When comparing 0 A.D. vs Cities: Skylines, the Slant community recommends 0 A.D. for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” 0 A.D. is ranked 16th while Cities: Skylines is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose 0 A.D. is:
Still currently in development, 0 A.D. is currently in Alpha stages and completely free. For those willing to wade through the multiple bugs, essentially testing the title, this game will scratch the itch of any RTS fan on a shoestring budget.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Free, Real-Time Strategy title actively being developed
Still currently in development, 0 A.D. is currently in Alpha stages and completely free. For those willing to wade through the multiple bugs, essentially testing the title, this game will scratch the itch of any RTS fan on a shoestring budget.
Pro Multi-platform support
The game will run on any Operating System, whether it be Linux, OSX, or Windows, which is great for people who dual-boot or use multiple OS's across their devices. No matter the OS used, one can install and play this game.
Pro Addictive Age of Empires style gameplay
This game can be seen as a spiritual successor to Age of Empires, thus it will provide similar gameplay to those who are familiar with the AoE series.
Pro Straightforward RTS gameplay
0 A.D. brings recognizable, straightforward, Real-Time Strategy gameplay to the players. With a mini-map in the bottom corner, resources shown in a bar at the bottom, and unit selection through double clicking, all of the major elements found in most RTS games is here, making for a very familiar game for those that are used to the genre.
Pro Code is open-source
Even if the current developer team chooses to no longer work on the game, others can keep contributing to the source code and modify it.
Pro Active development
By being in active development the game allows for frequent bug fixes as well as frequent new content. While it is still in alpha, the state of the game playability is pretty good with new features being added all the time.
Pro Large scale
At a total of 36sq.km of area to use (compared to SimCity 4), there is a large amount of room to build and play.
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.
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.
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
Cons
Con Currently in alpha
0 A.D. is an ongoing open source project that is as of yet feature complete.
Con Slow development
0 A.D. is an ongoing open source project that is as of yet feature incomplete. This game is still in Alpha version 23 Ken Wood as of September 2020.
Con Resource Heavy
If your computer doesn’t have decent specs, don’t expect to be able to run this game smoothly.
Con Expensive
If you want more gameplay features, you have to buy expensive DLC, but you can get them on sale sometimes.
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.