Ancient Cities Reviews

Great if you need a nap. Cause it will put you to sleep before it ever finishes loading. Once I got to actually play, it got worse. zzzZZZZZZZZZ Total Snooze Fest. 0 fun. 2 out of 10... I tried starting the game twice, so 1 for each time I had to be woke up.

This game has really good bones and ideas. There is some work left to do, stuff like optimization (there is a bit of stuttering even on high-end systems) and a bit more streamlining and AI management would help. But the graphics and systems are really deep. The fact that skills are individual is such a great addition, and so meaningful for a game that simulates a rather small community. The fact that you can play on biomes across Europe is also great. But the best thing about this game is the feeling of accomplishment. This organic growth, the expanding sophistication of your tribe, all of these feel great. This is hard to achieve in a city builder, and society simulation at this granular level makes the game feel rich and grounded.

8/13/2025: I am sorry, but its just too complicated, the print is too small to read for disabled, and when it rains it lags bad or stops running the game. I will put it back on the wish list and try again in a few years.

This game seems primitive at best. The AI is broken. I had people dying when the storage was full of food. Homes empty but homeless people. It doesn't seem like you can build a city either, its mostly camps for a small tribe at best. There are much better

Fisherman wouldnt catch fish,Gatherers wouldnt gather food,they starved. This game sucks.

It's the Stone Age, but my tribe somehow has no knowledge of how to make even the most simple stone tools. The only thing they can make are fine sticks, rope, and a wooden spear. But not even a stone axe, so they can't fell trees. Odd. I have at least 6 people who are 'idle' despite having plenty of jobs to do, that somehow never complete. I decide that children and the elderly should work too. In about 1000 years, they manage to build a simple fireplace and a single hut. My tribe is getting upset. Perhaps they should work a bit harder. At least we have plenty of food now, so I decide to place a new fireplace on a nearby hill, which is a much better spot than the flat land just beside the river. My people take their time getting ready in the morning, then move up the hill, do absolutely nothing, then go home, upset, probably because of the long work hours and because most don't even have a simple hut. If only they'd build the new huts.. But they've managed to haul up 4 stones for each hut, out of the 100 they gathered early on for no reason. We need 5 for each hut. We also need 15 fine sticks per hut and only have 10. That we have the leather doesn't count for anything apparently. We run out of sticks, so I change all crafting tasks to making fine sticks out of sticks. Not sure how they can do that without even stone tools, but they managed earlier on. But I don't see the number of fine sticks rise, at all. Are they wasting them all as soon as they are crafted by repairing the existing structures that somehow fall apart almost immediately? Perhaps. Apparently, no one is hunting any more, or fishing, or gathering, because we're running out of food. I change task priorities and make sure plenty of people are assigned to those jobs, but the food supply doesn't increase. People are getting angry and then the first one dies of starvation. I give up. What were they doing if nothing gets built, no food is added and nothing is being crafted? If only they had done the jobs assigned instead of standing around complaining for centuries. I leave them to their own devices, but winter is coming again and it'll be harsh for sure.

The devs in this game missed the mark. It is a micro managed game from hell with to much hands on to do the simple things like gather, hunt and fish. I have 30 people and cannot feed them even with wheat and flax seed production. Domesticating animals is to far down the year scale so you cannot even raise pigs. You cannot get new techs without allowing migrating people to join which you cannot feed. Catch 22 and real irratating. They should have followed the Dawn of Man model. Much more payable and actually fun. This game is not fun!

This game honestly is something different, I highly recommend it. Far more together then Manor lords at current, and more hardcore. Quiet impressed with the simulated earth. Starting in the Ice Age in Crete or Siciliy is something else. Worth the price tag indefinitely

Has potential. Great base game but needs way more stuff. It seems empty. Barely any mods. None that seem to work.

This game is a blast. Besides stunning visuals, it has comprehensive and realistic knowledge system. Tribe's knowledge is achieved in individual level, rather than tribe's level. Each of your tribe's members have some knowledge, and if he dies, you lose it. This allows for an interesting knowledge management gameplay. Once I started with a tribe where only one elder member knew how to hunt. So my first priority was to train one of the youngsters to hunt so ee wouldn't lose hunting knowledge before the elder dies.