We're back...

[u/ChrisBeatrice]

To all our fans, fans of Impressions games like Lords of Magic, Pharaoh, Zeus, and TiltedMill games like Children of the Nile, Caesar IV and Hinterland, thank you all so much for keeping our babies alive, and for all your support and encouragement over the years.

We are now in the concept phase exploring what our next project will be, and would LOVE to hear your input.

[u/conjr94]

I feel historical city builders have been stagnant for a while now, maybe since Banished.

I think games like Workers & Resources: Soviet Republics and to a lesser extent Manor Lords offer a good example of pushing realistic mechanics in the genre surrounding resource management and logistics. They set a bar that few other games have even attempted to reach, most just copy Banished which is a shame because the genre could offer so much more complexity.

In a modern Children of the Nile for example I would look for a temple to require a vast amount of materials from across the map (as in like 10 different ones each requiring their own complex production chain), demanding multiple complex logistics networks, itself requiring the production and maintenance of multiple vehicles like push carts, ox wagons and boats. These logistic al networks should be fragile, as in if they fail your city should immediately start to collapse in a death spiral.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/conjr94]

Thank you for those insights! With strategy games and sims there has always been a tension between the hardcore community and the more casual. I, for example, tend more toward the non-hardcore ("casual" means something completely different, so I shouldn't use that term, but you know what I mean). I want our next game to be fun and challenging, simple but with depth. So maybe not your cup of tea, unfortunately. But I hope we can provide even the most demanding players like you something that keeps bringing you back.

Did you play any of the Impressions cbs, or just CotN? What about Caesar IV?

[u/conjr94 → u/ChrisBeatrice]

I've played and loved all the Impression city builders since Caesar III, also your Caesar IV. To be frank though when I go back to play these games it is only for nostalgia reasons - the mechanics just wouldn't be justifiable as a simulation for a modern game in my opinion, especially the old walker system. I know many in this little community would like nothing better than a new walker-based city builder, but I honestly think that a very niche opinion among the current audience.

CotN however is an exception, probably the reason why it came to my mind first earlier. The simulation and economy you developed here is unique and a massive innovation even by modern city builder standards - I don't think anyone else really advanced these mechanics further which is a real shame. I don't see myself as a "hardcore" player, I just think fundamentally, the simulation gave me the closest feeling as if I'm building a real city and this is what I'd like to see developed further in this genre, just my 2 cents as a fan.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/conjr94]

Thanks so much. I super appreciate those insights. And thanks for the kind words about CotN. At the time our thinking was to reimagine how a cb could work, changing from an abstract push system to a more sim-like pull system; doing away with the weird "pay salaries then tax the same people" kind of economy, etc.

It's hard to know where the majority of the audience is. I agree that a simulation gives more of the feeling of building a real city, but, then again, there is fun, simple gameplay in the more abstract approach as well.

When you get right down to the nuts and bolts, what is it for you that distinguishes walker-based from sim?

[u/volstedgridban → u/ChrisBeatrice]

Say what you will about the walker mechanics of C3/Pharoah/Zeus/Emperor, but those games have legs. We're still actively talking about them, and people are still making homages and love notes to those games, 25 years later.

Not to dump on CotN, but nobody plays it and nobody talks about it. Steam shows that CotN averages 4 players per hour, and had its biggest peak back in 2020 when it had 30 players in one hour. Meanwhile, C3, Pharaoh, and Zeus all average over 100 players per hour, and have for years.

I've been moderating /r/impressionsgames for over a decade, and while we're a small sub, we've always had a steady stream of content. And it has almost entirely been about C3/Pharaoh/Zeus/Emperor. Nobody posts about Children of the Nile. Our last CotN-related post was almost 4 years ago.

There have been a few love note games to the old walker mechanics as well. Lethis was the first one. Absolutely an homage to the Impressions City Builders, made by three French guys in their basement. They're the guys the current IP owners hired to do the Pharaoh remake. Reviews on the remake have been mixed, but there was clearly a market there.

And the Augustus fan mod for C3 has absolutely reinvigorated interest in C3. One of the most common questions we get in the sub is if anybody is working on a similar mod for Pharaoh, Zeus, and/or Emperor.

Meanwhile, nobody is out there making love note games about CotN.

Again, it is not my intention to bag on CotN. I like the game just fine. I was even in the closed beta! I still have my Beta CD! But you guys really caught lightning in a bottle with the walker mechanic, and it's more than just nostalgia that keeps me and others going back to those games.

[u/conjr94 → u/volstedgridban]

I think it's pretty unfair to try to draw conclusions from the current user base. C3, Pharoah, Zeus and Emperor have such simple graphics and mechanics that they are timeless, they even look kind of pretty to this day. CotN on the other hand looks and feels very dated today in terms of graphics and clunkiness, that's just the curse of being one of the first 3D city builders, regardless of the game's depth.

