As an astute commenter observed in our preview of the game, Urban Empire should ideally play like a two-hundred-year long Show Me a Hero simulator. Here, instead, there are intimate, scripted stories.

Yes, Crusader Kings II has done the whole line-of-succession thing before, but these were mostly emergent narratives projected by players gently prompted via shrewdly orchestrated sets of statistics. What is original about Reborn Interactive's offering is the way all the scheming and negotiating, all the breakthroughs and the setbacks, are enmeshed with the personal histories of the members of the political dynasty we choose to play as during western Europe's wild scramble towards the 21st century. In the past, genre heirlooms like Balance of Power and Shadow President have catered for players who prefer their turn-based strategy with a dash of Machiavelli. This focus on politics instead of city-scale bookkeeping isn't entirely novel. Urban Empire attempts to place you in the role of a politician, cheerfully navigating webs of diplomatic intrigue, cajoling and backstabbing to preserve your rule, and - only if circumstances permit it - attending to the secondary task of actually improving the livelihoods of the citizens that have elected and/or tolerated you. But how does this more personal and political approach to urban management work? Well, it's unlikely to win the popular vote.Ĭontemporary strategy games are typically so obsessed with the minutiae of resource management and budget allocation that the business of leading, whether a town, a nation, or a galactic empire, often resembles the work of a lonely deskbound mathematician slaving away at facts and figures. Placing you as successive members of a dynasty, each acting as the mayor of a city developing against the backdrop of the previous two centuries of European history, it's about votes and influence as well as taxation and construction. Urban Empire is a city-building strategy game about politics and people rather than residential zones and monuments.

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