actually see your citizens on a day basis because now you can zoom to see the interior of a building and what the inhabitants are doing. You can see the priests in the temples, workers in the butcher shop preparing food or children playing in the house.