The best city-building games are about much more than simply paving the roads and laying the foundations for your settlement’s growth. How will you manage your citizens, or deal with neighbouring kingdoms? What legacy will you leave? These are the questions posed by new strategy game Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown. Out now on Steam, it blends the medieval management of Manor Lords, the RTS combat of Age of Empires, and the grander-scale 4X strategy of the Total War campaigns.
Chop wood, mine stone, gather food, and build out your town – Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown has all the essentials you’d expect from the best city-building games. But that’s just the basics. As your kingdom grows, you’ll need to explore the world and ensure its reputation among your neighbours, whether that be by negotiation and trade, or by might. Key to this is Thrive’s consequence-driven decision making, which asks you where you fall on the spectrum between benevolence and tyranny.
If you’re a generous ruler, you can show compassion for the people and the world they live in, with the fantasy land of Nysamor providing plenty of narrative potential. Consider your environment carefully, trade with other territories, and attempt to ensure your population is as happy as possible. Alternatively, throw kindness to the wind and embrace exploitation, slavery, and torture in the pursuit of progress – but beware the potential fallout from such terrible acts.
When things turn south, you can get stuck into sprawling RTS battles that resemble clashes in Age of Empires, or even Total War-style skirmishes. But war comes at a price – both in the moment and after the fighting ends. Thrive also lets you join your friends for either competitive or co-op multiplayer with up to four players in a single game. If that sounds of interest, there’s even a Steam sale discount to get you in cheaply at launch.
Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is out now on Steam in early access, with a 20% launch discount available. Expect to pay $22.39 / £18.39 if you buy it by Wednesday November 13, or $27.99 / £22.99 after the sale period ends. You’ll find it right here. Developer Zugalu says the current version features “up to 20 hours of single-player campaign” with 35 provinces and more than 40 buildings, and notes that it plans for early access to last into 2025.
For even more options, focus on the small-scale decision making with the best RTS games, or take a look at the bigger picture in the best grand strategy games on PC.
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