Game Classification

Build City is a city-building game set during a monarch's rule in the early 1700s. The player's job is to, as the title implies, build a city. The game constantly monitors a town's current population, gold in the treasury, and food in storage. The player has the option at first to build roads, farms, residences, and markets. Roads and farms may be built anywhere. Residences and markets must be built next to roads. After the population in a city passes certain milestones, the player also has the option to build additional structures essential for a proper city: churches (boosts religious rating), schools (boosts educational rating), medical offices (boosts health rating), and taverns (boosts recreational rating). Further, as these structures become available, nearby neighborhoods see a boost in prosperity which increases housing size as well as population.

Building things costs money as does maintaining the infrastructure on an ongoing basis. Tax money is always rolling in from the citizens in order to cover these expenses and the player can adjust the tax rate in increments of +/- 5%. Higher taxes can lead to a loss of population; lower taxes can lead to higher population but also place further burden on the infrastructure and food stores. Also, random bad things can happen in the game, such as theft from the treasury and earthquakes.

The game has 3 modes:Campaign: The king gives you 10 missions, each with very specific goals of increasing difficulty. Certain sets of missions build on previous missions; e.g., the first mission allows the player to build a new city from nothing while the second and third missions build on the same city from the first mission.
Puzzle: Solve a series of puzzles based on the pieces and characteristics from the game. E.g., with a very small plot of land (5x5 squares), grow it to a population of 60 people.
Open Play: No goals, just use the tools in the game to build a city for fun or practice. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : PC (Windows)

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/build-city/