CivCity: Rome

“From its humble beginnings, one insignificant settlement on the banks of an Italian river would grow… Now you must rebuild the glory, the splendour, that was Rome.”

Thus begins CivCity: Rome – with a cheesy speech directed rather awkwardly at you. I’m sceptical already, and this game has a lot to live up to, cashing in as it does on Firaxis’ Civilization brand.

The first ten minutes after installation do not bode well: it crashes to desktop the first time, and presents enough loading time for me to find my book, open it, and read a few pages! Beginning the campaign, I’m a little disappointed that my boss – while being an example of the game’s great artwork – doesn’t animate. And it’s actually quite disconcerting receiving a lengthy briefing from a very lifelike character who talks without moving his lips.

Inauspicious beginnings, yes; but CivCity: Rome still manages to win me over. As with any city-builder like it, there is a period of getting used to the way the game is structured. But – despite the general unhelpfulness of the helpful hints – it isn’t hard to learn. And once you get into it, there is a lot to like.

The game concepts are straightforward. You need houses for your people. Then you need buildings which provide ‘raw’ resources and buildings which turn these into the things you need. So: a goat farm and a butcher provide you with meat, and an olive farm and olive press provide you with olive oil, etc. Sound familiar? That’s because it’s very similar to many other city-builders preceding it – especially the Caesar series.

The gameplay is simple, but challenging. Often, you are given a relatively small area to play around with, so you can end up with space issues – especially where your larger buildings are concerned (often, I found myself wishing for the zoning system of the SimCity games). Also, it pays to avoid treating this like a ‘sandbox’ game – it’s a strategic city-builder and you need to strategise, at least a little bit.

What Firefly have added to the mix (and apparently what justifies the association with the prestigious Civilization franchise) is a Civ-style tech-tree. While this does go some way to separating CivCity: Rome from Caesar III, it also feels a bit tacked on. And it does nothing for the sense of realism and historical accuracy – which is already taking damage from the confusion of titles and offices, and being blown right out of the sky by the hugely anachronistic characters who pointlessly pop up in the name of historical ‘flavour’ (flavour here in the sense of a “banana-flavoured milkshake”, which has little-to-no relation to actual banana).

Firefly have also talked up the fact that you can open up the roofs of buildings and look inside, and that you can follow the progress of the families in your city. The former is helpful – although it could stand to be more so – and the latter is a nice touch. But both are hampered by the game’s graphics, which are neither visually pleasing nor particularly conducive to ease of play. So, while you can zoom in close, there’s not much to look at. And while you can see right into your warehouses, it still isn’t always immediately obvious what you’ve got in there.

CivCity: Rome has one campaign, various one-off missions, and an editor; so there’s plenty enough to keep you busy for a while. And, while no new ground is really being broken here, it’s a fairly addictive genre anyhow. There isn’t any multiplayer, which cuts down the amount of gaming hours it’s good for – but it’s selling relatively cheap, at around NZ$70, so it’s still good value.

Essentially, it’s a solid, if uninspired, city-builder. It’s good, but not great. But, being merely good, it is rather unfortunately cheapening the Civ franchise which it is cashing in on. Firaxis should know better! Before you buy this one, just make sure you want this game – because it is not a new Civilization.