[b]Cons:[/b] It's old and the graphics certainly give that away. And there's some shenanigans needed to get the game to run properly on certain display resolutions and hz. However, those shenanigans are pretty easy and quick Google search will get you to what you need if you wind up being one of those who has issues. And yes, there is also a large texture overhaul out there as well, but don't expect any miracles. It's still an old game.
[b]Pros:[/b] Old school, zero hand holding (both for you or your people), near-zero plopping (only basic things like paths and dumping grounds are plopped), city builder.
This isn't Cities Skylies where buildings magically appear from nothing and your people only exist when they're outside of their homes and even then they don't matter because they're not actually doing anything.
In CotN, your little people exist (and matter) at all times. So, how about an example? A simple one. Say you just had a bit of a building spree and now you have so more government workers to feed, right? Well, this is ancient Egypt and food is currency. So, you need a bakery to produce the bread that you're going to pay your workers with. You find a convenient spot for it and place down the starting plot. Now again, this isn't Skylines or SimCity, this bakery isn't going to magically fall out of the sky prebuilt and staffed and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out bread on day one. Your people need to build it. And they need to produce and gather the resources to build it. In this case they need bricks.
So, to start with you need the bricks themselves, right? So you have a brickmaker. And this brickmaker needs clay and rushes to make bricks. But, don't worry he'll go out on his own to gather it all and start making bricks. After a while you have a nice stash of bricks, but they're still in storage and they're not in the form of a bakery. Ok, so you need a bricklayer. Easy enough. These hardworking fellas will haul bricks from brickmakers or brickyards to your construction sites and when they've moved them all they'll start building. A bakery isn't too fancy (we wanted a simple example, remember?) so your bricklayers will have that bakery completed within a year (one day/night cycle in game is a year btw).
Alright, so now we have a bakery! Except it's not popping out loafs of bread. Why is that? Well, we need a baker obviously. Now the good thing about bakers is that they don't require any education or training. Baking in ancient Egypt wasn't exactly very complicated after all. So, all we need is a worker from a lower or equal class (or their grown children sitting at home) to move on up in the world and take over the bakery.
In this case let's say one of your overworked farmers has moved in. Alright, so we have a baker. Perfect! We're done, right? Wait... Why isn't he making bread? Well, because, yet again, this isn't a modern city builder where everything is simulated so nothing matters. Your baker is an actual simulated person. And this person, just like you, wants things. Like a bed (a mat in this case), some pottery, and so on. And his new bakery is severely lacking in all of that. So he, (or if you're lucky his wife) will go shopping. And yes, all of those goods need to be produced by your craftsmen/women as well. So, that first pottery store that our baker stopped off at was sold out and now he's going to go check the other pottery story over by the papyrus makers to see if they have any pottery.
And then, finally, he's at the bakery. The wheat and barley from your fields is being baked by him into bread. He's got your lettuce and onions ready to handout alongside the bread to your other workers.
So, I know all of this sounds excessive. How can you possibly keep track of all of this? Well, you don't have to. All you need to do is make sure that you're keeping an eye on stocks and production chains and placing down whatever worker/building is lacking. Your brickmaker will mold and bake bricks on his own. Your bricklayer will haul and build on his own. And your baker is equally just as hands off.
But, what is impressive here is that all of this actually happens in CotN. It's not simulated. You can watch it all happen. You can watch your brickmaker wander out down by the river in search of rushes and clay. You can watch your scribe checking the fields for taxes. You can watch your priest tend to the shrines and apothecary before heading over the schoolhouse. And that pyramid that you're building? Yeah, you can watch that being built. Block by block. From the quarry, up the ramps, before being placed and then finally shaped. There aren't any "circles of effectiveness" for various service buildings. The people can either fit in a trip to that building today in their schedule or they can't.
It's all there. And it is magnificent. Maybe, one day, we'll get a modern game that follows in these 'unsimulated' footsteps. But, it's been a long time at this point and I don't think any of us can hold our breath any longer. It's just not happening.
Which means that CotN is still, in late 2020, the best city builder to date.
