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What are the best city building games on PC?

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Cities: Skylines vs Tropico 5 vs Anno 1800

 vs Frostpunk vs Banished vs SimCity vs Concrete Jungle vs Civilization 6 vs Tropico 6 vs SimCity 4 vs TheoTown vs Dawn of Man vs eCity vs Aven Colony vs Home Wind vs Anno 1404 vs CivCity: Rome vs Zeus + Poseidon vs Pharoah + Cleopatra vs Caesar 3

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Steam Rating

Very Positive

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City Simulation

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Very Positive

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City-building, Survival

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Windows

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Very Positive

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Windows, Linux, Mac

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Mostly Positive

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Mostly Positive

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Pros + Cons

Pro
 Large scale

At a total of 36 square kilometers of area to use (compared to Sim Cities 4), there is quite a bit of room to build and play.
Comment

Pro
 Endless hours of fun

Cities Skylines is extremely addictive. It's open ended gameplay will ensure that you will be hooked on it for hours to come. It has a well-designed reward system which ensures that good governance will be rewarded and there's nothing as satisfying as seeing your CIMS move around in the wonderful world you created.
Comment

Pro
 Mods and assets

Through the Steam Workshop, you will have access to thousands of well-designed assets and awesome mods which help build the perfect city. You can also create your own assets to be used in the game.
Comment

Pro
 Large amount of workshop mods & assets

With almost 150 thousand assets and mods, you can totally change the gameplay and look of the game.
Comment

Pro
 Impressive AI

Cities Skyline runs on a brilliant Traffic and citizen AI that constantly calculates the consequences of your actions which helps provide a truly immersive and accurate experience.
Comment

Pro
 Depth of field

There is a depth of field effect that will blur distant buildings, which mimics Sim City's diorama effect. It can of course be adjusted with a slider as to how much or little to use.
Comment

Con
 Can be difficult to glean what one has done wrong in game

Cities: Skylines has difficulty letting the player know what they have done wrong, which results in a lot of head scratching.
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Pro
 Steady stream of new content via DLCs

DLCs are optional, they do go one sale. Plus when a new DLC is released a bit of the content is released into the base game.
Comment

Con
 Expensive

If you want more gameplay features, you have to buy an expensive DLC, but you can get them on sale sometimes.
Comment

Con
 Resource-heavy

If your computer doesn’t have decent specs, don’t expect to be able to run this game smoothly.
Comment

Con
 Too easy

It isn't really a challenging game.
Comment

Pro
 Large Amount of Workshop Mods & Assets

With almost 150 thousand assets and mods, you can totally change the gameplay and look of the game
Comment

Pro
 Allows for choice in play

There is a mission mode (which is great for those that want to learn the ins and outs of the game through progression) and a sandbox mode (which is more like a city builder where it is up to you how to create your civilization). This makes for a good choice of different play depending on what the user wants at the time. There is also a multiplayer mode that works through competition (who can export more cigars, build a bigger plantation, etc.) that can extend the endgame content when the player feels they have experienced all the single player has to offer.
Comment

Pro
 Engaging moral choices

You can enact and carry out laws in your city that will affect both the survival and happiness of your citizens in interesting ways. These moral choices add an entertaining and engaging depth to gameplay. For example, if your workers are frostbitten, you can house them in hospitals which costs resources. Otherwise, you can choose to amputate them which effectively takes them out of your workforce, yet they still have to be housed, kept warm, and fed. Children can be kept protected and warm, or you can send them off in the frozen wasteland to work like the adults. Every single action you take affects how content or upset your population is. Whether you keep them safe and warm, or make tough calls in the name of survival is your choice. These systems must be carefully balanced if you want to succeed. All in all, Frostpunk offers no shortage of interesting moral choices for you to make.
Comment

Pro
 Unique premise

Frostpunk takes place in a steampunk-themed 1886 England. A freak snowstorm has wiped out most of the world's population and plunged Earth into a deep freeze. As the last remaining bastion of humanity, you'll be building and managing an outpost as you fight the weather and human nature itself. It's out of this dark and desolate post-apocalyptic premise that allows the game to offer a lot of grim, yet interesting gameplay choices.
Comment