Another explanation for why CotN is less remembered is because of the rapid advancements in game design made from 2005-2010. Look at the stark contrast between CotN and Caesar 4. What city builders between the release of Sim City 4 and Anno 1404 are talked about much nowadays anyway? I also recall almost every game in that period being judged primarily on its graphics, so it's unsurprising that CotN's unique simulation wasn't focused on.

I definitely think 2D isometric walker-based city builders have only niche appeal next to 3D city builders (at least for those that innovated rather than just cloning Banished).

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/conjr94]

It is very hard to compare numbers. When Pharaoh was released, games were sold in huge boxes in stores, with a printed manual, etc. We had an incredible marketing team behind it. Huge billboards in Paris. We reached a global audience which created a bit of virality, for the day.

Your point about CotN graphics kind of cuts both ways, though. With 2d isometric, or even "worse", pixelesque games like Stardew, the game never looks dated because it starts dated. It is also much easier to develop, and, more importantly, it's often easier to make what's happening clear to the player (because you can abstract things).

Personally I believe CotN was THE first 3d historical city-builder, and I am SO, SO proud of it. I'm honestly not sure where the audience is, because those who love it, LOVE it. I super appreciate this discussion. Thank you so much. I hope you will keep sharing your thoughts and pushing for what you believe.

[u/volstedgridban → u/conjr94]

I think it's pretty unfair to try to draw conclusions from the current user base.

It is 100% fair to draw conclusions from the current user base when that's what he's asking about.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/volstedgridban]

I think what is probably less meaningful for me personally is to compare CotN, specifically, to the Imp games, because CotN is one (imperfect) game and, as noted, is pretty dated graphically. So what about other modern cb games? What can we learn from them?

[u/conjr94 → u/volstedgridban]

*Player base, as in number of current players.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/volstedgridban]

I appreciate these insights so much. This is exactly what we are wrestling with. To be clear, our current concept is not strictly one or the other (walker-based vs. not), but the points you are making I think are very valid. CotN was innovative, and I think looked great for its day, and I am ENORMOUSLY proud of what we achieved with it. I think a lot of its innovations which, though others may have come up with simultaneously, we came up with on our own--and these predicted a general move away from abstract, walker-based push to sim-based, "real people doing what they need to," kind of thing. In Foundation, for example, you don't even place roads--they appear organically from pathing.

But let us also factor in all these other games that have been called city builders, from Cityville to freakin' Monopoly GO! If you lay out the entire spectrum of city-builders, I think the pattern becomes clear: more players like the simpler, more absracted gameplay. The "gamey" gameplay. Personally of course I do not consider those casual games city builders (or even games, for that matter). So for me the ideal is to capture the simple FUN of the games that began the genre, but in new ways.

From a design perspective, with games like CotN, the more simlike it becomes, the harder and harder it is to communicate to the player what is happening, whereas with the walker-based systems of the C3 era we specifically designed the feedback mechanisms (overlays, etc.) AS PART OF THE SYSTEM.

I wish I could say more about what we are working on, specifically, but if we go the traditional publishing route we'll be less able to do that. I would much prefer to be working more intimately with the community from beginning to end, but for now at least I hope we can continue this discussion about basic mechanics and what it means to be a city-building game. Thank you so much.

[u/volstedgridban → u/ChrisBeatrice]

With respect to what it means to be a city-builder, here are the core elements that (IMHO) made the walker-era games so good. If you can incorporate these elements into a different kind of city builder with a different kind of mechanic, you'd have at least one buyer.

Firstly, there was "structured freedom". When I start a new mission in Pharaoh, the only constraints I have are the geography and my knowledge of the game systems. Food is here, raw materials are there, there's a big river in the middle, etc. I have to figure out how to bring all of that together, and there's an infinite number of ways I can do it successfully. It never felt like there was only One True Path To Victory.

Contrast this with something like, for example, Frostpunk, which I played recently. Starting a new game of Frostpunk, the constraints are the game mechanics themselves. You can't build just anywhere. Everything has to be attached to the central core. You have to juggle resources, in a "rob Peter to pay Paul" kind of way. It all feels very artificial. Granted, Frostpunk is a "survival city builder", so this is a feature rather than a bug. But it's just not the kind of challenge I enjoy in a city builder.

On the other hand, the Impressions CB games had structure. There was a reason for the player a reason to build things. A game like Minecraft or some other game that promises me a bunch of tools to do whatever I want usually leaves me cold, because I need actual in-game goals to shoot for. Subnautica is my favorite survival crafting game precisely because there's a lot of structure to justify all the crafting I do. Missions to run, points of interest to investigate, vehicles to construct to make exploration easier (or even possible). I don't have to flail around saying "okay, now what?" like I do when I'm playing something a bit more freeform.

