Games like SimCity

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Recommend

The computer game Sim City lets players assume the role of mayor and manage a city's burgeoning population growth and industry, while maintaining a balanced city budget. Recently, there have been a number of modern city building games which have many traits in common with the PC game, so here is a geeklist to describe them.

For each game, I'll give the following descriptions:

City: Describes the city layout as either a shared space in which all players interact, or as an individual player area to place buildings; also describes the city components (i.e. board, or tiles).

Buildings: Describes the components used for buildings and how they are added to a city.

Number of Eras: Many games in this list feature a number of game phases. Generally, buildings become more advanced in each successive era.

EDIT: Feel free to add to this list.

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Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 10:01 am

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1. Board Game: Suburbia [Average Rating:7.53 Overall Rank:137]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 1-4

Game Length: 90 min.

City: Individual player area built with hexagonal tiles

Buildings: Tiles purchased from a market board in which available buildings slide to the next cheapest position each turn.

Number of Eras: 3

Victory condition: Most population, which is gained from residential buildings and by fulfilling public and private victory goals.

Game summary: Players construct individual city boroughs by laying tiles, which are bought from a central market board. It’s necessary to balance your city’s income and reputation in order to handle an expanding population well.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:08 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:52 am
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2. Board Game: City Tycoon [Average Rating:6.53 Overall Rank:2820]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 2-5

Game Length: 60 min.

City: Shared player area, built with square tiles.

Buildings: Tiles which are first drafted at the start of each era, then purchased from player’s hand each turn.

Number of Eras: 4

Victory Condition: VPs earned from transporting and converting resources on buildings into points, and some buildings give VPs when built.

Game Summary: Players lay tiles to build a city together, then buy energy and water from each other’s utility plants to activate their buildings to gain money, goods, or VPs.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:09 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:26 am
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3. Board Game: The Capitals [Average Rating:6.97 Overall Rank:1986]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 2-5

Game Length: 90 min.

City: Individual player area built with rectangular tiles.

Buildings: Tiles purchased from a public Projects Area, which consists of 3 rows of varying costs. Leftover buildings at the end of each round shift up to the next row and become more expensive until removed from the game.

Number of Eras: 3

Victory Condition: VPs (Prestige Points) for employment, energy, money, culture, progress, and various building effects.

Game Summary: Players manage aspects of their cities on various tracks: Culture, Employment, Population, Public Services, Economy, and Progress. Building effects trigger when built or when activated each round, and players compete for Culture to attract tourists into their city, which allow for extra buildings to be activated.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:09 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:33 am
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4. Board Game: 20th Century [Average Rating:6.87 Overall Rank:1562]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 3-5

Game Length: 120 min.

City: Individual player area built with square tiles

Buildings: Tiles which depict one or more cities and are purchased in an auction

Number of Eras: 5

Victory Condition: VPs gained from quality of life, income, research, and environment, which are tracked on players' boards.

Game Summary: Players build individual nations by laying city tiles. It is important to place rail connections between cities in order to transport garbage to recycling centers and move citizens to other cities. The game involves two different auction phases. In the first phase, players can acquire new city tiles and technology, in the second auction phase, players bid science points in order to avoid environmental disasters.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:09 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:55 am
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5. Board Game: City Council [Average Rating:6.12 Overall Rank:5965]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 2-5

Game Length: 60 min.

City: Shared player area with buildings tiles of various shapes placed on the game board.

Buildings: Tiles which are proposed and voted on by all players to be built in the city, paid from the City Budget.

Number of Eras: Instead of eras, there are different building zones. At the start of the game only the central zone can be built in. Once this area is full, the other zones are available, and the advanced buildings are unlocked.

Victory Condition: VPs earned by fulfilling favors to various political groups, as denoted on objective cards.

Game Summary: Players form a city council and must use negotiation to make executive decisions together for their city. Each player has secret objective cards to score points. At the start of each round, the chairman of the Election Committee allocates different roles to each player, and players manage several aspects of city governance such as Community, Crime, Pollution, Goods, Workforce, Lifestyle, and City Budget.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:10 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:33 am
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6. Board Game: City Hall [Average Rating:6.52 Overall Rank:4856]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 2-4

Game Length: 90 min.

City: Shared player area on a game board, divided into plots of land for buildings

Buildings: Cards which are drawn from the Permit Deck and chosen to be built by the player who won the bid for the Zoning Board each round.

