Do you pine for the days of the classic city builders like Caesar, Pharaoh, or Zeus? Or maybe that era drifted by like reeds on the Nile, and you long for a different take on city builders that is not SimCity or Cities: Skylines? Well have I got the title for you, dear reader! Let me take you on a trip back in time during my Winter of City Builders to ancient Mesopotamia, a time of legendary kings and mythical tales, and where the bountiful rivers of the Euphrates and the Tigris birthed one of the world’s first civilizations. Nebuchadnezzar (see here for the pronunciation), a game inspired by the Impressions-era city builders and developed by Nepos Games, looks bring back the magic of those games to the modern day.
Walk like an Assyrian
For those that are unfamiliar with this sub-genre of city builders, Nebuchadnezzar and its ilk vary greatly from the likes of SimCity or Cities: Skylines, in that resources are localized and need to be transported to the citizens or craftsmen that are using them, which turns it into more of a logistical challenge of supplying your citizens with the goods they want rather than solely focusing on maintaining happiness and income. This creates an interesting optimization game, and I found myself following production from raw resources to finished good that are distributed to my citizens, ensuring there were no issues moving goods around.
But let us not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Nebuchadnezzar forgoes the well represented eras and regions of other such historical games, settling in Mesopotamia rather than Pharaonic Egypt or Rome. The game has a linear campaign and scenarios, however at the time of review there were no scenarios available and only one campaign spanning from 10,000 B.C. in the pre-pottery era to the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar II himself in 605 B.C., consisting of 13 missions. The first three missions act as a tutorial and introduction to the game, but by the fifth mission the training wheels are off. They scale up in difficulty as well and I found some needed a few sessions to complete.
As one may immediately recognize, among gold and goods the other important resource is labor. Houses and villas are the residences of your working population, with houses being reserved for your lower-class laborers such as farmers, miners, and bakers while villas house the more sophisticated members of society, such as priests. These dwellings have various levels, from the humble shack to the standard house. By delivering the proper resources to your citizens, houses will level up providing more population per building, essentially increasing the “efficiency” of each house.
Gold coins are another important resource; however, it is not produced by your city. Instead, gold is earned from your trade surplus with other cities and empires. I found this to be my least favorite part of the game, which I will discuss further on. Trade with other cities is generally unlocked by offering an amount of a particular resource they need to open trade, say 40 pottery. For many cities, there is also a prestige requirement which must be met to even open contact. Once contact is established, the port interface allows you to set the number of a resource to buy or sell, of which the items being sold must be located at a warehouse within the port’s range.
Cradle of Civilization
Nebuchadnezzar’s art style certainly harkens back to the era of games that inspired it. It displays all the information needed right in the play area, for example warehouses will show the items that are occupying its limited slots, and houses and villas will get a visual upgrade as they increase in level, and farm crops will visibly grow during their respective growing seasons – not to mention the bustle of citizens moving around the city. It is quite beautiful in its simplicity, even if many of the colors you will see are the brownish desert tones of the terrain and the buildings. However, as the game progresses and more buildings are unlocked, more greenery and decorative pieces can be used to enhance the visual appeal of cities – these are also required for villas to upgrade (even ancient Mesopotamians wanted grassy backyards and an obelisk in the front yard).
The game also offers plenty of statistics such as information on goods and services and where resources are being consumed or produced. The various layers are useful when determining where resources are going, and if a reorganization of your logistics network is needed. Prestige is another “resource” for lack of a better term, and is a metric generally needed to complete the campaign missions and unlock new trading partners.
Generally, music and audio are not aspects I discuss much in my reviews, however I felt that had to give special mention to Nebuchadnezzar’s soundtrack. It is absolutely gorgeous, a mix of Middle Eastern flair and the smooth jazzy city builder music of SimCity in a beautiful mashup. Really the only complaint I have is that there is not enough of the music, and that you will notice tracks repeating. I can see myself maybe getting tired of it by the last campaign mission, but only slightly because the music really is beautiful and I enjoyed listening to it, as it really brought my focus and attention into the game.
Rock Me Mama Like a Handcart Wheel
As much as I enjoyed Nebuchadnezzar, the game is not without its drawbacks. With regards to trading, occasionally and often inconveniently cities would ask for resources with no apparent reciprocation except for avoiding the loss of reputation. I found this an annoying and unrewarding mechanic, like I was being punished for doing something I had to do, that is open trade with other cities, to earn the gold needed to construct buildings. If there were a reward for completing the requests, and they were an opportunity to capitalize on your well-run economy with a monetary or relationship gain, it would feel like a much better and more rewarding mechanic.
The game also suffers from a lack of content. With only a single campaign and no freeform sandbox mode or other types of scenarios, there is not much of a reason to go back to the game once the campaign is completed, or even to play on larger maps with an ability to try different city layouts. In addition, at least the early the maps in the campaign felt exceedingly small and cramped. This might be intentional to limit the player and force better city planning, but it felt overly constricting, especially considering that Nebuchadnezzar sticks to the old convention of a single camera perspective with no rotation.
The missions also tend to get tiresome after a while. The goals are largely to achieve certain metrics, such as a certain number of population or a certain prestige level. There was not really anything exciting about it, and I kept trying to push my way through just so I can get to the next mission, until I realized that I was basically going through the same exercise over and over and the charm was quickly lost on me.
Conclusion
Ultimately, what might really hold Nebuchadnezzar back is what it set out to do – bring back the era of the Impressions city builders with a modern twist; there just is not that much of a twist to it. If anything, certain features are lost, such as trying to please the ever-demanding gods and their endless needs. While that may have been an annoying mechanic in the original games, there is not much new that Nebuchadnezzar offers to the genre. Nebuchadnezzar will strongly appeal to those who long for that era of games, or those who missed it and want to experience the nostalgia of the era without playing outdated games.
As a slight tangent, while I play a variety of different genres, mostly strategy and 4X, my first game was SimCity 2000, and the city building genre holds a special place in my heart. They have come a long way since then with many new innovations, and while I certainly felt the nostalgia of Nebuchadnezzar, I do not think it does enough to innovate. Where I think it fails and could have made a mark was the interactions between cities and introducing a larger campaign map where the player can build an empire spanning multiple cities, all trading resources back and forth to each other. While the campaign is interesting from a historical perspective, the objectives are lackluster, and I did not have the motivation to finish the campaign.
The last thing I want to leave off with is that the developers have stated they intend to release a sandbox scenario mode a bit later down the line, so it seems like the development of the game will not stop post-release. The game also has built-in Steam Workshop support, meaning custom buildings, resources, and scenarios can come to the game with the help of modders. I will certainly keep an eye out for those updates and return to the game to see how it comes along.
Nebuchadnezzar is available on Steam and GOG at $19.99 USD. Check out the game if you think it is up your alley and let us know in the comments below if you have tried it. Join us over at Discord and the Steam forums to talk more 4X, strategy, and tactics games!
Omar is a big fan of 4X games who first found eXplorminate through the podcast, and has been a supporting member of the community since. In addition to 4X games, Omar enjoys Grand Strategy games, city builders, and other turn-based tactical games. Some of his favorite games include Shadow Empire and Stellaris. You may have seen him around as omzh on the site and the Discord, so feel free to say hi to him!
A little late to the party, but thanks for coverage of this game. Love the art style. Might give it a try.