Pro
 Balanced simulation experience

Overall, the simulation aspects are handled quite well, and there is a lot to micromanage. Resources such as lumber and coal must be harvested and managed to construct buildings and keep your city warm. Rationing and finding food is important too, as your citizens need to eat to work. You will also be managing your "hope" and "discontent" metrics which is a general indicator of your population's happiness. Overwork them and they may revolt or die of exhaustion. Underwork them and they may starve or freeze to death. Finding this delicate balance between survival and keeping people content is where the game truly shines.
Comment

Pro
 Captures the grim reality of survival incredibly well

As the world lies in a deep freeze and your city is just barely clinging to life, many situations will arise where tough choices have to be made in the name of survival. When facing a shortage of adult workers, you may opt to send children to work, and possibly their death, out in the wasteland collecting coal and lumber. When people die, you can bury the dead or, in the most dire of times, use them as a food source. When coming across survivors, you have to weigh the benefits and downsides of taking them in. They may provide extra labor, but it's just another mouth to feed. As the temperature plummets, you can order workers to double shifts to keep the heating going, but it puts them at risk for starvation and exhaustion. There are just so many little decisions that add up to driving the point home that you are really in the middle of a crisis and its captured incredibly well in-game.
Comment

Con
 Camera zoom may ruin immersion for some

After building up your city, you can't zoom in to see workers headed down the bustling streets or admire the fine details on the cyberpunk style buildings. You're stuck with a zoomed out camera, which can sometimes ruin immersion.
Comment

Con
 Not much replayability

Due to no open sandbox/endless mode, a large amount of scripted events that will play out the exact same in every playthrough, and skill trees that essentially accomplish all the same end goals, there's not much replayability.
Comment

Con
 Limiting experience overall

Frostpunk's main scenario only runs about 45 in-game days (6-12 hours). There is no sandbox mode where you can keep growing and building indefinitely, making it a rather limited simulation experience overall. This may be disappointing to those who would prefer to keep their city going as long as possible.
Comment

Pro
 Stable and runs well on lower end systems

SimCity runs well on mid range hardware with little to no crashing.
Comment

Pro
 Includes tourism

Comment

Con
 Limited building space

SimCity limits the payers amount of building space which can ultimately prohibit the creativeness of a players city building.
Comment

Pro
 Design any city you want

SimCity allows for users to play and build how they like. From small country or suburban towns to huge cities and all the perils and gains they bring.
Comment

Pro
 City socialization

City socialization add in an extra element of story and advancement allowing user to specialize in certain fields that will allow for expanded options and buildings.
Comment

Con
 City to city resource sharing is limited

City to city resource sharing can only take place if both cities are able to provide said resource with one borrowing some from the other. There is no way to share resources with a city that for instance does not have a power plant and power is what the player wants to share.
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Con
 Always on DRM

Simcity features always online DRM, even for it's single player campaigns. Read Gamesindustry.biz article.
Comment

Con
 Takes a lot of dedication and time to learn the ins and outs of planning a city

Even after 100 hours users can still be learning about different features or plans on how to expand their towns from the earliest outsets.
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Pro
 Great mix of strategy and puzzle

Concrete Jungle mixes city building strategy with aspects of line clearing puzzlers such as Tetris in a very original way.
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Pro
 Deep gameplay

How the puzzle aspect is implemented allows for a lot of depth to the strategy gameplay
Comment

Pro
 Campaign mode that eases the player into the gameplay

By playing the campaign mode users can easily get used to the game at a comfortable pace, with new elements getting introduced the further one makes it. This is a great way to learn the gameplay as it can get complex.
Comment

Con
 Games can last a long time and difficulty is unknown until level is started

Not knowing how long a game will last can be frustrating for those just looking for a quick sessions. On top of this the terrain will not be known until a round is started, which means it could potentially be stacked against the player, which makes for unknown difficulty before a round is started.
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Con
 Mac problems

Some users complain about bugs in the Mac version.
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Con
 Windows XP game

As this game is written for Windows XP it might need some tweaking (see last video) to run it with high resolution support.
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Pro
 Free

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Pro
 Low system requirements

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Pro
 Free version

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Con
 Ubisoft launcher

Even when purchased on Steam, the Ubisoft launcher is needed.
Comment

Pro
 Realistic city management, not too deep but fun mechanics and compelling scenarios to play through

Must play for (Greek) mythology geeks.
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