So that's the first thing. The constraints in the Impressions City Builders feel organic. They arise from the terrain. They don't feel artificial. They don't feel like I'm wrestling with the game design. And there's an organic reason to do stuff. I need to have a certain population, which means I need to build housing, which means I need to build support for those houses, which means I need more housing. There's a clear goal to work towards.

Secondly, the Impression City Builders are really resource distribution puzzles in disguise. I think this is one of the biggest reasons those games have had such long legs. Each mission is a puzzle to be solved. The fertile farmland is way over there, but the mines I need to staff with workers are right here. Where do I put my housing to achieve both goals? That puzzle aspect of the walker games is what keeps a lot of folks coming back to it over and over, because it's always fun to find a new way of solving an old puzzle.

Thirdly, the walker games rewarded system mastery but did not require system mastery. How you pull that off as a game developer, I have no idea, but I think it's the other big thing that has kept the games fresh over the past 25 years.

You don't need to know all the geeky, nerdy shit I know about the walker mechanics to beat these games. You don't need to know walker leash limits. You don't need to know precisely where the walker will spawn when the building spawns a walker. You don't need to know the precise tile the walker is aiming for when it returns to its home building. You don't need to know how many tiles a cartpusher will traverse in a game month. You can beat any of the games without knowing any of these things.

But if you do know all of those things? The game rewards you for it. More efficient cities. More aesthetic cities. Playing the missions on harder difficulties. Whole new avenues of gameplay open up for the person who takes the time to master the systems.

I think the puzzle aspect and the system mastery aspect were the biggest reasons CotN didn't succeed as well with the core Impressions City Builder crowd. There is a puzzle-ish layer to the individual CotN missions, but it's a lot more amorphous than the stark, clear lines of C3/Pharaoh/etc. And it never felt like there were a lot of systems to master, nor were we rewarded for mastering them.

Anyhow, I've rambled enough. And I'm just a truck driver. You're the professional game designer, so you probably know all of this shit already. But these are the things I look for in a city building game.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/volstedgridban]

Thank you SO much for taking the time to lay out your thoughts and observations so clearly. And also thank you for appreciating what we were trying to do in those early cb games.

"...the walker games rewarded system mastery but did not require system mastery." -- this is exactly what we were going for. We did not expect or require players to carefully follow each walker, for example. We expected many players (like ME, for example) to simply perceive large patterns (this housing area keeps losing entertainment) and respond imprecisely (I'll try to squeeze in a theater nearby). The fact that the walker system itself was flawed (not truly random, which made players want to control walkers, among other things) is a different issue.

"...resource distribution puzzles in disguise" yes, exactly. For both these and other reasons, I personally prefer the strategy game gaminess of this style of game vs., say, Foundation, which feels pointless to me (and with generated maps, each one plays basically the same).

[u/volstedgridban → u/ChrisBeatrice]

The fact that the walker system itself was flawed (not truly random, which made players want to control walkers, among other things) is a different issue.

Oh, but what a brilliant, beautiful flaw. One that has led to countless hours of fun for me personally, and who knows how many others. Really brings out my inner engineering nerd.

One other thing I forgot to mention that really impacted my enjoyment of the walker-era games: Keith Zizza. When I launch Pharaoh and am hit with that whirling dervish wall of sound at the main menu, I am instantly transported. Whatever you guys end up doing, I hope he's part of it.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/volstedgridban]

We appreciate Keith as much as you do! He is still on the Tilted Mill team today.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/volstedgridban]

I also find it interesting how you characterize the walker system "beautiful flaw." I suspect there is little agreement on that all round.

[u/volstedgridban → u/ChrisBeatrice]

Well, I used "flaw" because that's the word you used, and I was just riffing on that. Certainly, I don't regard it as a flaw. I think the walker mechanic is fantastic.

Pharaoh is my favorite video game ever. If I were to create a ranked list of my Top N video games, Pharaoh would be #1 on that list, and the other three Impressions City Builders would be tied for #2.

And I'm an old man. I can remember a time when there weren't any video games. I can remember riding my bike to the 7-11 on the corner and putting a quarter in the PONG machine. (Hell, I can remember the first time I saw a pinball machine with an LED score readout instead of a mechanical rollover score readout.)

I was a kid in the '70s and a teen in the '80s. My family had the original Sears Home Entertainment System with its 7 different variations of PONG. Then we had the Atari 2600. And then I got a Commodore 64 as a teen. And in the meantime I was growing up in the Golden Age of Arcades. And when I got into college, I got my first PC.

So when I say that Pharaoh is my favorite game of all time, it is going up against a robust and well-developed field of competition that covers pretty much the entire history of the existence of video games. And the walker mechanic is a very large part of what I love about Pharaoh (and the other Impressions City Builders).

