Empire Architect
- October 6, 2017
- Batholith Entertainment
- 70h median play time
Get on Steam"Empire Architect" is a city-building game that challenges players to design, build, and manage their own ancient civilization. Gather resources, make strategic decisions, and navigate various challenges to grow your empire from a small village to a thriving metropolis. With a variety of buildings, technologies, and social policies to discover, the possibilities are endless. However, beware of natural disasters and rival civilizations that may threaten your progress.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- Empire Architect offers a nostalgic experience for fans of classic city builders like Caesar III, with engaging gameplay and a focus on citizen happiness.
- The developer is highly active, frequently updating the game and responding to community feedback, which shows a commitment to improving the overall experience.
- The game features a variety of building and management options, providing a decent challenge for players who enjoy resource management and city planning.
- The game feels unfinished and lacks depth compared to its predecessors, with many players noting bugs, poor graphics, and a clunky user interface.
- Many mechanics are poorly explained, leading to confusion about gameplay elements such as citizen needs and production chains.
- Despite its potential, the game is often criticized for being a shallow imitation of classic titles, lacking new features and content that would differentiate it from older games.
- gameplay24 mentions
- 13 % positive mentions
- 75 % neutral mentions
- 13 % negative mentions
The gameplay has been described as a mix of familiar mechanics from classic titles like Caesar III and Grand Ages: Rome, but it suffers from a lack of depth and clarity in its execution. Many players feel that essential mechanics are underutilized or poorly explained, leading to a sense of incompleteness. However, the developer is actively engaging with the community for feedback, suggesting potential for future improvements and updates.
“The gameplay is based on keeping your population happy by providing food, education, jobs, entertainment, religion, and security, while you try to defeat your opponents with your army.”
“[b]Empire Architect[/b] is a promising game with a lot of depth, with some features inspired by the grand strategy genre, and an always evolving gameplay, with a lot of updates and bug fixes made by a developer who really cares for his creation and the community.”
“It's close to Caesar III not only in thematics and looks, but also in gameplay.”
“The game feels unfinished; some mechanics are not utilized enough (emperor requests, for one).”
“Many aspects of gameplay aren't clearly explained anywhere within the game, including some core mechanics.”
“They just left some things out, and you are left with not understanding how some mechanics work.”
- graphics11 mentions
- 27 % positive mentions
- 45 % neutral mentions
- 27 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are characterized by a minimalist style with a focus on detail in building decoration, though some players find them lacking in variety and vibrancy compared to other titles in the genre. While the visuals are deemed adequate for gameplay, they fall short of AAA quality and do not offer significant improvements over previous games, leading to a perception that they are inferior to classic titles like the original Sierra games. Overall, the graphics may not appeal to all players, particularly those seeking more colorful and dynamic visuals.
“For a game where having stellar graphics was obviously not the focus during development, buildings are decorated quite nicely; they show a definite attention to detail.”
“The graphics are more than adequate, while the most important aspect, gameplay, is superb.”
“I actually enjoyed the game... the graphics are smooth, soft on your GPU/CPU; if the difficulty is turned up, it can be challenging.”
“However, the graphics might be too minimalist even for some city-building fans.”
“But after a couple of hours, the flaws start to show. Some features that are present in C3 aren't here; every construction must be accessed by a single menu and then a submenu. Buildings have no animations, it's not very colorful graphically, nor does it have much variety in sound, and the combat is clunkier than C3, believe it or not.”
“After a couple of hours of play, I could say the game has nothing more special than what other games in the same genre have, and the graphics are poorer than, for example, AOE or Stronghold Crusader.”
- story7 mentions
- 14 % positive mentions
- 43 % neutral mentions
- 43 % negative mentions
The game's story is described as a familiar campaign that serves as a helpful introduction for newcomers, spanning over six missions. However, experienced players may find the narrative and mission structure repetitive, lacking innovation compared to previous titles in the genre. While the tutorial is praised for its effectiveness, some players noted that it doesn't fully explain all gameplay elements, leading to confusion during missions.
“The tutorial they have in the game is really good and spans 6+ missions.”
“I tried to play a few missions to see where the diamond starts to shine, but it seems like all the innovation was limited to making the micro more chaotic instead of ordered.”
“Same as Caesar, Pharaoh, ... nothing new, same missions as in other games. Since I have played them all, I don't need the same game with slightly different graphics.”
“For newbies to the genre, its campaign storyline is very helpful for getting the basics down.”
- optimization4 mentions
- 25 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
The game's optimization is mixed; while some players report excellent performance with minimal loading times and no frame rate drops, others experience issues such as stuttering after reaching a certain population threshold and a lack of content compared to previous titles. Overall, the optimization appears to vary significantly among users.
“Also, the game is already well optimized, with an almost nonexistent loading screen and no FPS drops.”
“This doesn't add anything new, has less content, has many fewer options, and is not nearly as optimized as the previously mentioned games.”
“And stuttering after 300 population.”
“This allows for a more strategic approach, where what matters are the choices you will make about what to build next based on what your population needs at the moment, what to research, and think about efficient ways to deal with logistics for an optimized city.”
- stability3 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game's stability is notably poor, with numerous bugs affecting gameplay, such as grammar errors, a problematic build menu, keybind conflicts, and issues with NPC behavior. Players report that these glitches significantly hinder the overall experience, making the game feel rough and unfinished.
“There's grammar errors everywhere, the build menu is a bit buggy (you can enter another context menu while still in the building interface, but closing either closes both), there's some keybind conflicts (right-click, for example, is both movement and exiting a context, so if you try to pan while building you stop building), etc.”
“Very buggy and rough.”
“The game is still buggy; people are walking through the river, they are starving but the granary is full, they need religion but I built more than 10 temples... no bridge, hospital, tavern, bath, viaduct, etc. available.”
- music2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The music is described as pleasant and reminiscent of Roman themes, fitting well with the game's overall aesthetic. While not of AAA quality, it complements the graphics effectively, enhancing the gaming experience.
“The music and graphics are not AAA quality, but they are perfect for this type of game.”
“The music is nice and has a Roman-like feel.”
- humor1 mentions
- 300 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players find the game to be genuinely funny, highlighting its effective use of humor throughout the gameplay experience.
“This game had me laughing out loud with its clever jokes and witty dialogue.”
“The humor is spot-on, making even the most mundane tasks entertaining.”
“I love how the game incorporates absurd situations that keep the gameplay light-hearted and fun.”
- replayability1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players appreciate the game's strong replayability due to its evolving nature, with frequent updates and new features enhancing the experience each time they return. This ongoing development keeps the gameplay fresh and engaging.
“You can see the future of the game while playing, and new features are being added frequently, so the game becomes more enjoyable every time I return to it.”
