Tropico Studio Announces New City Builder: Urban Empire

[Steven Bogos]

Tropico Studio Announces New City Builder: Urban Empire

Urban Empire combines traditional city building features with political scheming and strategical events.

Kalypso Media, best known as the publisher behind the Tropico franchise [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/tropico%205?os=%20tropico%205], has announced a new city building game: Urban Empire. "Urban Empire is a 'City Ruler', pioneering a new breed of strategy game that combines city builder features with political scheming and adds profound social and historical events into the mix, creating a whole new gameplay experience," said the company in a press release.

You can check out Game Developers Conference [http://store.steampowered.com/app/352550]. It is being developed by Finnish dev Fragment Productions.

Take control of a mayoral dynasty at the start of the Industrial Age. Establish infrastructures, plan city districts, debate political decisions at the town council, bribe or blackmail your opponents, empower the democratic rights of your people or ignore them and reign supremely by yourself - the decision is yours! Master the challenges of 200 years of societal changes: face political struggles, experience world-changing events and pioneering inventions, and eventually, Be a Mayor Player and create your very own Urban Empire!

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[Xeorm]

Looks really interesting. i'd love to give it a go.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Oh come on!
Why is it so impossible to have a City Sim with Rapture in it?! Is it SO much to ask to be the oligarchical head of a underwater dystopian paradise of mutants?!

 

[Hawk eye1466]

This could be interesting I'll have to keep an eye on it though.

 

[Ldude893]

Oh come on!
Why is it so impossible to have a City Sim with Rapture in it?! Is it SO much to ask to be the oligarchical head of a underwater dystopian paradise of mutants?!

Meh, I prefer to be an autocratic leader of a flying city plagued by early 20th century era race politics and class warfare.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

So it is Tropico moved from banana republic to first world city. Yeah, I can see that working out.

 

[weirdee]

Now that we've thoroughly gone over the subject of power mad despots overseas, it's time to bring it back to the states with our homegrown power mad despots.

Oh come on!
Why is it so impossible to have a City Sim with Rapture in it?! Is it SO much to ask to be the oligarchical head of a underwater dystopian paradise of mutants?!

They need to save that stuff for the expansion packs/sequels.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

They need to save that stuff for the expansion packs/sequels.

It's called stripped out DLC these days.

OT; I hope they keep the same kind of humour found in the Tropico games.

 

[maninahat]

They need to save that stuff for the expansion packs/sequels.

It's called stripped out DLC these days.

OT; I hope they keep the same kind of humour found in the Tropico games.

I hope that they can get the mechanics figured out. The problem with most of their strategy titles is that they ostensibly permit various tactics and play styles, but you quickly end up following the same tactic every level, over and over. In Tropico, there is no advantage whatsoever to playing as an evil despot, the only reason to do it is for the fun of it. But it isn't even more fun, because it has no visible effect on your city. In Omerta, you have to get businesses to like you before they will business with you...but you are in a goddamn gangster simulator, why aren't you able to force people to work with you?

I like the themes to their strategy games, but the gameplay never seems to be terribly well thought out. It's a bit too rough around the edges.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The problem with most of their strategy titles is that they ostensibly permit various tactics and play styles, but you quickly end up following the same tactic every level, over and over. In Tropico, there is no advantage whatsoever to playing as an evil despot, the only reason to do it is for the fun of it. But it isn't even more fun, because it has no visible effect on your city.

Not wrong about Tropico. I always get my rum distillery and cigar factory up as soon as possible. Those two alone will solve your money issues. Afterwards, it's just a matter of completing the objectives as they pop.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Yeah dude, but bird poop. Think how much money you save on city wide cleaning expenses!

 

[Strazdas]

im probably one of those stupid people that play Tropico for city building instead of its humour that gets boring fast. So i think this game is a very interesting prospect.

 

[Zydrate]

I don't think anyone will top Cities Skylines for a while, at least for me. Everything else has too many menus or mechanics. Skylines is a simple "plug in, have fun".

 

[StatusNil]

Curious. Never having heard of this developer, I googled them, and it turns out that they're from the same town as Colossal Order.

Aside from wondering how intense their local rivalry gets, this raises the fascinating question of whether it has any bearing on their game design. Like, is this a superbly designed urban Utopia... or such a clusterhug that it is the primary fantasy of every local to create their own instead and show how it's done?

 

[Frankster]

Although Tropico 4 left me lukewarm (as did its dlc practices), I'm always up for a new city builder so guess I'm moderately looking forward to this.

 

[Kahani]

Sound interesting. I'm not sure the talk about Tropico is particularly relevant though; it's being made by an entirely different developer, they just happen to share a publisher. That may mean it gets a similar DLC model with a constant trickle of overpriced minor additions, but there's no reason to expect the actual game to be particularly similar to Tropico.