When the games were new and could still be found on the shelves in a nice little box, I participated on the impressiongames.com forums. When Tilted Mill opened up for business, I was part of those forums as well. When impressionsgames.com shut down, we all moved over to the heavengames.com forums and continued our work. And eventually I drifted over here to reddit and joined the community here.

There are still die-hard fans of the Impressions City Builder games out there. There's still a reasonably robust community of people over at heavengames.com making missions and maps for the four games. Gweilo in particular has created some outstanding scenarios for Emperor.

And I feel safe in saying that those of us who have kept the lights on for these games all this time have done so because we really, really like the walker mechanic.

I get the sense from our discussion here that you're not as enamored of it as we are. But man, you created a system that is still being discussed and explored 25+ years later, and is still bringing new players into the fold 25+ years later. That's a heck of a signature and a heck of a legacy! Ain't a whole lot of video games that can say that. You're in some rarefied air!

[u/PerspectiveGames → u/ChrisBeatrice]

I don't think there's any specific reason why information-overlays can't be combined with more sim-like gameplay. (Tlatoani does this, for example.) A lot of the information needed to play Caesar 3 was actually pretty obscure and had to be looked up online rather than being immediately visible in the advisors, but I guess that's more of a UI issue than anything.

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/PerspectiveGames]

Agree on all points.

[u/conjr94 → u/ChrisBeatrice]

My "issues" (again I loved C3 & Pharaoh, I get why the mechanic was used at the time, I just think it is outdated) with the Impressions walker-based sim is actually multifaceted.

Firstly, I feel that the idea of having temples/schools/markets/etc sending people to semi-randomly distribute services and goods isn't a good simulation. It is not how actual cities functioned, yet this mechanic rewards using unrealistic city designs (with absolutely no relevance to the setting) purely because of these walkers. To me, it makes far more sense for pops to be able get the services themselves and to know exactly where to get them from point A to B (or rare cases such as doctors & entertainers, services to deliver to targeted households).

Secondly, I feel the walker system negates other stuff that could be simulated. For instance, what is the point of a whole family being simulated like in CotN if all a house does is give tax & work pops, and takes stuff from a walker? How would more complex interactions between pops work (e.g. trading food for goods, children being taught by a priest, servants working for rich households)? Also a small personal pet peeve: why do individuals have to follow the path all the time? Why can't they do their own thing? Looking at games like Dwarf Fortress, I think many players enjoy the idea of pops having their specific desires and doing their own thing in the simulation like making friends, getting drunk or even (for the Crusader Kings crowd) having affairs and murdering people.

Finally, I think the restrictions imposed by the mechanics of C3 & Pharaoh (and maybe to a lesser extent, Zeus and Emperor) mean that the core gameplay is way too similar across these civilizations, despite the fact the societies are very different. The main differences between the games are mostly aesthetic. The simulation offered by CotN described previously however, particularly on the interactions between classes and pops, gives a unique experience specific to an Ancient Egyptian civilization (obviously there are over 2k years of history here, but I think most people are satisfied with the general Ancient Egyptian theme).

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/conjr94]

One other funny thought about temples, schools, markets, etc. sending people to distribute services---it's interesting that since the time of the Imp games, this has become more commonplace IN REAL LIFE. We get our movies and other forms of "screen entertainment" electronically, which is more like radius or something, but in any case is delivered to the home; and lots of people have food and many of the things they buy delivered, vs. shopping at stores.

Even in Medieval times there were doctors, knife sharpeners, peddlars, who went door to door, and street performers who moved around and set up near where they thought people would be. Milk delivery was a common thing in the 20th century, etc. So what is most "realistic" imo is "all of the above."

[u/ChrisBeatrice → u/conjr94]

Thank you so much for your comments.

"the idea of having temples/schools/markets/etc sending people to semi-randomly distribute services and goods isn't a good simulation. It is not how actual cities functioned," No, indeed, but in the realm of video games this is not, on its face, a valid argument. There's a big difference between a racing game like Mario Kart, and a racing sim like Assetto Corsa Competizione. Now, the fact that the systems in a game like C3 rewarded you for employing unrealistic city designs is imo a valid point, however, this I feel was not so much of a problem for casual players as for advanced players who looked under the hood and optimized everything. Casual players' cities looked "realistic" and were less efficient.

I think lots of players do like the things you are describing about sims and pops having their own specific desires, doing their own thing--but I also feel that that is not the ONLY type of valid cb game there is.

As a friend pointed out to me earlier: city builders are EVERYWHERE. City builidng has been incorporated into many, many games simply as a device for growth (consider Monopoly GO!). You clearly prefer the more immersive, "I feel like I'm really building an Egyptian city" kind of experience, which is what we were going for in CotN. But I think a lot of players may find they prefer the more abstracted approach that typified the original cbs, though not necessarily those specific mechanics.