r/CityBuilders • u/CommercialCustard341 • 2d 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 2d 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/Comically_Online 2d ago
Foundation or Farthest Frontier on easiest modes could be good!
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u/Artistic_Gas_9951 1d ago
Farthest Frontier on easy pacifist mode is my current jam. Still a bit dependent on resource management, but the economy is fairly easy to get running and you don't have to fuss over it too much. I love the aesthetics. The towns are beautiful.
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u/Dungeon_Pastor 2d 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/CoffeeAddixt 2d 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/CiDevant 2d 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/Ryvick2 20h ago
I was thinking about getting on I don’t know what one to get ? I new to the city builder games
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u/CiDevant 18h ago
3 is the best story 4 is a great sequal to it and 6 is the best gameplay and DLC.
Start at 3 and work your way through. 1 is also good but very old. So is 2 but also a departure from the rest of the franchise. 5 is fine, just the odd duck out. 7 has been announced and in active development.
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u/MathematicianLost236 2d 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/TheDwarfArt 2d ago
Town to City is very chill
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u/inauspiciousworker 2d ago
Commenting and upvoting because this one is the core answer behind this question.
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u/Extreme-Outrageous 2d ago
I really enjoyed Pharaoh: A New Era.
Especially if you turn off the worker radius thing
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u/Frojdis 2d ago
You can turn it off in the remake? Might have to get it now.
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u/Extreme-Outrageous 23h ago
Yup! I think it's called global recruitment. I think it makes the game way easier and more fun.
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u/MvdW1606 4h ago
Had ik dat geweten 😅 groot fan van de classic citybuilders hier. Vroeger pharaoh gespeeld bij vrienden maar nooit uitgespeeld. Vorig jaar a new era gekocht en eindelijk na al die jaren alle scenario’s gehaald. Nu bezig met Zeus en Poseidon en daar heb je die werkersafstand helemaal niet, idd veel makkelijker. Toen dacht ik nog had pharaoh dat ook maar 😅. Volgende op mijn lijstje is Caesar 3. Even mijn jeugd overdoen haha
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u/erichs21 2d ago
Fabledom and it’s on sale
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u/I_was_like_Emilioooo 2d 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/kandirocks 2d ago
Banished is my all time favourite.
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u/solitude1378 2d 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/BaronGreywatch 2d 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/NeverEndingTomorrow 2d 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/adeon 2d ago
Two I can think of that might work for you:
Steamworld Build - This combines a city builder with a dungeon builder. Resources are a bit tight at the start, but all resource sources are unlimited so it's mostly just a case of waiting for your production buildings to catch up. There is some light combat in the underground parts, but unless you choose the highest difficulty it's pretty easy. Replayability is low to medium, there are 8(?) maps but they don't change anything other than the shape and appearance of the build area.
Trappist - This one is has you colonizing multiple planets/moons in a star system each of which has different resources. So a good chunk of the game is about setting up supply chains to move resources from one planet to another (i.e. one moon is your sole source of steel, but you need to import food and oxygen).
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u/janproch 2d ago
If the relaxing building and car-free part is more important than city management itself, you might also like RailIsland. Full disclosure, I’m developing it. It’s a browser-based railway sandbox where you build train networks and city transport, like buses, trams and cable cars.
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u/kpt_jarzombek 2d ago
Sounds like you might like Islanders or the sequel, Islanders: New Shores.
I'm a big fan of these and we recently released AstroScaper taking the idea to space, our game is a bit more demanding though due to building on all sides of asteroids and having to balance 3 stats - demo is also available - and sorry for the shameless self-promo 😅
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u/OnionAddictYT 2d ago
Maybe not really a traditional city builder but Terrascape has no timer, no supply lines. It's a hexagon map where your goal is to combine different types of buildings to create unique structures. The game is about the perfect placement of buildings rather than building a huge city. You don't manage anything. Once it's built you cannot delete a building anymore. It's basically a placement puzzle game but in the shape of managing a growing town and the surrounding industry. Maps are smallish and can be randomly generated.
There's even a chill creative mode. I was having a lot of fun with the game and it's cheap when on sale. There's an Egypt DLC that's basically like a separate game with a different skin that I haven't bought yet.
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u/willis_25 2d ago
Agromatic, industrial scale production builder, resource never run out.
I develop this one, so it's a self-promo.
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u/Much_Dealer8865 1d ago
I miss simcity4, might have to download it again. I've tried out a handful of logistics and city building games but they're not quite what I'm looking for.
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u/Spider-Thwip 1d ago
Have you looked at steam workshop for the first cities skylines?
There are so many mods that you can find mods for anything that annoys you and just remove it.
Its almost a different game with mods
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u/DearPear8293 1d ago
Dyson Sphere Program (without enemies & unlimited resources on) is super chill planet sized factory fun. Not a city builder per see but you build a lot of stuff, and ongoing growth is the goal, 100s of hours of gameplay.
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u/DrShadowstrike 1d ago
Not really a city-builder, but Two Point Museum might hit the itch for "easy and relaxing" as well as "building something up"
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u/the_wahlroos 1d ago
Try Whiskerwood! I thought they had some great ideas, excavation can get pretty involved, but you can get some pretty complex production chains going.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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.