Tlatoani: Aztec Cities

Ok so I decided to play a bit. Then I noticed that it was three hours later and I hadn't noticed the time passing. So yeah. This is a pretty chill and nice city builder. My friend laughed that it looks 20 years out of date graphics wise but I don't mind the look as the the engine under the hood works well.

Although I believe that every game has its own differences and features to keep us playing, Tlatoani: Aztec Cities puts some other ideas, too. As you may all know, it features Mesoamerican theme... Of course there are some other similar themed games, but I think they are not quite deep and challenging for me to keep playing the game over and over again. Also, religious system has some fresh ideas in the game because you can't just sacrifice to keep people happy to appease specific deities. I struggled at first, but turns out there are much more prominent needs. I experienced that the game wants from us to to play with realistic and organic layouts by giving divine favor bonuses for building symmetrically fit plazas, temples and other beneficial buildings. Because I think simple grid-spamming is an old idea, I put this feature to the top of the list. In the end, I simply recommend the game if you want to experience Mesoamerican setting instead of traditional Mediterranean or Asian.

This brings me back to the deep min maxing zen city building games like Caesar, Pharoh, and other impression games. It scratches a specific itch for those who stayed up way too late building and refining grid cities when they were kids 30+ years ago. While this game visually looks like it could have come out 20+ years ago that is a major part of it's appeal to me. It feels vintage. I don't need a 3d animated world with warriors clubbing each other with ray tracing dlss frame gen'd modern interpretations of graphics along with an 100g install size and 60 dollar price point. I'm here to put squares into an isometric grid of squares while balancing efficiency and aesthetics and the evolving needs of the citizens to make the most majestic city I can in one of the most interesting historical eras and this game delivers [b] exactly [/b] what I wanted. The best way I can sum up Tlatoani is this..... Never before have a played a game where I've spent 15 minutes comparing the best possible placement for a poop collecting building but yet loved every single minute of it knowing I assigned a common citizen to just clean up noble/royal palace poop in the most efficient way possible.

I'd give this a solid 8/10. Overall, a great game, plenty of minor bugs and tweaks to work on, but plenty to applaud. I'd really like to see more buildings released, especially more of a variety in terms of building styles, such as alternate pyramid and housing designs/styles/colors, perhaps a deeper focus on the ballcourt and ballgame, maybe even embedding a mini-game to simulate matches which could for example, grant temporary farm production boosts if a victory, or incur some form of penalty like temporarily lower combat strength.

I really wanted to like this game. Even if you play the full tutorial, nothing will ever work right. This game is fundamentally broken. Everytime I play this game, there is some new issue that makes absolutely no sense. The game just doesnt work. I kind of love the concept of this game so much, but it honestly deserved no marketing. Maybe finish the game before release. That's kind of what indies are supposed to do. This isn't 1.0 for anyone lured by the sale like me.

I'd like to play more of this game, I find it really fun. But I feel I've at least played enough to leave a review as really it is quite a straight forward 2d city builder/city management game. And the TLDR is, decent. Not amazing, but a solid 7/10. One of those games where the up/down review system is tough to capture just how I feel. The game is built in the vein of Pharaoh or Caesar, classics of the genre. You build housing, so you can recruit workers, so you can farm food, so you can build/recruit more, so you can make a military, so you defend yourself. Classic gameplay loop. The twist comes from the Aztec aesthetic & building types, as well as the EXCELLENT layout controls. The game def gives you tools to make great looking cities, and I feel like the screen shot cities on the store page are very makable with the tools you see in game. It also does seem to lend itself to cool cities, not hyper optimized builds which is nice. The problem is the game tries to make you think its very deep with mechanics, its got the classic Paradox 1001 map layers. Supposedly every agent has a ton of agency and complicated demands. But the info is kinda useless? The game is abstract enough that often times I'm not really sure what my problems are, or if I even have problems. For example, the game tells me I have a homelessness problem. Cool, build more housing. But how much? You can see a % of your homelessness, but when you click on your citizens they tell you theyre actually unhappy with overcrowding. Is that flavor text, or is overcrowding different than homelessness? Am I building the wrong kind of house? Or too close together? Building houses, the classic solution, seems not to solve homelessness but rather exacerbate it as more people try to move into your city. There are several mechanics which are core to this kind of builder which the game unfortunately obfuscates or fails to explain via tool tip. The failure can be quite frustrating. There is a tutorial and a campaign to dive into, and that goes a long way to helping teach the mechanics. The ingame encyclopedia, though, sucks. I really would rather see that fleshed out, and the game surface some real numbers about what is happening behind the scenes. Give me a way to just see the numbers and do the math myself. And worse, even in my short playtime I am very much wondering if there is really even a lot of depth here. My big problem with this genre has been building cities just seems to be a very straightforward dash down a production tree till you reach self sufficiency. Tlatoani suggests that 'no, there is more to our production chains! You can manage agents in depth.' But I don't actually think so. Its an awesome vibe game. If you love this kind of city builder, youll love this. But it doesnt seem to do much new or innovative here. Hence the topline score. 7/10, good not great. I would LOVE to see a major revision to how agents work, and perhaps a DLC that adds a bunch more production variety and sophistication. A workers and resources style realistic mode would take this game to the next level, I feel. Of course the price is GREAT for what this is, $20 (full price atm) is very worth it for even just a weekend of play.

very good mechanics

Complex city builder. Love the theme. Learning experience is a bit rough. Lots of details I have yet to get a grasp on

Excellent city builder in the style of the old classics. Highly recommend.

My initial first impression is that this is a good Impression-style city building game, in the same vein as Caesar III or Pharaoh. Will give it a more detailed review later on.