I’ve been a big fan of cities: skylines, but, big but here, it’s kinda janky. That being said there’s great mods out there for it. The biggest issue I always run into is managing traffic, but I have also gotten better at managing the stock traffic, it’s kind of a fun challenge. Cities: Skylines 2 is supposed to be coming out at some point, but I don’t know an exact date. I’ll also say I got the game free from epic so fee is always the right price.

Tropico series is pretty good.

Tropico 6 is the newest and the most joke-like, but all of them are extremely tongue-in-cheek. The addition of Carmen Sandiego-like “Steal the Whitehouse with Hackers” mechanic is going a bit too far with the joke IMO, but there is a solid city-builder here.

Tropico is somewhere between Sims and Sim City: a “Large” Tropico is ~10,000 people, and every person has their food/rest/religion/job/entertainment/political scores tracked individually (much like in Sims where food/hygine/etc. etc. scores are tracked). You cannot control anyone on the island except “El Presidente”. But you do have orders that probably get followed, such as arrests, assassinations and the like.

If you lose an election, you instantly lose the game. If you piss off “the Superpowers”, you instantly lose the game (In earlier games, USA and Soviet Union are the superpowers. In Tropico 6, the superpowers change from age-to-age).

I’d say that Tropico is “unstable” after reaching high populations. Its more designed as a scenario where you play until the point of instability, and then you end your save. Its still many months of real-life gameplay before you reach unstable points, but its really designed to play different scenarios rather than perfecting a singular island chain. Think “Roller-coaster Tycoon”, or “Ceasar 3”, or Cleopatra.

Which btw: Cesar 3 and Cleopatra are also excellent citybuilders, albeit aimed towards the “scenario” slant rather than the infinite slant… and also 20+ years old. But these oldies are a goodie for a good reason.

Against the Storm has you play the most challenging part of industry builders - starting up and getting the production lines going - but gives you a limited selection of what buildings to build and a ticking timer to keep the pressure on.

Not for people who want to sit back and watch their city flourish, but if you really enjoy the process of scrambling to set up production lines to meet the needs of your people (and I do), then I highly recommend it.

Cities: Skylines is a great game, although traffic can be a struggle to master.

I mentioned Timberborn in a recent conversation about colony sims, but I’d consider it a fun city builder as well. It’s in early access and has received regular updates, and imo it’s already worth the money with what’s currently available.

Not a game recommendation, but I follow Nookrium on YouTube and he jumps through tons of games (and puts the genre in the titles), most of which are small indie builder/strategy games, so he may have some in his catalogue of videos that you’d dig

I picked up Kingdoms and Castles recently. It’s pretty fun, in the vein of the old Caesar/Zeus/Emporer games where you can see your workers and resources moving between points. Definitely scratches that classic itch for me.

I’m still a big fan of the OG SimCity 4.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, keeping them coming! Gives me a good list to look through, and also reminds me of some of my old favorites like Caesar 3! 😁

There’s some great ones that have more of a survival aspect:

Surviving Mars
Made by Haemimont, the original creators of the Tropico series. You build colonies on mars with near-future level technology (at first). The “cities” you build are large, modular dome structures that you place on the map. Within each dome you place the individual buildings that colonists need to live. Your first domes will start off holding just a few dozen colonists or so each; however you can connect domes together so they can share resources and over time you can build larger and larger domes. The largest domes can hold hundreds of colonists. This game also has sophisticated resource management mechanics. You might have to try a few colonies before you get all the basics down. If you’re not able to produce all necessary resources, you’ll experience systematic/ripple effect failures as one problem leads to another. For example, if you’re not producing enough water, your people will eventually die of thirst, but you’ll also have trouble producing rocket fuel which is made from water, no rocket fuel means no resupplying from earth. Finally, the game has a technology “Breakthrough” system. Breakthroughs are unique technologies that you will discover on each different map. This ensures that each of your colonies will have some technological variation and this greatly enhances the game’s replay-ability.

DLC recommendation(s): Green Planet (100% a must have) and Space Race

Frostpunk
A post-apocalyptic, survival city builder set in a steampunk earth that is experiencing the rapid onset of a new ice age. You use streampunk technology to help your city survive the brutally cold weather. There are also resource management aspects in this game, much like Surviving Mars, and the game’s base difficulty is quite challenging to begin with; so again, you may have to make several attempts before you have a successful city. You play as the city’s Authoritarian leader and have the option to run the place as ethically or unethically as you please. Will you build a utopia in the cold? When there are labor shortage will you use child labor? Will you allow children to only work safe jobs, or send them to the mines? When there are food shortages, will you resort to even more drastic measures? The game ships with several great scenarios these days, but I would recommend at least one DLC (see below). This game shows you a brutal, but beautiful streampunk world. It’s lovingly and masterfully crafted to feel real. This game more than almost any other made me actually question my own morality after making some of the decisions you’re forced into during play. A final note, the music is absolutely sublime. The first scenario has a… boss fight… of sorts and the music during this final stage of the scenario will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

DLC recommendations: The Last Autumn

Not sure exactly what you’re looking for, but Captain of Industry has a bit of city builder mixed with production chain stuff. Cities Skylines is pretty good as a builder/management game. Banished is one I had a lot of fun with. Timberborn has come a long way, though it’s still in Early Access. Could even look at something like Surviving the Aftermath or Endzone: A world Apart for something with a more survival/post apocalyptic feel.

What subgenre, if any? What kind of difficulty/complexity? Do you want it to have military elements or is none okay?

Have a look at a game called Banished. It’s a town builder that felt quite relaxing to play, but had a bit of a survivalist side to it as well.

Rimworld is probably slightly too combat focused, but it’s an amazing game and has definite building elements to it as well.

Pure city builder I’d probably go for skylines, though I don’t think it’s got the kind of trade and resource management that’s so important in Anno

Workers and Resources is a great city builder/industry builder with a different focus to most. You’re in charge of a socialist republic in the eastern bloc. The economy works differently and there is a lot more focus on… workers… and resources. There are also wildly varying difficulty levels so it can be as simple or complex as you want it to be.

Keep an eye on Manor Lords—in theory it releases this year. They held a small play test recently and it was incredible.

This isn’t exactly a city builder but everything I could think to mention was already suggested. Satisfactory scratches the same kinda itch for me.