Number of Eras: N/A

Victory Condition: Highest number of Votes to become Mayor. Votes are calculated by multiplying each player’s Approval Rating by the Population that player brought to the city. Also, each Endorsement card a player earns grants 10 additional votes.

Game Summary: Players bid influence to gain control of seven different offices each round. Players can then use these offices to buy land and buildings to attract population into the city, as well as raise funds through taxing, and raise their approval rating.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:10 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:33 am
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7. Board Game: Urbanization [Average Rating:6.21 Overall Rank:5300]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 2-4

Game Length: 75 min.

City : Shared player area on a game board, divided into different real estate territories.

Buildings: Wooden pieces purchased with money, then placed onto a real estate area owned by the player.

Number of Eras: N/A

Victory Condition: VPs earned from the number of Citizens owned by each player at the end of each of the 6 game rounds.

Game Summary: Players manage Grain, Work Orders, and Citizens in their cities by buying real estate, and building farms, houses, skyscrapers and factories on the game board. At the end of each round Citizens are fed, and points are scored for the number of citizens.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:10 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:58 am
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8. Board Game: Urban Sprawl [Average Rating:6.77 Overall Rank:1578]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players:　2-4

Game Length: 180 min.

City: Shared player area on a game board with a grid layout for buildings.

Buildings: Tiles of various sizes, purchased with action points, favor cards, and wealth.

Number of Eras: 3

Victory Condition: VPs from Prestige, which is acquired from payouts on prestige rows, wealth, and politician tile effects.

Game Summary: Players acquire Permit cards to build buildings and try to be dominant in city zones to get political offices.

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9. Board Game: The City [Average Rating:6.56 Overall Rank:1939]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 2-5

Game Length: 20 min.

City: Individual player area with cards for buildings.

Buildings: Players select a card from their hand to build, and pay the cost by discarded other cards.

Number of Eras: N/A

Victory Condition: The first player to get 50 VPs wins

Game Summary: A lighter version of Race for the Galaxy by the same designer. Players construct a city by playing cards in their player area, getting combos with strategic card play.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:11 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:12 am
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10. Board Game: Machi Koro [Average Rating:6.63 Overall Rank:958]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 2-4

Game Length: 30 min.

City: Individual player area with cards for buildings.

Buildings: Cards are built from the public supply, paying the coin cost.

Number of Eras: N/A

Victory Condition: The player who completes all four landmarks wins.

Game Summary: A game turn consists of a player first rolling the dice and activating buildings that match that number. At the end of the turn, the player can build a new building or a landmark.

Edited Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:11 pm
Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:50 am
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11. Board Game: Subdivision [Average Rating:6.52 Overall Rank:2540]

Thaddeus Griebel

(griethad)

United States
Mount Horeb
WI

Number of Players: 1-4

Game Length: 45 min.

City: Hexagonal tiles placed over individual player boards

Buildings: Hexagonal tiles drafted and put into play from players' hands.

Number of Eras: N/A

Victory Condition: Victory points, calculated from points for parks being adjacent to other tiles, sidewalks passing through as many different zones and improvements as possible, schools ranking the best in the city, and zones connecting to the highway.

Game Summary: At the start of a turn, the parcel die is rolled to indicate the type of parcel where a zone tile may be placed, and all players simultaneously place one of their tiles. If a zone tile is placed next to existing zone tiles, those existing tiles have the ability to create new improvements, which provide money and points. Players pass the remaining zone tiles in hand to their left, then someone rolls the parcel die once again. This continues until only one zone tile remains in hand, which is discarded.

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12. Board Game: Intendentes [Average Rating:7.68 Overall Rank:10047]

Sebastian Real

(reo77)

Argentina
La Plata
Buenos Aires

Number of Players: 2-4

Game Length: 90 min.

City: Individual player area built with square cards.

Buildings: The constructions (fields, cities, towns, unique buildings, fire, police and industries), are acquired with an auction system. Per game round (out of 10 rounds) each player can purchase a card.

Number of Eras: N/A

Victory condition: The game ends after the 10th round. Points acquired by the purchased buildings (at the time). At the end of the game: number of population, number of accumulated money, total size of the district, district level security (fire, flood or insecurity) of the population Happiness, Food saved.

Game summary: Each player builds his own district inhabited by settlers, are distributed and obtain resources or money. Also as the district grows, the risk also increases. Players must fight probable fires, floods or waves of crimes that his district suffers.
The actions of the mayors may also incur the wrath of its population, making them do protests.

Balancing all these aspects is the essence of the game.

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