Can the City-building Gods Save Nebuchadnezzar?
1,032For city-building games, the gods are the ones who create these worlds and today the gods are Nepos Games. When Nebuchadnezzar first released, it felt like a decent attempt to emulate the old Impressions city-builders like Caesar 3 and Pharaoh, but it was lacking. I said that it was missing fundamental gameplay solutions such as taxes and wages, gods and religion, and there was no military to be seen anywhere, which was weird because all of those things aren't just core elements of society and cities throughout history, they were some of the defining features of ancient Mesopotamia.
My criticism was misunderstood by fans of the game of course, being interpreted as me wanting the game to be simply more difficult, but what I really wanted was more meaning. Zeus is the easiest Impressions city-builder I've played, even easier than Nebuchadnezzar on release, but Zeus felt more meaningful and fun to play. The lack of taxes and wages wasn't inherently an issue, but taxes and wages solve a gameplay problem in many city-building games and removing them means there remains a problem. Taxes reward you for achieving high levels of society and wages punishes inefficiency. The problems could be solved in any uniquely innovative way that you want, in fact, it would be much preferred if the solution was novel, but simply lacking taxes and wages with no other solution present made the game duller... less engaging. You could make infinite money by just waiting on trade and building monuments was only a matter of time, giving no reward for your efforts as a city-builder. Playing like that and fans said I was "playing the game wrong"... but if it was wrong then why was it allowed? Am I supposed to purposely play worse so the game becomes more interesting? Ironically, they were telling me to play the game wrong so that I could get the correct experience.
Anyway, time has passed and impressively the creators of Nebuchadnezzar have stuck with the game. Taxes and wages were implemented. Risks were added in the form of fire, crime, and disease. And now the latest update introduces us to a pantheon of gods. All the while, quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and UI enhancements have made playing the game feel less like a chore and more of a game, and the next update set for the future is promising a new economic form of military and a whole new campaign for more content. These efforts have not only impressed me, which isn't important in the grand scheme of things, but the numbers speak for themselves. Nebuchadnezzar has been increasing in popularity for the first time since releasing and, although I don't think it's on par with the old Impressions city-builders quite yet, if this path is followed Nebuchadnezzar may yet be the first Impressions inspired city-building game to live up to its inspiration.
Today, I will play through a mission in the middle of the campaign to experience the game as it stands with the new gods and religion update, and to see where the game could go in the future.
#Nebuchadnezzar on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157220/Nebuchadnezzar/
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At present, GamerZakh has 204,408 views spread across 6 videos for Nebuchadnezzar, with his channel currently having around hours worth of content for Nebuchadnezzar. This makes up less than 0.65% of the total overall content on GamerZakh's YouTube channel.